Totalitarianism - Revision Notes

Totalitarianism is all about control. HANNAH ARENDT argued that the 20^th century totalitarian regimes were completely different from anything that had come before.

Everything is in the state, the state controls everything and there is nothing outside of it. The aim is to completely strip away peoples individuality and undermine their humanity. Two methods to destroying individuality:
1) State Terror – Destroys their ability to act against the government
2) Ideology – Eliminates the capacity for individual thought and experience

Ideology is a type of specialist knowledge and is also used as justification for the authority of rulers. It is a way to avoid responsibility and gives people “total explanation of the past, the total knowledge of the present, and the reliable prediction of the future”. Ideology frees you of common sense and reality. The breakdown of a stable human world breaks the institutional and psychological barriers that normally set limit to what is possible, e.g. concentration camps. For Arendt when the Nazi’s denied the Jews citizenship it removed their humanity. Totalitarianism highlights the fragility of civilisation. If you control language you control thought.

Totalitarianism is so different from what has come before; it develops an entirely new political institution and destroys all political, legal and cultural traditions of the county. It transforms the classes into masses and destroys individuality. Because it’s so different from what has come before it’s difficult to predict their course of action.  

Some try to compare totalitarianism to tyranny, but the difference is that tyranny has no law, whereas totalitarianism believes in higher law. Totalitarianism defies all positive law (common, cultural law). Nazi Germany followed the law of nature, using biology as the basis of their laws. The race struggle and segregation of the Jews was based on DARWIN’S idea that man is a product of natural development. Whereas Stalin’s Communist Russia was based on MARX’S teleological view of history, that history is working towards something.

You do not have to be inherently evil to do evil things, Arendt calls this the banality of evil. An example of this is the Eichmann trial. Eichmann was a Nazi fugitive who stood on trial in Jerusalem. He provided transport for Jews across Europe to concentration camps. His defence was that he was just doing his job and he didn’t directly kill any Jews. Arendt takes an existentialist view to this in that he had a choice to make and as far as SARTRE is concerned, by not making a choice he is living in “bad faith”. Eichmann was just doing his duty and following the categorical imperative of KANT. But you can’t just sit back and be passive in your own life, you have to be accounted for, you have to choose.

The New Industrial State - Revision Notes

WEBER-
Mentions the “rise in bureaucracy”, this means we would be ruled by officials and they would gain authority through their charisma and then keep their power through legalities. Weber was quite anti-political, he was interested in power and why we follow rules set out by certain people.

The 1950’s and 60’s were a time of prosperity in America and Keynes was the god of economics.

KEYNES-
Keynes used the Great Depression as an example and a basis for his theory.  During a depression people will be forced to work for less because of a surplus in labour. Everyone will need a job but no one will have the money to buy the products. This means that demand will fall so businesses will supply less and need less labour. This can then result in either unemployment or very low wage as people will be desperate for any income they can get.
Keynes’ solution: print more money. By boosting the economy with more money, the government can give businesses subsidies to employ people. Or they can create government schemes that seem pointless e.g. digging holes and filling them in again.
The government should intervene when the economy slows because the private sector would not be able to invest enough.
This is known as military Keynesianism.
However Keynes “managed society” received a lot of criticism from both the far left and right. It has been referred to as a form of “soft totalitarianism”.

J.K. GALBRAITH – (The New Industrial State)-
During the 1950’s and 60’s Americans reached a new level of prosperity, whilst other parts of the world were struggling to rebuild from the devastation of World War 2.

Galbraith argues that the industrial system is run by the technostructure rather than business owners.  Technostructure= a few large corporations control 2/3rds of all economic activity, they are run by people from technocratic universities. The leadership of these organisations is run by economic planners, scientists, generals, security experts, propagandists and media maniuplators etc. These people are not some secret society, they are the fabric of the leadership level of society. Galbraith says they would all share the same training and the same outlook.

There is no aim to this system. It is essentially nihilistic, pragmatic “technological-bureaucratic”. It is extraordinarily violent, for example spending on nuclear weapons. Heidegger predicted it would reach a violent disintegration and said it was doomed.

Problems/Criticisms of the New Industrial State:

1. Increased role of the state

2. Inflation

3. Keynesian Military 

4. Destruction of profitability

Existentialism - Revision Notes

There is no point to anything. There is no right or wrong, no moral compass, it is all about choice. Choice is crucial to the existentialist point of view. It is the brave decision to do something even though it is utterly pointless. Existentialism is the agent for political change.

NIETZSCHE-
“God is dead and we have killed him” – this marks the end of certainty.
We are faced with a crisis and need something else to sustain us. Nietzsche thinks this crisis is a good thing because it means complete freedom!
It gives us the freedom to find value for ourselves as there is no hierarchy to tell us what is right or wrong. 

Our ships can at last be put out to sea in the face of every danger.
Human nature is not universal; people’s natures are different so they have different moralities. The Ubermensch overcomes what has so far defined us. The Ubermensch carves his own place in the world according to his will. The Ubermensch will define himself and ignore the rules.

HEIDEGGER-
Claims he isn’t an existentialist but is regarded as the father of existentialism.
Interested in what it means to exist and the problems of human life. What is being? He responds to this with “Dasein” (Being in the world).
Mainly attacks DESCARTES and his Cartesian dualism (mind and body). Heidegger thinks this is nonsense. How would these two things interact if my mind is one thing and my body another? How would I control my body and interact with the world?
Instead of consciousness, Heidegger simply talks about Dasein. This is our interaction with the world,  it denotes a certain amount of engagement. For Dasein to exist it must exist in the world, there is no Dasein without the world.
All we are is our interaction with the world, and we are defined by our choices. If you make and face your decisions then you are living an authentic life. If you follow social constructs then you are living an unauthentic life, you are a slave. You should not be defined by your facticity (your past).
We are thrown into the world, it is nothing but blind luck. There is no reason to it. You can re-create yourself, for existentialism your potential is just as important as where you are now.

SARTRE-
Existence precedes essence. We create our own purpose.
There is no guiding spirit, no teleological driving force, stuff just happens, good and bad, without reason. Heidegger’s existentialism is right wing and Sartre’s is much more left.
The life of a person is not determined in advance. The only thing I cannot escape  is my right to choose. This is frightening so people try to avoid this which is “bad faith”. We are not defined, we define ourselves.
A table is a table because it has an essence, human beings have no essence, there is no one way it has to be, as it is possible for us to change or reflect on our behaviour.

Existentialism is the reaction to the realisation there is no reason to anything.

Logic and Mathematics - Revision Notes

Natural Numbers=Words used to count things

3 Basic Approaches to Number:
1) They are natural and can be empirically observed (MILL)
2) They are institutions of a perfect and harmonic platonic world (PYTHAGORAS, DESCARTES)
3) They are abstract logical objects, constructed purely from syntax (FREGE)

1) Numerical Naturalism:
Stone age tribes appear to be able to judge simple empirical plurality. “one thing”, “more than one thing”, “lots of things” are all the numbers they need. If you walk into a room and see one person you don’t physically count that one person, you can just categorise it in terms of plurality. Most people can get up to six or even seven before they physically would have to count how many people there are.  A large number like 7,246 is just a predicate symbol of more basic symbols, organised according to known syntax.  Realistically you would just say “there are a lot of people” or “the room is full”.
MILL went beyond his predecessors claiming that not only all science, but also all mathematics is derived from experience. The definition of each number contains the assertion of a physical fact. Every number (2, 3, 4 etc.) denotes physical phenomena and connotes a physical property of that phenomena. E.g. “two” denotes a pair of things, and connotes what makes them pairs. Two apples are physically distinguishable from three apples. They are a different visible and tangible phenomenon.

Mill doesn’t make it clear exactly what the property is that is connoted by the name of a number, and Mill also admits that the mind has some difficulty distinguished between 103 apples and 104 apples.

2) Pythagoreanism/Platonism:
Prime numbers are pre-existing, eternal, supernatural forms.  They are necessary preconditions for consciousness. This goes against KANT’S theory “existence is not a predicate”, for Platonism existence is a predicate of numbers.  Prime numbers exist in a non-human dimension, just like the perfect form of an object exists in the realm of the forms. These things are eternally true.
There is a special religious significance to the number three. Three is the magic number.  Rule of thirds, three part drama, three chord triad etc.
PYTHAGORAS and all the Greeks only regarded plurals as natural numbers, so began counting with two. “One” and “not one” were different logical categories. FREGE later points out this can cause a problem in logic, “there is no one on the road” does not mean the road is empty.

PROBLEM OF NOTHING AND ZERO – Introduction of zero came from India after the fall of Rome.  This is difficult because zero=nothing=something. This falls under ARISTOTLE’S law of contradiction. LEIBNIZ solves this law of contradiction by stating that an object can contain its own negation. Modern philosophers of mathematics have now asserted that zero is in fact a natural number.

