American Journalism, late 20th Century: This saw the inception of the 'Penny Papers' in America and in turn American Journalism - though at the time this was ran b politicians and or merchants who were pretty subjective and bias. This did mean that the public people could write news and mid 19th century objectivity became a factor in journalism because of the creation of wire service. The associated press believed news should be objective and neutral - to please the highest number of people.
Developed along this line was the Yellow Press and this had the idea of shaking up the papers, adding sensationalism* and pictures - going for the shock and awe approach - to reel people in. This sparked a circulation war between two rival papers - the first owned by William Randolph Hearst and the second by Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst focused on drama, romance, crimes which is really the inception of tabloids.
*Sensationalism - huge, emotive headlines =, massive, striking images. This was the Yellow Press and the first wave of real journalism. Yellow journalism focused on sin, sex and violence but there was also good journalism; investigative for example tried to route out all corruption.
Journalism is very formulaic, insofar as we are constricted to the facts, a story must have so many paragraphs, the top line must be 20 words and so on. New Journalism was an attempt to record events by mirroring the language and style of the way the events happened - this was referred to as 'letting it bleed into the copy'.
Political and cultural scene: America in the 1960's and 70's was a highly bad time There was a great deal of social and political upheaval because this was the time of the highly unpopular Vietnam War and President JFK was assassinated. He was a man who embodied the American dream and was outstandingly popular with everyone - to quote Forrest Gump: "Then one day, for no particular reason, somebody shot that nice young man"
The Vietnam war happened by proxy pretty much - America had beef with Russia and they were allied and this meant that people were being conscripted into the army without any choice. Also during this time period there was a huge change to the demographic of America - the baby bomb. So many children were being born and this in turn created a youth culture that had access to political powers and the state had to keep in check - young people of this time were the voice of radical political change - free love, hippies and so on; this created an age clash like you wouldn't believe, it was very much young against the uptight old and this did not sit well.
Sexual revolution: This was all about sexual freedom - in the mid 1960's women had the access to, and the choice to use, birth control and regulation. This is exceedingly important to existentialists as I have mentioned previously - choice to them is everything, no matter what you do you must choose, you must have the freedom to do so. For example, you could choose to have a sexual partner who you didn't end up marrying; this is what Reichman was talking about with free love - you must constantly satisfy the ID - said that Freud had it wrong, we should always express ourselves and not bottle it up, bottling it up made things so much worse - we need to let it all hang loose. This was our way to happiness, by having great sexual experiences.
The student movement: This movement was highly militant and radical. University's became the center of radical politics, so much so that the police conducted raids on schools and tried to quell these ideas by bashing some skulls in. This movement saw women and black people marching vehemently for political rights - groups like the Black Panthers or Malcolm X. This is when LSD was created by the CIA and distributed around in an attempt to try and control the minds of young people and radicals - getting a bit 1984 on us there, guys. All these attempts at control and the general upheaval created underground sub-cultures such as hippies and so on, the general feeling was that all sub-cultures were deviant.
Music played a vital role in counter-cultures and according to Sartre music like Jazz was highly authentic and if you choose to listen to it you are not living in bad faith. The music of the time was an outright attack on the establishment, for example iconic bands such as The Doors - their music was all about being against the state and Bob Dylan was massively influential and popular for his anti-establishment songs. This type of music was fuel for the movement, it fed the people and was political.
Influence of Existentialism: Heidegger's authenticity, Sartre's bad faith and the key ideas that came with them - freedom and choice. Fanon held the view that in order to walk a path to freedom and happiness was attained through choice - our choices create our life. Think of an existentialist x-ray machine, you go through the machine and the data that will come up will be every single choice you have made in your life. Fanon believed that the act of violence is essentially the extreme expression of choice - this being choice that had a real and immediate impact, put simply violence always gets us to the point faster. Gotta love violence.
New Journalism: The anti-establishment feeling came into journalism and this was the feeling that "there is a police officer inside your head and he must be destroyed". Journalists question whether writing stories that had come from press releases, official statements and conferences was objective or not. This paved a way for new forms of journalism to emerge.
Journalists, being formulaic, always looked towards the setting, plot, feelings. quotes and images and had to take into account all the facts and the truth. Writers like Truman Capote, a favorite of mine, were new breads of journalists. Capote's phenomenal book In Cold Blood is still on of my favorite books of all time - I love the way it's written, presenting the facts and telling a story in the form of fiction, the personal accounts, and the overall journey. But most importantly, to me at least, the sympathy that Capote demonstrates throughout the book is both terrifying and enthralling.
New Journalism's 'objectivity' is pretty much trashed in subjunctive experience, for example Tom Wolfe wrote an article about a bunch of big time fat cats inviting members of the Black Panthers to a fancy shindig and simply observing the situation. Wolfe admired the writer Emile Zola - he thought that the way he wrote was the correct way to write - you observe people and describe how they act, Dickens also used this style. Zola was exceedingly descriptive, like a Sherlock Holmes level of perception, spending many many pages explaining every individual part of a person - the way they walk, the watch they wear, the shoes and so on.
Wolfe describes Zola: "Zola crowned himself as a first scientific novelist, a naturalist to use his term, studying the human form"
Dialog became increasingly popular and people started to use this - Dickens and Zola's technique of writing and description seeped it's way into feature writing. For example there was a feature which depicted a boxer, well past his prime, and he has just stepped off a plane to meet his wife - then conversations ensue and this is the dialog - the key is to attempt to reciprocate exactly what they said and how they say it onto a page, every single detail. This is a very time costly process and can take days, weeks even years to accomplish. There are four stages according to Wolfe about how features should be. He claims that features should be done:
1) Scene by scene, you need to be there and you need to make the reader feel like they're there.
2) They must reflect the realistic dialog - this allows us to read into the people but capturing the dialog perfectly is wicked difficult
3) You must get into their minds, learn everything you can about them - their thoughts and emotions and more importantly the reader should be able to as well.
4) Attention to the fine details - their whole world, their characteristics - how they walk and so on. You gain insight through attention to the detail.
Showing posts with label HCJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HCJ. Show all posts
Monday, 13 May 2013
Totalitarianism
Origins of Totalitarianism: It is important to understand how such regimes can come to fruition - for example the control of language (Orwell and propaganda) can make a huge difference as well as restraints such as prohibition. I personally believe that humans are inherently and unavoidably evil, all things we do are for some sort of person gain.
It is widely believed that we all have a personal responsibility to speak out again dictatorships and strike away from following forced orders - but then again look at some people, they would not make a choice (and from an existentialist point of view would therefore be living in bad faith, a false life) and just go along with the regime because they don't want to die or risk anything happening to them.
People would probably say that they would not conform to such things, to refuse an oppressive authority and actively say what's happening is full on wrong but to me this is exceptionally idealistic - if your own life is on the line you will do whatever you can to preserve it, in this case it would be following any order given.
Pre-WW1 and 2 we had 100 years of relative 'peace' these being the years following the Napoleonic war. Humanity had sorted all the majority of crap that was hindering progressions and became more sophisticated, in a manner of speaking. For example, Germany had some damn fine intellectual minds they were bounding forward in terms of culture, science and so on, sometimes colloquially referred to the German century.
Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianism: Totalitarianism literally means controlling every single aspect of life: Hobbes touched upon a near totalitarian state explained in his writings - life is nasty, brutish and short - people are bad and will always try to have more, regardless of who they have to hurt to get it. This meant that the state had to have some control over how much freedom people had, but this was a social contract and would never encroach on their freedom totally, so there would never be absolute control.
Hannah Arendt claims that totalitarians regimes are a complete and utter break away from all of our traditions, she then goes on to say that dictatorships and oppressive regimes can happen because of imperialism in the 19th century and this created grounds for it to happen - imperialism was established by race.
However people such as Mussolini believed that outside of the state there can be no individuals or groups of people - the state is everything and if you live in the state you are part of it - it should be everywhere, in your house and fully encompass all of your life. You must always think in a way that is consistent in the state anything else is a rebellion against the state.
The emphasis on race and not merit is a recurring theme in dictatorships - once this has been established it became very easy for dictatorships to take it up and make it their own and from this is just gets worse, always seeing one particular race as better than the other, where is the line in the sand drawn? If at all.
Following this train of thought of building on what was already there and making it your own - The Boer War and General Kitchener; this brought about the inception of concentration camps and the Nazi regime took this idea and adapted it. For a dictatorship to succeed there must be no individual. Us being individual makes it very hard to be controlled - so that we can be part of the state, not away from it, and from this the state tells us what we need to think.
Hannah Arendt says that destroying the individual will cause a state of terror. The aim is not to kill people but to break them down like dogs - the terror is not just murdering vast numbers of people it is the act of isolating people, making them feel like they have no say, right or ability to question the government. George Orwell demonstrates this in his novel 1984 - big brother, you are always being watched, the thought police will catch you at any sight of rebellion - this feeling of always being under observation, a police state, creates mass paranoia.
This creates an ideology - people start to believe that this is the way, why not speak out against this? well because this is how things are, this is the natural order. This is drilled into the heads of people under a dictatorship and goes hand in hand with the terror and removes the capacity for individual thought and experience among the executioners themselves - this provides somewhat of a defense for these people, for example well it's not my fault I was just following orders, they would've killed me otherwise, a highly weak attempt at absolution - personally I think if you make the choice then stick to your guns, don't be such a coward.
This leads to a breakdown of the stable human world and means a loss of the institutional and psychological barriers that we would not normally cross - an example is becoming numb to seeing utter devastation and strife which was frequent among concentration camp workers; one man arrived and broke down into tears at the sight and later would see it as normal and just became numb to it.
There is a certain frailty within civilisation which I agree with. It is shocking how quickly people will turn on each other if they are threatened, people go into a survival mode and will do anything they can to make sure they survive - my example would be from the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (though satirically done) it provides a decent setting - two people in a small rubber dingy lost out at sea with one source of food, a leg of meat soaked in rum. The food gets thrown overboard and they start to become paranoid of the other one eating the other in order to survive, going so far as to try and kill the other in order to eat him.
Control Language - George Orwell: Mind control is highly possible if you have control over language - what words people can and can't use, which words are prohibited and so on. Language is exceedingly important because the language you use daily is what defines you really, the words you choose and so on.
