Category: Stage 3

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Identity on a Razor’s Edge: the Dialectic of Self-Hood in “Blade Runner”

A study in the dialectic existing between the master and the slave within the post-modern situation of Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie ‘Blade Runner’, in discussing the theories found within Hegel and Nietzsche.

In the fictional early 21st Century, mankind has developed technology to such an extent that artificial beings, replicants can now be produced; these are not to be employed for the emancipation and enlightenment of man, but as slaves. They are granted no freedom and are subject to death at the end of their service or upon their return to the birth place. They are the ultimate slave, and mankind has become the ultimate master.

Their very servitude grants these replicants an identity, which forms an aspect to the dialectic which constitutes mankind’s self-hood. Hegel informs us of the need for recognition in the formation of self-hood; the master requires the slave in order to be recognised as an individual, but relationship is unequal. The slave has a greater access to the needs to man and as a result grows in humaneness leading to the eventual overthrowing of the master. This process culminates in a replicant saving the life of the police ‘Blade Runner’ who has slaughtered his friends; the civilised slave has overcome the barbaric master.

The replicants and their motivation to overthrow the shackles of their servitude and forced deaths, act as an example of Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’, by which an individual affirms their existence by overcoming the obstacles which stand between him and autonomy. This occurs as throughout the movie, the replicants, the artificial human beings, show a greater degree of humaneness than the human masters.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Can We Ever Connect? An Investigation into the Relationship between the Human Being and the Natural World, with particular reference to Heidegger and the Akie Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania

The investigation aims to establish the relationship between human beings and their natural environment; contrasting the views of the Western world and the Akie hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Through an examination of the Akie lifestyle there is an attempt to understand the complex relationship they have with nature. Contrastingly there is a study into how the Western World considers nature, particularly in a society dominated by science and technology.

Heidegger’s original texts are referred to, along with ideas from Kierkegaard and Gadamer also. Several secondary sources and the BBC’s Tribe on the Akie (with Bruce Parry) will additionally be examined to develop a thorough understanding of the matter at hand.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Nietzsche made me do it!!!!

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German philosopher, notorious for his blistering eruptions on Christianity, moral conventions and contemporary modern society. Estranged from the outside world and in deep mental breakdown, Nietzsche left the world with an astounding legacy that would carry on to question and criticize traditional customs and morality long after his death. Nietzsche writings would have ramifications for more than a hundred years for how certain psychopathic criminals would distinguish and rationalize their crimes, and attribute their atrocities to the influence Nietzsche’s writing would have on them. However in every writers fan base there may be a misguided group of readers, this does not make the writer responsible for the misinterpretation and even less guilty of the perpetrators crimes. Nietzsche seems more than most writers to come under a lot of criticism and suspicion, this is partly to do with the content of his writing but also he seems to be attacked from another more biased angle, these are the people who want the mud to stick because Nietzsche seems to be threatening their value or belief system. One such writer who seems determined to tarnish the philosophers name is Katherine Ramsland, Ph. D. Graduate of the private, exclusive, Catholic DeSales University, established by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, who’s foundation for teaching are on the theology of the believed saint.

Ramslands writes an article which seems to be leaning in the direction of this bias view the title of her article was; “Existential Murder: The Nietzsche Syndrome” and within this article she claims that “Nietzsche inspired Hitler and other killers.” Within this project I will be investigating what Ramsland coined the “Nietzsche Syndrome” and looking at the killers which she suggests were influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy. I hope to prove that not only is Nietzsche misunderstood in many of his concepts but that he can actually be looked at from a positive angle, I also hope to show how Nietzsche’s work has been used for good. In my research I have also noticed that Ramsland has handpicked the murderers she uses, but in no way compares them to killers who have not used Nietzsche as an inspiration, failing to draw any comparisons and pinning down any common traits held by killers seems as though she is trying to strengthen the blame on Nietzsche without any real investigation, I hope to provide these comparisons and links, and hopefully vindicate the work of Nietzsche.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Leadership

The aim of this project is to explore different styles of leadership. To discuss the legitimacy, efficiency and value of different styles that are employed by leaders.

