Category: Stage 3

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Relationship between Art, Politics and Architecture in a ‘Post-Political World’

With reference to:
 Rancière’s metapolitical framing of architecture and the reconstruction of Brodsky

The intention of this project is to outline three independent topics concerning: (1) Rancière’s ‘metapolitical’ framing of architecture, (2) Alexander Brodsky and Illya Utkin’s ‘Paper Architecture’, and (3) Ralph Erskine’s ‘democratic’ architecture, with the aim of analysing and assessing the question as to whether there is room for a political enquiry into the philosophy of architecture in a ‘post-political’ world.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

Dream and Nightmare. A critical reading of Fukuyama’s End of History with reference to the events of September 11th, 2001 and the aftermath.

This paper is primarily a sustained critique of Fukuyama’s work on the Universal History of Mankind. It aims to explore developmental trends in global politics by interrogating the philosophical roots of perhaps the most dominant theory of the last twenty five years, extending the study I undertook in my previous project. It takes the form of a comprehensive study of Fukuyama’s theory, from its Hegelian roots to its implications for Western foreign policy. I examine this material through the prism of the events of September 11th, 2001 and the consequent aftermath. I draw from a number of secondary sources, most notably Zygmunt Bauman, Jean Baudrillard, Sam Huntington and John Gray.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

Mindfulness: a Philosophical Perspective

Mindfulness has been described by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn as a particular way of paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non judgmentally.Three assumptions the theory of mindfulness makes, which I aim to philosophically investigate, are:
1)As humans we have access to a direct primary experience free from conceptual thought, which constitutes secondary experience.
2)As humans we have the capacity to be impartial to our thoughts and bodily experiences, observing them from a vantage point rather than ‘becoming’ them.
3)As humans, we have the capacity to hold plural aspects of our experience in our attention simultaneously.

The Reflection Thesis
In this model, self-awareness is the consequence of a second-order consciousness taking a discrete, first-order conscious experience as its intentional object.

The Reflexivity Thesis
In The Reflexivity Thesis conscious states concurrently reveal both the object of consciousness, and the awareness of oneself as a subject in the conscious state itself. According to this model therefore, any occurrence of consciousness involves the sense of ownership over the state, that there is a phenomenality of what it is like for the subject to have that experience.

Higher-order theories
Higher-order (HO) theories propose the notion of a “conscious mental state in terms of meta-mental self-awareness.” (Van Gulick.) For these theories what makes a mental state conscious is the fact that it is accompanied by a simultaneous and non-inferential higher-order state whose content is that one is now experiencing M.

1) Higher order perception (HOP) Theory
Inner sense theory
The most popular version of higher-order perception theory- the inner sense theory- holds that humans have additional inner senses and sense organs, with the duty of scanning the outputs of the first-order senses to produce equally fine-grained, but higher-order, representations. This model takes basic self-awareness to be a form of inner perception, which involves two separate acts of awareness; a first-order intentional mental state directed externally, and an inner-directed higher-order awareness targeted at this first-order mental state.

2) Higher order thought (HOT) theory
I will now investigate the second type of Higher Order theory, which holds that our self awareness is in the form of a thought rather than a perception.

Actualist:
Actualist HOT theory concerns the nature of state-consciousness. Its main proponent has been David Rosenthal whose proposal is that a conscious mental state M, of mine, is a state that is actually causing an activated belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M. A phenomenally conscious mental state is a state with non-conceptual intentional content, which is the object of a higher-order thought.

Dispositionalist
On the Dispositionalist interpretation if a subject is aware of an object, then necessarily, it is possible that she is aware of being aware of that object. According to all forms of dispositionalist higher-order thought theory, the consciousness of a perceptual state consists in its availability to higher-order thought: a conscious mental event M, of mine, is one that is disposed to cause a belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M, and to cause it non-inferentially.

Mindfulness has been described by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn as a particular way of paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non judgmentally.

