Best mail time so far and other general things!

Here I am keeping to my promise of blogging about things other than work, exciting right?

So it was my grandma's (known to me as gram-gram) birthday on October 13th, so I obviously gave her a call. I believe that I may have joking said to her down the phone that I would love to have some birthday cake posted to me or something like that, (cause I have always wanted to do that), then I get a text a week ago from my gram-gram saying that she's sent me something in the post, I had no idea what to expect but at the time I had no email from any of the mail places! Full on gutted. So Tuesday 25th rolls around and I get an email to collect a message, but unfortunately I looked at my emails well after the place closed - so I had to wait another whole day for mail time! I was determined to get my mail on Wednesday so after checking the opening and closing times specifically in the email; I set off at about 2 to the Dytche to get my much anticipated mail to find that... it was closed.

Not gonna lie, I was borderline suicide now! But don’t worry guys; this story has a happy ending. That brings us to today, Thursday 27th, I wake up and stride purposefully down to collect my mail. After finally getting hold of it I decide that I would enjoy the surprise a lot more in the comfort of my room. I get back to my room, open the parcel to find a bright red box. When I open it im so beyond amazed to find a, can you guess? That’s right, a slice of birthday cake. Boom. So happy right now.

What's more amazing is the fact that it wasn’t even stale in the slightest! It managed to keep very well in that box, so yeah this is by far the best mail time I’ve had! Just thought I’d share it with you guys.

Yesterday us journalist students received the greatest news ever - we didn’t have any lectures what so ever today, which is just a thing of beauty! I needed this extra day off to A) recover and B) catch up on blogging and just life in general. But yeah, I’ve sufficiently managed to use this day for blogging and practising my shorthand for our speed test tomorrow, (which I’m severely dreading). I think that I’ve run out of things to say right now, but be sure to keep checking my blog for anything new and so on.

Thanks for stopping by, Winchester x

blogging catch up - law lecture 4 Qualified privaledge

This blog post is mostly to consolidate my understanding of QP from our lectures and the reading from McNaes. Unfortunately it seems to be work that is taking precedence in my blog lately! I don’t know how this happened but im gonna have to start blogging about "fun" things again; I know all my avid readers will love this news... awkward. I'll always remember this lecture as what I like to call the time that Chris Horrie pulled a phone off the wall. So! Here are my late law notes!

So the main thing I learned that lesson was that anyone who is on TV is instantly news worthy. Joking, but it’s one of many amazing anecdotes that Chris comes out with - using the example of Adele referring to herself as: "common as muck". 

• Justification - the true facts that we can prove
• Fair Comment - we can defend ourselves on the basis that what we have said is truly what we believe
• Qualified Privilege - If it has been said in court that someone is a thief, we are allowed to call them so.

Qualified privilege in common law rests on the case of Toogood v Spiring. Spiring accused his butler, Toogood, of stealing his silvers and other precious items and then wrote a bad reference and had to tell the truth in this reference, (very much like a tutor writing a reference for a student), even if it is defamatory. But there would be the protection of qualified privilege, only if the reference is without malice, and if it were fast, accurate and fair.

Reynolds v Times Newspapers: This is a UK legal case in the House of Lords which is related to qualified privilege for publication of defamatory statements when it comes to the defence of "in the public interest". This then came up with the term: "the Reynolds defence", which is the idea that a journalist can publish an article out of a sense of duty to his fellow man to inform people of something, even if the claim turns out to be wrong.

The Times claimed that Albert Reynolds (Irish PM) deceived the Irish parliament so he could cover up a child abuse scandal. The Times said it believed the allegations were true, Reynolds then challenged them saying they couldn’t prove anything because, as per, there were no witnesses.

The case then went into the Higher Courts. The judges thought the Times newspaper had a civic duty to the people to publish the allegations, as they were serious offences and allegations. This was very much in the public interest and it was of a key importance that that they be discussed. At this time, the Human Rights Act was then newly introduced bringing with it freedom of expression. This extends to things that people do in the public life and has no hold over what people do in the private sphere of life.

