Existentialism
All that matters is that we exist. Existentialists believe that we are defined by the decisions that we make, and it is the next decision which is the most important. We have to choose, and it is our choices that define us.
Key Existential figures are HEIDEGGER, SARTRE, NEITZCHE.
KANT claims consciousness is not individual, we are are composite of those around us: 'you wouldn't be you if you were alone'. Kant states that we cannot stand outside of consciousness, because this would make us unconscious, and therefore we would be a mind without properties. Kant rejects DESCARTES cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am, as he believes that thinking is not a predicate of being, you have to exist in order to think, and therefore supports I think therefore I am. Consciousness is not a predicate of existence, and consciousness is not proof of existence anyway.
HUSSERL is the founder of phenomenology, he studied the immediate data of consciousness. He also opposed DESCARTES theory that we can not trust our sensory experiences because an evil demon may be deceiving you, so what your senses perceive as reality could be a dream. Husserl however, said it made no difference whether the ideas present the real world or an hallucination, because the intentions are the same.
HEIDEGGER proclaimed the end of the metaphysical age, it was believed to have been triggered off by Kant. Heidegger states that being is not an abstract idea. He also rejects DESCARTES theory of Cartesian dualism, that the world is made up of two things: mind and body (spirit and physicality). Heidegger says this is nonsense how can we interact with the world if we are stuck in our minds? In place of consciousness, Heidegger speaks of Dasien, and this is our being in the world. We are thrown into this world, and things are constantly moving like a roller-coaster ride. Our engagement in the world is our existence. Heidegger says you have to find your Dasien, and be defined by your interaction in the world, rather then your facticity. Our facticity is not you, this is everything that has happened in the past up until this point, that has been given to us. But, we have no choice over our facticity e.g where we were born, or who our parents are, but we do have the choice over what our engagement in the world is, and Dasein is not thinking its about caring in the moment, it is non reflective. The choice is crucial to existential outlook, as SARTRE states the only thing we cannot escape is the need to choose. A das man attitude is someone who will allow their past to define them, e.g "i've had a tough upbringing". Heidegger says in order to be free you have to be fully absorbed in the task at hand, and if you are fully engaged you lack boredom and you no longer exist. To exist is to be bored, and boredom is the problem of being. There are three aspects of time:
1. Attunement - associated with the past, and the feeling of guilt
2. Being there - associated with the present, caring about the task in hand
3. Directedness - associated with the future, and the feeling of fear and dread
SARTRE said existence preceeds essence. We create our own purpose. As Simone de beauvoire said 'one is not born a woman but becomes one' - we choose how we want to behave and portray ourselves. The key theme here is choice, Sartre says the only thing you cannot escape is the need to choose. We as humans are a collection of decisions, the idea of recreating oneself is frightening, but if we avoid this freedom then Sartre says we are living in bad faith. We are living an inauthentic lifestyle if we choose to avoid the choice.
Albert Camus' book The Outsider illustrates an existential outlook well, the main character Meursault show little consideration to those around him, even after his mother dies, e.g when he thinks about not smoking for his mothers sake, but lights up a cigarette regardless. Instead of taking advice from his lawyer that he should tell the jury he killed the arab because he was suffering with the loss of his mother, he thinks for himself, takes the responsibility and chooses not too make that false excuse just to be let off. This shows that he was living in good faith, and an authentic lifestyle, because he made the choice for himself.
SARTRE states that the world is made up of two types of things, definable and undefinable. Chairs are definable objects their properties will never change, whereas humans are undefinable because we are changeable. The next decision we make is the most important. Humanity for Sartre can be summed up in three terms:
1. Abandonment - no authority to guide us, we are on our own
2. Anguish - we must take responsibility, as we are fundamentally free
3. Despair - the realisation that the world may prevent us from getting what we want.
NIETZSCHE also adopts an existential outlook. He states that God is dead this is the start of freedom and the end of certainty. He says there is no authority or guiding spirit to tell us what is good and what is bad, we have to use our own inner morals to make decisions on what we think is good and bad, and this is known as the transvaluation of values. For Nietzsche human nature is not universal, we are not all the same and we all have different points of view and different moralities.
Logic and Mathematics
The definition of logic it it's simplest terms is that it sorts out good inferences from bad.