Three assumptions the theory of mindfulness makes, which I aim to philosophically investigate, are:
1)As humans we have access to a direct primary experience free from conceptual thought, which constitutes secondary experience.
2)As humans we have the capacity to be impartial to our thoughts and bodily experiences, observing them from a vantage point rather than ‘becoming’ them.
3)As humans, we have the capacity to hold plural aspects of our experience in our attention simultaneously.

The Reflection Thesis
In this model, self-awareness is the consequence of a second-order consciousness taking a discrete, first-order conscious experience as its intentional object.

The Reflexivity Thesis
In The Reflexivity Thesis conscious states concurrently reveal both the object of consciousness, and the awareness of oneself as a subject in the conscious state itself. According to this model therefore, any occurrence of consciousness involves the sense of ownership over the state, that there is a phenomenality of what it is like for the subject to have that experience.

Higher-order theories
Higher-order (HO) theories propose the notion of a “conscious mental state in terms of meta-mental self-awareness.” (Van Gulick.) For these theories what makes a mental state conscious is the fact that it is accompanied by a simultaneous and non-inferential higher-order state whose content is that one is now experiencing M.

1) Higher order perception (HOP) Theory
Inner sense theory
The most popular version of higher-order perception theory- the inner sense theory- holds that humans have additional inner senses and sense organs, with the duty of scanning the outputs of the first-order senses to produce equally fine-grained, but higher-order, representations. This model takes basic self-awareness to be a form of inner perception, which involves two separate acts of awareness; a first-order intentional mental state directed externally, and an inner-directed higher-order awareness targeted at this first-order mental state.

2) Higher order thought (HOT) theory
I will now investigate the second type of Higher Order theory, which holds that our self awareness is in the form of a thought rather than a perception.

Actualist:
Actualist HOT theory concerns the nature of state-consciousness. Its main proponent has been David Rosenthal whose proposal is that a conscious mental state M, of mine, is a state that is actually causing an activated belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M. A phenomenally conscious mental state is a state with non-conceptual intentional content, which is the object of a higher-order thought.

Dispositionalist
On the Dispositionalist interpretation if a subject is aware of an object, then necessarily, it is possible that she is aware of being aware of that object. According to all forms of dispositionalist higher-order thought theory, the consciousness of a perceptual state consists in its availability to higher-order thought: a conscious mental event M, of mine, is one that is disposed to cause a belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M, and to cause it non-inferentially.

Mindfulness has been described by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn as a particular way of paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non judgmentally.

Three assumptions the theory of mindfulness makes, which I aim to philosophically investigate, are:
1)As humans we have access to a direct primary experience free from conceptual thought, which constitutes secondary experience.
2)As humans we have the capacity to be impartial to our thoughts and bodily experiences, observing them from a vantage point rather than ‘becoming’ them.
3)As humans, we have the capacity to hold plural aspects of our experience in our attention simultaneously.

The Reflection Thesis
In this model, self-awareness is the consequence of a second-order consciousness taking a discrete, first-order conscious experience as its intentional object.

The Reflexivity Thesis
In The Reflexivity Thesis conscious states concurrently reveal both the object of consciousness, and the awareness of oneself as a subject in the conscious state itself. According to this model therefore, any occurrence of consciousness involves the sense of ownership over the state, that there is a phenomenality of what it is like for the subject to have that experience.

Higher-order theories
Higher-order (HO) theories propose the notion of a “conscious mental state in terms of meta-mental self-awareness.” (Van Gulick.) For these theories what makes a mental state conscious is the fact that it is accompanied by a simultaneous and non-inferential higher-order state whose content is that one is now experiencing M.

1) Higher order perception (HOP) Theory
Inner sense theory
The most popular version of higher-order perception theory- the inner sense theory- holds that humans have additional inner senses and sense organs, with the duty of scanning the outputs of the first-order senses to produce equally fine-grained, but higher-order, representations. This model takes basic self-awareness to be a form of inner perception, which involves two separate acts of awareness; a first-order intentional mental state directed externally, and an inner-directed higher-order awareness targeted at this first-order mental state.

2) Higher order thought (HOT) theory
I will now investigate the second type of Higher Order theory, which holds that our self awareness is in the form of a thought rather than a perception.