The theories of psychologist Daniel Goleman will be explored throughout this project as he clearly identifies six main styles of leadership: Coercive, Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Coaching. The different styles outlined by Goleman, will be legitimated against the arguments for legitimate authority laid out by Max Weber.

Christopher Hodgkinson’s work on leadership theory will have a major role in the discussion of Goleman’s leadership styles as Hodgkinson lays out his own leadership archetypes: The Careerist, The Politician, The Technician and The Poet.

In Goleman’s theory the ability to learn and develop leadership through growth and development is explored. This will be an interesting contrast to Hodgkinson’s ideas concerning The Poet archetype, an almost mystical character who weaves spells over his subordinates, a true charismatic leader.

Main sources:
Goleman. D Leadership that gets Results, Harvard Business Review, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2000

Hodgkinson. C, The Philosophy of Leadership, Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd, Oxford, 1983

Weber. M . The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. Henderson A.M, Parsons. T, Oxford University Press, New York, 1947

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Does Art Succeed where Language Fails? Art as the Vehicle for the Expression of Emotion

I aim to see why we as humans ever need to say such phrases and is it at this point that art comes to the fore.

I will use the following Philosophers:
Heidegger M. On the Way to Language. 1982. Harper Collins Basic Writings: Martin Heidegger. Ed. David Farrell Krell. 2010. Routledge.

Mugerauer R. Heidegger’s Language and Thinking. 1991. Humanities Press International.

Van der Heiden G-J. The Truth (and Untruth) of Language. 2010. Duquesne University Press.

Silverman D. and Torode B. The Material Word. 1980. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Derrida J. Writing and Difference. 2010. Routledge.

Derrida J. Of Grammatology. 1997. John Hopkins University Press.

Basic Writings: Jean-Paul Sartre. Ed. Stephen Priest. 2006. Routledge.

A Nietzsche Reader. Ed. Hollingdale R.J. 1977. Penguin Classics.

Gadamer H-G. Truth and Method. 2006. Continuum

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

[Facebook] Promoting Authenticity or Inauthenticity. What do you Think?

Heidegger: Facebook promotes authenticity by offering people the chance to assume responsibility over their identity and realise that they are in a ‘self-making-situation’.

Sartre: Facebook promotes authenticity by revealing that there is in fact a lack of identity when presenting a self due to the fact that one always has the freedom to choose to move beyond their current situation

Lyotard: Facebook promotes inauthenticity because individuals are no longer concerned with developing a sense of personal identity that is a true representation of them but only with developing an identity that will perform well within their social network in order to increase their social capital

Foucault: Facebook promotes inauthenticity because people are not concerned with developing an identity that is a true representation of them but only with conforming to a certain ideal of how a person ought to be in order to be accepted and not excluded by their social network

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

How Have the Concepts of Truth and Knowledge Developed Throughout History in Relation to Capitalism and Post Modernity?

Key thinkers:
Lyotard 
Foucault 
Gadamer 
Kuhn

Main texts used:
The Post Modern Condition 
Truth And Method 
The Scientific Revolution 
The Archaeology Of Knowledge

Other texts used:
The Philosophy Of Science 
Theology And Scientific Knowledge 
The Passion Of The Western Mind

I have used these texts and studied these thinkers in order to explore the concepts of truth and knowledge. Lyotard has given me an insight into the way science and technology function in the post modern condition and Kuhn has shown the alternative possibilities for the development of science. I have studied Foucault to understand the nature of power and how it relates to knowledge.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

The Problem of Authenticity in Postmodern Society

The aim of my project is to look at the influence of postmodern society and postmodern culture on our experience as authentic, autonomous selves. I hope to unearth something about the true nature of authenticity, if it indeed exists at all, and through the course of this investigation I also hope to obtain a better understanding of my own self. The main question I wish to resolve is: In this postmodern society can anyone really become an authentic individual and consider their experiences to be authentic? The foreseeable problems are centred on the condition of the postmodern world, which promotes inauthenticity. I shall be considering the views of Adorno: The Culture Industry; Heidegger: Being and Time; Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, whilst also investigating The Truman show.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Commodification: for Better or for Worse?

