Tag: Schopenhauer

Categories
2021 Abstracts Stage 2

I Will to Survive: Self-preservation and its practical application

I Will Survive: Self-preservation and its practical application

Self-Preservation is a force endowed to all organic beings. Its innate nature means it is inescapable, leading to it being a definite presence among action in the world. As a concept it has been subject to interpretations, and my own will supplemented by Schopenhauer, Nietzche and Darwinism. Within the project I will attempt to offer a comprehensive story of the practical application, to understand how the will developed and changed in its environment. Within the project I wrestled with questions such as:

“Who runs the world?”

“Why did modern countries develop the way they did?”

“How do we fix societies for the better”?

My analysis began with ancient history, where self-preservation showcased itself in establishing systems of hierarchy as extension of the will’s desire to dominate. Following on from this I focused on Western society and how self-preservation inspired the actions of imperialism. Next, I explained how self-preservation transitioned into neo-liberalism as well as the resulting disguise from the new environment. Finally, I presented potential solutions to the harmful effects of self-perseveration that I encountered within the project.

Categories
2012 Abstracts Stage 2

Should Drum and Bass Be Valued as Art?

To determine whether or not drum and bass is a legitimate art form I have looked at the publications of four men; two philosophers and two artists.

Schopenhaur – Music is a representation of the will. Good music accurately depicts the will.

Adorno – music is good insofar as it is innovative and revolts against the bourgeoisie culture industry.

Goldie – Don’t think about art just enjoy it!

Wilde – Art Is good insofar as it is beautiful – as simple as that.

Categories
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.

Categories
2009 Abstracts Stage 2

Advertising. A Study into the Causes and Consequences of Advertising with Reference to Bataille and Schopenhauer

Advertising and consumerism is undeniably significant in modern society and this study takes an alternative philosophical approach towards the issue as well as considering modern thinkers that have discussed the medium previously.
Schopenhauer argued that an individual is controlled by their will and this leads them to live a life of dissatisfaction and suffering. This study shows that advertising does not produce this suffering but intensifies negative feelings because it forces desires on individuals. Schopenhauer argues that to discover metaphysical truth is a temporary release from this cycle and so this study also considers its applicability to contemporary society. The texts used will be ‘The World as Will and Representation volume I and II’.
Bataille considers how a homogenous society seeks to remove unproductive elements from this sphere but I argue that because modern society is dominated by capitalism and homogeneity, it seeks to remove unproductive behaviour from all of society. This study then examines how advertising could be used as a tool to remove unproductive or heterogeneous behaviour by shaping our desires. The negative consequence is that heterogeneous behaviour is inseparable from productive behaviour. This insight is taken from a collection of essays by Bataille.

Categories
2009 Abstracts Stage 3

Is Popular Music a Means to an End, or a Good in Itself?

Object – Popular music. • I shall study Schopenhauer in order to establish how ideas concerning music have changed over time. • For Schopenhauer music is a good, an end in itself. • Music is set aside from all the other art forms, it does not simply manifest the ideas of the will but is a direct expression of the will. • Music is the key to suspending will for a moment through an aesthetic break from everyday pain. Adorno. • Popular music is an instrument for another good instead of an end in itself. • The function of the culture industry is ultimately to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation has organised work time. • Customers of musical entertainment are themselves objects of the same mechanisms which determine the production of popular music. Their spare time serves only to reproduce their working capacity. • Work leads to mass culture and mass culture leads back to work. Popular music is standardized, and in order to conceal this standardization, the music industry engages in pseudo individualisation. Thus listeners are kept inline by making them forget that what they listen to is already pre digested. Problems with Adorno. Popular music has changed a lot since Adorno who was writing in 1941. Is it still as monolithic as he would have us believe? Does pseudo individualisation really explain things like the advent of rock and roll in 1956, the emergence of The Beatles in 1962 or punk rock in 1976? Popular music from Adorno onwards. Rock and roll as religion – a good in itself. Robert Pielke suggests that rock and roll is most properly understood as a religion that has created a transformation in culture. He compares the 6 characteristics of a religious experience presented by Rudolf Otto with feelings generated from listening to rock and roll or attending a concert. Charles Pressler and Derrida’s outline of ‘The Colossal’ The awe-inspiring concept that rock and roll presents is ‘the colossal’. The presentation of ‘the colossal’ is like an enabling energy that allows a new set of values to be taken onboard by the rock and roll audience.