Category: Abstracts

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

In Defence of Violence: Why Violence is a Necessary Aspect of Protest

The riots of 2011 were particularly significant due to the rate they spread nationwide, and the prevalence of looting and the perceived greed of those involved, leading many to believe they were caused by nothing more than opportunism.

Objectives:

Come to an understanding of how we define violence, using R.P. Wolff’s On Violence and Žižek’s Violence
To compare and contrast the theories of the various key thinkers and how they understand violence
To then apply these theories to the events of 2011 and understand why the riots took place, and what we can learn from them as a result

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

What can Immanuel Kant and Voltaire reveal about women’s place in society after the revelations of Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar?

“I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue” Oprah Winfrey, Golden Globes Speech 2018).

This project aims to explore the territory of women’s position in society, after the scandalous revelations of Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar. The study of the sexual abuse allegations made against Weinstein and Nassar employs a comparative analysis of arguably the two highest profile cases of the 21 st century.

Initially, this project will delve into the inner workings of Immanuel Kant, and his maxim of ‘a means to an end’, in order to derive a sense of how women are still being treated. Following this, it will look into the deeply embedded issues in which our society is at fault for.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

The Art of Online Dating: A Heideggerian Account of Online Dating as Poiesis

Online dating is a major social phenomenon which is radically changing the ways in which we interact with each other.
How does online dating affect the ability to reveal one’s self authentically, and to develop authentic relationships with others?
Might there be a way of understanding online dating as a route to truth, and thus as being an artistic phenomenon?

Main Concepts:

Enframing:
Online dating and modern technology

Being-towards-death:
Authenticity and the internet

Being-with:
Authenticity and romantic relationships

Poiesis:
Online dating, art, and truth

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2017 Abstracts Stage 3

The Reality Of ‘Generation Snowflake’ In Relation To The Contemporary Situation Facing Free Speech

Generation Snowflake and The Contemporary Situation

Defined in the Collins English Dictionary – ” the generation of people who became adults in the 2010’s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generation”

How has ‘Generation Snowflake’ come to be?

Foucault’s analysis of the kind of power at work today in Generation Snowflake is the interference and dominance of medicine, a discreet mode of power facilitating the set-up of this transactional reality.

Does Free Speech Exist Today in ‘Generation Snowflake’?

Mill’s Harm Principle – to safeguard liberty and free speech, ” the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Are the ethics instilled within the current film ratings still attainable within our modern society? A historical insight into the progression of the rating system and the ethics applied within it

The aim of my project is to provide a historical exploration in the change of films rating system from its first code, The Hays Code, to the current classification of film ratings. In order to do this I will need to understand the ethics implemented in its change and then comment as to whether I believe it to be viable in modern society. Specifically looking at the notion of the Spectacle as a critique.

Key thinkers involved within my project will include John Stuart Mill, Jeremey Bentham. I will specifically take from their works the key idea of the Harm Principle and Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus. An interpretive analysis of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle will help answer whether the ethics within film ratings is sustainable in modern society.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

The Death Penalty – An Inhumane and Degrading Treatment?

Territory: Punishment
Object: Death Penalty

Why this topic?: In my view, the death penalty is an appalling punishment. The whole concept of killing a human being in an inhumane manner to restore ‘justice’ in society because of their wrongdoing, is in my view, utterly absurd. The use of violence is a degrading way of punishing criminals. How can a governmental system that is supposed to promote moral justice kill its own citizens?

Aims of Project:
1) To address the moral question that is associated with the death penalty as a form of legal punishment as the main concern for analysis.
2) Examine rivalry accounts from both a philosophical and political point of view that are either for or against the punishment, and the consequences it would have on the morality of society.
3) Learn about the history of the death penalty in the two Westernised countries: Britain and America, (including its effectiveness)

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Is there a fundamental destructive drive for people to self-starve themselves? Comparing historical asceticism and that of the modern day phenomenon ‘anorexia nervosa’ to help answer this question

Anorexia Nervosa, a harmful disease effecting an increasing number of people, relates to a distorted body image and an irrational fear of gaining weight. Whereby self-starvation and severe self-control of food is practiced in return for domination over one’s body and self in a world where they feel they have lost control.