The Eichmann Trial: This was a highly important trial which concerned a German bureaucrat Eichmann whose job it was, during the Nazi regime, to make sure that the trains carrying hosts of Jewish prisoners ran efficiently and made sure they were on time. This trial served three key purposes:
1) to try him for his crimes
2) educate the population with what happened
3) to legitimise the Jewish state
Hannah Arendt was shocked by Eichmann because he was just a regular Joe, nothing exceptional or odd about him, who was following orders for the sake of self preservation. She concluded that it was not necessary to possess some sort of great wickedness to commit great crimes, simple put; if you are in danger you will do what you will to make sure you live, regardless of what this is - this is the *Banality of Evil.
Arendt takes an existentialist stance with this and says that Eichmann's biggest crime was not thinking. Thoughts and choice is crucial to existentialists because no matter what you do you have to make a choice - otherwise Sartre will accuse you of living in bad faith. In Eichmann's case he was mindlessly following and used the defense that he was abiding the law (whilst breaking the law at the same time) claiming it was his duty. When really he should have made a decision for himself
*Banality = Ordinary, can happen to literally anyone
It is widely believed that we all have a personal responsibility to speak out again dictatorships and strike away from following forced orders - but then again look at some people, they would not make a choice (and from an existentialist point of view would therefore be living in bad faith, a false life) and just go along with the regime because they don't want to die or risk anything happening to them.
People would probably say that they would not conform to such things, to refuse an oppressive authority and actively say what's happening is full on wrong but to me this is exceptionally idealistic - if your own life is on the line you will do whatever you can to preserve it, in this case it would be following any order given.
Pre-WW1 and 2 we had 100 years of relative 'peace' these being the years following the Napoleonic war. Humanity had sorted all the majority of crap that was hindering progressions and became more sophisticated, in a manner of speaking. For example, Germany had some damn fine intellectual minds they were bounding forward in terms of culture, science and so on, sometimes colloquially referred to the German century.
Hannah Arendt and Totalitarianism: Totalitarianism literally means controlling every single aspect of life: Hobbes touched upon a near totalitarian state explained in his writings - life is nasty, brutish and short - people are bad and will always try to have more, regardless of who they have to hurt to get it. This meant that the state had to have some control over how much freedom people had, but this was a social contract and would never encroach on their freedom totally, so there would never be absolute control.
Hannah Arendt claims that totalitarians regimes are a complete and utter break away from all of our traditions, she then goes on to say that dictatorships and oppressive regimes can happen because of imperialism in the 19th century and this created grounds for it to happen - imperialism was established by race.
However people such as Mussolini believed that outside of the state there can be no individuals or groups of people - the state is everything and if you live in the state you are part of it - it should be everywhere, in your house and fully encompass all of your life. You must always think in a way that is consistent in the state anything else is a rebellion against the state.
The emphasis on race and not merit is a recurring theme in dictatorships - once this has been established it became very easy for dictatorships to take it up and make it their own and from this is just gets worse, always seeing one particular race as better than the other, where is the line in the sand drawn? If at all.
Following this train of thought of building on what was already there and making it your own - The Boer War and General Kitchener; this brought about the inception of concentration camps and the Nazi regime took this idea and adapted it. For a dictatorship to succeed there must be no individual. Us being individual makes it very hard to be controlled - so that we can be part of the state, not away from it, and from this the state tells us what we need to think.
Hannah Arendt says that destroying the individual will cause a state of terror. The aim is not to kill people but to break them down like dogs - the terror is not just murdering vast numbers of people it is the act of isolating people, making them feel like they have no say, right or ability to question the government. George Orwell demonstrates this in his novel 1984 - big brother, you are always being watched, the thought police will catch you at any sight of rebellion - this feeling of always being under observation, a police state, creates mass paranoia.
This creates an ideology - people start to believe that this is the way, why not speak out against this? well because this is how things are, this is the natural order. This is drilled into the heads of people under a dictatorship and goes hand in hand with the terror and removes the capacity for individual thought and experience among the executioners themselves - this provides somewhat of a defense for these people, for example well it's not my fault I was just following orders, they would've killed me otherwise, a highly weak attempt at absolution - personally I think if you make the choice then stick to your guns, don't be such a coward.
This leads to a breakdown of the stable human world and means a loss of the institutional and psychological barriers that we would not normally cross - an example is becoming numb to seeing utter devastation and strife which was frequent among concentration camp workers; one man arrived and broke down into tears at the sight and later would see it as normal and just became numb to it.
There is a certain frailty within civilisation which I agree with. It is shocking how quickly people will turn on each other if they are threatened, people go into a survival mode and will do anything they can to make sure they survive - my example would be from the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (though satirically done) it provides a decent setting - two people in a small rubber dingy lost out at sea with one source of food, a leg of meat soaked in rum. The food gets thrown overboard and they start to become paranoid of the other one eating the other in order to survive, going so far as to try and kill the other in order to eat him.
Control Language - George Orwell: Mind control is highly possible if you have control over language - what words people can and can't use, which words are prohibited and so on. Language is exceedingly important because the language you use daily is what defines you really, the words you choose and so on.
The Eichmann Trial: This was a highly important trial which concerned a German bureaucrat Eichmann whose job it was, during the Nazi regime, to make sure that the trains carrying hosts of Jewish prisoners ran efficiently and made sure they were on time. This trial served three key purposes:
1) to try him for his crimes
2) educate the population with what happened
3) to legitimise the Jewish state
Hannah Arendt was shocked by Eichmann because he was just a regular Joe, nothing exceptional or odd about him, who was following orders for the sake of self preservation. She concluded that it was not necessary to possess some sort of great wickedness to commit great crimes, simple put; if you are in danger you will do what you will to make sure you live, regardless of what this is - this is the *Banality of Evil.
Arendt takes an existentialist stance with this and says that Eichmann's biggest crime was not thinking. Thoughts and choice is crucial to existentialists because no matter what you do you have to make a choice - otherwise Sartre will accuse you of living in bad faith. In Eichmann's case he was mindlessly following and used the defense that he was abiding the law (whilst breaking the law at the same time) claiming it was his duty. When really he should have made a decision for himself
*Banality = Ordinary, can happen to literally anyone
The New Industrial State - 1960's America and Economics
Galbraith explored the economics of production in the 1960's looking in detail to how companies could exert their power and influence over the state - this was called The New Industrial State.
The United States of America in the 1960's: In the USA this meant that everything was to be made available pretty much on demand whenever needed. This meant that people would be encountering problems every day and be able to easily solve them with little to no hassle, which lead to a sort of routine falling into place - this is our first world society. We have all come to take things for granted; flowing water, instant access to the internet, education and the list goes on and on.
Democracy is thought as a meritocracy - everything is morally the same and we are based on our merit only; the military industrial complex was based on this specific structure - there was a leadership model and people were not judged on their political affiliation. This system is technically aimless, it becomes essentially nihilistic and Heidegger predicted and named the 'pragmatic technological bureaucratic' meaning that the corporations and people involved in this new industrial state are ran by an 'elite' or 'expert' if you will.
Keynes: Based on the principles of supply and demand The New Industrial State would have been welcomed by Keynes - it is a controlled economy, but one that is meaningless; he makes of it what he wants. To Keynes, war is the best thing that can happen to an economy - during the depression, capitalism nearly came to an end because there was just no money circulating, the war got things moving, created a base need for everyone.
Contra: The managed society that Keynes suggested was opposed by Hayek, who predicted that it would ultimately fail - it would lead to high levels of corruption that everyone would be some sort of bureaucrat with their only goal being to vehemently strive for promotion, selfish gain and, of course, more power.
Galbraith and The New Industrial State: Galbraith illustrates in his book “The New Industrial State” that the base structure of American economics shifted to being controlled entirely by the state. Galbraith outlines other important power shifts over the years stating that the second shift in power has been building and swelling over the years and it is still in the making. Galbraith talks of the “techno-structure” of the New Industrial State. This outlines abandoning individualism and beginning to depend on 'experts' or other corporations, leading to a change in bureaucratic hierarchy - it is now about focusing on the group rather than the individual.
The United States of America in the 1960's: In the USA this meant that everything was to be made available pretty much on demand whenever needed. This meant that people would be encountering problems every day and be able to easily solve them with little to no hassle, which lead to a sort of routine falling into place - this is our first world society. We have all come to take things for granted; flowing water, instant access to the internet, education and the list goes on and on.
In Max Weber's version of this, the rise of bureaucracy people would start to be ruled by officials who gain their positions of power and authority by being pretty much amazing - charismatic for example, and then this bureaucracy would continue to rise and grow creating a massive hierarchy. Weber argued that bureaucracy was a highly efficient way of administration, but did not believe that it was necessarily a great thing to have happened - for example there is now little room for personal expression because you start to follow these constricting rules of an organisation - this is bad for existentialists because freedom of choice and expression is everything, otherwise we are essentially being oppressed; no room for any other values.
Keynes: Based on the principles of supply and demand The New Industrial State would have been welcomed by Keynes - it is a controlled economy, but one that is meaningless; he makes of it what he wants. To Keynes, war is the best thing that can happen to an economy - during the depression, capitalism nearly came to an end because there was just no money circulating, the war got things moving, created a base need for everyone.
Contra: The managed society that Keynes suggested was opposed by Hayek, who predicted that it would ultimately fail - it would lead to high levels of corruption that everyone would be some sort of bureaucrat with their only goal being to vehemently strive for promotion, selfish gain and, of course, more power.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Existentialism continued - Frege and mathematics
Logic and mathematics: Frege believes there are natural numbers; used to count things, these natural numbers are just concepts, many things, more than one thing etc. Counting creates an abstract category or group - for example with plurals - you can have a pride of lions, a murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens (natural numbers, abstract concepts) This is used to refer to a number of things where you cannot physically count them all out, like trying to count the number of people in a football stadium, you just know there is a hell of a lot of people there.
There are three attitudes to language, most importantly numbers:
1) they are natural and can be empirically observed
2) they are intuitions of a harmonic, platonic other world - you can never find the noumena, the essence of a number
3) they are abstract logical objects constructed purely from syntax*
*Syntax - results of modifying the meaning of one object to another. For example, verbs and adjectives - house can be syntactically altered to blue house.
Numerical naturalism / Evolutionary psychology: Apes and Neanderthal tribes appeared to be able to judge simple empirical plurality, typically for example, the absence of a banana or something else of importance.
