Hannah Arendt’s philosophy on ‘the banality of evil applied to racism.
Category: Stage 2
This paper examines whether the exponential growth in the usage of social media is influencing the construction of our identity, with a specific focus on Facebook. The object of my project was to investigate whether there was a correlation between the exponential growth of social media and identity. The interest for this was stemmed through reading a variety of articles claiming the negative impacts social media obtains, because social media platforms exposes us to a variety of different cultures, opinions and perspectives, this ultimately must have some influence over identity composition. This project examines David Hume, ‘Treatise of Human Nature, specifically, book 1, part IV ‘Of Personal Identity’. Soren Kierkegaard’s ‘The Two ages: A literary review and lastly, Zygmunt Bauman’s book ‘Identity’. Engaging with these different texts concerning identity, provides a variety of different theories of how one forms identity. Analysing these philosophers works, highlighted that there are three main themes which contribute and can impact identity. The three main themes explored within this paper are: choice and experience, communities and collective identity and lastly, liquid modernity and capitalism. Investigating these main themes, enabled the conclusion to be reached that social media does influence the construction of identity.
A current and stimulating insight into the question of whether criminals should be allowed to have children. With staggering statistics such as ‘online grooming crimes have risen by more than 80% in four years’ (NSPCC, 2022 raising important philosophical questions about whether it would better for society if criminals were prohibited from having children. Understanding the many moral dimensions to such a complex question is key in the debate of whether criminals should be allowed to have children.
This project intends to investigate moral responsibility in war especially particularly war crimes and actions of violence. It takes inspiration from the work of Hannah Arendt and her report on the banality of evil. It also looks at the Military Philosophy of Carl Von Clausewitz to understand the influence of military doctrine and the establishment on moral thinking. Finally it will discuss the Phenomenon of Dirty hands and the implications it has for how actions of state impact societies ethics and the burden of personal guilt to provide an interesting take on western military culture and liability.
The concept of the hero is one that has been debated and discussed sociologically, historically, and even psychologically but not so much philosophically. There is not one singular definition of a hero yet the concept can impart extraordinary knowledge of the wider world and how it has changed, as well as highlight the notable development of the concept of the self throughout the years. The interdependent relationship between the hero and the society can tell us a lot about human nature. Through looking at two antithetical heroes – an Ancient Tragic Hero and a Contemporary Superhero – and the differences between them I have investigated the idea of selfhood and how that has completely changed, alongside how society reflects this relationship. I have used Aristotle’s Poetics and MacIntyre’s After Virtue to analyse in what ways the concept of the hero can teach us these things. It seems as if the self has become something distinct, and that in contemporary society we become who we are through our actions and how we behave, in contrast to the ancients who act and behave in the way they do because of who they are. There are these crucial elements of fate and choice which highlight the complete change in the hero. Through this contemporary understanding, it seems as though it does not make sense to think of morality solely in terms of action and theory but rather in virtue and practice too. Humanity has developed to a point where we should be looking at morality in terms of character, actions, and society in a unified manner rather than just in the actions themselves.
SURROGACY – THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S SELF-OBJECTIFICATION
An insight into the key questions and thinking that surround the philosophy of music; An outline of the relationship between sound, noise, and music; and the changes that have occurred for music and the philosophy of music over recorded history.
This project seeks to explore the film genre of horror, and within that, its representation of women. With a territory surroudning the representation of women in horror, the objects of this project consist of a selection of horror films, most notably slashers from the 1970’s and 80’s. These include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I & II, Halloween, Aliens, and the non-slasher Videodrome. The overall aim of the projects was to discover how a genre so fixated on producing an atmosphere of fear from the physical mutilation and sexual assault of women could be anything but negative representation. However, through the researching and writing of the project, it was discovered that, through the exploitation of cultural taboos, the horror provides space for concepts of female agency, inverted male-female dynamic, and critiques of existing gendered issues of domestic violence and the sexual exploitation industry, to be explored in ways which other film genres do not allow. Moreover, horror has always existed as a medium for representation, specifically for women, compared to more commercially and critically successful films have not.