Actualist:
Actualist HOT theory concerns the nature of state-consciousness. Its main proponent has been David Rosenthal whose proposal is that a conscious mental state M, of mine, is a state that is actually causing an activated belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M. A phenomenally conscious mental state is a state with non-conceptual intentional content, which is the object of a higher-order thought.

Dispositionalist
On the Dispositionalist interpretation if a subject is aware of an object, then necessarily, it is possible that she is aware of being aware of that object. According to all forms of dispositionalist higher-order thought theory, the consciousness of a perceptual state consists in its availability to higher-order thought: a conscious mental event M, of mine, is one that is disposed to cause a belief (generally a non-conscious one) that I have M, and to cause it non-inferentially.

Categories
2014 Abstracts Stage 3

I Shop Therefore I am

KEY THINKERS
– Joseph Heath
– Tim Kasser
– Charles Taylor
– Jean Baudrillard

“Consumer society sold us dissatisfaction, then sold us the cure” (Lawson, 2009).

“This massive squirrel-wheel cannot but generate a certain amount of stress, not to mention incredible amounts of waste”

With both nutrition and materialism, Kasser states that “they are full for only a short time, as the promise is false and the satisfaction is empty”.

The level of consumption in Britain is so extraordinarily high that if the entire human race had the same levels we would need 3.1 planets to cope with the demand for resources (Lawson, 2009, p.98).

Researchers have found that on average we see around 3,500 advertisements a day. That is a shocking 1, 277, 500 a year.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

Morality and Suicide. Is suicide every morally permissible?

For centuries philosophers have attempted to understand the moral issues surrounding suicide and discover whether there is any objective standard by which we can truly know whether the act of suicide is a violation of our moral duties.
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide.

Aquinas, Kant and Hume all offer interesting arguments surrounding this moral issue. Whilst Aquinas looks at suicide from a purely theological perspective, Hume saw traditional attitudes toward suicide as muddled and superstitious; paving the way for a very modern outlook that suggests there is no rational basis for this and we can never object to suicide. Kant in contrast places significant emphasis on suicide as a violation of our personal autonomy and freedom.

Does suicide violate our duties towards God?
As reason gradually became predominant in moral discourse after the 18th Century, suicide was soon to be seen as less sinful and more rational.

Does suicide violate our duties towards society?
Whilst the law and popular practice in the middles ages sanctioned the confiscation of individual property and the denial of a Christian burial, we now regard it as a highly personal matter, rather than disturbing public order.

Does suicide violate our natural duties of self-preservation?
It is argued from a theological and a secular perspective that we have a duty to ourselves not to commit suicide as it violates our human freedom and autonomy. However we must understand that in many cases our emotions come before reason.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

How Can We Learn from the Holocaust? A critical evaluation of the pedagogic value of responses to the Holocaust and art in law.

Artistic responses:

Adorno: didactic art and mass culture. Holocaust art has the ability to misrepresent victims’ experiences, undermining the pedagogic value of art. Mass culture threatens society’s understanding of the Holocaust by dictating standardized moral messages to its audience.

Schindler’s List is an example of Holocaust art that is not appropriate for education because it dictates a moral message through in scenes of gratuitous violence.

Maus consistently reminds the reader of the dangers of misrepresentation in Holocaust art and does not dictate a message, allowing readers to critically engage with the subject matter and form their own opinions. It is educational without being didactic.

Legal responses:

Holocaust denial: Irving v. Lipstadt set the precedent for how liberal societies can maintain their commitment to free speech whilst protecting the collective memory of the Holocaust from deniers.

Who’s accountable? Society must accept that strategic reasoning pioneered by modernity contributed to the implementation of the Final Solution, rather than assigning Germany sole accountability.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann highlights that individuals have a duty to humanity above the need to follow the orders of their government.Artistic responses:

Adorno: didactic art and mass culture. Holocaust art has the ability to misrepresent victims’ experiences, undermining the pedagogic value of art. Mass culture threatens society’s understanding of the Holocaust by dictating standardized moral messages to its audience.