Noam Chomsky: People are born with an innate understanding on syntax and language, he argues otherwise how do we know this? Contra John Locke who thought we are born with a blank slate - we have nothing innate.
Pythagorean-ism / Platonism: Numbers have heavily influenced Christianity, for them numbers are like an insight into God (prime numbers) the belief behind this is that 7 essentially cannot be thought up, primes can't be divided. Numbers are believed to have like special powers, people hold them in high regard like choosing numbers for the lottery, you, for some obscure reason, believe picking certain numbers that you believe to be special from the others increases your chances of winning when really it doesn't work like that - pretty much superstitious nonsense.
There is a religious significance regarding the number 3. Three is apparently the magic number - three acts in a play, three movements in a symphony and in a waltz, the big three in religion being the father, the son and the holy ghost. This also creeps into journalism, with terms like rule of thirds.
Primes are held in high regard by Islamic believers, Islam exhibits cults around plural primes four, five and seven. Babylonians exhibit a similar obsession with numbers - the 12 Zodiacs, each representing a month of the year, commonly known as star signs.
Pythagoras regarded plurals as the only real natural numbers, starting numerically at 2 because a number that is 1, not one or nothing are completely different categories. Odyssey telling the tale of Odysseus & the Cyclops; the cyclops asks if there is anyone there to which the reply is there is no-one there. This utterly confuses the cyclops because nothing being there is a fully ineffable concept - the process of there being nothing there is flawed, there cannot be nothing as the nothing is something. Used again in this example which perhaps illustrate the point more - there is nothing on the road, well yes there is because the road is there and also nothing, being something, is present. This does not mean the same thing as the road being empty, or clear of obstructions.
Problem of zero and nothing: Zero came from India, later via Islam. Whole Arabic numerical systems were introduced in the middle ages after the fall of Rome. Zero is an intrinsically difficult concept, as expressed earlier; zero = nothing but nothing = something.
Contra to Aristotle's law of contradiction solved by Leibniz's monads - an object can contain it's own negation. Modern philosophers of mathematics assert that zero is a natural number. This is because if you have: zero + one = one, making something out of nothing.
Common sense view of numbers: There are logical objects according to Frege, his book the Grundlagen is a philosophy of the logic of numbers. For Frege, maths is just a language and all the same analytically.
- Languages have three things:
1) vocabulary of objects (words and numbers)
2) syntax - modify the meaning comb-grammar
3) grammar
Frege's work was adapted - Bertrand & Whitehead - Principia Mathematica - going to assume this is the principle of mathematics
Frege's Method: Axiom - all things identical are equal to themselves, this is asserted apriori; deductive, true by definition. Follows all things which are pairs are identical to all other pairs (regardless of what they are pairs of) they are still pairs nonetheless. The class of all things which are pairs - logically can call it two, it does not matter. Large numbers can be built as logical constructs as along the lines of 'the class of all things which are pairs of pairs' - we can attach any symbol we like, for example four. Furthermore, one is the class of all things that are not in a pair, eg, lost sock = not a pair, just a single sock.
There are three attitudes to language, most importantly numbers:
1) they are natural and can be empirically observed
2) they are intuitions of a harmonic, platonic other world - you can never find the noumena, the essence of a number
3) they are abstract logical objects constructed purely from syntax*
*Syntax - results of modifying the meaning of one object to another. For example, verbs and adjectives - house can be syntactically altered to blue house.
Numerical naturalism / Evolutionary psychology: Apes and Neanderthal tribes appeared to be able to judge simple empirical plurality, typically for example, the absence of a banana or something else of importance.
Noam Chomsky: People are born with an innate understanding on syntax and language, he argues otherwise how do we know this? Contra John Locke who thought we are born with a blank slate - we have nothing innate.
Pythagorean-ism / Platonism: Numbers have heavily influenced Christianity, for them numbers are like an insight into God (prime numbers) the belief behind this is that 7 essentially cannot be thought up, primes can't be divided. Numbers are believed to have like special powers, people hold them in high regard like choosing numbers for the lottery, you, for some obscure reason, believe picking certain numbers that you believe to be special from the others increases your chances of winning when really it doesn't work like that - pretty much superstitious nonsense.
There is a religious significance regarding the number 3. Three is apparently the magic number - three acts in a play, three movements in a symphony and in a waltz, the big three in religion being the father, the son and the holy ghost. This also creeps into journalism, with terms like rule of thirds.
Primes are held in high regard by Islamic believers, Islam exhibits cults around plural primes four, five and seven. Babylonians exhibit a similar obsession with numbers - the 12 Zodiacs, each representing a month of the year, commonly known as star signs.
Pythagoras regarded plurals as the only real natural numbers, starting numerically at 2 because a number that is 1, not one or nothing are completely different categories. Odyssey telling the tale of Odysseus & the Cyclops; the cyclops asks if there is anyone there to which the reply is there is no-one there. This utterly confuses the cyclops because nothing being there is a fully ineffable concept - the process of there being nothing there is flawed, there cannot be nothing as the nothing is something. Used again in this example which perhaps illustrate the point more - there is nothing on the road, well yes there is because the road is there and also nothing, being something, is present. This does not mean the same thing as the road being empty, or clear of obstructions.
Problem of zero and nothing: Zero came from India, later via Islam. Whole Arabic numerical systems were introduced in the middle ages after the fall of Rome. Zero is an intrinsically difficult concept, as expressed earlier; zero = nothing but nothing = something.
Contra to Aristotle's law of contradiction solved by Leibniz's monads - an object can contain it's own negation. Modern philosophers of mathematics assert that zero is a natural number. This is because if you have: zero + one = one, making something out of nothing.
Common sense view of numbers: There are logical objects according to Frege, his book the Grundlagen is a philosophy of the logic of numbers. For Frege, maths is just a language and all the same analytically.
- Languages have three things:
1) vocabulary of objects (words and numbers)
2) syntax - modify the meaning comb-grammar
3) grammar
Frege's work was adapted - Bertrand & Whitehead - Principia Mathematica - going to assume this is the principle of mathematics
Frege's Method: Axiom - all things identical are equal to themselves, this is asserted apriori; deductive, true by definition. Follows all things which are pairs are identical to all other pairs (regardless of what they are pairs of) they are still pairs nonetheless. The class of all things which are pairs - logically can call it two, it does not matter. Large numbers can be built as logical constructs as along the lines of 'the class of all things which are pairs of pairs' - we can attach any symbol we like, for example four. Furthermore, one is the class of all things that are not in a pair, eg, lost sock = not a pair, just a single sock.
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Seminar Paper - Existentialism, Phenomenology, Heidegger, Sartre and Husserl (Updated)
This seminar paper will take us through the workings of existentialism from Sigmund Freud to Jacques Derrida, this will include Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger and Sartre on existentialism.
Freud and Psychoanalysis: Philosophers seldom described themselves as ‘Freudians’, but all who were engaged in teaching philosophy of the mind, ethics or philosophy of religion were forced to take account of Freud's novel and proposals. He had an all encompassing theory of everything. His work casts a long shadow as it addresses the whole human condition, which is highly contested. Freud states that we are always unhappy because we are divided, even alienated from ourselves. Freud himself was a psychiatrist and claimed to find the reason we are unhappy. He claimed to have found away into the part of our brains that control us - the thing is that we don't know we are being controlled and we have no actual control over our actions. If we think that we are doing these things, for example, if I think I'm sitting in my room blogging on my own volition then I'm very mistaken, because it's actually my brain that is controlling me; basically we don't make our own decisions and we have no idea that this control is even happening. Think about when you choose what to wear, your sub-consciousness will tell you to wear blue because you associate that with looking fierce. This is explored greatly by psychoanalysis.
Freud used to use hypnosis in his treatments but he moved away from this and replaced it with a novel form of therapy which he named psychoanalysis, which was just talking between the patient and doctor. The premise of the treatment is that all people harbor these deep seated feelings or trauma that has to be addressed by talking about your feelings. The patient would typically be lying on a couch and is encouraged to talk about whatever was on their mind, which we’re usually traced back to childhood trauma or sexual issues. Freud collaborated with Josef Breuer, whose works laid the foundation of psychoanalysis and Jean-Martin Charcot is work greatly influenced the developing fields of neurology and psychology. He was the foremost neurologist of late nineteenth-century France and has been called "the Napoleon of the neuroses".
Existentialism: Nietzsche claims: "God is dead and we have killed him" this is meant in a metaphorical way and it demonstrated the ever growing aversion to religion - it means that it is an end to something to pray to, something to guide is through life and give it some meaning - this is all religion (to me) is; people being too scared to believe that we are not being guided by some higher power. This now means that we will have more choice - no more control from religions, we can make up our own minds as there is now nothing to influence or affect the choices we make, we are alone and must choose for ourselves, albeit forced - this is known as the 'Trans-valuation of all values' as we find the value in us and it in turn makes us free.
This freedom of our own choice is key to Existentialists - choosing is everything, it defines who we are and if we are not making choices for ourselves then we are living in what Sartre calls 'Bad Faith'
Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology: Husserl’s phenomenology stands in opposition to naturalism, which is to be approached with natural-scientific methods, which are inclined toward empirical facts. Phenomenology turns directly to the evidence of lived experience - of first-person life - in order to provide descriptions of experiencing, rather than causal explanations.
Husserl has been likened to Freud, insofar as they both devoted a majority of their lives to a personal project that was intended to be the first really scientific study of the human mind. Where Freud was exiled due to Nazi anti-Semitism, Husserl had his books burn by German troops marching into Prague 1939. Husserl is often credited as the founder of phenomenology, and he addressed the body throughout his philosophical life, again likened to Freud. Husserl was highly influenced by Franz Brentano in Vienna between 1884 and 1886 by attending his lectures about philosophy and this is what got him interested in it. Brentano’s book, ‘Psychology from an Empirical standpoint’ brought up the data of consciousness, and this comes in two kinds - the first physical phenomenal and the second being mental phenomena. Physical phenomenal are things like colours and smells, whereas mental phenomenal is thoughts and these are characterised by having a content, or object. This feature by Brentano reintroduced the term intentionality (essentially the target of a thought) - this is the key to understanding mental acts and life.