Through utilizing Freudian psychoanalysis, and screen theory, this project dives into the aforementioned films, as to derive how female characters within the films are represented, through their costuming, framing, and overall qualities. In addition, Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex allows an application of feminist philosophy to the project, providing depth to the politically/culturally systemic nature to the representation of women in the broader sense. Furthermore, her reference to the Hegelian Slave-Master dialectic assisted in the analysis of the discussed films.
Other texts used within the project include Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Coral J. Clover’s Men, Women and Chainsaws, and Erin Harrington’s ‘Gyneohorror: Women, Monstrosity & Horror Film’.
This essay explores the genealogy of the penal system as a paradigm for understanding power dynamics within educational institutions, drawing from the philosophical works of Michel Foucault and Friedrich Nietzsche. Building on Foucault’s theoretical framework, this investigation delves into the structures of power and discipline, including hierarchical observation and normalising judgement, and their pervasive presence within contemporary educational environments. Nietzsche’s insights from ‘On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life’ and ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’ offer an additional lens to critically appraise the formation and enforcement of norms in these settings. Cinematic representations of these concepts, primarily found in Lindsay Anderson’s ‘If….’ and Peter Weir’s ‘Dead Poets Society’, are analysed to provide tangible illustrations of Foucault’s and Nietzsche’s theories within institutionalised education. The essay demonstrates how, akin to the penal system, educational institutions exercise power, regulate behaviour, and manage deviation, resulting in a profound influence on individual formation and societal coherence. By juxtaposing the penal and educational systems, this analysis highlights the urgency of addressing the inherent power imbalances and restrictive norms within educational institutions to promote more equitable learning environments.
This project shall investigate the premises of social media to explore how perfection can be portrayed online, alongside the effect that it can have on individuals and society as a whole. Using the concepts the ego, the id and the superego, from the work of Freud, The Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real from Lacanian psychoanalysis and the notion of shame from Sartre, this project seeks to understand how these concepts can be used to understand why an idealised online persona is desired.
My project focused on sustainability, environmental consciousness, and responsibility; all thing’s most western societies don’t seem to have a grip on. I wanted to explore why some communities, specifically indigenous groups, seemed to be able to act much more respectfully towards the environment than most other populations. This was an important topic for me as the climate crisis is something my generation has grown up with. It has been something most of us hear about almost every day, and yet the society I live in values so many things above the environment, despite the amount we rely on it. The environment is a current and important topic at the moment, so not only is it something that I am passionate about, but there is also an abundance of resources and information, giving me a lot of perspectives, and elements to the debate to look at.
In my essay I looked at sustainability and environmental consciousness in the context of two different societies. The first being Aboriginal Australians, as the representation of a tribal mindset; the second being non-indigenous Australia, as the representation of a mindset, of a more industrial and economically developed society. Before I looked into these two ways of life in detail, I discussed some of the current theories and debates regarding the climate crisis and society’s reaction to it. The main thinkers and activists I considered were Peter Singer, John Broome, René Descartes, Núria Almiron, Marta Tafalla, and Greta Thunberg. This gave me a good impression of what has been said already, on topics similar to my own, a lot of which I heavily agreed with, such as Thunberg’s chapter, ‘We are not all in the same boat’. Agreeing also with Broome’s responses to those denying contributing to the climate crisis. I wanted to combine a lot of what these thinkers had been saying, I aspired to directly compare the differences in ecological thought and action of these two different realities and see what mindsets, if any, would be to blame for our lack of action and denialist behaviour.