The Ten-Point Test: This refers to people trying to use the Reynolds defence in court, it claims that your argument has to meet 10 criteria to be entitled to the Reynolds defence. Lord Nicholls emphasised a ‘duty to publish’ if the newspaper or a reporter thought he/she knew there was anything wrong. Lord Nicholls came up with these 10 criteria: 

1. The seriousness of the allegation. The more serious the charge, the more the public is misinformed and the individual harmed, if the allegation is not true.
2. The nature of the information, and the extent to which the subject-matter is a matter of public concern.
3. The source of the information. Some informants have no direct knowledge of the events - people might be lying out of spite and so on.
4. The steps taken to verify the information.
5. The status of the information. The allegation may have already been the subject of an investigation.
6. The urgency of the matter
7. Whether comment was sought from the plaintiff. He may have information others do not possess or have not disclosed.
8. Whether the article contained the gist of the plaintiff's side of the story.
9. The tone of the article. A newspaper can raise queries or call for an investigation.
10. The circumstances of the publication

Bye and stuff x

Radio Draft

After being asked to write about something for people to actually listen to me talking about and not just read it, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about one of the things I’m fairly certain I know a lot about – this happens to be Pokémon, shocking right?

When I mention Pokémon, I assume all of you listening will instantly think about making the toughest decision of your life as a child, in the old game boy games at least – do you pick Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle? It does take a long time to figure out which Pokémon you want because it’ll be with you for the whole game. For me however, this always ends the same way – picking Charmander. Then you’re enthralled with starting off your very own Pokémon adventure, ranging from beating up your rival, doing chores for Professor Oak and then eventually getting down to catching all the Pokémon and on the road to be a Pokémon master.

So the idea is to catch them all, this has been drilled into the heads of children who had what I like to call, a “complete” childhood as it is the theme song to the season one of Pokémon. Sounds simple enough right? Just go round beating up wild Pokémon and throwing balls at them to catch them. You’d think this would be an easy job when there are only 151 Pokémon, right? Wrong. The producers thought it would be great to add a million more Pokémon to the equation, making it pretty much impossible to keep track of the number of Pokémon, I personally get confused after 151. I mean, why change it? My best memories of playing the Pokémon games and watching the TV series were of starting out in Pallet town, seeing our hero who we all know and love, Ash Ketchum getting his first ever Pokémon, his famous Pikachu. 

So yeah, from this there are many adventures – everyone has to remember the emotional rollercoaster episode of Ash first obtaining his Charmander. There Charmander is, abandoned out in a storm with his tail, once proud and aflame, slowly dimming because of the treacherous storm. That is until Ash hears of an abandoned Charmander in the rain and instantly takes it upon himself to save this lost and afraid Pokémon, people around the world will remember this episode and it really embodies the love that our hero has for Pokémon and what they mean to him, in turn this Charmander wholeheartedly trusts Ash and agrees to go with him – rejecting his old trainer who left him in the storm. It’s episodes like these that I recall when I talk about Pokémon, not the newest episodes that have all kinds of different Pokémon involved in them - they just tend to sound silly to me.

As the years have progressed, Pokémon progressed with them leaving behind the old and, in my opinion, favourable “generation I” Pokémon and replaced them, essentially, with new kinds of Pokémon which I feel don’t measure up to the original. This process has been going on for many years now – the new Pokémon that are brought in are known as different generations, so it goes from Generation I to Generation V so far. I tried to watch one of the new Pokémon seasons and after seeing the starter Pokémon are called things like “Oshawatt”, I don’t even know what this is, but it’s blue and like the size of a small rock, I was disgusted that it was not the amazing Pokémon that we all know and love such as Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur, im fairly certain that the producers must be running out of ideas of new Pokémon until they eventually bring it all back to the amazing days of generation I. 

One thing that hasn’t changed through the years is, of course, the endeavours of the evil Team Rocket and their constant ingenious, but ultimately futile, attempts to try and steal Pokémon to appease their malevolent boss and leader of Team Rocket. Team Rocket is in every single episode as far as I know and they managed to sing their official theme tune to, foolishly, alert our heroes of their presence and even their intent in every single episode! These guys are a classic signature of Pokémon that I hope will never change, I mean who doesn't want to see Jessie, James and Meowth blast off again? Anyway, I believe that I’ve rambled sufficiently to bore you all, sorry about that! Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s broadcast.