Husserl still focused his attention on mathematics and his habilitation thesis was on the concept of numbers, and his first real book published 1891 was the ‘philosophy of arithmetic’ and this sought to explain our numerical concepts by identifying the mental acts which are our psychological origins, for example our concept of plurality, was supposed to derive from a process of ‘collective combination’ which group many items together. However, after a great deal of criticism, Husserl maintained a sharp distinction between logic and psychology , however Husserl saw the psychological side as philosophy's rightful home, as opposed to Frege who followed by the analytic tradition and placed himself on the side of logic.
The aim of phenomenology was the study of the immediate date of consciousness, without referring to anything that the consciousness may yield to us about the mental world, for example the concept of a Unicorn, the intentionality of my thought is the same, regardless of whether or not a Unicorn exists. Husserl prefaces this by saying “it makes no essential difference to an object presented and given to consciousness whether it exists, or is fictitious”
Martin Heidegger’s Existentialism: Heidegger was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most associated with phenomenology and existentialism. Heidegger's philosophical development started when he read the work of Brentano and Aristotle. The demand placed in the Metaphysics by Aristotle, the idea to know what it is that unites all interpretations of being is the question that sparked off Heidegger's philosophy, and from here he delved deeper into the work of Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
Heidegger insisted that the first task of phenomenology was to greatly study the concept of Being, which was prior to the divide between consciousness and reality. To gain a clear concept of the nature of philosophy it is assumed we should go back, however Heidegger claims that simply going back to Aristotle and Plato will not yield us the answers we seek. Heidegger decided to come up with an entirely new vocabulary for philosophy and one of his coined terms was the ‘Dasein’ this literally means being there, and it is a very common word in German. It is important to note that the Dasein is always relative to the beholder and is either entirely buried or firmly grounded in subjectivity, for example it is in your mood, which opposes the earlier ideas of the Logical Positivist who believed that the truth is grounded in facts and empirical data. Being is not some abstract concept, it is concrete - it is you being at a particular time and place and being engaged in a particular task of thinking.
Heidegger believes that they only way we can be free is if we are completely absorbed in a task, such absorption does not lessen existential pain but makes existence slowly fade away, for example being really into a song or playing a game, you will be entirely focused on that one task and existence seems to be gone. If there was infinite time then there would be infinite boredom, and the perception of a ‘lack of time’ makes you throw yourself head on into your Dasein and if you are not absorbed in a task, according to Heidegger, then you will be overcome with utter boredom. Heidegger claims there are three aspects of time, the first being attunement - this is expressed as mood, a reflection on the past produces this mood. Outside of the Dasein the normal mood of attunement is a looming angst and the mood of guilt. Secondly, Dasein - this is caring about the task at hand, being ‘in the zone’ so to speak, this is essentially the present. And thirdly, directiveness, this reflection on the future produces the mood of dread a fear of the future that we try and block out.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism: Sartre (1905-1980) focuses upon the construction of a philosophy of existence (existentialism) and his early works are characterised by a development of early phenomenology, very much following the same structure as Heidegger and to a lesser extent Husserl, but he diverges from Husserl on the concept of the self, and with an interest in ethics. These differences are the foundations of Sartre’s existential phenomenology, the purpose being to understand human existence rather than the world.
Sartre’s main book ‘Being and Nothingness’ is where he defines two types of reality which are beyond our own experience: these are the being of the object of consciousness and the being of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists in itself, this means that it is independent and not defined in relation to anything. However, consciousness is always are of something, which means it would be defined in relation to other things. This allows us to also experience a ‘nothingness’ and this power is also at work within the self, which leads to a lack of self-identity.
Sartre goes on to set up his own idea of the individual human being. He does this by first getting rid of its grounding in a stable ego. Sartre claims that Existentialism is a Humanism, this means that to be human is characterised by existing. This was put forward in Sartre’s early that would later become ‘Being and Nothingness’. Sartre’s early works are seen as improving the material to make an existential account of being human. But Sartre’s approach to understanding human existence is formed by his interest in ethics.
Fun fact - Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir wrote many love letters to each other and had them published after their deaths
Freud and Psychoanalysis: Philosophers seldom described themselves as ‘Freudians’, but all who were engaged in teaching philosophy of the mind, ethics or philosophy of religion were forced to take account of Freud's novel and proposals. He had an all encompassing theory of everything. His work casts a long shadow as it addresses the whole human condition, which is highly contested. Freud states that we are always unhappy because we are divided, even alienated from ourselves. Freud himself was a psychiatrist and claimed to find the reason we are unhappy. He claimed to have found away into the part of our brains that control us - the thing is that we don't know we are being controlled and we have no actual control over our actions. If we think that we are doing these things, for example, if I think I'm sitting in my room blogging on my own volition then I'm very mistaken, because it's actually my brain that is controlling me; basically we don't make our own decisions and we have no idea that this control is even happening. Think about when you choose what to wear, your sub-consciousness will tell you to wear blue because you associate that with looking fierce. This is explored greatly by psychoanalysis.
Freud used to use hypnosis in his treatments but he moved away from this and replaced it with a novel form of therapy which he named psychoanalysis, which was just talking between the patient and doctor. The premise of the treatment is that all people harbor these deep seated feelings or trauma that has to be addressed by talking about your feelings. The patient would typically be lying on a couch and is encouraged to talk about whatever was on their mind, which we’re usually traced back to childhood trauma or sexual issues. Freud collaborated with Josef Breuer, whose works laid the foundation of psychoanalysis and Jean-Martin Charcot is work greatly influenced the developing fields of neurology and psychology. He was the foremost neurologist of late nineteenth-century France and has been called "the Napoleon of the neuroses".
Existentialism: Nietzsche claims: "God is dead and we have killed him" this is meant in a metaphorical way and it demonstrated the ever growing aversion to religion - it means that it is an end to something to pray to, something to guide is through life and give it some meaning - this is all religion (to me) is; people being too scared to believe that we are not being guided by some higher power. This now means that we will have more choice - no more control from religions, we can make up our own minds as there is now nothing to influence or affect the choices we make, we are alone and must choose for ourselves, albeit forced - this is known as the 'Trans-valuation of all values' as we find the value in us and it in turn makes us free.
This freedom of our own choice is key to Existentialists - choosing is everything, it defines who we are and if we are not making choices for ourselves then we are living in what Sartre calls 'Bad Faith'
Husserl has been likened to Freud, insofar as they both devoted a majority of their lives to a personal project that was intended to be the first really scientific study of the human mind. Where Freud was exiled due to Nazi anti-Semitism, Husserl had his books burn by German troops marching into Prague 1939. Husserl is often credited as the founder of phenomenology, and he addressed the body throughout his philosophical life, again likened to Freud. Husserl was highly influenced by Franz Brentano in Vienna between 1884 and 1886 by attending his lectures about philosophy and this is what got him interested in it. Brentano’s book, ‘Psychology from an Empirical standpoint’ brought up the data of consciousness, and this comes in two kinds - the first physical phenomenal and the second being mental phenomena. Physical phenomenal are things like colours and smells, whereas mental phenomenal is thoughts and these are characterised by having a content, or object. This feature by Brentano reintroduced the term intentionality (essentially the target of a thought) - this is the key to understanding mental acts and life.
Husserl still focused his attention on mathematics and his habilitation thesis was on the concept of numbers, and his first real book published 1891 was the ‘philosophy of arithmetic’ and this sought to explain our numerical concepts by identifying the mental acts which are our psychological origins, for example our concept of plurality, was supposed to derive from a process of ‘collective combination’ which group many items together. However, after a great deal of criticism, Husserl maintained a sharp distinction between logic and psychology , however Husserl saw the psychological side as philosophy's rightful home, as opposed to Frege who followed by the analytic tradition and placed himself on the side of logic.
The aim of phenomenology was the study of the immediate date of consciousness, without referring to anything that the consciousness may yield to us about the mental world, for example the concept of a Unicorn, the intentionality of my thought is the same, regardless of whether or not a Unicorn exists. Husserl prefaces this by saying “it makes no essential difference to an object presented and given to consciousness whether it exists, or is fictitious”
Martin Heidegger’s Existentialism: Heidegger was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most associated with phenomenology and existentialism. Heidegger's philosophical development started when he read the work of Brentano and Aristotle. The demand placed in the Metaphysics by Aristotle, the idea to know what it is that unites all interpretations of being is the question that sparked off Heidegger's philosophy, and from here he delved deeper into the work of Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
Heidegger insisted that the first task of phenomenology was to greatly study the concept of Being, which was prior to the divide between consciousness and reality. To gain a clear concept of the nature of philosophy it is assumed we should go back, however Heidegger claims that simply going back to Aristotle and Plato will not yield us the answers we seek. Heidegger decided to come up with an entirely new vocabulary for philosophy and one of his coined terms was the ‘Dasein’ this literally means being there, and it is a very common word in German. It is important to note that the Dasein is always relative to the beholder and is either entirely buried or firmly grounded in subjectivity, for example it is in your mood, which opposes the earlier ideas of the Logical Positivist who believed that the truth is grounded in facts and empirical data. Being is not some abstract concept, it is concrete - it is you being at a particular time and place and being engaged in a particular task of thinking.
Heidegger believes that they only way we can be free is if we are completely absorbed in a task, such absorption does not lessen existential pain but makes existence slowly fade away, for example being really into a song or playing a game, you will be entirely focused on that one task and existence seems to be gone. If there was infinite time then there would be infinite boredom, and the perception of a ‘lack of time’ makes you throw yourself head on into your Dasein and if you are not absorbed in a task, according to Heidegger, then you will be overcome with utter boredom. Heidegger claims there are three aspects of time, the first being attunement - this is expressed as mood, a reflection on the past produces this mood. Outside of the Dasein the normal mood of attunement is a looming angst and the mood of guilt. Secondly, Dasein - this is caring about the task at hand, being ‘in the zone’ so to speak, this is essentially the present. And thirdly, directiveness, this reflection on the future produces the mood of dread a fear of the future that we try and block out.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism: Sartre (1905-1980) focuses upon the construction of a philosophy of existence (existentialism) and his early works are characterised by a development of early phenomenology, very much following the same structure as Heidegger and to a lesser extent Husserl, but he diverges from Husserl on the concept of the self, and with an interest in ethics. These differences are the foundations of Sartre’s existential phenomenology, the purpose being to understand human existence rather than the world.