3) Numbers as Logical Objects:
The problem of nothing and zero remained unsolved for 1000 years until FREGE.
He links logic and arithmetic in an overall system of philosophy of language. He attempted to demonstrate the logical basis for numbers therefore refuting Platonism. He also rejected MILL’S numerical empiricism, you cannot find zero in nature.
FREGE’S method:
Axiom= all things that are identical are equal to themselves (definitional, a priori, deductive truth).
- All things which are pairs are identical to other pairs.
- We assign a nominal symbol to this class of pairs (e.g. two)
- “One” is the class of all things not associated with other things.
- “Zero” is the class of all possible objects that are not equal to themselves.  “Null class”
- Therefore “zero” is defined into existence as a logical object.

Existentialism and Phenomenology Revision Notes

KANT-
Existence precedes essence. Consciousness is not proof of existence. Consciousness just is, it doesn’t cause anything and isn’t caused by anything.  You cannot stand outside of consciousness. This is the rejections of DESCARTES’ Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), consciousness is not individual, there is no “I”, so Descartes theory makes no sense.

HUSSERL-
Consciousness comes in 2 kinds:
1)Physical (colours + smells)
2)Mental ( thoughts with content)
At first tried to link maths with psychology, but this didn’t work and received a lot of criticism. E.g. FREGE criticised it stating maths is a public concept but mental events are private so maths can’t be based within the mind.
Logic cannot be derived from psychology; psychology is the home of philosophy. Science and Logic require factual enquiry.
Mental Phenomena have Intentionality; thoughts are directed to objects. Content and processor are both essential for thought. “I think of a cat” the cat is the content and I am the processor.

Husserl then took this further to draw a distinction between psychology and epistemology through a practice called “phenomenology”.
Phenomenology= To study consciousness in a purely logical way, no metaphysics.
Whether you’re thinking about a real thing or a fantasy it doesn’t matter as your intentionality is the same.
We can only speculate about the external world.
Imminent perception= immediate acquaintance with my own thoughts (basis of phenomenology)
Transcendent perception= perception of my past thoughts and other people’s minds.

Only consciousness has absolute being, everything else depends on consciousness for their existence.

HEIDEGGER-
Phenomenology is too half hearted. The terms used to describe it e.g. “content” weren’t found in consciousness but were just taken from earlier philosophy. Heidegger wanted to re-invent the philosophical vocabulary so we could discuss the term “being” without worrying about what it used to mean in previous philosophical examples.

Dasein = Being in the world.
Thinking is only one way of engaging with the world, acting on it is just as important. Dasein is not about thinking, it is about caring and is purely instinctive. It is relative to the person ad can be entirely ungrounded or even dependant on mood. It involves complete absorption within a task. Dasein is the unfolding of a life, your potential is just as important as your achievements.
Reflection on past= guilt
Reflection on future = dread
Only when you completely care and are absorbed by the task at hand do you have Dasein.
“Authenticity relies on complete absorption within a task”. You should aim towards the “authentic life”

Through his use of Dasein he became the father of existentialism.
Existentialism= we are not just members of a species bound by universal law, we are what we take ourselves to be.
This can be scary and can result in unthinking conformity, but to do so is a betrayal of your Dasein.
Existence is boredom, “the problem of being”. The opposite of boredom is Dasein. Within infinite time there would be infinite boredom.

It is all about choice.

SATRE-
Also thought that Husserl had not taken phenomenology far enough. Husserl had accepted the Cartesian Ego, but Satre says there is no thing.  The “self” belongs to the transcendent world, when I do something I do not think of myself, it’s only upon reflection that I become the object.

Being underlies all the different things we encounter in consciousness – we sort things in order of what interests us and what will be of use to us.
We are the only beings for which our being comes before our essence. E.g. an oak tree has a life plan and cannot deviate from this plan, it has no choice. But we do have this choice, it’s up to you what kind of person you want to be. Human life is not pre-determined, but this choice can be scary! So we try to hide from it by trying to adopt some pre-determined role given to use by society or religion. But Satre says that doing this is bad faith! You must embrace the freedom.

New Journalism Seminar Reading

Radical Chic – Tom Wolfe.

This is the epitome of New Journalism, delving into great detail and describing every possible moment. Wolfe describes every detail of the party down to the hors d'oeuvres (appetizers). By giving such a lengthy description Wolfe highlights the ironies within the event, but it seems almost unintentional as he’s stating things so matter of fact.

The Black Panthers, who are supposed to be these extreme revolutionaries, are sipping drinks and eating nibbles in a posh penthouse suite. It’s not quite the image you would conjure up if you thought of them. Wolfe’s style of writing is similar to what you would expect from a feature, giving the reader a real feel for the room and the atmosphere.

In this time of revolution a lot of peoples focus seemed to be on not upsetting or offending the Black Panthers, as Wolfe goes into great length about the importance of having a white server that evening.  The thought of not having a servant is “unthinkable” to these people, it is seen as a necessity to their lifestyle.

Wolfe appears to take great joy in highlighting the fact there is still a divide within the party, not to do with race, but to do with status. Those attending the party are still concerned with what is thought of them by the servers and the doormen.

Serious issues and the agenda of the Black Panther movement is discussed and Wolfe chooses to record this in real voice colloquial language. This adds to the detail and really gives the reader a feel for the guests at this event.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved – Hunter S. Thompson

Thompson, like Wolfe, gives you a step by step construction of each scene in great detail, really giving the reader every inch of colour that can be added. But unlike Wolfe, Thompson gives a better insight to the character of the narrator, he is the main focus, whereas in Wolfe’s he’s simply an observer.

It also gives you an insight into the life of a new journalist as he mentions his journal which becomes whiskey covered and mud stained as he keeps it with him through every moment of the drink fuelled weekend. Thompson also sticks by the use of colloquial, true to life speech “naw, naw”.

Kentucky Derby is set in the same time frame as Radical Chic so the revolutionary, rebellious feeling is still very strong. The fact the narrator continually refers to the use of mace shows that there was an element of fear at this time. 

New Journalism

The Penny Papers marked the very beginning of American journalism. They were usually funded by politicians and businesses so this brought up suspicions regarding their neutrality. During the mid-nineteenth century objectivity became more of a factor. The associated press need objectivity to be profitable.

The first “new journalism” was the Yellow Press in the late nineteenth century. There was a big rival between the New York Journal and the New York World. The press used “sensationalism”  - huge emotive headlines with big striking pictures, not too dissimilar from The Sun on Sunday. They focused on exclusive, dramatic, romantic stories to really attract their audience and draw them in. Many referred to Yellow Journalism as New Journalism without a soul. All the stories were about sin, sex and violence.

The 1960s was a very turbulent time, the great hope of JFK was destroyed with his assassination in 1963. There was also the disastrous war in Vietnam and there was a lot of controversy surrounding the draft, Muhammad Ali refused to be conscripted. The baby boom also had a big effect. It created a powerful youth culture as the baby boomers hit their teens in the 1960s. It was a big period of revolution; the sexual revolution with  the pill becoming available, civil rights, and black power. LSD was introduced by the CIA and was used to access the altered thinking of the counter culture. Universities became the centre of radical politics. Music was central to the culture, it was a full frontal attack on the norms. It was drug fuelled and anti-establishment, protest songs were very popular.

The ideas of the time were informed by existentialism. Heidegger’s “authenticity” and Sartre’s “bad faith”. The key ideas are freedom and choice. For example Fanons view of a path to freedom via accelerated choice (i.e. violence). For Fanon, the act of violence is essentially an extreme expression of choice. It is choice with a real immediate impact. There is a real anti-establishment feeling, “there is a policeman inside your head, he must be destroyed”. This idea seeped into journalism. Journalists began to question whether basing stories on press releases and press conferences was really objective. Journalists began to focus on plots, quotes, settings, feelings and images, whilst still being extremely thorough with their facts. This alternative journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. 

Logic and Mathematics

Natural Numbers- words used to count things.

Three basic approaches to number:

1)       Natural and can be empirically observed. -  Mill.

2)      They are institutions of a harmonic, perfect, platonic world. – Descartes.

3)      They are abstract logical objects constructed purely from syntax – Frege.

Syntax= logical system using rules of inference to alter the meaning of symbols.

Numerical Naturalism
Apes and stone age tribes appear to be able to judge empirical plurality, typically;
0 = Absence of a thing
1 = One banana/enough bananas
2 = A lot of bananas/unlimited bananas

“one thing” “more than one thing” and “lots of things” are the only number system they need.

Small number words are functionally different to large number words. If you come into a room and there is one person, you don’t consciously count that person, but people struggle once they get past 6/7 and have to physically count. So the number 7434 is a predicate symbol of more basic symbols organised according to known syntax, and as a predicate it can be analysed.