I’m Jack Webb and thanks for stopping by, Winchester.

Just for fun... (I got very bored)

So I’ve been looking through my blog and it occurred to me that the majority of my posts recently have been all about work and no-one wants to read about it! So I thought I’d break from this trend and post about anything that I can think about (yes, instead of doing my radio piece and yes instead of my law notes *sad face*)

As I’ve made clear to many people recently, weekends are my days off from drinking and are days for doing nothing and just relaxing. So this weekend I’ve stuck to that and not done anything; I’ve got to tell you, it feels phenomenal. Not having to worry about spending my money, albeit it well, on alcohol is a great feeling - especially since I’m running out of money at an alarming speed :( something im not proud of. Maybe it’s down to the fact that the second I got my student loan the money pretty much went straight to my head! Then when the money for housing comes out of my account it’s like kapow. I'm now broke. But don’t worry, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can just like not eat for a few weeks (more like months) and it'll all be just fine... probably.

Devastated to learn on Friday that it was our last precision English lesson! Without the lessons I’d have saved like a whole tree going by the number of sheets we were given and how much I actually wrote! Sorry about that one nature. But it was needed so that I could finally learn how to spell the word Haemorrhage (yeah, its totes right). On the topic of precision English, I’d like to point out that im in fact procrastinating and not prevaricating, thanks Annette. When I think about it, Precision English gave me a chance to show off my "amazing" artistic skills, especially when it comes to decorating a certain "Sun vs. Guardian" sheet, the people in the amazing group of ours (you know who you are and im sorry that you'll never be as good as drawing as me. I've also got to give Ellen a mention for teaching me how to draw stars!) Will know what I’m talking about; along with the fact that you should never recycle robots (totes children’s toys). This "what not to recycle" poster is quite possibly the most informing thing to have on a wall. I'm also fairly certain that a Mr. Horatio Smith knows that you're not supposed to recycle robots (like the mention Tammy?), or maybe it’s just limited to robot fish in his case... yeah, I brought up Horatio, it was really Snow problem ;)

Yet more procrastination to come - instead of again doing work and being studious I managed to end up doing my ironing (what the hell) and tidying up my room... im not doing well it would seem! Yeah so after I tidied my room I took a picture of it, just to prove that my room is capable of being cleaned:

Just, A) ignore Henry's feet and B) don't look at my room in like a day’s time, because it will be horribly messy again, it happens and I just don’t know how.

Another thing I did tonight was rearrange the stuff on my pin board; it’s got some amazing stuff on it now and looks so much better! Going with the trend of posting a picture above I feel I need to add another one:

So yeah, this is my catching up of not blogging about random stuff for ages - enjoy and so on.
Bye and stuff, but mostly stay classy x

What makes a good journalist?

Me... I'm totally kind of joking... Hmm, interesting thought really, but from what i've learned so far, a good journalist has to be accurate, fast and truthful! The truth is pretty much the best thing a journalist can use because, well, as Chris has told us, the truth is by far our best defence, so we might as well stick to things that are true. This will decrease our chances, as a journalist, of being sued by like a million (more like 99) percent. Journalists should never jump to conclusions! this is tied in with the view that journalists should always be sceptical of every situation and never take anything at face value. What's more, journalists should know the law inside and out; there are many cases of journalists being sued because they've not obeyed the law when it comes to their reporting.

Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and the social contract

Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke: This lecture really takes me back to my politics days, which I still have nightmares about... Hobbes and Locke were two key thinkers that we covered in our Politics A level so the lecture was helpful as it consolidated my knowledge of them and brought in Machiavelli whom I had not studied previously unless you count the reading from good old Bertrand that we did. So it was all good times in this lecture, despite how hung-over / tired / ill I was. Anyway, let’s get down with the trumpets... I mean notes!

