Category: Stage 2

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Journalism, Ethics and Brexit: An Exploration into our Democratic Abilities in a Post-Truth Age

Project Outline

-This project was undertaken to determine whether the Brexit vote was a result of unethical journalism and whether we can remain democratic in today’s society.

-In order to be democratic citizens, the population needs to be correctly informed from factual evidence and I believe that throughout the Brexit referendum this was not the case.

-This project looks at journalism within the context of the free market to highlight the issues journalists face when companies prioritise money over the truth.

-This project will also use the ideas of Baudrillard to determine the nature of truth in the 21st century and how the phenomena of fake news found its way into Brexit.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Fight the Power: An Interrogation of Sovereign Authority

The objective of this project is to investigate the validity of the Grand Jury process in the United States of America, which selects a group of citizens at random to become involved in legal proceedings and make judgements if the suspected criminal should go to court.

The discussion therefore investigates whether it can be justified to give power to individuals in society or if power should remain with the government, or sovereign authority.

The philosophers studied in the process of the dissertation are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben.

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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

Dance Music as Culture

Territory: Music, Culture

Object:
Dance music, in its authentic form, with Disco as it’s predecessor — authenticity established by a continuum from Disco to electronic dance music, cultivating ideological resistance, sonic variation and club cultural context.

Methodology:
Unlike most art forms, dance music achieves its ultimate potential in only a moment of euphoria shared by the cumulative joy of a crowd of people. I aim to prove that in these moments, all aspects of authentic dance music come together to form a unique autonomy in the context of the culture industry. I will do this by identifying, using critical analysis, weaknesses in the theories that will be discussed and presenting dance music’s unique ability to exploit these.

Theory:
The Social Theories of Theodor Adorno in The Dialectic of Enlightenment and G.W.F Hegel in The Philosophy of Right and Philosophy of Mind. Hegel’s theory reinforces the concept of an artistic freedom restricted by the Culture Industry.

Application:
Adorno engages in the idea of ‘autonomous art’ against the culture industry. To an extent, this will remain the position of authentic ‘dance music’;ideologically resistant to the culture industry in the way that Adorno idealises. However, a study into Adorno’s own perception of authentic art, a result of his complex, often pretentious Aesthetic Theory, demonstrates why he doesn’t actually believe autonomy can be anything other than illusory in relation to its social context — Adorno is too negative.

Conclusion:
I have thus presented ‘dance’ music’s authentic features as holding the potential to actualise Adorno’s illusory ideal. Whilst I also understand this cannot be maintained, in brief moments, dance music is at least the perfect representation of Hegel’s utopian union of the subjective and objective, yet also, can achieve an independent utopia.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

What is the role of capitalism and the ruling class in our recognition and responsibility towards the plight of refugees and genocide outside the West?

Why does Genocide outside the WEST remain unnoticed?

My aim is to uncover reasons why genocide is still a modern age problem. I will be looking in particular at the Rwanda genocide and the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. To investigate this, I will be taking a historical and political viewpoint to explore the value systems promoted within society that allow us to ignore this blatant bloodshed, which are purely based upon location and affiliation. The sources used include books, articles and scholarly certified media pieces in order to help uncover the reasons why there still remains an issue within the modern world with genocide.

I will argue that we still live in this post enlightenment era, using Kant and Hegel to describe how empty legislation and abstract laws do not meet action in the real world. I will also link the influence of Capitalism, using Adorno’s Culture Theory to help exemplify how harmful ideologies and passivity is promoted in today’s society. I will be drawing upon philosophical concepts such as moral distance, dehumanization, autonomy and recognition. Ultimately, my claim will be that this narrative of ‘the other’ is largely at play within the media. Similarly, that this passive stance occurs in the face of this, due to the powerlessness individuals feel within the system of the state.

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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 2

The Cost of Creativity

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization- the concept of madness and how it has developed over time. Foucault argues there was a specific moment in history when madness was labelled as a mental illness.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy- life is subject to extreme bouts of suffering. Artistic production can contribute towards overcoming the pain we encounter in life. What implications does this have on the link between madness and creativity?