Pythagoreanism/Platonism
Prime numbers are pre-existing, eternal, supernatural forms. Necessary pre-conditions for consciousness. All other numbers are just rational combinations of prime numbers. Prime numbers exist in a non human dimesion and they are eternally true and ultimately mysterious. E.g. the religious significance of the number 3.

Pythagoras and (and all the Greeks) regarded only plurals as natural numbers so they begin counting with “two”.

Problem of nothing and zero
The concept of zero came from India, much later via Sufi Islam. The entire Arabic numerical system was introduced in the middle ages after the fall of Rome.
Zero =Nothing
Nothing = Something
Problem of the law of contradiction was solved by Leibniz’s monads that an object can contain its own negation. Modern philosophers have thus asserted that zero is a natural number. Logically derived as 1-1=0 “nothing” is a philosophical absurdity. The qualitative differential gap between 0=nothing and 1=something is as big as the universe.

The problem of nothing/zero remained unsolved until Frege.

Numbers as logical objects
Links logic and arithmetic in an overall system of philosophy of language, with arithmetic as a special case of language.

Axiom- all things which are identical are equal to themselves.
It follows – all things which are pairs are identical to all other pairs, regardless what they are pairs of.
The class of all pairs contains all pairs and this can be given a purely nominal symbol e.g. “two” a word or a numeral it doesn’t matter.

Epistemology
Mill went beyond his predecessors claiming that not only all science, but also all mathematics is derived from experience. The definition of each number contains the assertion of a physical fact. Every number (2, 3, 4 etc.) denotes physical phenomena and connotes a physical property of that phenomena. E.g. “two” denotes a pair of things, and connotes what makes them pairs. Two apples are physically distinguishable from three apples. They are a different visible and tangible phenomenon.

Mill doesn’t make it clear exactly what the property is that is connoted by the name of a number, and Mill also admits that the mind has some difficulty distinguished between 103 apples and 104 apples.

He also claims that “the sum of equals are equals” is an inductive truth, or a law of nature I the highest order. Inductive truths = generalisations based on individual experiences.

Newman belonged to the same empiricist tradition as Mill. Newman believed that the only direct acquaintance we have with things outside ourselves comes through our senses, to think we have faculties for direct knowledge of immaterial things is merely superstition. Our senses don’t let u go very far out of ourselves, we have to be near things to touch them and we can neither hear nor touch things from the past or future. Reason is our way of proceeding from things which are perceived to things that are not. The exercise of reason is to assert one thing on the grounds of another.

Newman identified two different aspects that are exercised when we reason; inference (form premises) and assent (to a conclusion). These two things are very different and assent may be given without grounds, or based upon a poorly constructed argument.  Arguments may be better or worse, but assent either exists or it doesn’t. Locke argued that there is there cant be a concrete assent, as the assent must be conditional. Newman didn’t agree with this stance, there is no such thing as degrees of assent. However he still argued that assent based on evidence that is merely intuition may still be valid, e.g. all of us are certain that we will one day die but we cannot give exact evidence to support this.

There is a difference between knowledge and certainty. If I know “p” then “p” is true, but I may be certain of “p” but “p” can still be false. 

Phenomenology and Existentialism - Seminar Paper

Kant first marks the departure from Descartes’ metaphysical philosophy by stating that “existence is not a predicate of consciousness”, it is a pre-condition of consciousness. Consciousness is not a proof of existence, consciousness just “is”, it doesn’t cause anything and isn’t caused by anything. To ask “how does consciousness arise?” is a stupid question, how could there not be consciousness? You cannot stand outside of consciousness. Consciousness is not individual, there is no “I” as in “I think therefore I am”, Descartes’ transcendent ego no longer works as a theory.

Like Freud, Husserl was Jewish, and he also attended lectures in Vienna. He too fell subject to Nazi anti-Semitism having his books burnt by German troops in 1939.
Husserl was greatly influenced by Franz Brentano who tried to relate Aristotelian philosophy of mind to modern experiment. Brentano’s publication: “psychology from an empirical standpoint” stated that the data of consciousness comes in two kinds: physical (colours and smells) and mental phenomena (thoughts which have content or are about an imminent object).

Husserl focused his philosophical approach on mathematics and his first publication was the “philosophy of arithmetic”. Here he tried to explain that our numerical concepts were originated in mental acts. However, because of his desire to connect mathematics and psychology, he ended up drawing some undesirable conclusions, such as denying that one and zero were numbers. Frege criticised this publication stating that the mental events that are private to the individual could not be the foundation of mathematics as that is public and is the same for everyone. After much criticism, Husserl abandoned this idea.

The beginning of the twentieth century marked the start of continental traditions and saw many philosophers making the distinction between logic and psychology. Husserl was no different. In his publication “logical investigations” he argued that logic cannot be derived from psychology, and that psychology is philosophy’s rightful home. Sciences and logic require factual enquiry. However Husserl took his theories further by stating that what is characteristic of mental phenomena is that they are directed to objects. “I think OF you” “I worry ABOUT my degree” the words “of” and “about” indicate intentionality. There are two things that are essential for thought: that it has content and a possessor. For example “I think of a cat”. The cat is the content and I am the possessor. So when talking about mental phenomena the three big things are the content, the possessor, and its intentionality. Many other people may also think of a cat which Husserl explained by saying that these other mental acts belong to the same species. The concept (a cat) is just the species to which all of these acts belong.

After drawing a distinction between psychology and logic, Husserl proceeded to go further and draw a distinction between psychology and epistemology, doing so through the new discipline of “phenomenology”. Phenomenology was developed in the beginning of the twentieth century by Husserl and a group of philosophers at Munich, who coined the phrase “phenomenological movement”. The aim of phenomenology is the study of immediate items of consciousness, without referring to what that consciousness might tell us about the extra-mental world. So basically its aim is to study consciousness as a thing in itself, in a purely logical way, and to avoid any metaphysical ideas. For Husserl it makes no difference whether the concept you have is of a real thing or a hallucination because the intentionality of you thought (e.g. the OF or the ABOUT) is exactly the same regardless of whether it’s about a cat or a unicorn. Husserl gave the example that “I think of Jupiter as I think of Bismarck”, Husserl may never have seen Jupiter but that doesn’t mean he can’t have the concept of it, as his intentionality is the same.

 In his publication Husserl left open the possibility that there may be realities of non-phenomenal objects, but such objects are to be no concern of the philosopher.  He states that this is because we can only speculate about the external world. Husserl makes the distinction between imminent perception and transcendent perception. Imminent perception is my immediate acquaintance with my own mental thoughts and is the basis of phenomenology. Transcendent perception is my perception of my own past actions and mental states, and of the contents of other people’s minds. Imminent perception is self-evident whereas transcendent perception is fallible as it leaves room for interpretation and error. Husserl stated that only consciousness has “absolute being”, all other forms of being depend on consciousness for their existence. He uses the same concept to describe phenomenology in that phenomenology is the most basic of all disciplines because its subject matter provides the basis for all other philosophy and science.

Heidegger was one of Husserl’s pupils and he claimed that up to this point phenomenology had been too half hearted. Phenomenology was supposed to examine the data of consciousness, but the terms used to describe it, such as “act” and “content”, had not been discovered in consciousness, but instead were just taken from earlier philosophy.

Heidegger maintained that the concept of “being” was the first task of phenomenology. We must understand “being” before we can consider the relationship between consciousness and reality. Heidegger argued that we must go back to the theories of the pre-Socratic philosophers to talk about “being” as they pre-date the formal philosophical vocabulary and all of the presuppositions which they carry with them. Heidegger set himself the task to re-invent the philosophical vocabulary, so we could discuss “being” without the complications of what the words used mean in other philosophical examples.

The main term in Heidegger’s vocabulary that you need to remember is “Dasein” which is essentially “being in the world”. Thinking is only one way of engaging with the world, acting upon it is just as important. For example a carpenter relates to the world through the use of his hammer and this is his true engagement with reality.  The concept of Dasein goes against the work of other philosophers, such as Descartes, who try to prove the existence of an external world. For Heidegger we are not separate beings detached from the world, trying to understand it through experiences, we are ourselves elements of the world. We are beings amongst other beings.

Dasein is not about thinking, it is about caring and it is purely instinctive. Only if you care about the world will you then be able to ask questions and give knowledgeable answers. Dasein is relative to the person and can be entirely ungrounded, or can even be affected by things such as mood or emotion. Dasein is the unfolding of a life, you are not stuck to one thing, you can be something you have never been before, and your potential is just as important as your achievements. What you are aiming for in life has the ability to determine the significance of where you are now. Reflection on the past can produce guilt and reflection on the future can produce dread, it is only when you are caring about the task in hand that you have Dasein. Freedom and authenticity lies in the complete absorption within a task. To live the “authentic life” would be somewhere along the lines of living a self-sustained, simple life in the woods. Whatever your achievements or potentialities were they all terminate in death, death does not complete them.

