Progressively foregrounded precisely in its lack of coming to presence is the operation by which an individual’s human or non-human, inhuman, status is delineated. It is thus that the margin of delineation by which the propriety of a human being’s humanity is decided becomes questionable and prompts further reflection. Receiving its impetus from Martin Heidegger’s Letter on ‘Humanism’, the following essay shall take the ‘human’ as galvanized in the thought of Marcus Tullius Cicero as its object, foremost reflecting on the human is discursively constituted in the complementary texts De Republica and De Legibus. This essay thus contends that Cicero’s thought constitutes the exemplary object of the critique Heidegger’s letter poses, and as such provides an essential foil to Heidegger’s proposal as to how the notion of νόμος (nomos) should be uptaken in light of the truth of being.
Category: Stage 2
Tarot reading has gained a notable amount of popularity in recent years, but this does not align with the increasingly rational, post-metaphysical society of the West. Perhaps this new age scientific rationalism has proven too harsh for humanity, and there are calls to return to a more spiritual path. The individualistic nature of Tarot reading is much more appealing than the previous demands of traditional religion that once dominated society. Tarot reading may also be used as a therapeutic tool that can reveal unconscious desires for the future that have been repressed by the psyche, and through an act of projection onto the Tarot cards, we can reveal these true desires that are usually hidden from the surface.
The concepts that I will use to explore this question are Mele’s self-deception, Freud’s psychoanalysis, Jungian archetypes, Semetsky’s therapeutic hypothesis and the rationality of logical positivists.
An ethical consideration for those implicated in the participation actions leading to mass casualty events. Referencing primarily the philosophy of; Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. The historical events and individuals involved feature predominantly in the 2nd World War.
War has very distinct and polarising effects on people and does not have to look far to gauge a common consensus on how negatively it can be viewed, because of its destructive, chaotic, and immoral nature. Very few people have been prepared to argue that war is morally desirable, so the question central to this investigation will query whether war can be seen viewed as something beyond purely immoral, and beyond the initial preconceptions, so that we might perhaps view it in a way that enlightens us, and is productive to us. The investigation is split into 4 sections.
– ‘War should obviously be morally wrong.’
Why do we think war is wrong? Are our assumptions based on dogmatic tendencies?
– ‘Is Killing wrong, and should it be wrong within warfare?’
Using Immanuel Kant’s universalising imperative, I will suggest it is wrong to kill, however, I will engage with an understanding of self- defence in war, arguing that scenarios such as war create a problem for these initial assumptions.
– ‘Why do we go to war?’
What reasons can we provide for going to war? Can we justify it?
I aim to introduce Hegel’s historicism, exploring the ‘purifying’ ontogenetic capacities of war (war might be required to achieve peace and stability in the first place), and Machiavelli’s pluralism, to provide a different interpretation that a leader who is governing and conducting warfare should not consider ethics at all.
– ‘The Nuclear Age: Do we need to reconsider the ethics of war?’
Informally referred to in my investigation as “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, I will bring everything together with consideration to growing temporary warfare to revaluate our understanding of morality; technology and the advent of possible nuclear destruction change ethics?
The aim of this project is to investigate the current counter terrorism dilemma concerning the targeted killing, using drone strikes, on British terrorists overseas. It will be explored through a Kantian perspective and criticised, ultimately arguing against Kant’s theories. The primary case study used throughout the project is on the 2015 Reyaard Khan killing, ordered by PM at the time, David Cameron. There are four subsections within the dilemma to be explored: firstly, whether it is morally sound to kill at all, then assuming for the purpose of the essay that it is, whether it is ok to do so without a fair trial. The project will also investigate whether the British Government should be killing British citizens overseas when the death penalty is illegal in the UK, and if they are not, should they be passing on intelligence to the US for the Americans to send the drones instead?
Aims:
This project aims to explore the concept of genius, in relation to education, to make a distinction between an educated and an exception. It will look at education and determine its impact that it has on individuals. And it will, lastly, attempt to address the question of what it means to be a genius and the possibility of becoming one.
Object: The concept of genius
Territory: Education defined as institution
Concepts:
Nietzsche’s Noble and Slave Morality
Rousseau’s General Will and The Role of The Legislator
Kierkegaard’s Despair and The Self
Sources:
Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals
Rousseau’s The Social Contract
Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death
I was compelled to write this project by a pattern of observations relating to the nature of language that began surfacing in the works of various philosophers, after having read the work of Wittgenstein. To cite some examples, from Arendt: ‘language, the medium of thought’ ; from Breton: ‘the speed of thought is no greater than that of speech, and does not necessarily defy capture in language’ . From my own experience, thought always seeks to transcend the limitations of language, and sensation can never find its perfect expression in speech. Yet it is true that the principal method by which we communicate these thoughts and sensations is language, and further for Arendt, the internal communication of these phenomena through a dialogue with ourselves is the very thing that makes us human. These observations highlight a tension inherent in all of us. The desire to express our humanity enters into direct conflict with the limitations of language. The aim of this essay will be to discuss this conflict. I hope to highlight some of the functions of language in thought, and to establish the possibility of achieving genuine self-expression through language in spite of its inherently communitarian nature. This the nature of the topics discussed prohibits me from offering some definitive conclusion; the essay is intended primarily as an exploration of the paradoxical relationship between the necessity of language, and our desire to escape its limitations.