The first founder of Logic is Aristotle, but I am going to focus on the 2nd founder of Logic which is Frege. Frege systemised logic and concluded that it was apriori and analytic. He focused on validity and invalidity - in order to overcome a false conclusion you had to change the grammatical notions of subject and predicate to new logical notions argument and function. The subject in a predicate calculus must be an individual, whereas the predicate can be the class of all men.
If I use the example: Her Majesty the Queen is Elizabeth
This part is the FUNCTION - the fixed componentThis part is the ARGUMENT - it can be changed in order to make a true statement false
e.g her Majesty the Queen is Christina
But certain functions could hold their truth whatever the argument may be, for example:
Socrates is Mortal
Argument can be changed and it will still maintain it's truth: Christina is mortal.
Therefore, Frege had to find a new logical notion to express generality - for all.
(x)(x = mortal)
MILL was an empiricist, he believed that knowledge was derived from experience. He disagreed with Frege, and said that logic was a posteriori. He thought science and mathematics were derived from experience.
Mill states that every number asserts a physical fact, one being singular, two a pair, 12 a dozen etc
Each number denotes a physical phenomena but connotes what makes it a physical property, e.g two denotes a pair, and connotes what makes it a pair; and this would be physically distinguishable to three. But Mill admits that it would be difficult for the mind to distinguish between 102 apples and 103.
Natural numbers are words used to count things. There are three types of numbers:
1. Natural numbers
2. Institutions of perfect platonic and harmonic worlds
3. Logical objects derived purely by syntax
Natural Numbers - these are number we don't have to count. If i was to walk into the kitchen and see three cups sitting on the side I would not have to physically count 1,2,3 my mind would be able to naturally know, and some people can see up to 7 objects without counting. Stone age tripes and apes appeared to be able to judge empirical pluralities, they would use pluraities which are numerous phrases instead of exact numbers e.g "one thing", "more than one thing", "lots of things".
Pythagoreanism - focuses on prime numbers, those that are indivisible. Pythagoreanism was founded by Pythagoras, who worshipped the triangle. The number three is a magical number, it is used in arts: three part drama, in music the triad, but it also has religious significance to Christians: The trinity, jesus rose on the third day, cross made with three fingers etc. For muslims, number 1 is the holy number, one god, one unity, Allah. But for the greeks, they feared the number one, and began counting with the number two, as they only regard plural numbers as natural numbers. 'One' and 'not one' are in a different logical category.
The problem of nothing and zero remained unsolved for thousands of years until Frege came along. Zero was first introduced in India, the problem is that zero = nothing, but nothing = something. This is contra to Aristotle's Law, which was solved by Leibniz who claimed that objects could contain their own negation. Modern philosophers now regard zero as a natural number, logically derived from 1-1=0 To say that there is "nothing" is just a philosophy absurdity.
Frege's axiom: all things that are equal are identical to themselves.
All pairs are equal to other pairs
One cannot be associated with anything else
Zero is the null class, it's empty, things are not equal to themselves
Therefore zero exists as a logical object.
The New Industrial State
The New industrial state was written in 1967 by John Kenneth Galbraith. It explores the economics of production and the affect large companies could have over the state. GALBRAITH argues that the industrial system is controlled by a technostructure, which aims to maintain control over the companies. A technostructure is a group of technicians, which have considerable influence and control on its economy, these group of elites are decision makers, in an industrial system the decisive unit is a group not an individual.
The biggest change to the economy is the advance in sophisticated technology. Planning is the core component in an industrial system, and advanced technology has led to increased bureaucratic planning.
Galbraith states that planning is economically motivated, but more so technologically motivated.
The state is in charge of maintaining aggregate demand at a high level to avoid unemployment. During the time of the great depression, the economy collapsed and unemployment was at it's highest. KEYNES had a solution to this, he is the great god of economics. During the time of the depression everyone was willing to work for less, as there was surplus in labour. Everyone needed a job, and no one could afford to buy the products. Demand was less and as a result businesses supplied less, meaning less workers were needed, either their wages had to be cut, or they would lose their job entirely. Keynes solution to this was to print more money, by injecting money into the economy, the government could give businesses subsides to employ more people or set up government schemes. Military Keynesian helped boost America's economic growth because billions was spent on defence each year, providing many jobs.
The 1950's was an era of American prosperity. However, Keynes' 'managed society' received many attacks, from the far left and far right, the likes of Heidegger, Sartre, and Fanon, who labelled American civilization as bureaucratic technological militaristic nihilism. Nihilist are people that don't believe in anything! Hayek also criticised Keynes as he thought he was corrupt and that we would all eventually be ruled by bureaucrats. WEBER states that there is a rise in bureaucracy, and by 'rise' he means ruled by officials. Heidegger states that society is doomed, because it is pointless, and we have no purpose.