Through his interpretation of Dasein, Heidegger became the father of “existentialism”. This is the philosophy that we are not just members of a species bound by universal laws, we are what we take ourselves to be. The idea of such freedom can be alarming and result in unthinking conformity, but to do so is a betrayal of your Dasein. To make your own life you must acknowledge that there is no greater meaning for the choices you make and that no choice you make will bring a transcendent meaning to your life.

Sartre was a pupil of Heidegger for a brief period of time and he too developed a form of existentialism. Like Heidegger, Sartre also argued that Husserl had not taken phenomenology far enough. Husserl had accepted the Cartesian ego of the thinking subject, but in fact there is no such thing. When I am absorbed in what I am thinking or doing I have not thought of myself, it’s only upon reflection that we make ourselves the object. So to be thorough phenomenologists we must say that the “self” belongs to the transcendent world.
Sartre attacked the theories of Hume that the only difference between perception and imagination are that in perception the images are more vivid than they are in imagination. Sartre maintained that imagination relates us to extra mental objects not to internal images. For example when we imagine a real person who is not actually there we are creating an object in the world. For Sartre our emotions are not passive, they are not an impartial awareness of our environment. For example when we are depressed we change our perception of the world to make all interactions with it appear pointless.

After the war Sartre moved onto more existentialist philosophy in his publication “Being and Nothingness”. For Sartre, being underlies all the different things we encounter in consciousness. We sort things in accordance with what interests us and what will be of use to us. Sartre argues that we are the only beings for whom our existence comes before our essence. For example an oak tree has to follow a particular life pattern, it has no choice, however man does not belong to a structure in the same kind of way. It is up to you to decide what kind of thing you want to be. The life of a human individual is not determined in advance by a creator or moral laws. Human freedom is absolute but it is also alarming having the responsibility of ultimate choice. We try to hide this freedom from ourselves by trying to adopt some predetermined role given to us by society or religion, but we ultimately fail at doing so and are left in a condition that Sartre calls “bad faith”. The alternative is to embrace and accept our freedom and all of the responsibilities which come with it. Other than the obvious physical constraints to what you can achieve, it is you that must make your decisions entirely on your own.

Freud

Freud’s theory of the human condition is an all-encompassing theory. Freud’s work addresses the problem that is the misery of the human condition. We are unhappy because we are alienated from ourselves, we don’t know what we want. Freud believed he had found the solution in psychoanalysis as the way to gain access to the understanding of why we act the way we do. Freudian slips, dreams and neurosis, are all evidence that an unconscious mind exists and are gateways to your true thoughts.

Freud sexualised everything and believed that sex is the cause of our motives. He challenged the idea of the enlightenment that we are calculated beings, and he damaged our idea of ourselves as noble creatures. Freud was very pessimistic and had a dark view of humanity; he likened his ideas to the artwork of Rembrandt, a little light but a lot of darkness.

Marx also thought that we are alienated, but he had a teleological view that it was going towards a brighter thing – communism. Marx believed that we can evolve and become better. Freud rejects this and thinks it is nonsense. Our deepest needs are aggression, the wilful desire to hurt others and hurt ourselves. We seek our own destruction.

Freud followed Plato’s idea of the tripartite self (reason, spirit, desire – allegory of the two horses and a chariot). However where Plato believed that reason was the strongest, Freud actually believed it was the weakest.  Freud split the self into the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego. The Id is the dominating part of our lives and is at our core from the moment we are born. It is made up of aggression and sexuality, it is the spoiled brat in us. “A cauldron seething in excitations” demanding fulfilment, always demanding we hurt others. The Ego is the least powerful part of the personality and is the voice of reason. We think it is the most dominant part of us but we are wrong. The Super Ego comes from the outside, initially from our parents and then the wider society. It is irrational. It is the policeman in your head, and punishes you with guilt when you don’t achieve perfection.

Society is full of suffering because it is full of pain:
1) Our own decaying body- nature
2) The external world – fate
3) Interaction with other people – the greatest pain. People are out to get us, but we are also inclined to hurt others.

Freud believes the answer to this is psychoanalysis, but this isn’t available to everyone. The masses will continue on their own destructive path. Freud outlines ways to contain these urges but he doesn’t recommend them:
1) Intoxication- but it is temporary and expensive
2) Isolation – stay away from other people
3) Religion – mass delusion

Civilisation is a collective super ego imposing moral limits on the Id.  The best example of this is religion “love our neighbour as ourselves” but how is that possible if the Id wants you to hurt them and for them to hurt you? Religion puts impossible demands on us.

Attacks on Freud’s theories:
1) Falsifiability –Popper – Freud was so vague that his theories could not be tested. There is no proof that psychoanalysis works.
2) Freud was not the discoverer of unconsciousness  - Schopenhauer said something similar.
3) Reich believed the complete opposite. The unconscious forces inside the mind are good and it was their suppression by society that distorted them and made people dangerous. Reich believed that the underlying energy was sexuality and if it was released then people would flourish.

Ethics

There are many moral philosophers, dating back to Plato and Aristotle, which have treated happiness as the supreme good. However Kant in his “Groundwork” stated that duty, not happiness, was the supreme moral motive.

Bentham is one of the philosophers who does identify happiness as the supreme moral principle, but Bentham identifies happiness as pleasure. Bentham is a Utilitarian so he argues that pleasure is the main cause of all action, and an action should be considered in regards to the amount it increases pleasure or reduces pain. He not only regarded happiness as being the equivalent of pleasure, but he also regarded pleasure in itself as simply a sensation. “Pain and pleasure are what everybody feels to be such”. The relation between an activity and whether it causes pleasure or pain is just cause and effect. The value of every pleasure is the same, regardless of what has caused it, so the happiness you feel when you see a fine piece of art, and the happiness you feel when you when you itch that scratch you couldn’t reach, are the exact same. The important thing is the quantity of pleasure or pain caused, not the value of the action. Bentham offered systems for measuring pleasure and pain which are laid out in his “Felicific Calculus”. There are seven elements that have to be considered;

1.       Intensity

2.       Duration

3.       Certainty (how likely is it that the pleasure will happen?)

4.       How soon it will occur

5.       Fecundity (how likely is it that it will result in a subsequent series of pleasures?)  

6.       Purity (how likely is it that it will subsequently cause pain?)

7.       Extent (how many people will it affect?)

Number 7 is the most important one as the main foundation of utilitarianism is “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. Bentham contrasted utilitarianism with asceticism, which is to judge an action by the amount it reduces happiness. However Bentham admitted that this principle of self-inflicted misery could never be upheld by any living thing.

John Stuart Mill was also a utilitarian, but in his “utilitarianism” he laid out that some kinds of pleasure are more valuable than others. This solved the criticism that utilitarianism reduces humans to being no better than swine by simply following our pleasures. It is this ability to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures which sets us apart from the animals, “it’s better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”.

Schopenhauer  links his ethics to his metaphysical view that the world of experience is merely an illusion, and true reality (the thing in itself) is the universal will. Morality is a matter of training the character. The will is free from eternity to eternity but everything in nature, including human nature, is determined by necessity. If you could get complete knowledge of a persons character and the motives which drive them, then you could predict all of their future conduct. We believe we are free to decide because prior to the choice we have no knowledge of how “the will” is going to decide. The belief we can decide for ourselves is merely an illusion. Our wills can never change but there are different degrees of awareness of will. Repentance or regret never comes from the will, but from a greater sense of self awareness. Schopenhauer believes that it is unlikely we will ever be content. The will by nature is insatiable. The basis of all will is need and pain, we suffer until our needs are satisfied, but if the will becomes satisfied and loses desire then life becomes boring.

Kierkegaard’s moral system is similar to Schopenhauer’s in that they both take a pessimistic view. However whereas Schopenhauer’s ethics aims towards erasing individuality, Kierkegaard aims to put the individual in full possession of their own character as a unique creature of God.

Nietzsche says that history shows two types of morality; master morality and a morality for the herd (the poor and weak). Nietzsche argued that the revolt of the slaves triumphed with Christianity, “the success of Christianity lead to the degeneration of the human race”. To save the human race we must reverse the values of Christianity. Life forces us to establish values, and human life is the highest form of life so far, but it has sunk back to the levels of those which had preceded it. We must bring life to a new level past the system of master and slave, the Ubermensch (superman). The Ubermensch would be the highest form of life, the will to live. The will to live must not favour the weak, it must favour power, “man is a bridge, not a goal”. The Ubermensch will not be achieved through evolution, but only through the exercise of the will. Nietzsche encouraged war, war is an education in freedom.    

Economics

The first economist was Adam Smith who wrote the publication “The Wealth of Nations” which raised the question; why is one country richer than another? Smith argued that wealthy countries are categorised by free people and free trade. Countries that have too much government intervention are poorer. He believed that money has no actual value in itself, it just keeps score on how much value has been created. Before “The Wealth of Nations” Smith published a book focusing on philosophy which contained theories similar to that of Kant. Smith had the view that everyone is out for themselves, people are not altruistic. There is no point trying to live out your life helping others, it is damaging, all you achieve is an ego boost. Smith believed there was a “hidden hand of the market”.