Are creative spirits more likely to be mentally ill? Ultimately the aim of this project is to reflect upon the complex relationship between insanity and creativity, to decide whether there is a correlation between individuals who suffer from psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia, and those who are highly artistic. It is arguable that there is a link, as mental illness and creativity often co-occur. However, this project will also reflect upon the idea that a correlation is simply a romanticised outlook with dangerous implications, and that mental illness does not need to be present for creativity to exist.

The subject matter will be considered via the philosophical thoughts of Foucault, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, but also with reference to the psychoanalysis work of Freud drawing upon examples such as Daniel Paul Schreber, a famous German judge who was a diagnosed schizophrenic, whom Freud interpreted. The evident Freudian influence expressed by Andre Breton within his novel Nadja will also be addressed. Breton believed insane people were simply victims of their imagination.

‘Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break through. It is potential liberation and renewal’

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Why are we so addicted to social media? A question involving the issues of personal identity

Territory/object → Social media in relation to social media and related to ‘Nosedive’ – an object of contemporary society
Philosophers → Michel Foucault, Arthur Schopenhauer

Overview → I will be exploring why so many of us feel compelled to manipulate our identities online and the issues surrounding the ease and ability to do so with little restrictions. I consider what philosophers of different centuries may have said on such matters. I aim to support and prove my claim that until we change the values of the social system that we are a part of, we will not be able to overcome the negative impacts that social media provides.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Japan: A suicide nation? A philosophical investigation into the history of Japan’s high suicide rate.

Aim:
This project seeks to investigate the global, social and cross-cultural phenomenon of suicide (territory). More specifically, suicide in Japan (object). The purpose of this project is to highlight and examine the possible factors as to why the average global suicide rate within the Japanese nation is so high – it is nearly twice the global average. Through exploring the History of Japan I ask the questions: ‘What is it about the Japanese culture/ society that has caused Japan to become synonymous with the act of suicide?’ And ‘Is Japan really a suicide nation?’

Areas to be explored:
Premodern Japan: The way of the Samurai and The Kamikaze Pilots.
Geographical ‘hot spots’
Suicide prevention in Japan
Japanese Psychiatry

Application:
Philosophically and ethically suicide poses difficult questions. Albert Camus states: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide”.

Through exploring the interesting philosophical arguments put forward by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer the following questions in regards to suicide arise:

Does suicide violate our natural duty of self-preservation?

Does suicide achieve what it ultimately aims for (i.e. to end all suffering), or does it simply terminate superficial elements of ourselves thus achieving the opposite: affirmation of the will?

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Do the topics of feminism and speciesism need to be discussed as one sphere of ethics in order to be rendered valid?

Territory- ecofeminism is a branch of political philosophy which suggests that the oppression of women and animals is intrinsically linked, to the extent that women shall never be free until animals are also freed of oppression. This study focuses on a text by ecofeminist philosopher Andrée Collard called Rape of the Wild in order to conduct an axiological critique of the views widely held today in regard to the topics of feminism and speciesism. The territory of ecofeminism is hugely significant to modern day Earth as many issues surrounding both the treatment of women and animals are evident within the 21st century.

Concepts- in order to evaluate and examine the concepts held by Collard and the ecofeminist movement this study focused on ideas from other highly esteemed philosophers such as Kant, de Beauvoir and Aristotle. Concepts such as Aristotle’s Great Chain of Being and de Beauvoir’s idea of the ‘Other’ are useful when applied to the views held by Collard in order to determine how significant the link is between women and animals and how this relationship should be approached in terms of actions and beliefs held within modern day society.

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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

“Where Flash Becomes Word and Silents Selfloud”: the Language of Finnegans Wake

The obscure, polysemic, multi-lingual, syntactically nonstandard style of writing in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has polarised critics even since before the time of the book’s full release. The ongoing debates surrounding the work raise philosophical questions about the limits of language and the nature of art and literature. This essay explores possible philosophical justifications for using such a style, and enquires whether it might offer unique artistic possibilities, unavailable to clearer, more conventional styles.