Schindler’s List is an example of Holocaust art that is not appropriate for education because it dictates a moral message through in scenes of gratuitous violence.

Maus consistently reminds the reader of the dangers of misrepresentation in Holocaust art and does not dictate a message, allowing readers to critically engage with the subject matter and form their own opinions. It is educational without being didactic.

Legal responses:

Holocaust denial: Irving v. Lipstadt set the precedent for how liberal societies can maintain their commitment to free speech whilst protecting the collective memory of the Holocaust from deniers.

Who’s accountable? Society must accept that strategic reasoning pioneered by modernity contributed to the implementation of the Final Solution, rather than assigning Germany sole accountability.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann highlights that individuals have a duty to humanity above the need to follow the orders of their government.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

An Exploration of the Philosophical Implications of Social Media and Online Identity Profile Building on the Formation of Identity and Selfhood

Identity will be considered in terms of the construction process and the impact that social media and the online community can have on this process in accordance with the theories listed

MacIntyre-Narrative Embedding through a socio-historical understanding. Tradition is thus key.. Dangers arise in consideration of the anonymity of the internet and fantasy of online environment distracting from this.

Giddens-Acknowledgment of importance of social background. self as a reflexive process.. Is it possible that the world of social media and online profile building provides guidance now? Does this then promote cultural relativism

Habermas -Theory of Communicative Action and Discourse Ethics. Reason amongst humans is considered to not be based in objective terms. Discussion key to understanding the self. But necessitate compliance the Rules of Discourse .

Trilling- Differentiation between Sincerity and Authenticity. Rejection of sincerity as only the role of the actor for the gratification of others.. Does the online identity building epidemic loose this authenticity and re-establish the pressure of those forming their identities in the realm of sincerity. The formatting of stating elements of our identity independently and publicly creates sincerity hoops.

Borgmann-Recognition of the role social media in modernity and the advent of Hyper-reality as a result. We become overly connected and this results in irrational behaviour and affections. We only end up disappointed at the lack of fulfilment of this strange unreal reality.

Dreyfus- Online identity formation and Social Media exist in a risk free environment. This can cause issues with personhood through desire to exist in a simulated environment and never transcend to interpersonal relationships in reality.

Risk and Potential Difficulties- Risks exist in the realms of the vulnerability of the unestablished self. This is via the advent of social consensus and a lack of objective rationality, the potential of manipulation in unequal partners, loss of interpersonal communication and inability to create relationships

There is a requirement for the self to be established prior to online engagement and necessity of return to Trilling’s Sincerity as the resulting conclusion and means from which the identity can benefit from Social Media.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

The Double

This project aims to argue that the doppelganger in cinema represents a fear in society. The project will aim to chart the change in this fear. Deleuze’s work offers a psychoanalytical perspective on this whereas Giddens and Beck look at modernity more generally. Science fiction cinema is a cinematic cousin of the double film and works in a similarly reflexive manner. As film projection is digitized so is our society, meaning that we both rely on and resent technology. So is the prevalence of double films in 2014 related to our increasingly strong links to machines?

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

The Phenomenology of Mental Disorder: the Subjective Experience of Scizophrenia

Phenomenology urges closer scrutiny of our experiences. A phenomenological approach to mental disorder concerns an acute study the patient’s experience; its conditions and its structure. My objective is to gain insight into the refined and perplexed experiences of the Schizophrenic mind. Philosophy has traditionally been concerned with issues of subjectivity and the first-person. In order to facilitate a dialogue between philosophy and psychopathology I will be referencing specialists in the field such as Dan Zahavi, Karl Jaspers and Christopher Frith.

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

What is Technology?

I wish to claim that technology is not what man uses to master nature, but a philosophy of  history ­ a way of looking at the world or a way of life.      

The aim of my project was to trace the history of technology in order to establish a definition of its essence that is  consistent across time.  

Heidegger argued that technology is a means of exploiting nature, reducing it to “standing reserve” which we can draw upon as we desire it. Further, he argued that modern technology reduces man to standing reserve and that we  should be sceptical of it.  