David Ricardo – Took the opposite view to Smith, amore metaphysical view. He believed there is a spirit of value in things. Value only arises when humans apply labour towards it, the more labour involved the higher its value. For example diamonds are more valuable than matchsticks as there is more human effort and labour put towards getting a diamond than there is making a matchstick. Water has more value in some places than others as it is harder to gain access to.

Thomas Malthus – Stated there was an “iron law of population”; humans will always starve to death. The natural condition of men  is to constantly be on the brink of extinction. If the food system broke down in the UK people would be suffering starvation within days. Marriage and chastity is the way to prevent starvation. Malthus’s theories are coming back into fashion with peoples growing concerns about climate change.

Karl Marx – An epistemologist and economist and his theories on economy are similar to that of Ricardo and Malthus. Labour is the only source of value, the pay for labour will decrease as the population increases. The people who grow the food, at the end of the day, will not be able to afford to buy it. For example, “widget” costs £10, the person who owns the factory takes £5 as profit and the employees take £5 as wage. The employees then go to the shop to buy a widget, but they cost £10 and they only have £5 to spend. This is the iron law of wages. In a system of profit they will always look to reduce the wage, this is known as the crisis of capitalism. It can result in overproduction and under-consumption.
1844 - The Bank of England created currency. The amount of money the country had depended on the amount of gold.
1848 - The year of revolutions.
1849 - Gold rush- they discovered gold in California and Australia.

JM Keynes – The 2^nd Wold War brought an end to the depression and the superstition about gold. They went off the gold standard and onto paper money. Every economist at the time were Keynesians. Keynes solved Marx’s “widget” problem, his solution was to simply print more money. If you print more money then companies have more money to invest in their business and can employ more people at a higher wage.
Problems of the Keynesian system:
- Inflation and “stagflation” so unemployment would return.
- Increased role of the state so there is a decline of freedom.
- Destruction of profitability.
- Orientation towards arms spending and militarism.
- Collapse of rational expectations, creates and entitlement culture.
- Failure to innovate

Seminar Paper - Logical Positivism, Wittgenstein and Karl Popper

In the early 20^th century Wittgenstein and Schlick met weekly, and were soon joined by other philosophers such as Carnap and Waismann, they were referred to as the “Vienna Circle”. After Wittgenstein left to work on another philosophical manuscript, the others developed into a self-conscious philosophical movement (logical positivists) and issued a manifesto against metaphysics, regarding it as an outdated system that must give way to science.

 They created the “verification principle” to show the difference between statements that mean something and those which don not. To verify something there must be facts, and statements which cannot be verified are just metaphysical nonsense. For example Descartes “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) is rejected because it can’t be verified, so it’s just empty words. However the verification principle came under scrutiny as it itself could not be verified.

Logical Positivists thought that the true task of philosophy was to clarify non philosophical statements. Their method of clarification was to show how empirical statements are brought up from “protocol” statements (direct records of experience). The meaning of the words used in protocol statements are derived directly from a feature of the experience that the word stands for.  This came under the criticism that protocol statements appear to be private to the individual, so if meaning depends on verification and everyone is carrying out their own method of verification, how can you understand what anyone else means? Schlick responded to this problem by showing the distinction between form and content. Content of experience is what I feel or live through when I see something, and is completely private and incommunicable. Form of experience may be common to many. For example when I see a tree I cannot be certain if anyone else has the same feelings as I do when they see the tree, but as long as we can all agree that the tree is green then we are able to communicate with each other.

Wittgenstein was dissatisfied with this response and he then strove to find a solution that didn’t pose the threat of solipsism. In the 1930’s Wittgenstein showed that private experience presupposes a public world. Even the words we use to describe our most private thoughts derive their meaning from the way we use them in public and open conversations. Wittgenstein later abandoned his previous thesis he had put forward in his “Tractatus” about the relationship between language and the world saying he over simplified it. He previously held that the connection between the two only had two features; the linking of names to objects, and the matching of propositions to facts. He now saw this as a big mistake, words might look like each other but their function differs. Language is interwoven with the world in many different ways which he referred to as “language games”. Wittgenstein referred to it as a “game” not because language is trivial, but because games have a similar variety to language. Like the logical positivists Wittgenstein was hostile to metaphysics, but instead of taking a blunt attack against it like they did with the verification principle, Wittgenstein carefully made distinctions between the mix of truth and nonsense within metaphysical theories.

Karl Popper didn’t see himself as a logical positivist and was referred to as the “official opposition”. Popper thought all scientific theories couldn’t be proved because of Humes problem of induction. He thought that we needed to progress by falsifying statements instead. For example the inductive statement “all men are mortal” cannot be falsified because it is at least possible that at some point at least one person will be born and be immortal. The problem of induction is that it is unreliable. For example a turkey a Christmas – every day of the turkeys life it wakes up, eats, then goes to sleep. Therefore the turkey presumes this will go on forever. Then at Christmas the Turkey wakes up and is killed. There is no previous empirical evidence to suggest that this would happen to the turkey. This example illustrates the point that no matter how much evidence we may have, we cannot predict the future.

Popper responded to the problem of induction by saying that everything has the potential to be untrue. For example Newton’s “Principa” gave an overarching theory of how the universe worked and was believed to be an undeniable truth. But then Einstein came along and proved that Newton’s theory was wrong. We constantly strive to get as close to the exact truth as possible, but Popper argued that we have to appreciate the fact that whatever we know now has the potential to be proved wrong at some point in the future.

Popper is also well known for his political philosophy with his publication “The Open Society and its Enemies”. Popper maintained that if a political organisation is going to flourish then it must leave room for self-correction. His political philosophy can be related to his philosophy on knowledge in that, just like science is constantly progressing through the correction of flawed hypothesis, society will only progress if policies are able to be evaluated and changed.  Therefore are two things required for an open society to work;
1. The ruled have freedom to discuss and criticise the policies proposed by their rulers.
2. It should be possible to change the ruler without violence or bloodshed if the ruler fails to promote their citizens welfare.
These are the two central features of an open society and are more important to democracy than just the election of government by a majority.

Popper didn’t rule out all forms of government intervention, for example incitement of intolerance should be classed as a criminal act and they state must protect the poor from the wealthy. Therefore we cannot have a completely non-intervention state and instead Popper argued that we should have planned economic intervention of the state. Unrestrained capitalism must be replaced by economic interventionism. Popper agreed to some extent with utilitarianism that the state must minimize avoidable suffering. Instead of building a utopia the government should act as problem solvers.

In the two volumes of his publication Popper attacked two philosophers; Plato and Marx. Poppers attack on Plato was against his “Republic” where Plato stated that the experts should be in charge and knowledge meant power. Whereas in the open society those who were being ruled would also have knowledge, not just the elite and those with power.  Poppers main attack focused on Marx and his claims that he had discovered scientific laws that determined the future of the human race, working towards an inevitable result. Popper showed how the course of history had in fact falsified Marx’s predictions. Popper was very anti-teleological, he didn’t believe that we could predict the future.

Popper thought that the human race is very vulnerable when it comes to conspiracy theories. This is because we like the idea of being to explain away everything, which most conspiracy theories appear to do. An example of this is David Ickes theory that a secret group of elites rule the world. This is not an unusual claim for conspiracy theorists to make, however Icke took this one step further by claiming that those within the elite group were in fact blood drinking lizards that morphed into people. However, despite how unusual Ickes claims seemed, he still managed to create a mass following preaching to large groups across the globe.

Science and Certainty

So, we’re back in the warm and cosy arms of Winchester University, having somehow survived the workload, feeling brave and ready to face the pressure of second year. It just got serious. We’re now working on WINOL…well not quite yet, but we know what our roles are and it won’t be long before we take off our training wheels and try our hand at being serious journalists.

What better way to kick start the second year than with a healthy dose of HCJ? You can’t deny it, everyone has been missing their weekly confusion of philosophy. So, here it goes…

Science and Certainty
Science is the search for truth.

Kant would argue that the universe is ultimately unknowable. Kant and many other modern theoretical physicists hold the view that the cosmos (the universe as a whole) is more like a computer game where the objects, landscape, space and time are created in consciousness and then fade away again. First into the distance where you can still see them, and then they disappear completely. The objects in themselves “noumena” are still there and are unchanging, it is our perception of the objects “phenomena” which changes. What you are looking at will alter depending on your point of view. A simple example of this is the fact that things look smaller when they are far away but, as the majority of people acknowledge, the object has in fact not changed size. Schopenhauer agreed with Kant in the sense that he noted the difference between noumena and phenomena. However Schopenhauer believed there was only one universal noumena: the “will of the universe” as a thing in itself.