Are professional athletes alienated towards the original values that uphold sport?

Historically, sport had been used among other things as a means of building character, promoting the spirit of fair play, and even nation building. Now in our contemporary society, sport is budding into one of the most forceful business and entertainment franchises within our capitalist culture.

My aim: to investigate how the commodifications of sport (through cultural advancement) have altered and enhanced the social value of modern day athletes

Territory: There is perhaps no better illustration of the commodifications of professional sport than the advancements of European football. As a result, my project is particularly focused on investigating the commodifications and cultural advancements of sport within European Football

Methodology: I intend to discuss my topic of the commodifications of sport through a hermeneutical critique, engaging on the evolvement of professional sport that has led the 21st century athlete into becoming a ‘celebrity’ rather than purely a competitor. My discussion is centred upon two key philosophical theories involving the works of Karl Marx (theory of alienation) and Martin Heidegger (a question concerning technology)

The objective of my discussion is a critical dialogue in which I seek to outline the cultural changes that have caused this apparent transformation within our society, and hence altered the social value of professional athletes today. This project aims to prove that through capitalist commerce and exploitation, the business of sport and its athletes become alienated, and additionally have lost a relationship towards the original bounds that compile sports and competition.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

The Origin of Plagiarism (or Why Copying is Good)

In my project I intend to look at the historical genealogy of plagiarism and how it has come to be seen negatively in contemporary society. I will attempt at giving a counter argument to the negative nature of plagiarism.

In the first chapter I will begin by arguing that in pre-modern society copying and indeed imitation were promoted as being tools to preserve tradition, and as a way to intellectual enlightenment.

In the second chapter I will look at the way the invention of the printing press influenced society and made people more concerned with originality and plagiarism from perspectives of private property and authenticity.

In the third chapter I will argue that plagiarism as a concept has been invented and that everything anyone ever says or writes derives from something that has already occurred.

Some texts I have included in my work are: T.S.Eliot: The Sacred Wood, Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy, Sartre: Being and Nothingness, Kierkegaard: Repetition, Borges: Labyrinths, Aristotle: Poetics and Hegel: Elements of the philosophy of Right

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Can True Ethical Business Practice Exist in a Capitalist Society?

Aims:
To come to a conclusion whether a capitalist society is a breeding ground for unethical business practice.

What is capitalism?
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and profit is the incentive for motivation

Philosophers: Rawls and Marx
I shall investigate how Rawls and his ‘Theory of Justice’ can be applied to a system of capitalism. Also how Marx and his stance against a free market may or may not be correct.

Enron:
The case study of Enron will be my example of how the free market may give too much freedom to independent companies. It also shows how Marx to some extent is right, but furthermore how Rawls can be seen with the workings of this major meltdown.

Why Business?
I chose business and its ethics because I hope to further my knowledge in the field of accounting as this is the profession I one day hope to enter. Both Rawls and Marx have great influences on the decisions faced in this profession.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

How Are Franz Kafka’s Novels Ethical?

Aim: I aim to demonstrate how Blanchot’s ethics can be found within literature. Specifically, in Kafka’s work.

Philosophy: death of a subject is, ultimately, Blanchot’s ethics. It is instigated by the interruption of the ‘Il y a’. Here, all former values (everydayness) is replaced by those of the other (otherness). This motion is mimicked in literature, particularly in Kafka’s work. My project will assess why.

Anti-thesis: Is Kafka’s work symbolic (stubbornly independent) or allegorical (autobiographical)? That is, is Kafka himself present throughout his work?

I will argue that Kafka’s work is allegorical; he is everywhere in his work.