Beginning from Heidegger’s theory of art, the essay explores the distinction between the Heideggerian concepts of “world” and “earth”, arguing that the book inverts the standard function of language as embodying a socio-historical “world”, instead turning it into a force which represents the “ungraspable”, impenetrable, nature of “earth”.

The essay then examines the Wake with reference to Blanchot’s work on literature, finding that the techniques of emphasising the physicality of language, as well as fragmenting a work into pieces whose only relation is difference – which Blanchot claims constitute are essential for a literary work to represent things in their “free, silent existence” – are utilised in extreme ways and to unique ends in the Wake.

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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

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

Toxic Masculinity In Young Males: A Possible Explanation Through Hobbes and Lacan?

This project is centered around the idea of toxic masculinity, and attempting to understand the prevalence of it in young males with reference to the philosophical and psychoanalytical ideas of Hobbes and Lacan.

-Toxic masculinity is the exhibition of certain antisocial behavioural tendencies predominantly performed by young males, including, homophobia, misogyny and violent physical or verbal behavior to one another. This behavior is rampant throughout society, with the behaviour of young males being especially indicative of this toxic way of acting. Lad culture has become simply sexism with and alibi. To show the existence of toxic masculinity within young males I researched different journal and website articles detailing examples, as well as conducting an interview with a female Newcstle university student. I will also be looking through the primary texts and identifying at what points their ideas contribute to the discussion. These texts are Hobbes Leviathan and Lacan’s Ecrits.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

An Attempt at Altruism? An Evaluation of Consumer Boycott’s Motivations and Outcomes.

This project aims to evaluate whether consumer boycotts are truly altruistic or an egoistic attempt to save reputations and adhere to social pressure out of self-interest. Do consumers and corporations really care about the impact of their actions or just want to look like decent caring people?

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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 2

Tolerance over time: ‘If we knew nothing about where we’d end up what sort of society would it feel safe to enter?’

‘If we knew nothing about where we’d end up what sort of society would it feel safe to enter?’

Aims:
How does secularisation affect the religion?
Why Britain become more secular?
How does the rise of terror by Islamic extremists affect the Islamic community?
What is the purpose of the EDL and why is it so against the Muslim community?
How has the role of the woman changed throughout modernity?
Why do measures still exist that prevent women from achieving equality?

Methods:
I intend to explore Rawls’ view of tolerance by using various approaches; these include: a Historical Approach and an Axiological Approach. The Historical Approach has been chosen as a means of depicting to the reader the changes and transformations in both the role of the woman in society, as well as the role religion plays in a seemingly secular society. As a result, I will trace the historical, social and political changes affecting both issues at hand. Furthermore, an Axiological Approach will be used to assess whether there are challenges that both religion and women have faced is just throughout contemporary society.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

“Mrs. Dalloway. Not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” Does Changing your Surname mean Forfeiting your Identity?

Object: ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Aim: To discuss the implications of marriage in feminist theory and attempt to decipher if loosing your surname means loosing your identity.

How: Use main themes from the novel, modern articles, De Beauvoir, Woolf and Butler, Friedan.

Methodology: Structured with quotations from the novel. Therefore methodology is interpretive.

What are the implications of taking your fiancés surname/ marriage and how does Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘Mrs Dalloway’ connect us to these issues?

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

An Exploration of Female Sexuality

Let’s talk about sex. Does it make you uncomfortable? In this project, I explore the progression of attitudes towards sexuality through the different generations, where these attitudes came from, and how these attitudes developed.

Through George Bataille’s book, Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, I explore where the taboo of sex may have begun and what impact this had upon attitudes towards embracing female sexuality. I also use Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Philosophy of Right to discuss the issues surrounding freedom of sexuality.

Through conducting my own research and analysing various books, articles and journals, I will reveal how our society is embracing the conversation surrounding sexuality.