From Kant Schopenhauer and Nietzsche we inherit the idea that existence is not a predicate of any possible objects as nothing “causes” existence. Existence is a necessary precondition of our perception and consciousness. This is regarded as one of the big breakthroughs of the scientific revolution but it remained submerged during the 19^th century by the empiricists, derived from Aristotle. It wasn’t until the 20^th century when Einstein’s revolution in physics awakened the West from the ideas of Aristotle, and Newton’s “clockwork universe” (universal laws of causation, Newton believed the world was ordered and knowable).  Einstein’s theory of relativity lead to an increase in doubt and uncertainty in what were regarded as the most reliable principles of scientific experimentation.  There was an explosion in technological innovation as people were beginning to work on the basis that we know virtually nothing, but humanity has the ability to strive to know more.  

Logic – Deduction VS Induction
Deduction :
All swans are white
This is a swan
Therefore it is white

If your axiom (all swans are white) is wrong then your argument will fail. This is an example of a flawed deductive argument as in fact not all swans are white, there are black swans too. An example of an axiomatic truth is “cogito ergo sum” I think therefore I am.

Newton’s law of motion describes motion as being from one point to another, but then this raises the question, can there be any motion if there are infinite distances? Newton was regarded as objective fact for over 200 years. The laws of motion were seen as true independent of perception, and were said to be read off nature like a mirror.   

In Einstein’s theory of relativity he abandons the idea that the universe has a time. Time is a mental phenomena and is a part of our perception. According to Einstein’s experiments there are different types of time and this has been confirmed by space travel. For example, time elapses at different rates not only in different theoretical points in the universe (such as black holes), but also in empirically observable points such as at the top of a tall building or during space travel. This means that astronauts are hours younger than they should be because time is going slower.

In Wittgenstein’s “The Tractatus” he stated the “world consists of facts”, there is no objective truth only language games. Even logic itself is regarded as a language game. The Verification Principle argues that the truth of any proposition is the way in which you verify it. If a proposition cannot be verified then it is neither true nor false it is merely vocalisation, like the quacking of a duck. However Karl Popper later constructed the argument that the Verification Principle itself cannot be verified therefore the core of the principle is flawed. The Falsification Principle goes on to argue that something isn’t true unless it can be both verified and falsified.  

Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy

Nietzsche thought of himself as a successor to Schopenhauer (the will is evil; suffering is essential to all life), however for Nietzsche the will has both ethical and metaphysical meanings.

The nature of Greek Tragedy is born out of a combination of Apollonian and Dionysian world views. Apollo is the God of visual arts, dreams and reason. Dionysus is the God of non-visual art and music. The Dionysian God represents human nature as sensual and emotional and is presented through the analogy of intoxication. A painting of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” would be close to a Dionysian experience. True tragedy is said not to have existed since the Greek period because there has been a loss in the balance between Apollonian and Dionysian themes.  

Every artist is an “imitator” of either Apollonian dream or Dionysian intoxication, or in the case of Greek Tragedy, a combination of both. Nietzsche believed that this combination created the perfect drama – A tragic hero who struggles to make sense (Apollonian) of his chaotic life (Dionysian) but ultimately fails. This struggle allows the audience to have a “connection with the heart of creation”.

Nietzsche hated Euripides(Greek playwright)  because he added a narrator. Nietzsche argued that this was destroying art and was effectively getting rid of the Dionysian aspect of tragedy. Euripides also took away the chorus, a mainly musical aspect sung by Satyrs, which represented animalistic thoughts. Instead he produced more realistic plays. This coincided with the Socratic movement towards rationalism. Nietzsche believed that understanding human existence wasn’t just down to reason, science cannot explain the mysteries of the universe, the will is also very important.

Nietzsche saw music as the most Dionysian form of art and Wagner expressed the urges of human will through his music, such as in “The Ring Cycle”, which is an apparent rebirth of tragedy.

His most famous quote “God is dead” was intended to illustrate that the Christian God was no longer a reasonable source for absolute moral principles. Fewer people are believing in God and God will die as people are losing absolute values of themselves. This loss of morality lead to nihilism and Nietzsche saw Christianity as quite nihilistic.

Nietzsche argued that we must look into artistic forms to understand our existence as they are the closest forms to human nature. This is similar to Schopenhauer’s immaterialism – the world does not exist independent of perception. This is also similar to Kant in that you can deduce by reason that there is a necessary, pre-existing something, which is a necessary condition for the existence of everything.

Schopenhauer also takes Kant’s idea of the duel nature of objects, the “noumenal” (things in themselves) and the “phenomenal” (our perception). It is almost exactly the same for Schopenhauer as it was for Kant, except for Schopenhauer there is only one undifferentiated “thing in itself” which he calls the “will”. The concept of the “will” in Schopenhauer is the same as it is for Nietzsche, “the will to power” or “the will to be”. The “will to power” is that every human has a function which we must embrace. Whereas Schopenhauer argued that everything which exists has a “will” and that will is “evil”, it represents people’s needs and desires which result in endless suffering.  Schopenhauer believed in the truths of Buddhist teachings-all life is suffering and all suffering is caused by desire. Schopenhauer wanted to deny the will but Nietzsche wanted to embrace it.

Weber on Bureaucracy

Four Great Sceptics: Marx
                                Nietzsche
                                Weber
                                Freud

Weber (like Marx) is a Kantian - humans cannot know the objects in themselves, no absolute reality; we only have a mental picture. The ideal types of social organisation – socialism, nationalism, liberalism etc. Ideal type is compared to social reality. There is no absolute knowledge but it is possible to be honest and to have reasonable beliefs (generalized agnosticism).

Four Fundamental Types of Social Action (Weberian Analysis):
1) Instrumental Social Action – Believe it will benefit you
2) Value Rational Action – You have values
3) Affectual Emotional Affirmation/Disaffirmation- because you like/love/dislike/hate tradition
4) Traditional Orientation – Rational Inheritance

Three Types of Domination
Authority + Legitimacy = Dominative Power
Weber states that “all legitimacy contains an element of myth”, which means no one person can truly dominate and just because you are told to do something by someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.
1) Tradition – Always had power e.g. monarchy, Inheritance, customs, superstitions, ancestor worship.  “We have always done it this way”
2) Charismatic – magical powers, costumes and ceremony e.g. a priest. Charismatic leaders often attack and destroy existing legal national regime. Sometimes the underdog and often have a gimmick or point of interest.
3) Legal – (Rational/ Bureaucratic) – Qualifications, routine, “normality”, professionalism. The rulers often obey the same rules as everyone else.

Weber on Bureaucracy
“Bureau” = a desk, or by extension an office.
“Bureaucracy” = rule conducted from a desk or an office.
Those who invented the word wanted to suggest that the servant was trying to become the master. Weber was aware of this tendency and attacked the Prussian bureaucracy to be an objective and neutral servant of society, above all politics. Weber emphasized that every bureaucracy has interests of their own. The bureaucracy is merely a means to the end.

Modern bureaucracy is developed from the Kings clergy, the ruler does not have to fight or travel much, and they send messages through the bureau. The messages are normally acted upon because of the governments moral authority or prestige, and also because they can be backed up force; police and military. Weber points out that the military has become bureaucratized- Napoleon would watch the battle from horseback, but the modern general sends and receives messages. 

Weber sets out an “ideal type” for bureaucracy- an elaborate hierarchal division of labour, directed by explicit rules, which are impersonally applied. In a bureaucracy a job is full time, life time, and is occupied by a professional staff who live off a salary. Bureaucrats must be removed from property; they only have a salary because if they have any other form of income they will not reliably follow the rules, which is one of the highest values in a bureaucracy. An employee does not own their job, or any of the means of administration, such as; files, chairs or laptops. This is because if they fail to do their job, or someone more efficient for the job becomes available, they can be replaced immediately as the job belongs to the state. It is therefore important in a bureaucratic society to be educated and to have credentials. Weber argues that bureaucracy is the most efficient way of implementing the law. 

Anti-Semitism

Bernard Lazare: Anti-Semitism: It’s History and Causes 1894.
In Chapter 1 Lazare marked the history of anti-Semitism back to the beginning of Israels expansion beyond Palestine. Lazare argued that wherever the Jewish people settled, anti-Semitism would develop and he asserted that the Jews were partly responsible for their own misfortune throughout history.

Lazare claimed that the Jewish people were unsociable beings. They lived under the rule of their Lord Yahweh (Jehovah) and due to this the Jews could not live under the rule of other nations. Wherever they settled the Jews would insist they follow their own religion and be exempt from the state laws and the local customs. Lazare argued that this incited hatred and jealousy within the rest of the population as the Jewish people were given different advantages to them.  The Jews pride themselves on the excellence of the Torah, considering themselves to be above others (at least this is how some outsiders interpreted it).  Jewish people could not have relations or intercourse with the rest of the population, causing exclusiveness. The souls of the Jews are descended from the first man and they were chosen by God as the trustee of his will. The Jews isolation could be seen as their strength as they have survived in spite of this, or it could be considered as their weakness as their separation has caused them to be persecuted throughout history.