The ideas put forward by these thinkers that I’m going to cover are collectively known as "Social Contract Theorist". By that they mean that when we're born into society we instantly "sign" this social contract which is an agreement between you and the state, by surrendering some of your freedom the state promises to take care of you and you must obey the laws placed by the state and respect democracy. 

Thomas Hobbes and his Social Contract Theory: Hobbes first mentioned the social contract theory in this world famous book entitled "The Leviathan" as I mentioned up there, *points to the above paragraph* this is a contract between citizens and the state. The Social Contract Theory in its earliest form was in fact touched upon by Socrates (top lad). 

The whole idea was that when Socrates was sentenced to death by a court he was offered many ways to escape by his pupil Plato and other students but Socrates refused to run away from his fate on the grounds that he had respect for the laws of Athens and Democracy - the city of Athens provided for him and therefore he could not undermine the city of Athens that has brought him up. 

The idea is that by breaking from jail and running away he would be "destroying Athens", what he means essentially, is that "what if everyone did it" the city would be undermined and there would be no law. Wow, I digress! This is supposed to be about Hobbes.

So yeah, Hobbes believed that before the social contract theory came into play societies lived in a "state of nature" remember this because it’s kind of a big deal. The State of Nature depends on the thinkers view of Human Nature, so therefore in Hobbes view, as he believed that humans were naturally aggressive and were constantly looking for power and so on that during this state of nature it would be, what he referred to in "The Leviathan" as:

"Bellum omnium in omnes" The original Latin quote which translates into "A war of all against all" - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.

This is a widely known and famous quote from Hobbes and explains his bleak views on human nature, someone sounds Conservative... Another famous quote from the Leviathan is that life in general (according to Hobbes) is...

"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" - Thomas Hobbes

 My old politics teacher constantly drilled this into our heads, im' sure he'd be proud of me for bringing it up in my blog, totes for you Mr. McMahon. So yeah, from this idea put forward by Hobbes he then obviously believes that to stop this war of all against all you must bring in a sovereign state. This is idea of bringing peace by force, to an extent; citizens must willingly surrender some liberty to this sovereign power so that the power (state) can look after citizens - this is the social contract! Cool stuff...

The main things to note here is that:

• This is not the same as a dictatorship!
• You may depose of this power if they have failed to successfully and efficiently provide security to citizens, the people can revolt and bring in a new power - somewhat condoning revolution - this is where it differs from a dictatorship
• Hobbes states that there are limits in place on the ruler - as explained above you can depose and you are allowed to defend yourself

 John Locke - Treatises of Government and the Social Contract Theory

John Locke is widely known as the Father of Liberalism (left wing ideology), He was an English philosopher regarded as one of the most influential of "Enlightenment" thinkers.

First Treatise:

• We are born knowing nothing, there is no such thing as 'innate knowledge' and therefore believed that we gain knowledge through experience
• He despised the idea of the 'Divine Right of Kings' (known as his First Treatise from "Two Treatises of Government") he believed that the so-called Divine Right of Kings would eventually be the downfall of all governments

Second Treatise:

• This is Locke's views on the State of Nature - again it depends on the thinkers views on human nature; as Locke is a Liberal he would have a very optimistic view on human nature and therefore believes that the state of nature would be a peaceful time of everyone living together naturally co-operating - but there is still need for a state
• Laws of Nature = moral laws which every man knew through intuition, people always know the difference between right and wrong
• He claims that there is a need for a state and a stable government - which he calls a government by consent. the government will have limited powers, limited by the law specifically, for example the protection of property from the government
• People are born with natural rights - most important would be the right to revolution if the state no longer follows the law and turns into a tyranny

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Social Contract: Rousseau is another key thinker when it comes to the social contract and more importantly the state of nature. Rousseau goes one massive step further than Locke in his view of human nature - he believed that the state of nature would be a period of pure bliss and that any way of intervening would upset this peace, for example issuing laws and so on. He believed basically that it would be a Utopian society, living and co-operating together as he thought people were naturally co-operative. This links into the idea of the "General Will"

The General Will: For you sociologists out there it’s basically a general consensus of all the people. The General Will means all the people agree on something, is it therefore the general will - this means that what the people agree on is now the law and by following the law you will become free (so deep, just got chills)

Now the lecture goes onto the back-story on Plato and all about his forms and the idea of the Cave. I've covered this in my reading and I'm fairly confident that I get the gist of it and I believe that I can sum it up through the amazing lyrics from, wait for it, are you ready? Almost there! That’s a right a Pokemon intro song. Kapow and such. Bear in mind I'm going by the link that when you step out of the cave you then become enlightened and therefore:

"It's a whole new world we live in

It's a whole new way to see
It's a whole new place
with a brand new attitude" - Some dude with a heavenly voice.