Sartre’s main book ‘Being and Nothingness’ is where he defines two types of reality which are beyond our own experience: these are the being of the object of consciousness and the being of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists in itself, this means that it is independent and not defined in relation to anything. However, consciousness is always are of something, which means it would be defined in relation to other things. This allows us to also experience a ‘nothingness’ and this power is also at work within the self, which leads to a lack of self-identity.
Sartre goes on to set up his own idea of the individual human being. He does this by first getting rid of its grounding in a stable ego. Sartre claims that Existentialism is a Humanism, this means that to be human is characterised by existing. This was put forward in Sartre’s early that would later become ‘Being and Nothingness’. Sartre’s early works are seen as improving the material to make an existential account of being human. But Sartre’s approach to understanding human existence is formed by his interest in ethics.
Fun fact - Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir wrote many love letters to each other and had them published after their deaths
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Sigmund Freud
Here are my notes on old Freud, what a stand up guy he knew his stuff! Got Always Sunny on in the background, just enjoyed steak night and there will be a hilarious picture at the end very relevant to this topic courtesy of Cyanide and Happiness comic, so read on!
Freud: He had an all encompassing theory of everything. His work casts a long shadow as it addresses the whole human condition, which is highly contested. Freud states that we are always unhappy because we are divided, even alienated from ourselves - which correlates to what Marx says about the working class - we have no idea what we need but we have to work. Freud himself was a psychiatrist and claimed to find the reason we are unhappy. He claimed to have found away into the part of our brains that control us - the thing is that we don't know we are being controlled and we have no actual control over our actions. If we think that we are doing these things, for example, if I think I'm sitting in my room blogging on my own volition then I'm very mistaken, because it's actually my brain that is controlling me; basically we don't make our own decisions and we have no idea that this control is even happening. Think about when you choose what to wear, your subconsciousness will tell you to wear blue because you associate that with looking fierce. This is explored greatly by psychoanalysis which we will come to.
The most common aspect of Freud's work you will hear of is people talking about 'Freudian slips' this is when we say something that we didn't intend to, but these slips are supposed to be our real thoughts creeping through. This is linked in with dreaming - dreams are supposedly the royal road to the unconscious and they can explain some sort of deeper meaning within a person, for example if you have dreams of running away or 'running up that hill' then, this supposedly means that you're not having enough sex - dreams just express our true thoughts and this can only happen while we are asleep. Freud stated that if he didnt treat people then this would cause a downward spiral - this is because Freud would help you address these underlying feelings and if they were to go unnoticed then you would become greatly neurotic and life would just get progressively worse.
Freud was seen as a secluded renegade, he was a massive sex addict and thought that sex was the center of everything - which damaged the old view of ourselves as being noble creatures who were chivalrous and decent. Freud claims that we are brutal creatures that cave into basic desires and will not go out of our way for someone unless we benefit from it. This links into pessimism - which is seen as the center of all - Freud was highly pessimistic and he saw humans as having a little light but an overwhelming amount of darkness inside. This pessimism is somewhat understandable when you know of Freud's origins - for example he was lived through the first world war, general aggression from the German state, he was of Jewish descent living in Vienna so he would have been very fearful and if that wasn't enough, he lived through the Great Depression and would have seen a phenomenal amount of unemployment and strife. These factors and I'm sure more, are more than responsible for his dark and pessimistic view on humans.
Attack on Plato: Freud agreed with Plato on the idea that there is a tripartite self - a person is made up of three parts - reason, spirit and desire. Plato's example of a charioteer is used to explain this idea - there are two horses, which represent spirit and desire and then the charioteer at the reins is reason, dictating the actions of spirit and desire. However, Freud doesn't agree on the order that Plato put forward; insofar as reason is not in control as he thought reason to be the weakest of the three and completely unable to control desire or spirit. I believe that Freud would say that desire is the one in control of spirit and reason.
Attack on Marx: While Marx believed that humans have unlimited potential and that we can always become better version of ourselves, Freud believes that this is complete nonsense and this is because there is a part of us that we can never escape - our aggression. For example, if we were to live in a communist state Marx would say we would all get along just fine and would all be equal, whereas Freud would argue that we would still be ourselves, nothing would change and that deep down we are all just aggressive, we only ever want to hurt people or we want to goad people into hurting us so we have a reason to hurt them back, this is all we want to do deep down. This is linked to Hobbes and his state of nature, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short - we need the Leviathan to rule over us and stop us from being animals.
The Freudian Personality: The reality of human nature is pain - this is what it is to be human, to be in and feel pain perpetually. This is because we are divided in ourselves, we are always at war with ourselves and these divided parts within us are fighting themselves and the most dominant force in ourselves is the 'ID' which is and has been a part of us all since the very beginning.
The ID is sex and aggression, which is the most dominant part of us all which Freud called "a cauldron of seething excitation" always bubbling away, demanding to be noticed, demanding expression and fulfillment. The main thing is that we are never aware of the dominance of the ID and the problem is that the ID is essentially a spoiled brat in a toy shop that wants everything and wants it now - this is the ID.
The 'EGO' is the rational self, it is also supposed to be the weakest and least powerful part of a personality, which concerns the voice of reason, moderation and common sense - these rarely have an effect on our life decisions, says Freud. In terms of reality, we don't make choices based on facts - we are not rational beings in the slightest - for example with the charioteer, Plato's charioteer is not in control, the ego is just constantly embarrassed and is overruled by stronger forces within us.
The 'SUPER EGO' is essentially the nice parts of us, the part that wants to respect authority and be nice to other people. The super ego is the values that have been passed down to us through our parents and other outside influences. The super ego and the ID are just irrational and are always fighting with the ego. So really the super ego is essentially the parent who is screaming at you to do better, to revise more so you do well as it would reflect on them, the super ego is the guilt you feel when you don't get something right, when you don't get the right grades. It is equated to religion insofar as that sets very unrealistic demands - don't be a bad person, love thy neighbor and so on.
Why is society awful?
1) Freud says that this is mostly because of other people - this is loaded with pain as they are always out to get us and other people are always trying to do better than you; just trying to get in your way, every single person is some sort of a road block on your path to success. When you see others you don't see friends or family, you see a multitude of people just trying to attack you. This is the greatest pain of all.
2) Because we are ever so slowly decaying. We are always getting older and with old age comes more problems, for example back pains, illness, dementia and so on, our bodies are going to run out some time and this is what adds to life being miserable and we are in a state of perpetual pain.
3) The external world - for example nature, you look outside to find it's raining again, you hate the rain as it makes you cold and soaks you through, this is just a daily occurrence to some people and it makes life that bit more of a chore and we just cant help it, nothing we do can change the weather.
Freud believes that the answer is 'psychoanalysis' which was an expensive treatment, not open to everyone. It is seen as necessary to strengthen the ego and it was just the answer to the people being upset. However, psychoanalysis is expensive and only a few people are trained in it, which means it is not an answer for everyone. This leads us to a way to contain urges, coping mechanisms for people who cant afford to go through psychoanalysis.
1) Isolation - just cut yourself off from the world and people altogether
2) Chemical Solution - this is reverting to drugs and alcohol to cope with the world
3) Religion as a type of sublimation - religion acts as a mass delusion
4) Sublimation - is a type of defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior. However, the only real satisfaction is to beat someone you hate to death.
Civilisation is essentially a collective super ego, for example we are expected to respect authority, sit in rows, be respectful of others. Imposing moral limits, for example love your neighbor as yourself - unrealistic demand as we are animals, how would we do this? and even worse, we have to 'love your enemy', which is just insane according to Freud - again linked to religion placing outrageous limits on us and vast expectations.
Dreams are the royal road of the unconsciousness because while we are asleep the ego is like a sentry asleep at its post. this is when the ID would run rampant and the dreams we have reveal our true thoughts.
Attack on Freud: Popper and falsifiability would say that Freud's scientific predictions could be proven wrong, Freud was always vague, it can't be tested and he made up loads of his research and facts anyway. Furthermore, Freud claimed to be the only one to mention the unconsciousness but that is untrue, because Schopenhauer actually mentioned it in a round about way, insofar as he mentioned the 'Will' and so on, for example the will is the secret antagonist of the intellect.
Well there we have it, all my notes on Freud! Helpful revision session too as well as me now being up to date on my blog! FINALLY, took some time, but I got there. Hope you enjoyed, here's the picture I promised!
Freudian Ice - Comic Strip Courtesy of Cyanide and Happiness!
http://www.explosm.net/comics/2630/
Freud: He had an all encompassing theory of everything. His work casts a long shadow as it addresses the whole human condition, which is highly contested. Freud states that we are always unhappy because we are divided, even alienated from ourselves - which correlates to what Marx says about the working class - we have no idea what we need but we have to work. Freud himself was a psychiatrist and claimed to find the reason we are unhappy. He claimed to have found away into the part of our brains that control us - the thing is that we don't know we are being controlled and we have no actual control over our actions. If we think that we are doing these things, for example, if I think I'm sitting in my room blogging on my own volition then I'm very mistaken, because it's actually my brain that is controlling me; basically we don't make our own decisions and we have no idea that this control is even happening. Think about when you choose what to wear, your subconsciousness will tell you to wear blue because you associate that with looking fierce. This is explored greatly by psychoanalysis which we will come to.
The most common aspect of Freud's work you will hear of is people talking about 'Freudian slips' this is when we say something that we didn't intend to, but these slips are supposed to be our real thoughts creeping through. This is linked in with dreaming - dreams are supposedly the royal road to the unconscious and they can explain some sort of deeper meaning within a person, for example if you have dreams of running away or 'running up that hill' then, this supposedly means that you're not having enough sex - dreams just express our true thoughts and this can only happen while we are asleep. Freud stated that if he didnt treat people then this would cause a downward spiral - this is because Freud would help you address these underlying feelings and if they were to go unnoticed then you would become greatly neurotic and life would just get progressively worse.
Freud was seen as a secluded renegade, he was a massive sex addict and thought that sex was the center of everything - which damaged the old view of ourselves as being noble creatures who were chivalrous and decent. Freud claims that we are brutal creatures that cave into basic desires and will not go out of our way for someone unless we benefit from it. This links into pessimism - which is seen as the center of all - Freud was highly pessimistic and he saw humans as having a little light but an overwhelming amount of darkness inside. This pessimism is somewhat understandable when you know of Freud's origins - for example he was lived through the first world war, general aggression from the German state, he was of Jewish descent living in Vienna so he would have been very fearful and if that wasn't enough, he lived through the Great Depression and would have seen a phenomenal amount of unemployment and strife. These factors and I'm sure more, are more than responsible for his dark and pessimistic view on humans.