I started by directly comparing the two ways of living in four very simple aspects of life: Diet, Clothing, Beliefs and Practices. This allowed me to see, quite linearly, the differences between the two, both in environmental impact and also in views regarding nature. I unsurprisingly found that due to the Australian Aboriginals habits such as only eating locally sourced food, making their own clothes without excess, their environmental impact is almost none. They work within the “circle of life” acting as an element in the food chain rather than as a disruption to it. This way of life brings to light how out of touch and excessive most of us living in “developed” civilizations are. With eating packaged, intensively farmed meat every day, to shopping online and buying more clothes made in sweatshops across the globe. It became clear, that what allowed us to act like this is the values appreciated by the societies we live in, consumerism and individualism. This is completely different to that of the Australian Aboriginals; their whole lifestyle is rooted in their religious philosophical belief system, the “dreaming”, which has connected them to all other species and the land that surrounds them. This doesn’t force them to treat the land with respect, it motivates them to treat it with respect because they genuinely care and appreciate the nature that has helped them grow and survive. This is what I believe our more economically, industrialised societies are missing, a respect for nature imbedded in genuine ecological awareness and experience. My essay aimed solely to create and enforce a dialogue between the indigenous, and non-indigenous communities and bring light to an underappreciated, unutilized perspective.
My project is set in the domain of existential fashion, particularly the rise of apocalyptic styling following the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects, both positive and negative. I have drawn philosophical concepts from the works of Jacques Derrida, including his ‘Of Grammatology’. Alongside this, I have referred to Ulrick Beck’s ‘Risk Society’, Risikogesellschaft (1986), in relation to people becoming increasingly preoccupied with a sense of impending doom that has been brought about by the pandemic: portrayed through recent fashion choices and explorations. To support my discussion further, I have incorporated the works of Marilynn H. Johnson in her Adorning Bodies (2022), in which she explores the philosophical implications of bodily adornment. Johnson notes that existential feelings and thoughts inspiring people’s fashion decisions, are not uncommon. As we have seen previously, different trends and popularity of statement pieces of clothing, rise following grand world events, such as in the 1960s in response to the Vietnam war and adjacent Civil Rights movement. The rise of apocalyptic fashion serves as proof of the determination and adaptability of human beings, along with our willingness to persevere through difficult situations, and it is this that I have delved into in this project.
This paper attempts to show how the object of prayer is linked to knowledge, as knowledge from a theological standpoint finds its root in God, and prayer from an Islamic perspective is seen as a direct communion with God. I will look at this from a cosmological aspect, with regard to the idea of man being created in the image of God and the Adamic potential of man. I will also look at the different levels of knowledge and what knowledge is for both Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn’ Arabi and Abu Hamid Al Ghazali. Ghazali emphasizes the concept of the heart being a vessel of knowledge and uses light as a metaphor for knowledge, I will try to outline how to attain a state where knowledge is possible by means of the heart, as well as showing from a cosmological perspective that the function of humans is to be in constant remembrance of God, thus constant prayer, through the idea of the divine names of God.
This project explores the persistent hold of history on the present, with
Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle being used as an example of this phenomenon. The hold of the Second World War in the novel is shown to have a significant effect on the present for the characters, as it has for Japan as a nation. Philosophical ideas are taken from Hegel, Nietzsche, Derrida and Fisher. Through Hegel, a philosophy of history is discussed, with the progression of history as a result of spirit realising its freedom. Both Nietzsche’s Apollolian and Dionysian states are explored, as well as his concept of the eternal return. Derrida’s notion of hauntology is used to show how the past can haunt the present, with Fisher being used to further explore this, with our inability to retain memories of the present leading us to hold onto historical memories. The symbol of the wind-up bird itself is used to show how the hold of history is depicted by Murakami, with the wind-up bird signalling the machinery of history, yet also being a role for those who must wind the springs of time. This project explores how individuals, like those in the novel, could respond to this hold of history, with the individual choice of embracing history, and its prophecy-like role, or succumbing to fatalist doom.
State interaction is a variable that each governing authority has to examine and judge in relation to individual welfare. After examining a variety of political philosophers and their beliefs on state interaction, I propose this thesis. While there is an argument for minimal state interaction, the most optimal way to promote individual welfare is through the level of state interaction that John Rawls proposes in A Theory of Justice. More state interaction than this is detrimental to individual welfare as it infringes on individual rights, and less state interaction than this has the potential to create vast inequalities within communities.
An exploration of the experience of reading as an embodied cognitive technology. Descartes’ Meditations will be used as an example of a text which uses this cognitive technology to its philosophical advantage.