In Chapter 11 Lazare considers Nationalism in regards to anti-Semitism. Nationalism is a political ideology and involves the identification of a group of individuals. There are two types of nationalism, the division by race and that which is legally established.  The Jewish race is not an “ethnologic unity”, they do not seem to have a common ancestor, but they are a nation unified by their religion and values.  

The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto was published in English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.  The first section illustrates the history of class struggles between the oppressor and the oppressed. This is a constant fight which either results in the revolution of society or the ruin of the contending classes. It then focused upon the modern bourgeois society (capitalism) and the relationship between the Bourgeoisie (business and factory owners) and the Proletariat (working class). The current state of society is the product of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange, and through political advance.

There is then an extensive list given of the problems which a capitalist society causes. Capitalism has destroyed our relationships with other people, conflicts caused by our own self-interest and the family has been reduced into a merely monetary relation.  Capitalism draws all the nations into civilization and causes them to adopt their capitalist society through its cheap prices of commodities. It has made the country dependent upon the towns and cities. The Proletarians become just an appendage of the machine doing the most monotonous of jobs and as the repulsiveness of the work increases, their wage decreases. The workman is nothing more than a means to an end. Communists see the capitalist system as flawed, as it produces its own “grave diggers”, its fall is inevitable.

The second section goes on to explain the communist society and what that has to offer. Communists have no interests separate from those of the Proletariat as a whole and do not set up any principles of their own in an attempt to mould or shape the Proletarian movement.  The only factors which distinguish the communists from other working class parties is that in the instance of national struggles of the different countries, communists will point out the common interests of the whole Proletariat independent of their nationality. They will also always represent the interest of the movement as a whole.

The immediate aim of communists is to overthrow the capitalist society and gain political power. The Communist Manifesto outlines ten rules which would be generally applicable in a communist society:
1)Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3) Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5) Centralization of credit in the banks of the state by means of a national bank with a state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6) Centralization of the means of communication and of transport in the hands of the state.
7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state.
8) Equal obligation of all to work.
9) Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, abolition of the distinction between town and country with a more equal distribution of people across the country.
10) Free education to all children in public schools and the abolition of children’s factory labour.

In the third section of the manifesto there is the definition of socialism, which is where the state owns the means of production. This is described as the stepping stone to communism.

Karl Marx 1818-1883

Marx was born in Germany to Jewish parents but later converted to Lutherism . His career took many different turns as he moved from studying law, to philosophy then to revolution.  Marx met Fredrich Engles in 1844 in Paris. Engles was a factory owner so he was living right in the heart of the industrial revolution. Engles had a profound influence in Marx’s most renowned publication “The Communist Manifesto”.

Marx believed that you could explain everything about a society by analysing the way economic forces shape social, religious, legal and political processes. He described man as the productive animal; mankind creates the environment it inhabits, “not a figure in the landscape, but the shaper of the landscape”.  Like Hegel, Marx had a teleological approach to history, he believed it was heading towards something.

According to Engles Marx’s theory provided a fusion of:
1) Hegelian Philosophy
2) British Empiricism
3)French Revolutionary Politics – Especially socialist politics

Although Marx did not agree with Hegel’s mysticism, he did however like Hegel’s dialectic, the system of change through conflict. Marx saw the significance in the class struggle throughout history and sought the explanation of the historical process through the relationship between man and the material conditions of his existence (dialectic materialism).

Marx was opposed to capitalism because it produced “alienation”.  The property-less working class (proletariat) had nothing to lose but everything to gain, yet they still did nothing to change their situation. Marx stated this was due to the fact that capitalism alienates men from themselves and from each other; we begin to see one another as commodities to exploit. Work is the loss of self, it belongs to another, it does not help to develop our body or mind.  (This is characterised in instances where people state they are not themselves when they are at work.)  Capitalism alienates us from our need for satisfying work, replacing it with the desire for money.  Capitalism seeds its own destruction, the things we want to buy will always be more expensive than what we could earn, the system in itself doesn’t work. Although capitalism will try to survive, Marx states that the fixes are only temporary and the collapse of capitalism is inevitable.

In a communist society there would be no difference between mental and physical labour. Whether you’re a scientist, a musician or a bin man, has no relevance as all of these jobs would have equal worth. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.  People will do the job which they enjoy and which they are skilled at. There would be no need for a state as everyone would have an equal share of money. Marx saw communism as being a utopian society, a Garden of Eden on Earth.  

Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer - Seminar Paper

Kant 1724-1804
Immanuel Kant is regarded as the greatest of modern philosophers and was the founder of German Idealism. He lived in East Prussia and led an academic but uneventful life, despite living through the Seven Years’ War and the French Revolution. Kant was educated in the Wolfian version of Leibniz’s philosophy however he later abandoned it under the influence of Rousseau and Hume. Hume’s criticism of causality was said to have awakened Kant from his “dogmatic slumbers”, however Hume was more of an opponent for Kant to prove wrong, whereas the influence of Rousseau was more profound. Although he left his mark as a great philosophical mind, Kant’s earlier works were more concerned with science than they were with philosophy.
Kant’s most important publication is “The Critique of Pure Reason”, the purpose of which is to prove that although our knowledge cannot transcend (go beyond) our experience, some of our knowledge is a priori (before/without sensory experience). Kant makes a distinction between four propositions which must be understood in order to make sense of the rest of his theory:
1) Analytic Propositions – True by definition/necessarily true e.g. a triangle has three sides
2) Synthetic Propositions – Propositions we know only through experience, not necessarily true e.g. Tuesday was a wet day. However Kant, unlike previous philosophers, states that not all synthetic propositions are known only through experience.
3) Empirical Propositions – Only known through sensory perception, either our own or of another whose statement we accept e.g. facts of history and geography and the laws of science.
4) A priori Propositions – Known before experience, although they may be stimulated by experience they have another basis e.g. geometry and basic arithmetic such as 2+2=4, although a child may be first be explained the principle by putting two lots of two objects together to make four objects, it is not necessary to have a physical example or objects for it to be true.
Hume proved that the law of causality is not analytic, Kant accepted the fact that it is synthetic but stated that it is a priori. The question of how can something be both synthetic and a priori is the main theme of “The Critique of Pure Reason”. Kant states that the outer world only causes sensation, it is our mind which orders it in terms of time and space and supplies the concepts by which we understand our experience. The “things in themselves” which cause our experience are unknowable, they are not in time or space, nor are they substances and they cannot be described by our general concepts which Kant refers to as “categories”. Space and time are subjective and they are part of how we perceive things, so what we experience will be dealt with in terms of the geometry and science of the time. For example if you always wore blue tinted glasses you would see the world in varying shades of blue. So since you always wear “spatial spectacles” in your mind you will always see everything in terms of space. Geometry is a priori because it must be true in all we experience, but we have no reason to suspect that the same is true of the things in themselves which we do not experience. Space and time are not concepts or “categories” by which we understand our experience, they are intuitions. Kant lists the twelve a priori categories, grouping them into four sets of three:
1) Quantity – unity, plurality, totality
2) Quality – reality, negation, limitation
3) Relation – substance and accident, cause and effect, reciprocity
4) Modality – possibility, existence, necessity
The categories are subjective in the same sense space and time are. They are applicable to our experience but that does not mean that they apply to the things in themselves. A large part of the “Critique of Pure Reason” goes towards illustrating the fallacies which can arise from applying space and time or the categories to things which are not experienced. Kant states that when we attempt to do this we will find ourselves faced with “antinomies” which are mutually contradictory statements which both can apparently be proved – a thesis and an antithesis. One of the antinomies Kant gives:
Thesis – The world has a beginning in time and is limited in regards to space
Antithesis – The world is infinite in regards to time and space
This part of Kant’s “Critique” was  great influence to Hegel, who’s philosophical theories I shall explain later on.

In another section of Kant’s “Critique” he goes on to demolish all purely intellectual proofs of Gods existence. Kant recognises three proofs of Gods existence by pure reason; ontological proof, cosmological proof and the physico-theological proof. The ontological proof states that God is the “the most real being “and existence is a predicate of a being, therefore God must exist. Kant objects to this and stated that existence is not a predicate. The cosmological proof states that if anything exists then an absolutely necessary being (God) must exist, I know I exist, therefore an absolute necessary being must exist. Kant states that the last section of this proof is identical to the ontological argument so falls under the same criticism. The physico-theological proof states that the universe shows order which is evidence of purpose, however Kant states that this only enough evidence to suggest an architect, not a creator, therefore cannot quantify as an argument for the existence of God. Kant later provides his own reasons for belief in God in “The Critique of Practical Reason”. He states that God, freedom and immortality are the three ideas of reason, but reason alone is not enough prove they are true. The importance of these ideas is practical and connected with morals. Kant’s argues that the moral law demands justice (happiness in proportion to virtue), only providence (a protective force) can insure this and it has clearly not been insured in this life, as it is possible for those who act without virtue to be happier than those who do. Therefore there must be a God and an afterlife, and there must also be freedom because otherwise there would be no such thing as virtue.