Attack on Plato: Freud agreed with Plato on the idea that there is a tripartite self - a person is made up of three parts - reason, spirit and desire. Plato's example of a charioteer is used to explain this idea - there are two horses, which represent spirit and desire and then the charioteer at the reins is reason, dictating the actions of spirit and desire. However, Freud doesn't agree on the order that Plato put forward; insofar as reason is not in control as he thought reason to be the weakest of the three and completely unable to control desire or spirit. I believe that Freud would say that desire is the one in control of spirit and reason.
Attack on Marx: While Marx believed that humans have unlimited potential and that we can always become better version of ourselves, Freud believes that this is complete nonsense and this is because there is a part of us that we can never escape - our aggression. For example, if we were to live in a communist state Marx would say we would all get along just fine and would all be equal, whereas Freud would argue that we would still be ourselves, nothing would change and that deep down we are all just aggressive, we only ever want to hurt people or we want to goad people into hurting us so we have a reason to hurt them back, this is all we want to do deep down. This is linked to Hobbes and his state of nature, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short - we need the Leviathan to rule over us and stop us from being animals.
The Freudian Personality: The reality of human nature is pain - this is what it is to be human, to be in and feel pain perpetually. This is because we are divided in ourselves, we are always at war with ourselves and these divided parts within us are fighting themselves and the most dominant force in ourselves is the 'ID' which is and has been a part of us all since the very beginning.
The ID is sex and aggression, which is the most dominant part of us all which Freud called "a cauldron of seething excitation" always bubbling away, demanding to be noticed, demanding expression and fulfillment. The main thing is that we are never aware of the dominance of the ID and the problem is that the ID is essentially a spoiled brat in a toy shop that wants everything and wants it now - this is the ID.
The 'EGO' is the rational self, it is also supposed to be the weakest and least powerful part of a personality, which concerns the voice of reason, moderation and common sense - these rarely have an effect on our life decisions, says Freud. In terms of reality, we don't make choices based on facts - we are not rational beings in the slightest - for example with the charioteer, Plato's charioteer is not in control, the ego is just constantly embarrassed and is overruled by stronger forces within us.
The 'SUPER EGO' is essentially the nice parts of us, the part that wants to respect authority and be nice to other people. The super ego is the values that have been passed down to us through our parents and other outside influences. The super ego and the ID are just irrational and are always fighting with the ego. So really the super ego is essentially the parent who is screaming at you to do better, to revise more so you do well as it would reflect on them, the super ego is the guilt you feel when you don't get something right, when you don't get the right grades. It is equated to religion insofar as that sets very unrealistic demands - don't be a bad person, love thy neighbor and so on.
Why is society awful?
1) Freud says that this is mostly because of other people - this is loaded with pain as they are always out to get us and other people are always trying to do better than you; just trying to get in your way, every single person is some sort of a road block on your path to success. When you see others you don't see friends or family, you see a multitude of people just trying to attack you. This is the greatest pain of all.
2) Because we are ever so slowly decaying. We are always getting older and with old age comes more problems, for example back pains, illness, dementia and so on, our bodies are going to run out some time and this is what adds to life being miserable and we are in a state of perpetual pain.
3) The external world - for example nature, you look outside to find it's raining again, you hate the rain as it makes you cold and soaks you through, this is just a daily occurrence to some people and it makes life that bit more of a chore and we just cant help it, nothing we do can change the weather.
Freud believes that the answer is 'psychoanalysis' which was an expensive treatment, not open to everyone. It is seen as necessary to strengthen the ego and it was just the answer to the people being upset. However, psychoanalysis is expensive and only a few people are trained in it, which means it is not an answer for everyone. This leads us to a way to contain urges, coping mechanisms for people who cant afford to go through psychoanalysis.
1) Isolation - just cut yourself off from the world and people altogether
2) Chemical Solution - this is reverting to drugs and alcohol to cope with the world
3) Religion as a type of sublimation - religion acts as a mass delusion
4) Sublimation - is a type of defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior. However, the only real satisfaction is to beat someone you hate to death.
Civilisation is essentially a collective super ego, for example we are expected to respect authority, sit in rows, be respectful of others. Imposing moral limits, for example love your neighbor as yourself - unrealistic demand as we are animals, how would we do this? and even worse, we have to 'love your enemy', which is just insane according to Freud - again linked to religion placing outrageous limits on us and vast expectations.
Dreams are the royal road of the unconsciousness because while we are asleep the ego is like a sentry asleep at its post. this is when the ID would run rampant and the dreams we have reveal our true thoughts.
Attack on Freud: Popper and falsifiability would say that Freud's scientific predictions could be proven wrong, Freud was always vague, it can't be tested and he made up loads of his research and facts anyway. Furthermore, Freud claimed to be the only one to mention the unconsciousness but that is untrue, because Schopenhauer actually mentioned it in a round about way, insofar as he mentioned the 'Will' and so on, for example the will is the secret antagonist of the intellect.
Well there we have it, all my notes on Freud! Helpful revision session too as well as me now being up to date on my blog! FINALLY, took some time, but I got there. Hope you enjoyed, here's the picture I promised!
Freudian Ice - Comic Strip Courtesy of Cyanide and Happiness!
http://www.explosm.net/comics/2630/
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Modernism
This blog post concerns modernism, aesthetics, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. The notes are a bit bare but this is only really for my understanding, hopefully you all get it!
Aesthetics: Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which concerns art, beauty, and music - the process of making it and enjoying it. From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics underwent change into what is often called modernism. European thinkers placed a very high profoundness on beauty as the key aspect of art and would go as far to see art as necessarily aiming at absolute beauty and art it is the closest thing we can get to absolute beauty - this idea of absolute beauty is linked heavily with the form theory.
For Hegel all art or beauty is a matter of "absolute spirit" showing itself, changing to a perfection that only philosophy can approach. Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to perception. For Schopenhauer aesthetics is a way for people to understand what beauty is and for one to lose themselves in it, as sort of a coping mechanism to an extent - which allows people to hide from a harsh world. therefor Schopenhauer saw it one way to fight the suffering of people.
Nietzsche - Philosopher of Music: Nietzsche wanted to understand why somethings are considered beautiful and some are not: this is heavily linked again to Plato's cave and forms theory - the idea that there is a perfect woman or chair or table out there somewhere but we cannot perceive it but we do know when they are close to them. One of the most outstanding features of Nietzsche's work is his ornamental poetic language. He liked to be seen as an artist and to be judged solely on that fact.
Man is the main balance in the universe and this balance is struck by people using their language and ideas to shape the way they live. For Nietzsche, art is not the imitation, but more of a metaphysical complement that will allows nature to become more than it is, to transcend itself and art is the highest form of human activity. From this it is understandable to say that artists are the closest people to the forms.
Furthermore, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner believe that music is the very purest and profound form of art and aspect. This can be linked back to the aesthetics approach to why people find things beautiful and their own personal preference to what beauty is.
Schopenhauer: Schopenhauer's book "The world as will and representation" mentions the 'will' which, linked to his possible Hindu roots, is the Hindu God Brahma. For Schopenhauer, human desiring, "willing," just ends up causing suffering or pain. A temporary way to escape this pain is through art or aesthetic contemplation. Aesthetic contemplation allows one to escape this pain because it stops one perceiving the world in one way and to see it in a better light - you get lost in it.
He believes that people have to overcome desire, when you experience this - that is the will, which can be linked to the 'force' from Star Wars and denial of the Will is the only way to be perfectly and absolutely happy. The Dionysian view of being perfectly happy would be to use intoxication on yourself, just to numb the pain of a harsh world by getting drunk, taking drugs and over indulging yourself, but these will all have their own drawbacks, for one they are only temporary releases - you will sober up eventually. Contrasting with this is the Apollonian way, the "healthy" option, for example losing yourself in art or music or something that you find beautiful - this is known as a healthy intoxication.
Aesthetics: Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which concerns art, beauty, and music - the process of making it and enjoying it. From the late 17th to the early 20th century Western aesthetics underwent change into what is often called modernism. European thinkers placed a very high profoundness on beauty as the key aspect of art and would go as far to see art as necessarily aiming at absolute beauty and art it is the closest thing we can get to absolute beauty - this idea of absolute beauty is linked heavily with the form theory.
For Hegel all art or beauty is a matter of "absolute spirit" showing itself, changing to a perfection that only philosophy can approach. Art is the first stage in which the absolute spirit is manifest immediately to perception. For Schopenhauer aesthetics is a way for people to understand what beauty is and for one to lose themselves in it, as sort of a coping mechanism to an extent - which allows people to hide from a harsh world. therefor Schopenhauer saw it one way to fight the suffering of people.
Nietzsche - Philosopher of Music: Nietzsche wanted to understand why somethings are considered beautiful and some are not: this is heavily linked again to Plato's cave and forms theory - the idea that there is a perfect woman or chair or table out there somewhere but we cannot perceive it but we do know when they are close to them. One of the most outstanding features of Nietzsche's work is his ornamental poetic language. He liked to be seen as an artist and to be judged solely on that fact.
Man is the main balance in the universe and this balance is struck by people using their language and ideas to shape the way they live. For Nietzsche, art is not the imitation, but more of a metaphysical complement that will allows nature to become more than it is, to transcend itself and art is the highest form of human activity. From this it is understandable to say that artists are the closest people to the forms.
Furthermore, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner believe that music is the very purest and profound form of art and aspect. This can be linked back to the aesthetics approach to why people find things beautiful and their own personal preference to what beauty is.
Schopenhauer: Schopenhauer's book "The world as will and representation" mentions the 'will' which, linked to his possible Hindu roots, is the Hindu God Brahma. For Schopenhauer, human desiring, "willing," just ends up causing suffering or pain. A temporary way to escape this pain is through art or aesthetic contemplation. Aesthetic contemplation allows one to escape this pain because it stops one perceiving the world in one way and to see it in a better light - you get lost in it.
