Throughout each period of history information has been controlled by a select few elite. From Alexander the Great to Martin Luther to the modern complex of mass media that provides us with information today. This project seeks to explain the way in which information has been controlled from one society to another with the advent of new technologies only perpetuating the problem. If Philosophy is a search for truth, then propaganda is the opposite of philosophy, it is the concealing of truth. Do we just accept what we are told or can we use philosophy to overcome propaganda?
Category: Stage 3
The objective of this essay is to produce an accurate analysis of our understanding of solitude, artistic creativity and its origins, and to examine whether solitude can be an aid to maximising creativity.
To reach an appropriate conclusion, it will first address the nature of creativity from Plato, Kant, Freud and from various modern thinkers.
It will then address theories on solitude from Thoreau, Artistotle, Descartes and Koch, followed by an analysis of the extent to which it can stimulate artistic creativity. I also see it necessary to briefly examine the role of technology in today’s society and the use of drugs to see how these two factors can influence solitude and creativity.
The concept of past is intimately connected to our perceptions of identity and the question of whether we can ever escape this often intrusive and suffocating hold on our person is central to my thesis of whether or not the past of an individual defines who they are and who they will become.
Object: Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby will be applied to both psychology and philosophy.
Beginning with Psychology, specifically the work of Sigmund Freud to show how our identity is determined.
Turning to philosophy with Jean Paul Sartre, exploring his views on freedom which oppose those of Freud.
Finally Friedrich Nietzsche’s work on ‘becoming’ and ‘overcoming’, discussing the ability to overcome our pasts and celebrate them.
Why has society repressed sexual discourse and what does this mean for an individual?
Foucault and Beauvoir explore the historical repression of sexuality and the classifications of the Enlightenment and scientific discourse. Individuals have not been able to express their sexuality publicly, as discourse of the erotic was under taboo.
How can we liberate society from the consequences of sexual repression?
Marquis de Sade asserted the importance of sexual liberation to combat all social repressions. His pornographic works, despite being violent and cruel, are fundamentally pivotal in the emancipation of sexuality from the private realm.
What was the result of the sexual revolution for sexual emancipation?
The 1960s sexual revolution is said to have begun with the publishing of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and had a major impact on sexual liberation, specifically for women, as prohibitions on discourse were protested.
What impact does the culture industry have on sexual liberty?
Adorno’s writings on mass consumerism in our capitalist society explore the limits of sexual liberty as in the public realm as they begin to cater only to the needs and desires of our consumer society
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For my project, I researched into the way the internet, particularly social networking sites such as Facebook and Second Life, have impacted on the contemporary project of self-identity. Does the virtual world encourage us to maintain our real identity, or instead create artificial and fake identities? From this, I looked at how the internet and virtual identities are used as a means of control and power over others. The internet is so readily available to everyone in our modern world, and people are beginning to communicate with strangers online, yet unable to determine who their real identity actually is.
THE PHILOSOPHY
BAUMAN – his concept of ‘Liquid Modernity’ and how this has affected our self-identity.
GIDDENS – his theory of ‘Reflexive Modernity’ and how it has caused individuals to engage in a reflexive project of the self. Identity as reflexive and fluid.
ADORNO – his philosophy on the ‘Culture Industry’. The ‘reification’ of language and concept of ‘identity thinking’.
HEIDEGGER – the concepts of ‘authenticity and inauthenticity. The understanding of human life as finite – the internet allows identity to extend into the infinite.
CONCEPTS
– The historical development of Identity. Looking at how it has changed since our digitalised society
– Identity as the process of ‘becoming’ not simply ‘being’
– The Real vs the Artificial ( the real world vs the virtual world) (the real self vs the protean/virtual self)
– Authentic identity vs inauthentic identity
– The virtual world as infinite vs the finitude of the real human body
– Power and manipulation of online identity
– The issue of trust
Foucault’s focus on discourse notes language as establishing structures within society that exercise power.
Power/Knowledge reinforces social control and normalization of people – including the exclusion of those outside desired social norms – these are constructs of language and culture
Post-structuralist ideas reminiscent of the panopticon of Jeremy Bentham – in which all people/employees are observed at all times by those in control. This leads to the hegemony of the normalized people (in this context – the housed)
• HYPOTHESIS- Theoretical explanations of the nature of animality through the use of distinctive measures and qualifications which serve to diminish ethical consideration of animals in modern scenarios. Improved ethical consideration of animals needs to take place and so these distinctions should be considered.
• AIMS OF ENQUIRY- Explain the nature of animal through the animal-human distinction from the perspective of Heidegger. Attempt to show that these theoretical accounts are unworthy of providing ethical formulations for the treatment of animals. Consider the idea of ethical reform in the works of Peter Singer.