Blanchot’s Texts: Reading Kafka, Kafka and Literature, The Language of Fiction Literature and the Right to Death, Death Sentence.
Heidegger’s Texts: Why Poets?, On the Essence of Truth, The Origin of the Work of Art, Way to Language.
Kafka’s texts: The Trial, The Castle, Metamorphosis.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Are Holidays Part of Our Real Lives or an Escape into Unreality?

LOOKING AT NIETZSCHE AND HIS CRITQUE AGAINST THE `’REAL” AND “APPARENT” WORLD

IS THERE ONLY ONE WORLD? IF SO WHICH ONE ARE WE LIVING IN?

IS A HOLIDAY A FORM OF AN ILLUSION?

ARE WE BORN INTO A CULTURE OF ESCAPISM?

IN OUR ESCAPISM CAN WE STILL FIND TRUTH?

The Schopenhauerian man voluntarily takes upon himself the suffering involved in being truthful.’

The quote is bound up with Nietzsche’s view that most people don’t like seeing reality as it is, i.e. the one and only reality there is. People prefer all the illusions, which the apparent world gives us by way of hope that we will enter the real true world where everything will be alright; for example heaven or even on holidays.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

New World Order: Atheism in Religion, Anarchy in Politics and No Property in the Economic Sphere, Possible or Improbable?

Understanding NWO is a giant geo-cycle political picture. Things are happening with the use of subliminal indirect and reversed psychological propaganda Some say it is made to be confusing. It is theorised that the Illuminati, the ones who call themselves the enlightened ones, had gained positions of power; through means such as controlling the banking system.

The coined phase ‘New World Order’ is the term used to describe a unity of the world’s superpowers to rule, secure, and maintain the principle of “global peace.” The concept is to bring the world under submission to one supreme government, enforce one controlled common religion and one worldwide economic system. (The EU has already instituted this with the ‘Euro’ currency.) The common conspiracy theory about the New World Order is that there is secret power elite with a globalist agenda that is conspiring to eventually rule the world with an authoritarian government. Absolute Obedience. In actuality, it is a move towards a socialistic, controlled, and godless world.

Preliminarily, this dissertation is focused on the concept of emancipation and capitalism and how the New World Order is apparently attempting to overcome such issues. Involvement of the banking system and especially the role of power in relation to money has been considered as the state of the economic society can tell us a lot about the New World Order regime. It has referred predominately to the work of Karl Marx ‘father of communism’ and his work on Capitalism. Throughout this work on capitalism, the concept of religion and attack on society will come into play as the New World Order presents us with a new atheistic view on religion. The main material to be used and referred to throughout this dissertation is that by A. Ralph Epperson “The New World Order” and Marx’s “Capital and other writings”. Hegel also shows us the importance of his Dialectic theories in relation to the new World Order by presenting us with a thesis, antithesis and synthesis that can be applied to conflict throughout history.

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

True (?) Romance. How has the Ideal of Love Been Lost in Contemporary United Kingdom and What Are the Ramifications?

Current relationships are under strain due to the gap between fictional love (the ideal) and genuine love. Marriage and monogamy are the metanarrative structures and institutions of the ideal of love that are causing tension in love, requiring paramours to be more consistent than their identity allows for. As identity lacks an origin without the ideal, it becomes relative to the Other in a cyclical relationship that causes identity to be in constant flux. Without a stable base on which to love, the ideal can longer function.

Therefore if agents still want to love, then they must accept that each moment is unique and the only ground for love is the individual’s experience of the other in the Other. The essay is heavily influenced by the works of Jacques Derrida (Violence and Metaphysics), Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness) and Emmanuel Levinas (Totality and Infinity).

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

A Questionable Interpretation: a study into John Nash’s Game Theory, its reliance on a dubious interpretation of Adam Smith’s economic theory, and how it has been detrimental to competition in modern day economics

The aim, as such, of this writing is to examine the idea that there is a questionable interpretation underpinning modern economics and if it is attacked we are left with the notion that the economics we have is not the economics it should be. This is because the theory of capitalism that we have today is not exactly the one argued for, by its founder, Adam Smith. I also wish to show that we cannot go back to the more true form of capitalism however nor can we move to any other system because of the damage already done. This shall be hinted at by using some segments of Capital by Karl Marx.

