The final lecture of Year 2, Semester 1

The final lecture of the semester was based around the concept of Existentialism which was a cultural movement in the 19th and 20th centuries whereby philosophers  believed that human beings were the key to thoughts. Soren Kierkegaard who can be considered as the father of Existentialism, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl and Jean Paul Sartre were amongst this group of philosophers and their theories will be outlined in this blog.


Kirkegaard was a disciple of Friedrich Neitzsche and he wrote many works surrounding the feelings and emotions of human beings when they are faced with a choice. He had a very unhappy life and despised the fact that he was alive as life symbolised pain and suffering. He turned to religion and Christianity for guidance on how to live his life in a happy state. He also believed that every person should experience a "leap of faith" which described the emotions that would be felt when they fell in love or believed strongly in God. As humans we are better off putting our faith in Christianity as it is as valid as any other religion around the world, no idea is more valid than another as eventually everything in life mounts to nothing as we are all going to die. This discussion of Kierkegaard leads on well to the film "Wings of Desire" which was released in 1987. The film is a German black and white film that focuses on Kierkegaard's theory that Christianity is the saviour of humanity.The film is based around two immortal angels who populate Berlin help people who are in pain or are suffering. One of the angels  falls deeply in love with a trapeze artist. The angel chooses to become human so that he can experience human emotions so he can feel the power of love. 
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Front cover of Wings of Desire
showing the angel who longs for
love

Heidegger is well regarded for his work in phenomenology and greatly explored the idea of the 'question of being'. One of his most important works, Being And Time was written in 1927 and outlined his concepts of "Dasein". He thought that a person's personality changes constantly from second to second and humans are simply a structure of time that are always looking ahead to the future to predict what will happen. Human thoughts are surrounded by a notion of dread , events in our lives cause us to feel pain and there is no escape until we die. This is also a key theory of German psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who also believed that human lives were plagued with hurt and people needed therapy in order to help them to cope. Heidegger argued that the "dasein " is just a way in which humans are able to deal with dread, to question who they are. If we do not know who we are then we can not feel dread as nothing is for certain. He also devised a tri part theory for the existence of time
The past= guilt
The present= dread
The future= unknown
As humans we feel guilt about the past as we were not living, the present is unknown as we are unaware of our true identity and we dread the future as we do not know what will happen.


Husserl believed that humans have a subjective perception of objects, we choose what images we wish to see and in what context we wish to interpret them. We do not find a definitive explanation for what we see, merely a perception as different people interpret images in totally different ways. For example take a look at this image, people may see a duck or a rabbit, both interpretations of this image are true and there is no definite answer.


Sartre wrote the book La Nausee in 1938, outlining how our ideas are the product of real life situations. It is centred around a protagonist who constantly feels sickness and dread and attempts to resolve this by doing good deeds such as charity work in an attempt to find his true being. He believes that objects are an obstacle to his identity, both intellectually and spiritually and this is the cause of his near insanity. He eventually finds a revelation and is happy with who he is.  In the book Sartre uses the ideas of dread and "dasein" and implies that the only way to defeat dread it to be honest with yourself and have good faith. After all we are all doomed to death together so why not have good faith.

Seminar on Totalitarianism

For the last seminar of the semester we looked at Totalitarianism and Hanna Arendt and how her theories can be easily applied to many historical events. As a group we focused on Hitler and the Nazi Regime and how methods were enforced on the Jews that can be regarded as Totalitarian. Hitler used state terror in order to round up the Jews into concentration camps and then punished them with torture should they speak out. We also discussed whether there could ever be another incident of extreme totalitarianism, I argued that there could because it only takes one extremely power hungry dictator to introduce new ideology and terror to the masses within a country and then a totalitarian state to be formed. There will be no end to this method of rule as throughout the world today there are many dictators in countries such as Congo and Zimbabwe and it only takes new forms of repression for terror to spiral out of control.  The group also discussed how it is difficult for the masses to speak out against a dictator as they will get punished by either torture or death or a combination of the two. Totalitarianism can be seen as one of the most repressive methods of rule over the masses as it succeeds in destroying a whole group of innocent people who have a different way of life and religion to the ruling government who consider themselves to be the superior class. We concluded that everything should be done in order to attempt to prevent any more Totalitarian rule as the Nazi Regime and Apartheid in South Africa show the devastating effects of power with thousands of innocent people being killed as a result.

Totalitarianism and Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) can be regarded as one of the leading critics of Totalitarianism.  She was a German philosopher and politician whose theories on the structure of society are important to the present day. In one of her numerous books entitled, The Origins of Totalitarianism which was published in 1951 she outlines the ways in which Totalitarianism takes place and what effects it has on society.