• Use of primary data and analysis from Heidegger (The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics), Derrida (The Animal That Therefore I am) and Singer (Animal Liberation) as evidence for nature of human-animal distinction that leads to influence of ethical treatment of animals
Key Concepts
Stigma of mental illness in society – The effects this has on the modern day sufferers & the effect of the overall illness within society itself.
Mental Illness as a social construct – How it is seen to be created by social influences and what this means for the illness.
Public Conceptions of Mental Illness from historical and modern media influences.
Is there even such a thing as mental illness?
What is an illness of the mind?
Human Nature vs. Animal Nature
Does Instinct exist in Human beings? Are we as different from animals as we have been led to believe?
“If man has no instincts, all comparison with animals must be irrelevant.” – Midgley
Does EVIL exist in nature? Are humans in denial about the fact that they may well be the most dangerous beasts of them all? We have much to learn from the animal kingdom… Is wickedness an unavoidable element of human nature?
Mary Midgley (1919-) Beast and Man
W.H. Thorpe (19021986) Animal Nature and Human Nature
Sigmund Freud (18561939) The Ego and The Id
John Locke (1632-1704) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Can the notion of political legitimacy be effectively applied to the Sicilian Mafia? What defines a legitimate authority? Can the Mafia be seen as legitimate if the state is not? These concerns will be discussed within the parameters of two central points in Sicilian history; the Unification of Italy during the 1860’s and the Italian Fascist regime of the 1920’s, allowing for a comparison between the Sicilian Mafia organisation and Sicily’s governments.
Philosophy
MARX; is the state merely an illusion, disguising our real interests? I must have self-mastery in order to be free and rational; is the Mafia therefore legitimate?
RAWLS; There must be a publicly recognised universal and fair distribution of justice in a well-ordered, liberal society; does the Sicilian state achieve this?
The thought of HOBBES and ROUSSEAU regarding the definitions of ‘authority’ and ‘political legitimacy’ will be used as framework to the discussion.
Sources
Historical interpretations and genealogies; including Pantaleone’s The Mafia and Politics , Dickie’s Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia , and Duggan’s Fascism and the Mafia . Coppola’s The Godfather films were used for inspiration.
The aim of my project was to examine Post-Rock music and to answer the question ‘is post-rock a philosophically sound musical genre?
To answer this question I looked at the Aesthetic Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer using his work The World as Will and Idea primarily. I applied his thought to the music by a number of the bands from the Genre such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, 65daysofstatic, Explosions in the Sky, And So I Watch You From Afar, Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Slint among others.
I also looked at the social and cultural philosophy of Theodor Adorno found in his works Dialectic of Enlightenment and The Culture Industry. I applied this philosophy to the general attitude of the genre, a genre that tends to be antilabel, anti- capitalist and anti-corporate. I used a number of interviews with bands and also with the founders of Record labels who sign a number of post-rock bands such as Constellation Records.
‘Cause this music can put a human being in a trance like state and deprive it for the sneaking feeling of existing. ‘Cause music is bigger than words and wider than pictures. If someone said that Mogwai are the stars I would not object. If the stars had a sound it would sound like this. – Mogwai – Yes I am a Long Way From Home (Opening Monologue)
Since Sotheby’s auction house opened in 1744, the art market has grown and now sells pieces for millions of dollars every day. My project explores the societal and technological changes which have occurred throughout modernity to understand why paintings like The Scream were bought for over $119 million.
Commodity fetishism and the global art market
Using Marx’s exploration of capitalism I focused on what constitutes a commodity and how art has been fetishized. I then incorporated Vattimo’s use of telematics and globalised media to demonstrate capitalisms more recent developments; this enabled me to discuss the role paintings have played in a global billion dollar market. In contrast I also looked back to 15th century artists, to understand if art has become a commodity only with the advent of capitalism and technology.
Mechanical technology and mass production
I used Benjamin’s philosophy of mechanical reproducibility to highlight the importance of technological advancement, especially that of mass reproduction, in selling the image of a work enabling fame and exposure to a wider market.
I also looked to how these factors of the current market affected the minds and work of artists themselves using the philosophy of Andy Warhol, and the artwork of Damien Hurst, Warhol himself, and Julian Opie. All of these artists demonstrated the drive of a capitalist mind-set, have benefited from global exposure, and produce pieces using technology invented in a postmodern age such as laser printing and spinning. My goal was to ultimately demonstrate that the market has changed both the nature of the art which is produced and opened the art world up to everyone on a global scale.
Internally replicable model of the art market
Mass reproduction of famous classical/modern works (such as The Scream and No.1)
Original work becomes more valuable as its image and fame is spread over a global market (both sold for millions)
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