My objective in this essay is to explore the possibility of there being a destructive internal drive that leads people to refrain from food. In order to create a comprehensive argument I will be considering anorexia nervosa in the territory of medieval asceticism and the cultures that surround them to help identify whether it is culturally triggered or it is in fact inherent in one’s self.

First I will consider Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right to outline his ideology on social identity being equally important as the will when it comes to moral behaviour.

Having scrutinised his philosophy I will be looking at both Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals and Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation to emphasis the impact of the ‘will to power ‘ that has over oneself.

Ultimately, I aim to prove that although culture plays a part in people’s behaviour, fundamentally there is an inner destructive drive, which is the same throughout the ages that drives the sufferers of anorexia nervosa to self-starvation.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 3

Neoliberal Distress: The Effect of Contemporary Capitalism on the Mental State of Young People

My project aims:
Outlining neoliberal hegemony, why it has become so universally pervasive.
To uncover the manner in which neoliberalism increases levels of distress for young people through statistical evidence.
To look at the systemic shortcomings in treating mental illness and how this leads young people into self-medication and escapism.
To look at potential solutions to countering neoliberalism, highlighting precisely why the left has failed in doing so.
Concluding by revealing neoliberalism as pseudo-universal.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

No-Platforming and UK Campus Censorship: The Liberal Dream. Progression or Regression?

Project Aims:

My project tends towards an understanding of No-Platforming and UK campus censorship (the object of investigation) within the context of Liberalism. In attempting to explain this relatively recent, and so-called Liberal, political phenomenon, I explore the way in which contemporary Liberalism functions as a political modality; and weather in fact it can be seen as Liberal at all. I Align the Liberal dream, as conceived, to Thomas Hobbes’ explication of a polity predicated on negative liberty (a term popularised by Isiah Berlin, and very much applicable to Hobbes). Hobbes’ thought serves as yardstick by which to measure the hermeneutic development of Liberalism. Leviathan is a primary text I refer to throughout the project. Berlin’s Two Conceptions of Liberty is also a primary source of information; providing the framework by which the debate between Classic Liberalism and Contemporary Liberalism takes shape. Classical Liberalism is affiliated with Hobbes’ emphasis on freedom from interference, and thus, in Berlin’s terms; negative Liberty. The question surrounding contemporary Liberalism, as symptomatized by No-Platforming and UK campus censorship, is whether it is a negative libertarian ideology or weather it has regressed into a political system that makes freedom possible only within the restrictions of prevailing beliefs, even if those beliefs, somewhat confusingly, concern freedom of oppressed groups. If the latter, contemporary Liberalism bears resemblance to pre-Liberal political ideologies with positive liberty at their core; and has thus regressed.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Artificial Intelligence: What Does It Mean to have consciousness?

I aim to talk about the possibility of consciousness arising within artificial intelligence with reference to two thinkers who have not yet been incorporated into the debate: Immanuel Kant and Andres Bretton. In doing so I hope to uncover new ways of talking about consciousness in less anthropomorphic ways.

Kant: Kant’s transcendental idealism can be used to propose a theory of the minimum requirements for consciousness to arise in artificially intelligent machines. In addition to this, the distinction he outlines between ‘reason’ and ‘understanding’ can be seen as analogous to the Turing Test and the Chinese Room thought experiment and therefore can be used to show the qualitative difference between our human experience of consciousness and any potential consciousness that might arise within artificial intelligence.

Bretton: Bretton’s Surrealist thought is used as a juxtaposition to Kant formulaic and systematic approach. The surrealist practices of automatism raise the question of a difference between human consciousness and potential consciousness within artificial intelligence in that it raises the issues of intentionality and the subconscious, something which artificial intelligence.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Can agents be considered accountable for their actions when following the orders of an authoritative figure?

This project discusses the impact of authority on moral responsibility, and whether the autonomy and free will of an agent is required in order to enforce responsibility and punishment.

While Nietzsche sceptically denounced the genealogy of morality as an institution which instils guilt and punishment, he relented to admit that despite its insufferable origins, morality is nevertheless invaluable in understanding cultures and ideologies. The doctrines of John Martin Fischer conversely maintained the position that an agent must necessarily be morally responsible for the actions they committed, even under circumstances wherein the agent may feel as though their judgement was clouded by the coercive force of an authoritative figure, which made it seem as though the actions were not the agent’s own.