He believes that people have to overcome desire, when you experience this - that is the will, which can be linked to the 'force' from Star Wars and denial of the Will is the only way to be perfectly and absolutely happy. The Dionysian view of being perfectly happy would be to use intoxication on yourself, just to numb the pain of a harsh world by getting drunk, taking drugs and over indulging yourself, but these will all have their own drawbacks, for one they are only temporary releases - you will sober up eventually. Contrasting with this is the Apollonian way, the "healthy" option, for example losing yourself in art or music or something that you find beautiful - this is known as a healthy intoxication.
Economics
This is my stab at the economics lecture from a couple weeks back, again, this is very late so i'm trying to catch up! Have fun reading them - if they make sense that is. Enjoy!
Adam Smith says that basic human morality is everyone is living for themselves in order to gain happiness or some sort of ego boost. For example in terms of people donating money to charity, Smith states that people don't donate to charity in order to help other people, they do it so that they can feel superior or develop some sort of standing as a charitable person in society. His ideas are linked very closely to Utilitarianism - maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain - in terms of donating money, it is explained through the amount they donate and this is determined by how highly they value the feeling they gain from it or how little they value their money.
That being said, Smith hates the idea of charity - it leads to what he calls the law of unintended consequences. This in terms of charity, he argues, makes the person receiving the charity more dependent on the welfare and the charity which gives them little to no incentive to get off a system of welfare and get their own jobs.
David Ricardo: Ricardo was a British political economist and stock trader. He credited work, among others are systematising economics, and he was one of the most influential classical economists, along with the likes of Malthus and Smith. Ricardo is noted as being the contribution of the law of comparative advantage - which is a key argument in favor of free trade among other countries. Ricardo believed that there is a mutual benefit from trading - even if one of the people involved with the trade are far more productive.
Thomas Malthus: Malthus was very pessimistic he stated that it is our destiny to eventually starve to death. This is because there will always be unlimited wants from the people and we only have limited resources which we will blow through in no time. He also claims that we are perpetually on the brink of extinction, for example if we ran out of petrol resources, we wouldn't be able to drive to the shops to buy food or ambulances would stop operating. He says that people being married is a good thing as it would reduce the birth rate which would impede the inevitable starvation - less food would be required and people would be able to hold on to rations. Contraception is also credited for being a huge help to lowering the birth rate, but then this has it's own flaws as we know.
Malthus was heavily criticised by the "moderns" when he talks about the idea of every new mouth needing to be fed and cared for. The moderns pick up on the fact that with every new mouth comes a new pairs of hands.
The Moderns: Adam smith said that money was solely a way to keep score and it has to be kept the same for everyone but the money will not affect a human's nature in any way. Moderns would oppose this view and say that money does have a deep, a very profound impact on people and their choices. War is always good for the economy and it managed to remedy the great depression - this is because it created a multitude of jobs and everyone had something to do - this also managed to rid the world of the "superstition" of gold, this replaced gold with actual notes, coins; real currency (ration slips).
Governments would print extra money, they would give this to factory owners to secure the workers that they employ. This in turn meant more people would have jobs and more people were earning money - this lead to more money being spent which gives the economy a very nice boost which would continue to cycle. The money that is being fed into the government is taken out and turned into taxation - which is implemented to control spending patterns which means the government would be greatly involved in the market.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Logical Positivism and Karl Popper
The Logical Positivists: The logical positivist were a group of highly influential thinkers before the first world war and their philosophy combines empiricism with a form of rationalism. Logical positivism, began from discussions of a group called the Vienna Circle which gathered during the earliest years of the 20th century in Vienna. After World War I, Hans Hahn, a member of that early group, helped bring Schlick into the mix. The Vienna circle took it upon themselves to rid the world of Hegelian metaphysics and they tried to apply science to philosophy
The opposition to all metaphysics was a key aspect and stance of the Logical Positivists, especially ontology and synthetic a priori propositions; they rejected metaphysics however not as wrong but as having no meaning; and they came to this conclusion based on Wittgenstein's work; the idea that all knowledge should be codifiable.
The whole idea was demarcation- splitting the world into metaphysics and actual science to try and gain the absolute truth. They believed that any statement that could not be verified are just plain nonsense, for example the Hegelian idea of the Ziet Geist leading history. The main question was - can we prove this claim, if not it was deemed as untrue. The Cogito by Descartes is rejected, as it cannot really be proven - it contains a non-verifiable induction. The Cogito was re-written by Ayer as "there are ideas" this is verifiable unless solipsism applies.
Karl Popper: Popper was born to Jewish parents and fed the Nazis to the University of London - he lived in Vienna during the golden age of the city: the Vienna Circle. Popper didn't see himself as one of the logical positivists and many of the logical positivists saw him as a direct opposition to the positivists.
Popper's main addition to philosophy was his theory of falsification - which holds the principle that if something cannot be proven, then you must disprove it.
Popper's concern was with distinguishing scientific from metaphysical statements. Unlike the positivists, he did not claim that metaphysical statements must be meaningless. Popper profoundly said that a statement which was metaphysical and unfalsifiable in one century could, in another century, be falsified which in turn makes them scientific. Popper stated that people should not rely on induction when it comes to science however most scientists think that science does rely heavily on induction. This is known as the problem with induction.
Popper eventually realised that everything was potentially untrue as people such as Newton had been proven wrong by Einstein - he says you have to assume what knowledge we have is incomplete and we will strive to be exact as you possible can.
The opposition to all metaphysics was a key aspect and stance of the Logical Positivists, especially ontology and synthetic a priori propositions; they rejected metaphysics however not as wrong but as having no meaning; and they came to this conclusion based on Wittgenstein's work; the idea that all knowledge should be codifiable.
The whole idea was demarcation- splitting the world into metaphysics and actual science to try and gain the absolute truth. They believed that any statement that could not be verified are just plain nonsense, for example the Hegelian idea of the Ziet Geist leading history. The main question was - can we prove this claim, if not it was deemed as untrue. The Cogito by Descartes is rejected, as it cannot really be proven - it contains a non-verifiable induction. The Cogito was re-written by Ayer as "there are ideas" this is verifiable unless solipsism applies.
Karl Popper: Popper was born to Jewish parents and fed the Nazis to the University of London - he lived in Vienna during the golden age of the city: the Vienna Circle. Popper didn't see himself as one of the logical positivists and many of the logical positivists saw him as a direct opposition to the positivists.
Popper's main addition to philosophy was his theory of falsification - which holds the principle that if something cannot be proven, then you must disprove it.
Popper's concern was with distinguishing scientific from metaphysical statements. Unlike the positivists, he did not claim that metaphysical statements must be meaningless. Popper profoundly said that a statement which was metaphysical and unfalsifiable in one century could, in another century, be falsified which in turn makes them scientific. Popper stated that people should not rely on induction when it comes to science however most scientists think that science does rely heavily on induction. This is known as the problem with induction.
Popper eventually realised that everything was potentially untrue as people such as Newton had been proven wrong by Einstein - he says you have to assume what knowledge we have is incomplete and we will strive to be exact as you possible can.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
The search for truth
This blog post will mark my return to a constant
flow of blogging (most probably :D) this will be mostly about the search for
truth, which we are arguably many many many years from now until we know the
full truth about something. Enjoy!
The search for truth: Science is the closest thing to a pure and accepted
truth, despite the fact that the pursuit of science and knowledge has only
clarified it in our minds that we are getting no closer to knowing a pure
truth. This links in with paradigm shifts and how it was once universally believed
that the world was flat and if you went to the edge it would be a waterfall
that you could fall off of. Sounds sensible, right? The philosopher Kant
believes that the real human condition is not mortality but instead to strive constantly
for the absolute truth and to never find it.
Kant, Aristotle Bacon and Newton: Kant delves deeper into his argument of truth and
how we know things by identifying two different types of “truth” these are:
Apriori – It is true by definition, you need no
prior experience to know that a triangle has 3 sides; by looking you can tell.
Aposteriori – These are observations of the world
that make facts, for example conducting surveys and so on.
Aristotle, Bacon and Newton all shared the belief
that the world exists solely of things. They believed that for example if a
tree falls in the woods then it still makes a sound regardless of if any is
around to hear it because it is still a physical being even if we aren't perceiving
it at that very moment, these objects are still physically there. This is linked
in closely with Plato and his idea of forms and the Cave theory.
Bacon, Newton and other empiricists (known as mechanical
materialists) thought that the cosmos is the sum total of many thing, some of
the things are very small and remote, for example atoms or molecules and so
therefore would be difficult to see, however they are still there as objects
and have been there for ages without us ever being able to see them.
The idea of solipsism would be a main opposition to
this theory insofar as the idea of solipsism is that everything is a dream, the
only thing that is there or real is you and they say your life is just images
in a dream that you have concocted. That is just wack.
From the ideas of Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche we
find the idea that to exist is not a predicate of any possible object,
existence isn't “caused” by anything it is a needed precondition of perception
or consciousness – this idea was a breakthrough during the scientific revolution.
Logic – Deduction vs. Induction. FIGHT: From Aristotle, we are brought about to the fight
between deduction and induction. In the “Organon” this tells us that deduction preserves
truth and respects authority above all else and this is perhaps the most
characteristic idea of the Greco-Roman world; deduction depends on a series of indisputable
axioms known to a group of philosopher Kings (Plato and his Republic) or known
to a religious hierarchy of priests and this produced singular / particular
truths from principles. An example of a pre-set deductive axiom would be all
swans are white, this is a swan, you can see it is white. This is a very
dogmatic view that does not allow for any inquiry or exceptions. The Organon and
other scriptures at this time were seen as fact and no-one could say otherwise.
Francis Bacon spoke out about how if an axiom is intrinsically false, then the
whole thing is not true – for example with the swans, not all of them are white
because black swans exist too. This means that if the deductive logic of an
axiom is wrong it cannot be seen as fact.
Newton to Einstein: Newton’s laws of gravity state that the universe
runs according to universal laws that are applied everywhere – you can find out
everything with amalgamation of knowledge, for example every disease can be
understood by constantly adding to the knowledge already gained – all things
can be proven scientifically and Newtonian knowledge paved the way for such technological
advancements as the steam age and so on.
The Vienna Circle 1922: This consisted of philosophers and this group of philosophers
decided that they had to apply science to philosophy to find any kind of facts as
philosophy by itself was just a waste of time and the way forward was science. The
Verification principle, which was bore through the ideas of the logical
positivists dictate that the way you verify something gives you the truth of
any proposition – this means that if it cannot be verified then it cannot be
claimed as true or false. However, Karl Popper stated that the verification principle
itself cannot be verified as there is no way to actually verify it. Well I'm now at a loss as to how we find out if something is absolutely true – thanks a
lot Karl.