The object which has driven me to examine such an idea that something has gone wrong in economics is the film A Beautiful Mind. I believe the portrayal of John Nash in this film is biased and unjustifiable as I believe his wrong interpretation of Smith may have led to an unending cycle of greed that will slowly pervert and consume any form of morality.

My territories of discussion are economics and the application of game theory and within this writing the concepts that I wish to discuss are: Nash equilibria, game theory and competition.

The thinkers and relevant sources that I shall use within this writing are:

Karl Marx – Capital
Adam Smith – Wealth of nations
John Nash – non-cooperative games and two person cooperative games (contained within issues of Econometrica, the economics journal)

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2011 Abstracts Stage 3

Social Luck versus Social Mobility. Is it OK to be Told the World isn’t Fair?

– Objective/Territory: The ‘American dream’: What is the ‘American dream’ and is it just a product or propaganda process of the capitalist society in which we live? 

– Sources: Karl Marx, Deleuze and Guattari, Charles Taylor and Adorno. 

– Project Outline: Leaving education and entering the ‘real world’ in a time where one’s ideals and ambitions are centred on seeking wealth; why is it that we think this way? I hold the belief that to succeed, it is about whom you know not necessarily what you know. So, I want to prove that wealth is down to social luck. My territory is society and culture and I am trying to show that our basic intuition (one gets what one deserves) is a herd mentality in order for a specific class to benefit. If we think everyone has what they deserve, then we don’t think that it could be redistributed.

Through a method of hermeneutics, I endeavour to seek why it is we think the way we do and why it is we desire wealth. E480

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Property Magazine: the Realities of the Market

Many would acknowledge, that in some form, the contemporary financial landscape is separated from what we would consider ‘reality’. The money which is exchanged within in the financial markets seems to have no grounding outside the markets in which it is exchanged. This edition looks at the problem and enquires to what extent this is a problem.

Capitalism. Can capitalism and the markets that work within be justified on moral grounds? A Property Week special report puts aside our intuitive moral assumptions and looks in greater depth at the concept of capitalism and the ethical dilemmas that arise out of this system.

Hyperreality. By commencing deregulation in the global financial institutions, have the governments of Thatcher and Reagan of the 1980s created a new economic domain of hyperreality? This edition looks at whether responsibility can be placed back into the financial markets.

Questioning the economic realities of the market with particular reference to the commercial property market

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

The Crisis of the Modern Subject

How has the pursuit of human knowledge brought about identity crises in the modern world? What is at stake when chasing ‘Space and Time’ eclipses the integrity of ‘Place’, for ‘where’ do we find ourselves? Does ‘architectural’ modification of our human environment respond to a need to cohere fragmented ‘place’? Will we never stop trying to pick up the ‘pieces’? Or are we beginning to appreciate that the fragmentation of experience characteristic of the contemporary, is something to which we always already belong. And to belong to an identity and a place, will not be found in ‘coherence’, but in our throwing ourselves headlong into the experience of fragmentation, as an affirmation of the accidental and random unfolding consequences that narrate each person into an unrepeatable individual existent. Is that affirmation, not ‘Place’…

Cavarero – Arendt – Harvey – Casey – Heidegger

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Is a Capitalist Society the Best Form for Individual Choice?

What kind of dining set defines me as a person? – Fight Club, 1999. This quote from the American film Fight club, and various advertisements by IKEA makes one beg the question, do these systems of consumerism really provide the individual with freedom, or do they somehow take it away?

Hegel argues that civil society is the best form for which we can express our individuality and satisfy our particular needs and desires, he argues that the more needs and desires one has the freer they become because they can’t be so easily defined.

Sartre thinks that consumerism in modern society is detrimental to individual freedom, that although one may believe in free choice, corporations such as IKEA cause a person to lose their individual identity instead taking on an identity believed by society to be more suitable – one is no longer simply furnishing a room, but defining oneself as a person.