In response to his argument I explored the thought of Marcuse and Feenberg who both suggest that technology is defined more by its social elements than by its function.  

Finally, I explored the future of technology, specifically artificial intelligence, and considered which, if any, definition of the essence of technology I explored remains applicable.     

Main Sources: 
The Questioning Concerning Technology by  Heidegger, One­ Dimensional Man by Marcuse, and Questioning  Technology by Feenberg. 

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2014 Abstracts Stage 3

Why Should I? Commitment in An Age of Individualism

An investigation into the relationship between the growing individualistic tendencies of the West and commitment-phobia: The identity crisis of the chooser with infinite choice

Case Study: Marriage – Why are marriage rates declining?
Kierkegaard, The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage
Blond, Marriage: Union for the future or contract for the present

“The faith of the Faithless”

Q) Would a restoration of religiosity in our culture make the idea of commitment more reasonable?

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Existential Therapy: a Discussion of Heidegger’s Contribution to Psychoanalysis and the Relevance of his Ideas to Current Day Therapy

Daseinsanalysis
• Heidegger and a psychologist Medard Boss created a strand of psychoanalysis called Daseinsanalytic within ‘The Zollikon Seminars’
• Boss used Heidegger’s phenomenological method from ‘Being and Time’ to create a therapy based on the openness of Dasein to the world
• I will compare this therapy to modern-day Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• CBT is the main therapy offered by the NHS
• Heidegger believes that technology removes our ability to understand Being
• It turns us into calculable resources
• I will discuss CBT as an obvious product to our current technological society

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Discussions on the nature of the animal liberation movement – can animal and human exist as equals and does the real possibility of a consensus in the debate exist?

The animal liberation movement was the first movement to be entirely founded by philosophers, and ended up being one of the most important and controversial movements in society then and now. Using the thought of Peter Singer within Animal Liberation and Alasdair MacIntyre within Dependent Rational Animals, among others, my essay aims to assess whether their theories seem intuitionally correct and/or comfortable, and if we can observe what their ideas describe in contemporary society with regard to our relationship with animals. I also take a look at the differences between UK legislation concerning animal welfare and that of other countries, attempting to conclude if the animal rights debate can ever be solved, and how indeed the world should go about doing so.

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Knowledge is Power. How the desire for self-education among the pitmen of the North East evokes both Kantian autonomy and Marxist emancipation

This Project is an exploration of the philosophical, ethical, and political motives to be found in the desire for and execution of self-education among the pitmen of the Great Northern Coalfield, particularly in the twentieth century.

The two main philosophical strands used were Kant’s notion of autonomy in the context of the universal moral law, and Kant’s depiction and encouragement of human emancipation.

The case study chosen was the Ashington Group of pitmen and labourers who rose to fame with their art from the 1930s onwards, but chose not to leave their occupations for the art world.

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Education in England. Is Turning Back the Way Ahead?

Michael Gove’s reforms
A Foucauldian Analysis

“We’re on the side of teachers, we’re determined to restore order and we’re not going to be deflected from laying down lines which the badly behaved must not cross.” (Gove 2010)

“Enough is enough. This motion’s intention is to send the strongest message possible to this government that many of their education policies are failing our children, their parents and the very fabric of our school communities.”
(Tim Gallagher proposing vote of no confidence at National Association of Head Teachers Conference 2013)

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Who Controls the Past Controls the Future, Who Controls the Present Controls the Past. A Discussion into the Manipulation of History in Relation to Power in Orwell’s 1984

The Novel
Big Brother, Continuous war, ever present government surveillance, mind control, eradication of independent thought, manipulation of history and written record

Power
Power in its third dimension:
Being complicit in one’s own domination
Ideologies are promoted; the masses are forced to believe that what they think is in their interests are furthering the interests of those in power

Hegel
Culture and knowledge are liberating; culture makes an individual rational
The course of history is governed through a development of ‘progress’
Progress toward emancipation and empowerment

Lyotard
Crisis in modernity; loss of belief in metanarratives
Power is maintained through a manipulation of historical record
no one can ‘know’ anything anymore; the interests of those in power are maintained

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

The Gap Year and Finding Oneself: a Philosophical Discussion

It has been a growing phenomenon in recent years for young people to take a year out from education. There are a number reasons for this but the one most often given, the one which stands out above all others, is ‘to find oneself’. This project aims to explore the validity of such a claim in conjunction with the thought of Alain de Botton and Jean Paul Sartre. In order to offer the discussion some context I shall also be drawing on my own experiences volunteering in Africa.