Well there you have it, my notes on science and
truths, hope you found is somewhat enlightening and enjoyed the post. If you
read it that is, if not thanks for the views :)
Friday, 5 October 2012
Seminar Paper – The Rise of Science
The Rise of
Science: The
rise of science, otherwise known as the scientific revolution, took place in
the early modern period, 17th century, following the Italian Renaissance where development
in , physics,
mathematics, biology and chemistry transformed views of society
and nature. Historically, the rise of science began in Europe towards the end
of the 16th century and continued well into the 18th century. Further along in
the 18th century we come to what is known universally as the period of
Enlightenment – however, the true start date of the scientific revolution are
highly debated as people believe that the publications of Copernicus’s “On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” and then the publication by Vesalius’s “On
the Fabric of the Human Body” are what really set the rise of science in motion
which were both published in 1543. The creation of science wouldn't have been
possible without the profound insight of 4 great men – Copernicus, Kepler,
Galileo and Newton.
Copernicus: Copernicus’s
book “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” paved the way for modern astronomy. This is because his “heliocentric model”,
with the Sun at the centre of the universe, demonstrated that the motions of
celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the centre
of the universe. The heliocentric model depicts the earth and planets revolving
around a stationary sun at the centre of the solar system. This theory was
opposed by Geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the centre of the solar
system. However, the idea of the earth and other planets revolving the sun had
been the proposed thousands of years ago but received no real support from any
of the ancient astronomers. Thanks to Copernicus’s additions to science in the
16th Century, he managed to invent a way to predict this movement
through his full mathematical model of the heliocentric system; this really set
the groundwork which ultimately leads to the rise of the scientific method.
Despite the profound impact of Copernican theory, there arose many problems – the most prominent of these is the absence of a Stellar Parallax. A Parallax is a difference in the position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight; therefore a stellar parallax is the effect of a difference in sight on distant stars. It is a way to measure on an interstellar scale, and it can be used to determine the distance of Earth to another star, however this only become possible in the 19th century and this was still only in the case of the nearest stars, making it almost impossible to measure accurately, without the help of a telescope.
Kepler: Kepler was one of the first important astronomers to adopt
Copernicus’s heliocentric theory and he was highly influenced by Pythagorean
theory. Kepler was a German mathematician and astronomer, and is named a key figure
in the scientific revolution. His most influential work was published eponymously; this was called the laws of
planetary motion. In terms of astronomy, Kepler's three laws of
planetary motion had a highly profound impact on science and astronomy,
with his three scientific
laws describing orbital motion,
detailing the motion of planets revolving around the sun.
The first of Kepler’s laws was that the planets move in ellipses – it was generally understood by all astronomers that all celestial motions are circular and these are called epicycles. Therefore this means that the orbit of every planet is an ellipsis with the sun at one time or another. The second law details the varying velocity of the planet at different points of its orbit – I believe this explains how much the planets would move around the sun in their orbit and at what speeds. The third law was very important as it detailed and compared the movements of different planets while the first two laws were all about individual planets which had a mathematical formula to work it out – for example Russell states that “if R is the average distance of a planet from the sun and T is the length of its year, then R3 divided by T2 is the same for all the different planets”.
The first of Kepler’s laws was that the planets move in ellipses – it was generally understood by all astronomers that all celestial motions are circular and these are called epicycles. Therefore this means that the orbit of every planet is an ellipsis with the sun at one time or another. The second law details the varying velocity of the planet at different points of its orbit – I believe this explains how much the planets would move around the sun in their orbit and at what speeds. The third law was very important as it detailed and compared the movements of different planets while the first two laws were all about individual planets which had a mathematical formula to work it out – for example Russell states that “if R is the average distance of a planet from the sun and T is the length of its year, then R3 divided by T2 is the same for all the different planets”.
Galileo: Galileo is viewed as the greatest of the founders of modern
observational astronomy, the father of modern physics and the father of modern
science, he was only matched in credibility possibly by Newton – he very
important as an astronomer and maybe even as the founder of dynamics. His work
about dynamics allowed him to discover acceleration and this is defined as a
change in velocity. Galileo believed that everyone, if they were left alone
would continue to move in a straight line with uniform velocity.
Galileo was
the first to discover the law of falling bodies, which is tied in closely with
acceleration states that when you are free falling, the acceleration is
constant, but the effects of wind resistance would hinder you slightly and that
regardless of how heavy, tall or small the body is – it will always fall at the
same speed; the acceleration would not change because of these aspects; this
could only be fully proved with the invention of the air pump in 1654. Before
the profound insight of Galileo, it was generally agreed that if something was
larger, then it would fall faster solely on that aspect of it being bigger.
Furthermore,
he delved into the study of projectiles – it was generally thought that if an
object was fired horizontally it would travel like that for a while and then
fall vertically; now Galileo detailed that this would not be the case, he
stated that the horizontal velocity would remain constant in accordance with
the law of inertia but vertical velocity would be added which ties in with the
law of falling bodies The law of inertia explained issues that before Galileo,
the Copernican system was unable to confront, for example if you are at the top
of a tower and dropped a stone it would fall at the foot of the tower not to
the east or west, you would think that if the earth is rotating then during the fall it should move a small
amount. This does not happen because the stone would retain the velocity of
rotation which at the time of being released is being shared with the rest of
the earth’s surface.
Newton: Isaac Newton built upon all the groundwork towards this
scientific revolution that had been put in place by the other three great
theorists, the work put in by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo had set the stage
for Newton to shine. Newton details in his work the three laws of motion. The
first law – if an object experiences no force, then its velocity is always going
to be constant – for example if the object is in rest, its velocity will be 0,
or if it moves in a straight line with constant speed then its velocity is going to be above zero.
The second law states that the acceleration of a body is similar and directly
proportional of the remaining force, called F, acting on the body, is in the
direction of the net force and is inversely proportional to the mass of the
body. Finally, the third law explains that when a body exerts force on a second
body, the second body will exert force at the same time on the first body; this
means that the force of the two bodies is equal in magnitude and opposing in
direction.
Newton’s
most important work is called “The Principia”
and this is
generally deemed to be one of the most important scientific books ever written.
This is stated because it is independently detailed to the specific physical
laws the work successfully. Newton is also highly credited and esteemed as he
managed to build the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour
purely by observing that a prism decomposes white light into the
many colours that form the visible spectrum. Newton also worked on
celestial mechanics, this concerned gravitation and its effect on the orbits
of planets. Here he greatly referenced Kepler's three laws of
planetary motion. And if that wasn't enough, he
went one step further and also formulated a law of cooling and greatly studied the speed of sound.
Francis
Bacon: Francis Bacon has been named the creator and pioneer of empiricism. His works
established inductive methodologies
for scientific inquiry, which is known famously as the scientific method. The scientific method is the
idea that you must always start a new theory from scratch - you must protect
yourself from ideas from the past that might influence your ideas – which means
it has to be original and it is a means of discovering new knowledge and a
process of understanding.
Francis Bacon’s most notable work is called the “Novum Organum” which translates to “new instrument” or “New Organon” and this is an allusion to Aristotle’s work called the Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the outdated use of syllogism, he believed that you had to use the simple method of reduction and use inductive reasoning to gain knowledge.
This 'New Organon' had 4 key themes, the first of these being that knowledge is the source of human power, so we must harness and navigate through all knowledge. Secondly, there must be a clear separation of science and religion, as mixing if caused too many problems in the past. Thirdly the idea "new knowledge" must be thought up from scratch - these ideas or general theories must be then tested to see if they can prove them, or more accurately in later years falsify them. And finally science is dynamic - you must always admit to failure when you encounter it as opposed to the archaic way of never admitting defeat or failure, this is the way that you learn.
Francis Bacon’s most notable work is called the “Novum Organum” which translates to “new instrument” or “New Organon” and this is an allusion to Aristotle’s work called the Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the outdated use of syllogism, he believed that you had to use the simple method of reduction and use inductive reasoning to gain knowledge.
This 'New Organon' had 4 key themes, the first of these being that knowledge is the source of human power, so we must harness and navigate through all knowledge. Secondly, there must be a clear separation of science and religion, as mixing if caused too many problems in the past. Thirdly the idea "new knowledge" must be thought up from scratch - these ideas or general theories must be then tested to see if they can prove them, or more accurately in later years falsify them. And finally science is dynamic - you must always admit to failure when you encounter it as opposed to the archaic way of never admitting defeat or failure, this is the way that you learn.
Friday, 4 May 2012
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - HCJ
Schopenhauer: Schopenhauer
was a German philosopher and one of the great pessimists and he was known for
his philosophical clarity. Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World
as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what
humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to
the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully
satisfied. He became a student at a University in 1809. There he studied metaphysics
and he studied under a man who advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel
Kant, which is where he draws some of his influence from - Schopenhauer
accepted Kant's double-aspect of the universe — the phenomenal (world of
experience) and the noumenal (the true world, independent of experience).
Nietzsche: Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher. He wrote critical
texts on religion, philosophy and science. Nietzsche's influence comes notably from
existentialism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity
of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental
tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Ubermensch,
and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of
"life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all ideas
that drain life's expansive energies.
Nietzsche is renowned for saying that “god is dead” and
that all that will follow this is violence – which in turn will lead to the end
of mankind, Nietzsche also tries to find a “super-man” person. Nietzsche now
shows his true pessimism about life, he says that there won’t be humans
forever, so he believes that we will all die and that nothing we do matters at
all, but he says this as a good thing... crazy right? In 1872 Nietzsche
published his first book, The Birth of
Tragedy. However, his colleagues expressed little enthusiasm for the
work. He renamed his book “Hellenism and Pessimism”. Nietzsche criticises Schopenhauer
and calls him a Nihilist – he believes that Christians are the worst, they
merely wait for death when we have just one life, we must live it to the fullest
and ensure we die with no regrets, he believes that the Ubermensch does not
apologise for its actions and therefore has no regrets.
Well that’s all for now, just for my revision purposes
really, plus my notes are sort of bare for these two which isn’t good! Anyway, more
to come sometime soon, so...
Stay classy :) x
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