Niccolo Machiavelli: Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher and humanist whose writing was done during the Renaissance. He is seen as one of the main thinkers of modern political science - he was also a diplomat and a political philosophy. He is most famous for writing the book on basically how to be the most bad-ass Prince in the world, called "The Prince". It was all about being tactful, it teaches maxims concerning politics, and it tends to concentrate on a "new prince". This then goes on to tell the new prince that in order to keep power he must stabilize his new-found power in order to build a stable political structure without changing the original order of things too much!

Well! That’s certainly a lot to think about - so pleased I managed to get this blogged up before its past 12:00 and that would mean its Sunday. Keep reading folks and perhaps offer some feedback? Kthnxbai.

Bye and stuff x

Law Lecture 3 - Defamation, Libel and Slander

Defamation, Libel and Slander: From what I've seen of other people’s notes on the lecture, the reading covered all of it! Beautiful! So here are the law notes for...

Defamation: Defamation is the act of injuring someone’s name or reputation. This is a 'civil' issue and is therefore between two parties and this is because that the persons reputation (street cred) is their property and to damage a reputation is to break the law. For example, Chris' rep is the Number 1 educator for journalism in the UK and Winchester bad-man, anyone to say otherwise would be accountable for defamation. When it comes to defamatory cases, the person suing only has to show a jury that on the Balance of probability the comment could affect their reputation - they don’t exactly need to prove anything.

Libel: Libel is a defamatory statement which is published in a permanent form and identifies a single person, for example in a newspaper. Libel = identification of someone + publication (online or in a newspaper etc) + defamation. By doing this you expose yourself to inciting hatred and contempt. This also causes the person being defamed to be shunned by the public or avoided altogether. It discredits them in their certain profession or business and this generally lowers them in the eyes of the law-abiding citizens of society. So basically, it’s a dick move if you get it wrong! this can affect their chances of being hired and so on as it will, as stated, ruin their reputation

There are defences that people can use to get themselves out of a libel or defamation charge, for example:

1) Justification - It is true and it can actually be proved (YES the truth, as I have mentioned, is the very best defence!)

2) Fair Comment - this is basically your own honest opinion, this is what I referred to as the double rainbow for journalists if I’m not mistaken! But then it could be argued that "what if your honest opinion changes?" well then you know, you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot - also referred to as Malice; this is saying something you don't believe to be true.

Well that should about cover it, I know I said that I wouldn't let it go too long without another blog post... thing about that is I might have lost track of the days or I might have been lying. Can't be sure! But now im actually gonna try and get on with this blogging business!
Stay classy, Winchester x

Law Lecture 2 - very very very late!

So there I am this weekend, filled with the intent to listen to radio 4, but then it dawned on me that the word "morning" doesn't exist when it comes to the weekend - talk about falling at the first hurdle! /sigh. Maybe I’ll be far more successful with my trip to Winchester Crown Court! What was looking for is an opening, a sentencing or a summing up by the judge - either way it sounds genuinely interesting. Anyway! Down to the notes!

During this lecture we've been told about something which is as amazing as a double rainbow - this is "Qualified Privilege" this means that you cannot be sued for what you say! Frankly, that sounds like the best thing ever, us journos must be in love with this, I know I am!

In any case, I have a feeling this is gonna be a very short blog post! This is because I believe I’ve mentioned most of the lectures key points in my older blog posts! This was also covered in the reading I’ve been doing.