Hannah Arendt speaking about her
political theories

She argues that each individual has their own unique personality, therefore it is impossible to predict what people will do. Everything is possible so people strive to seek as much power as they can as it is unlimited, however this power comes at a huge price as humanity will be destroyed. The methods by which leaders such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin gained this power and control was to break down people's individuality using state terror and ideology such as Marxism or Communism. Terror is the most important method as it prevents the masses from rebelling against the government and you are punished for wrong thoughts or appearance. (for example target of the Jews and the master race of blonde hair blue eyed people during the Nazi regime). The combination of terror and ideology breaks down society as there are no laws or authority and people lose their human rights. This idea of giving up rights is similar to the theories of Thomas Hobbes who believed that society will always need a ruler to maintain law and order but consequently humans lose their human rights. People lose their individuality through Ideology but this must be embraced and celebrated and it is the masses who will fuel this ideology as they are weak and vulnerable.  Finally,Arendt believed that there will never be an end to Totalitarianism as it is one endless loop of destruction and there will always be groups in society than can be targeted such as the Jews and the disabled.

Arendt was so interested in the ideas of Totalitarianism that she published another book entitled Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1968which was based around a true story she witnessed in Argentina. Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi fugitive during the Holocaust in the Second World War and was captured by Israeli Secret Service Agents in 1960. He was tried for his crimes against humanity in Jerusalem to show the world that the Holocaust was never forgotten and Arendt sat in the courtroom listening to the trial. Eichmann was sentenced to death for his part in the Holocaust but he defended himself stating that he was simply a law abiding citizen. Arendt believed that his crime was not his status as a Nazi but an inability to think for himself, he simply obeyed the orders of his officers without questioning them. As human beings we make a judgement based on what we believe and in the case of Eichmann he just didn't think about his actions. Everyone should rely on their own personal judgements not what the law states and must be prepared to break laws if it is necessary.  Below is a video of a newsreel which summarises Eichmann's trial

Seminar based on classic economics

In the seminar the group discussed the monetary policy and how Keynesian economics still have a large relevance today. The Central Bank controls the interest rates on mortgages and loans which is currently 0.5%, the same rate as it was in the 1930’s following the Great Depression.   The best way to boost an economy is to print money and give it to the poor as they spent it on goods, going to the pub and having a generally jolly good time.  It is unwise to give it to the rich as they save money which lies stagnant in an account; therefore it is not circulating around the economy.  The way to solve this problem is to tax the rich in order to give money to the poor to spend quickly so that the economy begins to pick up.  

This is the case in Britain today where the wealthy people of society pay a vast sum of money each year in taxes to the government, which ends up being spent on benefits to help the poor. Referring back to Keynes, the government is spending large sums of money on wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq. However this is not a good time to fight a war as Britain is in a state of economic decline with record figures of unemployment and people claiming benefits.  As a group we discussed how it is a bad idea to fight a war at this time with the world economy on the verge of collapse and David Cameron should end this war as soon as possible to save money and more importantly lives.

Lecture on classic economics

The next lecture focused around classic economics and the theories of John Maynard Keynes, who can be regarded as a modern economist as his works were viewed as radical and different.  Keynes published a book in 1936 named The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, following the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930’s.The book outlined why it is demand, not supply, which controls the overall level of economic activity. The General Theory can be summarised in four main points as outlined by Paul Krugman in his introduction.

John Maynard Keynes
( 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946)

·        Economies can and often do suffer from an overall lack of demand, which leads to involuntary unemployment. People are not buying goods; therefore less profit is being made which ultimately leads to job cuts as companies are unable to afford workers.

·        The economy’s automatic tendency to correct shortfalls in demand, if it exists at all, operates painfully and slowly.

·       Government policies to increase demand, by contrast can reduce unemployment quickly. The solution is to employ a large number of people to build roads and infrastructure.

·       Sometimes increasing the money supply won’t be enough to persuade the private sector to spend more, and government spending steps into the breach.  The government’s money must be spent on buildings and infrastructure that do not compete with the private sector. The best way to spend money is to have a war as even though this is expensive, countries can gain wealth from resources.

These theories by Keynes are in stark contrast to those of classical economists such as Adam Smith who founded the phrase “hidden hand of the market”. Smith believed that the economic market will do its own thing whether that will be an increase or decrease and the government does not need to intervene. If people have money, they have the choice to spend it on whatever they need or want. Freud argues against this theory as he suggests that when people gain wealth they make irrational choices with their money, eventually spending all of it.

Freud’s theory of irrational decisions can be applied today in the case of Italy. The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi led the country into a state of enormous debt and corruption by making irrational choices. He asked the Central Bank for a bond in order to borrow a sum of money to help the economy, which the bank agreed to as long as he paid interest on the bond. The bond had no monetary value; it was just a piece of paper that had a sum written on it. However, Italy is corrupt and people are not paying taxes like they should do, so the interest on the bond could not be paid using tax money. The country is unable to pay the interest back to the bank so the interest rates increase even further meaning cuts have to be made in order to pay the larger interest rates. As a result the economy begins to collapse meaning high levels of unemployment as companies cannot afford to employ workers. The economy becomes static as no money is moving around as people cannot afford to buy goods, leaving an even worse situation. Italy is unable to pay the higher interest rates back to the Bank; therefore the Bank refuses to give anymore Bonds to the country.  This is known as the Bond Market.