Nevertheless, it has been recognised in case studies spanning over the last 100 years, such as The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, the 1963 Milgram Behavioural Study of Obedience and the 1971 Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment, that there is always an alternative possibility to the course of action taken by an agent, and that the action is always necessarily an agent’s own. In such case studies which discuss the impact of authority, other questions have been raised as to whether passivity in these examples is the true evil, or whether there lies within mankind an innate capacity for evil and sinister acts which inflict harm upon his fellow man.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 3

Would it be Better if Human Beings did not Exist?

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist?” Schopenhauer

“Being brought into existence is not a benefit but always a harm” Benatar

“Our self-removal from this planet would still be a magnificent move… What do we have to lose?” Ligotti

This project will investigate the claim that human existence is a value.

There tends to be a given assumption that human existence is a good thing. I intend to question the validity of this and investigate whether it has valid justification.

The effects of human existence will be considered from three perspectives to determine whether human existence is worth its costs.

An ethical perspective will be used to evaluate the suffering and harm evoked by and for human beings.

An environmental perspective will contemplate the impact human beings have had on the planet and the detrimental effects caused.

A positive perspective will be adopted to investigate whether human beings deserve respect. It will be questioned if something would be lost without us.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

A Post-Modern Pilgrimage: Can any type of travel be meaningful in the same way pilgrimage is?

Is there any way in which non-religious forms of travel can be as meaningful as religion? My project aims to investigate concepts such as pleasure, disappearance, purpose and perspectivism to form a discourse for how we can talk of a post-modern pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage is an important part of any religion. Those with religious beliefs seek to connect with other’s who are similar to oneself and God, to help reinforce their sense of self and their place in the universe.

Baudrillard believes disappearance is symbolic as well as physical. The absence from our normal life is crucial for personal development, as our mind needs a break to recuperate.

Sartre believes ‘existence precedes essence,’ meaning that we are not born with a purpose. Instead, we are to decide our own purpose and our own meaning for life. This can be found through travelling. We move away from the everyday life and the familiarity and we experience new objects and many unfamiliar and difficult challenges, we learn more about ourselves and so we reflect on our own meaning of life.

Mill discusses the quality of pleasures in his views of utilitarianism. The highest pleasures are the most valuable, those which exercise the mind.
When travelling, we may feel curious to learn more about the country we are in. Gaining knowledge of the world through experiencing this country’s culture directly, satisfies the human mind, as the understanding of the world can shape our ideas of the world.

All three philosophers can apply to De Botton’s views on perspectivism, which is that we begin to look at the world in a different way, by focusing and appreciating the small things. This brings in all concepts of pleasure, absence and purpose, which is demonstrated throughout this project.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 3

Does Technology Merely Distort or Substantially Change Law and Justice?

Does Technology Merely Distort or Substantially Change Law and Justice?

The Media:

Common-held belief was that – because of Simpson’s celebrity- he would not be prosecuted.
Despite the incriminating evidence against him, the public supported Simpson. As noted by Bugliosi, there were “people carrying sings outside the courtroom during the trial declaring “Free OJ” and “Save the Juice”

The Pharmaceutical Industry

Euthanasia:
Technological advancements have made it considerably more comfortable for us to watch someone “slip away”

The Death Penalty:
At this present- day, advancements in the pharmaceutical industry ensure that ‘the shelf life of benzodiazepine’ also plays a role in this process.

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

The figure of Jesus in Mark’s gosel: Do humans have an existential need for hope and illusion?

Territory: Mark’s Gospel The Bible is culturally strange and scientifically inadequate, so it is typically dismissed as nonsensical. If the Bible accounts were literal, they would all match up-but they do not. This means you can see which data has been redacted and manipulated, for the author’s particular purpose. Looking at this information, you can begin to infer the authorial intention for writing the text. This is a task that historians, biblical interpreters and theologians have undertaken. In most accounts, it is understood that Mark’s gospel as the first Gospel to be written and that he wrote in Rome during emperor Nero’s persecution Nero burned down Rome and to avoid the consequences he blamed the people, meaning they were tortured and killed as punishment. Mark was writing for this suffering community, to provide them hope and courage to continue through life. Now, we can understand why the Gospel emphasized belief in miracles and the afterlife- it was so these people had hope. Even if the hope came from an illusion.