Kant’s system on ethics is explained in his “Metaphysic of Morals” and this where he establishes the “Categorical Imperative”. Moral worth only exists where a man acts entirely from a sense of duty, not where a duty has been prescribed to them or they do it for their own self-interest. Only rational beings are capable of following moral law by their will. The moral law is known as a command of reason and the formula for the command is an “imperative”. There are two types of imperative, the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative. With the hypothetical imperative the end drives the means, you must do A if you want to get B. This will be familiar and is used commonly for example with children, you must eat your veg if you want to go out and play. The categorical imperative states that an action is objectively necessary without regards to any end, you must do A. The categorical imperative is also synthetic a priori and is the basis of Kant’s moral theory. So as a guide to moral action “you must act only according to a maxim which you can at the same time will to become a universal law” for example stealing is immoral because if everyone were to steal there would be no such thing as property, there is a contradiction in conception. When establishing a maxim there is no consideration for its intended effect, virtue doesn’t depend on whether you meant well or not. Kant also establishes that every man is an end in himself and we must treat them this way, which means you could not create a maxim in which you manipulate or lie to anyone.
The most important part of “The Critique of Pure Reason” is Kant’s doctrine of time and space. Kant begins with the well-established concept that our sensations have causes which he refers to as “noumena” (the things in themselves). What appears to us in our perception, which Kant refers to a “phenomena”, comes in two parts; the “sensation” which is due to the object, and that which is due to our subjective apparatus which he calls the “form of phenomenon”. The form of phenomenon is not a sensation so it is not dependent upon environment, it is always the same no matter where you are because it is a priori in the person.
To prove that space and time are a priori Kant has two forms of arguments, the metaphysical and the transcendental. There are four metaphysical arguments regarding space and they are taken from the nature of space and time:
1) Space is not empirical, it is presupposed in referring sensations to something external. External experience is only possible through the presentation of space, I perceive different objects as being in different places.
Russell’s Criticism: Kant fails to give a reason why my perception arranges and orders the sensations as it does. For example if the eyes and the mouth exist separately as things in themselves, with no connection to one another, then why are they always arranged in the same order.
2) Space is a necessary a priori intuition which underlies all our perceptions. It is possible to imagine nothing in space but it is not possible to imagine there is no space.
Russell’s Criticism: Russell denies that it is possible to imagine an absolutely empty space.
3) There is only one space, what we call “spaces” are parts, not instances.
Russell’s Criticism: If you take a relational view of space this argument becomes invalid as neither “space” or “spaces” can survive as an applicable term.
4) Space is an infinite given magnitude.
Russell’s Criticism: Modern astronomers state that space is not infinite but it circulates like the surface of the globe.
The transcendental argument concerning space is derived from geometry, which Kant claims is known a priori, although it is not deducible from logic alone. The objects of sense must obey geometry because geometry is concerned with our way of perceiving, and therefore we cannot perceive otherwise.
Russell’s Criticism: There are two branches of geometry; pure geometry which is concerned with deducing consequences from axioms without concern to whether they’re true, and geometry as a branch of physics which is an empirical science. The first is a priori but is not synthetic and the second is synthetic but not a priori, which puts an end to the transcendental argument.

The arguments regarding time are essentially the same but geometry is replaced with arithmetic on the basis that counting takes time.
Kant’s concept of the “thing in itself” was seen as a difficult element in his philosophy so was abandoned by his immediate successors.

Hegel 1770-1831
Hegel’s philosophy was the peak of the movement in German philosophy which was started by Kant, who he often criticised. Hegel had a great influence not only in Germany but also in America and Great Britain towards the end of the nineteenth century. His philosophy of history had a profound effect on political theory. In his later life Hegel was a patriotic Prussian who held great respect for the state.

Hegel in his two publications “Logic” holds a metaphysical outlook and argues that there is nothing completely real except “the whole” which he refers to as “the Absolute”, this contains his belief in the “unreality of separateness”. He describes the absolute as a “complex system” made up of parts. Apparently separate things are actually parts of the Absolute each containing a greater or lesser degree of reality. This also elicits a denial of the existence of time and space, as this would suggest separateness. Hegel claims that the real is rational and the rational is real, which seems to go hand in hand with the argument “what is, is right”, basically things are as they should be. He also maintains that nothing can be really true unless it is about Reality as a whole. This argument has a basis in traditional logic which assumes that every proposition has a subject and a predicate, it then follows to say that relations cannot be real as they involve two things not one. Only the parts which make up the Absolute can have relations, the Absolute cannot as there is nothing outside of it for it to have a relation to. The highest form of knowledge is that which is possessed by the Absolute as there is nothing outside of it for it to know. The Absolute Idea is pure thought thinking about pure thought as pure thought is maintained by the Absolute and there is nothing else for the Absolute to think about. Although as previously mentioned Hegel dismisses the existence of time, he instead describes it as an “illusion” generated by our inability to see the Absolute, and is the process of moving from the less to the more perfect.

This then moves us on to his “Philosophy of History”. Hegel believes that in every age one nation is responsible for carrying the world through the next stage of the dialectic. He is very focused on the glorification of the State which he describes as the “actually existing realised moral life”. The State is infinite and rational in itself, Hegel admitted that although there may be bad States these merely exist and have no true reality. Because Hegel makes the State an absolute in itself, this causes difficulty in maintaining the relationships between the different States, here he falls back on Hobbes’ war of all against all. Each State is independent and it is the duty of each citizen to uphold the independence and sovereignty of their State. Hegel is opposed to a world government as he believes war is a necessary and positive thing. However this conflicts with his metaphysical philosophy. His belief that there is more reality in the whole than the separate parts  explains his preference of a State over an anarchic collection of people, but it would then logically follow to say that he idealises a World State, however this is not the case.

Hegel believes that society should be as organic as possible and is opposed to the idea of a system of rights which allows individuals to do as they please unhindered by the State or by others. Hegel’s idea of freedom is similar to that of Kant’s, who argues that a free society is only possible when all men realise their moral duty to act under the categorical imperative, the “kingdom of ends”. This is an organic free society like Hegel’s however it differs in the fact that Kant’s is merely a philosophical concept whereas Hegel does believe that this organic society will eventually happen and is the goal of the dialectic.

For Hegel rights of a citizen are not universal or intrinsic, they differ throughout history and between states, what is right in one age may not necessarily be right in another. Rights are particular to certain parts of society and the moments in their evolution which the societies have reached. People must be forced to be free, the State must direct and shape its citizens in a way that is almost totalitarian. The liberal concept cannot work as it separates people from their natural human nature in ways that can be self-destructive, the State must take care of its citizens. Hegel believes that we are slowly moving towards this free organic society which rules in line with the true nature of people, but until this is achieved all existing states must be measured against this ideal. He believed that the Prussian State was the closest to reaching this rational and organic society.

Schopenhauer 1788-1860
Schopenhauer, unlike most philosophers, is a pessimist and believes in spiritualism and magic. His main publication “The World as Will and Idea” focuses on the will which he believes is primarily evil. Schopenhauer’s system of though is an adaptation of Kant’s, he maintains the concept of “the thing in itself” but he identifies our perception of our own body as being the will. According to Kant the difference between a good and a bad man is a difference in their surroundings of things in themselves and a difference in their choices. Their choices must belong to the real world, not to the phenomena, the phenomenon corresponding to choice is bodily movement. This is where Schopenhauer bases his belief that the body is the appearance of will.

Time and space belong only to phenomena, not to the thing in itself, therefore my will cannot be separated and is timeless. What I regard as my will is in fact the will of the whole universe, my separateness is merely an illusion. There is just one vast universal will.

This universal will is evil and is the source of endless suffering. It has no end, if it was ever reached then it would result in contentment, but it is man’s urge towards procreation which continues the cycle of constant suffering and death. Schopenhauer argues this is why shame is associated with sex. He claims that suicide is useless but never gives a full explanation as to why.

The cause of suffering according to Schopenhauer is the intensity of will, the less you exercise your will, the less you will suffer. A good man is he who manages to see the world truly and see everything is part of a whole. When he has this realisation he takes on the suffering of the whole world and his will turns away from life and from his own nature. The good man will practice chastity, poverty, fasting and self-torture in the aim of breaking down his own will. His aim is to get as close as possible to non-existence, without resorting to suicide. On the knowledge of God Schopenhauer states that when a man reaches the realisation of the whole they will see that what they believed to be God was in fact Satan, the evil omnipotent will.