The recent and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown a clear display of the attitudes and values some of society withhold in response to the restrictions and guidelines put in place to protect the larger community. While there is constant conflict between opinions on these restrictions, one thing that the debate almost always comes back to is the question of freedom and freewill, and whether enforced mandates are a violation of this or a commitment to the greater good regardless of sacrifice. Current events present this question; however, this discussion is not new and has been debated throughout history by many philosophers, but speakers Karl Popper and Fredrich Nietzsche present particularly appealing arguments that can be applied to both the conversation regarding the lack of freewill in this modern pandemic and in the past with reference to morality and religion. Furthermore, the debate of the validity of the proof behind the reasoning for the COVID-19 restrictions is constantly argued, often from two uncompromising parties, one that sides heavily with the scientifically backed restrictions and the other who completely disagrees with the evidence and its validity. The heavily discussed philosophical concepts of rationalism, empiricism and relativism can be applied to this argument to analyse each viewpoint and provide an insight on how philosophers like Popper and Nietzsche would approach the argument based on their philosophical beliefs and views of the above concepts. With this project being heavily based on the differing viewpoints of the community during the pandemic and linking this to different philosophical concepts based in several different fields: rationality, focusing on the subject’s personal beliefs; empiricism, focusing on scientific, verifiable truth; and relativism, focusing on the subjects moral and religious beliefs.
Over the course of my project I will be answering one of the most relevant and controversial questions of the 21st century. This question is a personal one as I hope to follow a career in the direction of environmental business and sustainability.
The aim is if ethics in our lives have positive or negative consequences. I will be discussing the environmental work of modern ethical philosophers such as Peter Singer and Thom Brooks whose work starts to lay out if there is a way of stopping environmental change if ethics are used in our lives.
I will be using Singer’s utilitarian approach and Brook’s political philosophy to truly discover the ways in which we can or if we can prevent worsening the environmental change problem.
I have chosen these particular philosophers as they single out the facts and problems with environmental change in both an ethical and moral perspective. They equally have two individual philosophies and ethical solutions which gives the project two very different sides to contrast.
Singer’s utilitarian and consequentialist theories and workings plays a valuable part in linking Bentham and Mill’s older utilitarian works. Brook’s political and activist philosophy gives the statistical analysis of the damage of environmental change and this aids in his conclusion, that basing ethics in our lives will slow the damage that environmental change has on the planet.
I have chosen an interpretive approach to my methodology with the analysis of both Singer’s ‘Practical Ethics’ and Brook’s ‘Climate Change Ethics for an Endangered World’. These books have a number of comparisons with other philosophers and their theories which gives many different angles to display support for my view that ethics in our lives has a positive effect on environmental change.
These ethical solutions and theories I have applied to what I believe are the core ethical dilemmas which environmental change either negatively affects or that contribute to these negative effects. The areas I have chosen are the effects on the animal species and the plant species, and also the affects that businesses and governments have on contributing to environmental change in the past and present.
In this essay i will be drawing a comparison between ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ by Martin Heidegger and the state of social media today. I will investigate a couple of examples and use them to assess whether or not social media is a threat.
Concept: Memory
Philosophical Thinkers: Locke and Freud
Aims:
1. To highlight the malleability of memory
2. Argue the dangers of using memory as evidence within law- e.i. eye witness testimonies without empirical proof.
3. Analyse true case studies that indicate the ruining of people’s lives due to memory and the manipulation of it.
The human species faces three key threats that could lead to our extinction: virus threats, nuclear warfare and overpopulation. In order to secure the future of our species, there is a question as to whether we leave earth and colonise another planet. This essay examines that question with a central focus on Kant’s theory of duty and Kierkegaard’s idea that we must act on the strength of the absurd. It also uses value theory and Kierkegaard’s “teleological suspension of the ethical” to show that we can permissibly leave earth’s nature behind us. The argument that will be proposed throughout this essay is that, as a species, we have a moral obligation to leave our planet.
This project will endeavour to explore the corrosive social effects of greed and capitalism. The territory is the subject of capitalism as a political and economic system as presented throughout history and also currently. The 2007 film There Will Be Blood (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) is my object through which I shall spring the discussion of my project from, exploring the questions throughout and what they mean for us. I am using the works of John Locke (primarily his Second Treatise of Government) and Karl Marx (primarily his Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts of 1844). Locke explores the human right of private property and how one rightly comes to have ownership, and Marx explores the disproportionate and devastating relationship between capitalist and labourer and how such a relationship and work brings about alienation and estrangement from labour for the labourer. I shall compare the two philosophic ideas of Locke and Marx with reference to There Will Be Blood.
looking at the question, ‘Has the covid-19 pandemic enhanced poverty in England or has it simply exposed the poverty that already existed in our society?’ with reference to Mbembe’s Necro politcs, The State of Exception, and Nixon’s idea of Slow Violence.