Concept: Hope
Bloch develops a human ontology that points to a future orientated utopian consciousness. Human’s dream and wish for world improvement. Bloch says man is Not-Yet-Conscious and Not-Yet-Become. Hoping in such way, drowns out our existential anxiety about life. This is relevant in looking at all the myths of utopia in the gospel, i.e. miracles, afterlife, and our potential ‘homeland’ the Kingdom of God.
Concept: Illusion
Early Nietzsche says that humans need metaphysical comfort in myth. He creates an intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian which when perfectly combines embraces tragedy. This is relevant mainly for looking at Jesus as a ‘suffering servant’ and at the figure of him as a necessary illusion. Later Nietzsche would claim that living based of illusion distracts from striving and creating our own meaning in life

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

From Concert Halls to Kurt Cobain: Investigating a Loss of Value in Contemporary Popular Music

Where do we place value in music?
TRADTIONALLY TRAINED or CULTURALLY INCLINED
Has music regressed in value? Is music rendered inauthentic by its standardised, repetitive structures?
Of the Origin of the Work of Art VS
On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening

Music “is the becoming and happening of truth…with extraordinary awesomeness”.

“The aim of [music] is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. ‘Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,’ the eunuch-like sound of the [boy] band both mocks and proclaims, ‘and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.”

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

Conservation or Cruel…Is it right to keep animals captive?

Territory: I will discuss whether it is right to keep animals captive. In particular, if it is right to keep them captive for our entertainment. Animal captivity raises many important moral questions: Is ever right to restrict animal’s liberty and if so, under what conditions? Do human beings have the right to keep other animals captive? Are we the superior species and if so, why is this the case?

Concepts: Peter Singer: humans are animals but language makes us overlook this. As a utilitarian and hedonist, Singer looks towards the end result, where like human beings, other animals choose pleasure over suffering. Kant: we do not have any direct ethical duties to non-human animals. We only owe ethical duties to rational beings, and nonhuman animals are not included in this group.

‘If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?’ – Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

Integrity and Ethics in Journalism

The right to Freedom of Expression Integrity & Ethics in Journalism
Michel Foucault on Confinement and Parrhesia | John Stuart Mill on Freedom of Expression
Territory The object of study for this project is the human right to freedom of expression, with a particular focus on discussing the extent that this right should be exercised – particularly within the Journalism sector. Establishing the value of freedom of expression will assist in evaluating how important this right is to contemporary society.
Modern examples of defending oneself by using the principle of freedom of expression will assist in understanding the relevance of freedom of expression within the modern day. Philosophical Concepts The first concept applied to this territory is John Stuart Mill’s discussion of the necessity of the right to freedom of expression: this project looks at both his reasons for freedom of expression and why he postulates this argument.
The second concept is Michel Foucault’s historical philosophy. Foucault’s work in Fearless Speech will discuss the Greek expression, parrhesia, which translates as a verbal activity designating one to tell the truth despite the risk of differing from the majority and risking danger.
This project will also discuss Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation in order to consider how society can treat those who express themselves in forms that differ to those in traditional society. This concept will lead the project to ask whether we truly do have true freedom of expression.

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

Philosophical implications behind concussion in American Football

Philosophers used
Kant – Will use Kant’s philosophy to explain why the behaviour of the National Football League (NFL) was immoral
Hobbes – Will examine the actions of the NFL in relation to Hobbes’ view on Power
Adorno – Will use Adorno’s philosophy to analyse the role of mass culture in the concussion scandal
Territory – The National Football leagues denial of the dangers of concussion, and their attempts to cover up the work of Dr Omalu – The danger that this put all American Footballers in – The Lawsuit the NFL faced because of their mishandling of the situation

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2016 Abstracts Stage 2

Gramsci and Benefits Street

The “State” should be understood not only as the apparatus of government, but also the “private” apparatus of “hegemony” or civil society.

Territory: Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks Concepts: The subaltern, cultural hegemony, integral state, war of position. Object: The Channel 4 Documentary Benefits Street.
In my project, I have used Gramsci’s philosophical concepts to critically examine the media’s domination over perceptions of the unemployed, with particular reference to Channel 4’s Benefits Street. The concepts will give an idea of how incoherent ideologies are formed and maintained and what, if anything, can we do to reject these ideologies.