Key Notes:

• Presumption of innocence "beyond all reasonable doubt"
• Magistrates court = Minor Cases
• Crown Courts = Major Cases
• Cases can be done in private - for example rape cases and cases that cover particularly sensitive issues are usually not made public
• Evidence based justice - this is the right to have the evidence given in a case tested by the jury; this is held up by a source of the UK constitution known as the Magna Carta.

Criminal Court: The Jury must give verdicts based on evidence given. There is no jury in a magistrates court, a Jury is only present in Crown court. While the Jury are involved in a case, they have to go through a media blackout. Which means that they must not watch the news, read newspapers, go online in anyway. This is because people writing articles on the case will condemn someone before the jury has reached a verdict - this is going to affect how the jury will vote if they've seen that people believe someone to be guilty or not.

High Court: "You can always judge how much trouble you're in depending on the length of the wigs" - Chris Horrie. Barristers are the ones who talk in the High courts - judges essentially act as arbiters in the high court - insofar as they decide on literally everything in a case. Such as: the evidence that can and can’t be put forward, to keep the court on track and not get distracted and, among others, once the jury has reached a verdict the Judge is the one that gives out the sentence - just tells to jury to go home.

Crown Court: Indictable cases are done by magistrates and this court hears appeals. If you've been charged with, for example, a fine for not having a parking ticket or something then you can, instead of paying the fine, appeal to have the case taken to a crown court - this is very time consuming.

Contempt of Court & Strict Liability: Contempt of court is a strict liability offence. 

Contempt of court = impeding the courts justice in anyway, for example shouting out from the "audience" or trying to sway the jury. Or as Chris put it, giving the death stare to a member of the jury saying "if you say guilty, I'm gonna get you". Strict Liability = you cannot use the defence "I didn't mean to" you have no excuse to get you out of a strict liability offence, such as drink driving.

Prejudice: Very important concept in Law, with people MUST NOT DO. It literally means to "pre-judge “something - so basically don’t jump to conclusion! Otherwise people will feel they are guilty before trail. A prime example of this would be the Joanna Yates case the media instantly targeted and pre-judged a man who basically looked "creepy" and probably was the guy who did it based on their appearance. Prejudice is pretty much Green Kryptonite, as in it makes Superman die *sad face* so it therefore kills court cases. So don’t do it yeah?

So yeah, thanks for reading! I’ll blog sometime soon and not let myself go this long without blogging ever again, promise... kinda :)

Bye and stuff x

History of Western Philosophy - Book one Seminar paper

Well after what seems like years and years of reading I’ve managed to get through the whole of book one in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, just in time too! Basically the whole of book one is split up into three parts; ranging from "The Pre-Socratics", "Socrates, Plato and Aristotle" and finally "Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle". Anyway! I'm going to note now that I’ve found it better to talk about them all in relation to each other! So, let’s get down to business and start off with...

 Part I: The Pre-Socratics: The people known as the pre-Socratics are from the city of Miletus in the region of Ionia. They are called so because they are the philosophical thinkers before Socrates, which formulated the basis of knowledge for future thinkers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These people who are part of the pre-Socratics basically 'invented' philosophy which has come to be known as a 'love of wisdom'. Around about 600 BC the Milesian thinkers essentially discovered the process of speculation and dove right in and asked "what exists?" 

Here is where we come to our first key name, Thales. Thales seems to be the first known Greek philosopher, scientist and mathematician. He decided that all things in the universe were made up of water; this is particularly shocking to the people of the time as he didn’t account the "Gods" into any speculation as to how the universe was created. Importantly, he is known for never actually put any of his ideas down into writing or simply that any writings of him have long been forgotten or destroyed. Thales' main claim to fame, as it were, is down to the fact that he managed to predict when a solar eclipse would occur in 585 BC. It is widely speculated that he was actually the teacher of Anaximander.

This brings us to the next key name, Anaximander. He was another Milesian thinker but he actually rejected Thales, and argued instead about something called "the Boundless" as the source of all things. Anaximander's main theory was that the universe was not solely born from water and so on but it was a culmination of all the elements. He stated that the cold and wet condensed to form the earth. Then the heat and dryness formed the moon, sun and stars. The heat from the fire (the sun) dried the earth and then in turn shrank the seas. A very fascinating theory and he is noted for expressing a more plausible explanation for the origin of the natural world. Anaximander was discredited by Aristotle; according to Aristotle, Anaximander did not explain what he meant by “the Boundless".