Currently psychedelics are undergoing a revitalisation in medical and metaphysical research. The question pressing now is how and if these substances, which produce experiences of alterity and perceptual disruptions, can be integrated into normal society. To explain this, this work has explored ideas of perception outlined by Kant, the mystical ideas of Watts and Leary before finally critiquing and evaluating how psychedelics on a cultural and counter-cultural level relate to society. From this research, the conclusion is drawn that psychedelics are not as easily compatible with normal society as a simple attempt to make them medically acceptable. This is due to their deeply rooted political, historical and still current rejection of normalizing society in favour of individual empowerment away from institutional control.
The British monarchy has been apart of the political intuition for centuries. Despite being one of the few monarchies left, there is still a great amount of love for the monarch. However, it is unusual that the working class of Britain would support this ideology in comparison to a complete democracy.
My project aims to understand the role that the unconscious has in affecting human’s behaviour and whether, because of this role, it can mean that humans have complete free will.
Does the unconscious have an effect on us without us even being aware?
If you are controlled by something unbeknown to you, are you able to have complete free will?
My object is the unconscious. My territory is the unconscious in relation to the effect the unconscious has on behaviour. Linking this all to whether this means we can have complete free will or not.
This project with focus on concepts such as: unconscious, morality, repression, free will and behaviour.
Freud – The Unconscious, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Freud’s Models of the Mind: An Introduction.
Sartre – Existentialism and Humanism
For the past centuries, gender has increasingly become an important point of discussion. With changes to the law to allow women to vote, to changes in government documentation with the allowance of labelling of non-binary individuals, to the popularisation of those who do not follow typical gender identitys in media. There is even more important changes occuring within this generations lifetime that allow gender to become understood and a topic people are no longer afraid to investigate
Territory:
There are many theories behind gender and possible explanations for why people identify certain ways. From the first argument which began thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece by Aristotle, which was natural kinds, whereby all females or males share the same ‘essence’ which later became the biological determinist theory which explained that there are biological reactions that cause individuals to either identify as male or female.
This is compared to societal kinds which means that gender identity is formed and continued through society. Our relationship with friends, family and the outside world determines how we identify. This is the position taken by most post-modern philosophers such as Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, and Nancy Chodorow. Each have a different explanation of how gender is formed and each place emphasis on different aspects of the individual’s social life.
Drag is a tool for individuals to help them experiment with their gender and an aid for helping improve self-esteem. This was studied by Jessica Strübel-Scheiner who helps to show the impact of drag in individuals from the lgbtq+ community.
Objectives:
To gain a deeper understanding of how gender is viewed in modern day society, compared to that of historical explanations.
To understand how drag can not only be used as a tool to help people understand their gender but as a way of combatting the stigma behind gender as well as creating a new environment for gender to progress.
Bibliography
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Bach, T. (2012). Gender Is a Natural Kind with a Historical Essence. Ethics, 2.
Barnes, J. (2001). Early Greek Philosophy. London: Penguin Group.
Butler, J. (2007). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge Classics.
Butler, J. (2011). Bodies that Matter. Oxford: Routledge Classics.
Entwistle, J. (2007). Addressing the Body. London: Routledge.
Ereshefsky, M., & Reydon, T. A. (2015). Scientific Kinds. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 969-986.
Mambrol, N. (2016, December 8). Nancy Chodorow and Feminist Psychoanalysis. Retrieved from Literary Theory and Criticism: https://literariness.org/2016/12/08/nancy-chodorow-and-feminist-psychoanalysis/
Manders, B., & Windsor-Shellard, B. (2020, September 1). Office for National Statistics. Retrieved from Suicides in England and Wales: 2019 Registrations: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2019registrations#suicides-in-2019-by-english-region-and-wales
Millett, K. (1971). Sexual Politics. London: Granada Publishing Ltd.
Moi, T. (2001). What is a Woman? And Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plato. (1952). Phaedrus. (R. Hackforth, Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Strübel-Scheiner, J. (2011). Gender Performativity and Self-Perception: Drag as Masquerade. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 12-19.