Frege and Russell seminar

The seminar based around Frege and his philosophy of language helped my understanding of the topic as chapter 5 of Kenny’s book really confused me. The sentences which the group discussed and analysed were “The present King of France is not bald” and “There was nobody on the road”. The first sentence regarding the King of France can appear to be either true or false. Without any knowledge you may think that the sentence is true, but there is no King of France as it is a republic so therefore the statement is false. This is one of the primary laws of logic as we need to have knowledge of an object or person before we can decide whether a statement is correct or incorrect. The sentence “There was nobody on the road” is an incorrect statement as you do not know if there is anybody on the road without looking to see if there is anyone.  You would have to use another sentence such as “I can’t see anybody on the road” in order to make a logical sentence.  We also discussed how a universal language would have to be created for the study of language as some languages do not have certain words or phrases that other languages do.  However there are some problems as languages such as Esperanto have been created to be a universal language but has practically died out as a language as everyone would have to learn the same language which would take time. A better idea would be to make a common language such as English or German the standard language as they have already been established and are spoken across the world.

Plato

From the seminar it was clear that language was an important topic for many philosophers during the 19^th century and it was analysed in great depth by people such as Frege and Russell. Language has been analysed for centuries by philosophers including Plato who argued that humans had a perception of an object and if the images all looked the same then we would assume it was the same object. For example if a man saw a chair that had a seat and four legs and then later on saw an armchair then he would assume that the two objects were chairs as they had the same characteristics and appearance.  The podcast below gives a good summary of Frege's works on the philosophy of language and is good if you are unsure of any of the concepts. It is 45 minutes long but worth a watch even if you watch a section each day.

Freud, Nietzsche and Marx

The third lecture of the Semester was focused around Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx. These figures can be considered as the founders of modern hermeneutics.  Modern hermeneutics focused on the philosophy of language and semiotics, how the meaning of words affects our interpretation of life. Another philosopher who studied hermeneutics was Frege and his works on the philosophy of language are highly regarded to the present day. I will discuss Frege’s theories later on in this blog post.

Nietzsche undermined the theories written by the Enlightenment philosophers as he attempted to find the truth by using subjective epistemology.  Epistemology focuses on the nature and scope of knowledge and Nietzsche believed that in life there was no universal truth, just impressions of truths which have a relative value.  What may be true for one person is completely false for another as we are all individual and our minds think and perceive in a variety of ways. One example of this is a man has bright green hair, not everyone is society has green hair so it may be true for him but not for his wife lets say. These truths are found within ourselves and not in the physical outside world, which rejects the theories of Enlightenment philosophers such as Newton who believed the world can be understood using science.  In addition, Nietzsche suggested that nothing in life is certain and as humans, we are unsure whether we will see a specific object or person more than once in our lives.

Marx has similar theories to those of Nietzsche with regards to the idea of universal truth.  He believed that the truth from the oppressed is different to that of the oppressor. Truth is heavily dependent on your perspective of a truth, if you are in the ruling class and you believe that women should be equal to men then that is what is true. Different groups of people think differently to each other and this is known as having different consciousnesses.  Similar to Marx, Friedrich Engles presented a theory that truth and systems of morality are subjective and can change over time- they are temporary.  The subjective is on a social level, not an individual level and truths vary from one culture to another. For example, cannibalism is illegal and immoral in the UK but is widely celebrated in Africa.

Freud believed that mental unhappiness came from issues within the inner tripartite self and that mankind is on a slow journey to death. Humans copy each other and follow each other like a pack of animals and are born and will die in a state of depression.  There have been many criticisms of Freud’s theories by many philosophers including Nietzsche who argues that each human being has an individual will which makes them who they are both physically and mentally. This will is good and society should just be whoever they want to be. The seven deadly sins are virtues and we should all just express ourselves freely and evil is just what we as individuals disapprove of.

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege
(8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925)

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege can be considered as the father of semiotics and the philosophy of language and was particularly interested in what words and sentences signified. He suggested that there is a distinction between the reference of an expression and the sense of an expression.  The reference of an expression is the object which a word refers to and the sense is how way in which a word presents its meaning. “The morning star is identical with the evening star” is an identity statement as the both the morning and evening star refer to the planet Venus,  if a sign is squashed with two names with the same reference then the statement is true.

DVD cover of the operetta

Following on from the lecture the group watched a short operetta named “The Seven Deadly Sins” composed by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in 1933. The operetta tells the story of two sisters, Anna I and Anna II. Anna I is the main singing voice and Anna II, the dancer, is heard only infrequently and the two sisters are the same person but have a split personality. Brecht splits the personality of Anna into Anna I, who is the voice of reason, and Anna II who is emotional but acts impulsively.  This operetta really captured how Freud’s tripartite self can work on an individual with the ego and the id and how they are in constant conflict with each other. Below is a video of the prologue of the operetta which highlights the conflict between the id and the ego.. enjoy!!