Thales and Anaximander were more concerned with the "matter" of things. Pythagoras was said to be a disciple of Anaximander. He decided to try and find the nature of things through the workings of mathematics and geometry. The Pythagoreans (people who followed Pythagoras), discovered that musical scales could be explained through mathematics and that from this you can link it directly to the universe. Pythagoras decided to focus on "form" and not "matter" - leading from sense perception towards maths. Pythagoras even dabbled in creating his own religion and had his own followers

Parmenides, as his named suggests, 'pared' everyone off and questioned the views of the Ionian thinkers - believing that all things came from one substance. Parmenides thought to apply 'logic' to the arguments of the Pythagoreans. He is the seen as the chief thinker of the Eleatic philosophy. He is mostly seen as a follower of Xenophanes and Parmenides historically wrote after Heraclitus and directly opposed his ideas. Top effort.

This leads us to Heraclitus! This guy, whose name is totally Hercules... is actually the most important of all the Pre-Socratic thinkers; he is usually referred to as "the weeping philosopher" as he has a pessimistic view of human nature. Heraclitus wrote "On Nature". While Pythagoreans had emphasized harmony, Heraclitus suggested life was maintained by a tension of opposites, fighting a continuous battle in which neither side could dominate. Heraclitus came up with the idea of universal "Flux" and the unity opposites

'You cannot step twice in the same river'

Part II: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle: Socrates, quite possibly the most intellectual Athenian ever, like seriously this guy knows his stuff. He was the teacher of Aristotle (when he was about 60 years old). Socrates served in Peloponnesian Wars and many stories of him were told. Due to his love for thinking and philosophy he forgot about all other things and eventually began to live in poverty. He was unfortunately accused of impiety (not being religious) and put on trial because of it. He was later deemed guilty and sentenced to death, which is a massive shame! Good job guys, way to kill off like the smartest guy ever.

Plato is known as the best student of Socrates. Pretty much the majority of information we know about Socrates comes from Plato, as he was his most famous and prestigious student. Plato's greatest work is in "The Republic" This piece of work has often been seen as Plato's plans for a future utopian society. The Republic covers topics such as the nature of justice, statesmanship, ethics and the nature of politics. Plato discusses in The Republic topics such as what is knowledge? As in what is actually known, how do we know that things are actually true and finally what makes a thing, the actual thing?

Aristotle, yet again with more linkage, was the student of Plato. Again, he was Plato’s most valued and intellectual students. Unfortunately, Aristotle was also charged with impiety, however unlike Socrates, Aristotle decided to absolutely do one and bail on the whole court case thing.  Aristotle pretty much knew a great deal about nearly everything. He talks about Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, Physics and Logic. However, the one subject Aristotle didn’t get was mathematics. Plato, on the other hand, was a master of geometry. Plato and Aristotle constantly argued and Plato suggested that man was born with knowledge, Aristotle claims knowledge comes from experience. Aristotle argued that that there were Forms and Absolutes, but that they resided in the thing itself. When it comes to, for example, our experience with cats, we can deduce the essence of "catness".

Part III: Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle: Stoicism states that only Zeus, enjoys actually full on immortality, while the rest of the other Gods, who are totally lesser, (burn), are created at the starting cosmic cycle, but then joined with Zeus. In terms of the afterlife, it was commonly believed that if people were to I’ve virtuous and just lives they would die and be rewarded with the same immortality as the Gods. 

The Epicureans incorporated the soul and death into their ethical beliefs and how it affected their afterlife. However contrasting to Platonic ideas of death with rewards, mortality was instead the reward. They state that the fear of death is the main thing that plagues the human race, not death itself. The fear of death drives people to deal with their lives in a very fatalistic way. 

‘The correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes our mortality enjoyable, not by adding infinite time, but by taking away the yearning for immortality’ - Epicurus

After the Hellenistic period, philosophy once again fell under the sway of Plato and Aristotle, and old issues were revived. People began to believe again in Aristotle’s psychology - which states that no part or aspect of the individual human soul is immortal; this then went onto influence Christianity. 