De Botton’s work The Art of Travel is an investigation into the philosophical aspects of travel. From the anticipation of the trip, to the poetic nature of the journey, to the adventure itself and even the reflections upon your return. The entire experience is conducive to being potentially life changing, and as such no detail is left out. His over riding suggestion is that we travel in order to temporarily escape our ordinary, well established lives and that we have an inherent desire to wander without purpose for a time.

To support these claims I have also used Sartre’s phenomenology, as he makes the claim that consciousness constructs the ego. We only really become our true selves when we reflect on things and it is very much dependent on our mood or state at the time of the experience. His entire theory is building up to the fact that our consciousness is what frees us. A fact which is absolutely key in understanding how experience changes us. When this is applied to the concept of travel it becomes apparent that we may have a particular viewpoint or opinion of a place before we go there, but our experiences there will inevitably alter that preconception. As these change, as does our conception of self.

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

The Legacy of the Beat Generation in Contemporary Culture

The changing shape of the search for meaning in American Literature, what does it mean to be ‘human’ today?

Comparing Don Delillo’s vision of contemporary culture and humanity to Beat literature, to explore how technology and mass culture have changed the nature of Being.

Using Heidegger to compare the authentic Beat human to the inauthentic contemporary human.

Does the resurgence of interest in the Beat Generation imply the effort to reclaim authentic life?

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

Animal Farm: Does the Subtle and Binary Nature of Philosophy Fail where Literature Succeeds?

IS ANIMAL FARM A COMMENT ON SOVIET RUSSIA? A COMMENT ON THE PITFALLS OF MARXIST THEORY? A COMMENT ON HUMAN NATURE WITH REGARDS TO POWER? OR IS THIS A LIMITING VIEW OF TRUTH? CAN LITERATURE SHOW US GREATER TRUTH?

HEIDEGGER:
THE POWER OF POETRY FOR A HIGHER TRUTH, A TRANSCENDANCE OF OUR SITUATION TO REVEAL THE BEING-OF-BEINGS

FOUCAULT:
SURELY THERE IS NOT SUCH A THING AS RESISTANCE OR TRUTH? EVERYTHING IS PART OF THE SYSTEM OF POWER, EVEN IDENTITY, SO CAN ORWELL BE ANYTHING MORE THAN AN IDENTITY CREATED BY POWER’S MECHANISM?

VATTIMO:
ONCE WE ACCEPT THAT WE ARE HISTORICALLY CONTINGENT AND THERE IS NO ‘TRUTH’ WE CAN WORK WITHIN THE SYSTEM OF UNDERSTANDING TO TRANSCEND OUR GIVEN VALUES THROUGH OSCILLATORY NIHILISTIC HERMENEUTICS: CRITICAL THOUGHT: IS THIS WHAT ORWELL ACHIEVES?

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” (Orwell, 1984)

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2013 Abstracts Stage 3

The Ethical Issues Surrounding the Charity Sector

Aim: To explore the ethical issues within the charity sector as my territory. I then explored the ethical questions of whether we should all give to charity, or whether it is our duty to. I then explored the way in which charities ask for our money and whether this is always ethically correct. And finally, I looked at the effects that the money raised makes in the charity sector and whether it is always distributed fairly.

My object is the charity campaign Kony 2012, the infamous campaign by the Invisible Children organisation.

Philosophical concepts: Peter Singer ‘s Practical Ethics and The Life You Can Save: How to Play your Part in Ending World Poverty.
Theodor Adorno’s concept of the Culture Industry in which he looks at the deception and manipulation of society through the arts.