Due to the recent surge of both social media and overall decline of mental health this project title was chosen, and it seeks to discover a correlation between the two. Social medias rapid growth will be showcased to show its embryonic state, showing its lack of reliability. Once the link is discovered studies supporting the direct link will be showcased as well as Simon Sinek’s motivational talks about raising a generation on dopamine devices, which subsequently forms addiction and destruction of relationships. The ability to maintain healthy relationships is a key aspect in sustaining a good mental health. The philosophical investigation will then be carried out to come to the bottom of the issue, to uncover the deeper problems of SM in relation to the human psyche. Baudrillard’s concept of a ‘hyperreality’ (real without origin of reality) and Borgmann’s ‘virtual fog’ (seeping into human connection) will be explored. Borgmann, Baudrillard and Sinek harmoniously highlight that real life and real humans are complicated enough without adding this hyperreal virtual fog that further scrambles our brains- amplified into a kind of tortuous labyrinth which produces feelings of loneliness and deteriorates our mental states the more we attempt to make sense of it and the further we travel this untrodden idle path. Sartre ties it all together at the end with his ‘existence proceeds essence’, his fight for the potential of locating an authentic self. This potentiality is, arguably, being cut off by this hyperreal virtual fog. Inauthentic human existence produces melancholy. Reclaiming this, is possible as long as the prevalent overuse of social media is recognised as something inherently negative and reduced. Essentially this philosophical investigation concludes that the prevalent overuse of social media negatively impacts overall mental health.
This investigation looks into the ethics surrounding Nuclear Armament and the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.
I shall be focusing on the Cold War and more specifically, the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962. I shall be analysing the potential ethical decisions made by President Kennedy with regards to Nuclear armament against the Soviets
I shall draw on the normative ethical approached of Kant as well as classical utilitarianism
I shall also draw strongly on the work of Peter Singer and Bertrand Russell
I shall conclude that The insufficient buffer of mutually assured destruction cannot shroud the egotistical, proud political aims of the world leaders at the time of the Cuban Missile crisis as adversaries of indisputably immoral nuclear programmes.
Wonderland is often used as a synonym for nonsense, but is there something more complex and logical functioning beneath the surface? Lewis Carroll’s fiction novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland presents the most remarkable synergy of sense and nonsense; logic and fallacies. With Deleuze’s Logic of Sense being utilised to illuminate the key fields of logic in the novel, appropriate fields of geometry and algebra will be utilised under the scope of mathematics to elevate an establishment of logic.
A conservative mathematician, Carroll disputed the pivotal change that was being introduced in the 19th century. With preceding mathematics emphasising logical Euclidean methods, the 1800’s saw mathematical theories introduce more abstract principles which extended mathematics beyond the isolation of arithmetic and numbers. Deeming this absurd, Carroll thus utilised the nonsense fiction in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to subtly mock the contemporary mathematical climate.
Having always possessed an interest in how fiction literature can re-orientate the mechanics of our perceived reality, highlighting the logic in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will enable a platform to project my passion for mathematics in a qualitatively fiction context. By illuminating the masked logic and mathematics throughout the novel, this project will ultimately aim to convey how this nonsense fiction literature often anchors itself in a sound and consistent logic.
Anorexia is a mental illness which predominately affects women, whereby the sufferer severely restricts their food intake in order to lose a significant amount of weight, founded on an intense fear of gaining weight. In this dissertation I examine the feminist theories of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex and Susan Bordo in Unbearable Weight in order to gain an understanding of the development of anorexia. In doing so, I hope to provide an account of anorexia that offers a level of compassion to those who suffer from the disorder.
I analyse Beauvoir’s account of women’s oppression in The Second Sex, in which she argues that women are subservient to men because they are defined in relation to men, rather than in and of themselves. I suggest that anorexia develops during adolescence when young girls realise this inevitable subordination, concentrating on the themes of control and objectification. I then consider Bordo’s claim in Unbearable Weight that anorexia is a manifestation of our cultural idealisation of slenderness, and modern understanding of femininity. I find that although both Beauvoir and Bordo provide a useful insight into why women develop anorexia, Bordo provides a more progressive feminist theory in the context of anorexia.
An evaluation on women’s position in the transition to capitalism, the function of capitalism, and 21st century capitalism through the works of key Italian Marxist Feminist thinkers. This project will analyse how Italian feminists have critiqued and developed Marx to develop a new theory on capitalism which focuses specifically on women’s exploitation. Analysis of Italian Marxist feminist theory will demonstrate how and why they understand capitalism to inherently entail women’s exploitation.
This research paper highlights the need for more transparency, open-source initiatives and regulatory bodies surrounding the big data economy. It will help individuals understand what is at stake each time they choose to give up parts of their personal information to companies who offer ‘free’ services.