So there you have it, I realise that I have missed things out - such as the Spartans and their amazing military forces, their egalitarian states and democracy. I hope (pray) this is sufficient; it’s in as note form as I can possibly go! 

Bye and stuff x

Greek Civilisation, The Dark Ages and Plato and Aristotle

Greek Civilisations: So this was quite possibly the most interesting lecture I’ve had so far, mostly because I'm highly intrigued by the Greeks - basically, the ancient Greeks knew where it was all at. Another little snippet from my old politics lessons taught me that the first forms of democracy came from ancient Greek civilisation. It was a very crude form of democracy what is commonly known as direct democracy - direct democracy is one of two forms of democracy and it entails the members of the civilisations grouping together to hold debates and vote in polls. The etymology of the word "democracy" broken down literally translates to the Greek words "demos" meaning people and "cratos" meaning power, very fitting for the word, and some nice politics background knowledge for you there!

So yeah, the Greeks were like amazingly smart for their time! This is very impressive when you think about how little was known about the world itself and the universe. The Greeks were viewed as the greatest thinkers, when you think of philosophers you'll instantly think about names such as Aristotle, Plato or Socrates. Greek origins have been very influential, in all aspects of life such as languages, architecture (for example the domed roof structures) and words. Put shortly, the Greeks were the bosses of everything - they managed to measure the Earth; top effort.

The Dark Ages: However, during a period known commonly as the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages, regrettably, silly people who refused to believe in pure, sound logic passed down by the Greeks, decided it'd be a "hilarious" idea to burn most of the knowledge and information the Greeks knew about the current world and solar system. Good job guys *slow sarcastic clap*. The Greeks and Romans were very similar to each other - they had the same amount of Gods that they worshiped and just called them different names, for example Greeks prayed to Zeus, the King of the Gods while the Romans equivalent is known to them as Jupiter and so on. 

However, over time the rulers of the Roman Empire became progressively corrupt and abandoned many of the beliefs that they learned from the Greeks and this ultimately lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Roman civilisation has been greatly linked to the Greeks however they were quite different in some respects. Most notably the Romans were pioneers of industry and creation while the Greeks were the most renowned thinkers and philosophers.

  

"By the beard of Zeus!"

(Yes im currently watching Anchorman)

Many people refer to a point in history known as the Golden (or Goldeen ;)) age of Islam, roughly stretching from 750 CE - c.1258 CE. The Golden Age is called so because philosophers and scientists of the Islamic world, through the process of preserving earlier traditions, (mostly passed down by the Greeks), learned from them and then added to them these traditions and practices with their own knowledge and innovations - which eventually leads us into what’s now referred to as the "Golden Age of Islam". This golden age gave birth to many superstitions and myth surrounding the Arabians, such as the idea that, since they were so intellectually, scientifically and technologically advanced, that they possessed the knowledge of immortal life, great towering buildings of gold and magic carpets! (More like Magikarp-ets)

Plato and Aristotle: Plato was Aristotle's teacher, therefore Plato and Aristotle were like total bros when it came to philosophy and pondering the universe. Aristotle basically "invented logic" and this was one of the main pieces of knowledge passed down by the Greeks and was successfully preserved by the Catholic Church. Aristotle's form of logic is known as a siligism - this provided the origin of knowledge. Aristotle came up with what he called Axioms, a basis of knowledge that allows us to know what is true from its characteristics and so on - I'll have to touch upon this more after I get some more reading done!

"All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal."

 This nugget of knowledge came from the Organon. The Organon is the name given by Aristotle's followers to the standard collection of his six works on logic:

• Categories
• On Interpretation
• Prior Analytics
• Posterior Analytics
• Topics
• Sophistical Refutations

 I've actually found pretty entertaining clips on YouTube about Aristotle - I advise you to check them out, the video is 3 minute philosophy and there are loads of them out there, they're funny so don't worry. Check them out! Here’s the link to Aristotle's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm0Uq08xXhY

Stay classy, Winchester x