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is all about control. Hannah Arendt stated that 20th century totalitarian regimes were completely different to anything that had come before. The main purpose of a totalitarian regime is to utterly destroy the individual, Plato's republic is an example of this, peoples individuality is totally stripped away, and every aspect of life is controlled. [Hitlers Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Russia and other examples]
The state is everything. As Mussolini said 'Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state'.
Arendt believed that imperialism was the cause of totalitarianism, because it contained similar traits which are explicit in the new regimes, e.g development of racism which grouped people and decided on their superiority based on their genes.
Our individuality makes us difficult to control and gather up into a collective movement. There are two methods which can be used: Terror and Ideology.
Terror - This is not just about murdering vast numbers of people, it is about destroying their abilty to act against the state, and degrading them.
Ideology - This is about eliminating an individuals capacity of thought and experience.
Ideology is a specialist knowledge, POPPER pointed out that it was used as a justification for rulers, to avoid responsibility. Instead of people thinking for themselves they are following.
An example of this is MILGRIMS shock experiment whereby there is a teacher and a learner, the learner is in fact an actor. There is an authority figure, telling the teacher to administer potentially fatal shocks to the learner when they get an answer wrong. Milgrim's findings showed that 2/3 of the people continued on when told by the authority to "continue" and "you must go on", showing that even normal Americans were capable of committing acts against their conscious, simply because they were following instructions by an authority man in a white coat.
Arendt says that the first step Nazi's made on the road to the Final Solution was to deny Jews citizenship, by making them stateless, and denying them rights. These stateless people were perfect victims for a totalitarian regime.
EICHMANN - 11th May 1960, Israeli secret service kidnapped Nazi figurative Adolf Eichmann. He was trialled in Jerusalem for the crimes he committed during the final solution. His main responsibility was the transportation of millions of Jews from across Europe to concentration camps. His defence was that he was following orders from the law, and Arendt points out that he had lived his whole life according to a kantian definition of duty.
She was shocked to hear him speak in endless cliches "proud to be a law abiding citizen". Eichmann was blindly following orders, but it was the ideology that blinded him. Arendt agreed that Eichmann should be put to death for the crime he committed, but disagreed with the reasoning. She believed his true crime was not thinking, and not choosing. She adopted an existential outlook and said that he had the choice to do what he did, and he ignored it and passed it on by following the officials. SARTRE would classify Eichmann as living in bad faith because he chose to ignore the choice, and became subject to slave morality by following rules and not making decisions for himself.
The Eichmann trial served three purposes:
1. To trial him for his crimes
2. To educate the world on the nature of the holocaust
3. To legitimise the Jewish state
The New Journalism
A brief history in America - It all started with the Penny Papers, which were worth 1p, they were controlled and funded by political parties that wanted to put forward a point of view. In the mid 19th Century, The Associated Press became more objective, the news was not one sided, it was truthful and objective and this increased readership and make it more profitable. In the late 19th Century The Yellow Press evolved, and this was the new journalism without soul. Newspapers became sensationalised, they were extremely colourful like frozen TV, huge headlines, shocking pictures, exclusive stories which were commonly on sin sex and violence.
Two journalists during this period were William Randolph Hearst from the New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World. Both journalists resorted to sensationalised news, because there was a competition for readership.
The yellow press was the start of the new journalism, events were recorded in a formulaic way: who, what, when, where, why? Journalists were mirroring the style of events and used real dialogue. This new approach allowed the real representation of events to bleed into the copy.
America in the 1960s and 70s was a turbulent time. There was disastrous wars, serious military threats overseas, the hope of John F Kennedy was destroyed when he was assinated in 1963, wars in Vietnam, controversy of the draft, and Muhammad Ali refused to be conscripted. The main reasons for this turbulence were:
1. Demographics - there was a huge spike in the population, the baby boomers post WW2 were in their teens by the 60s, and they created a powerful youth culture. The young people were changing society, they became the voice of radical political change.
2. Sexual Revolution - Sexual freedom, woman could take the pill. The use of contraception gave woman the choice, they didn't have to marry the first man they slept with, and they could have many sexual relationships if they chose to.
3. The student movement, brought about world wide protests for civil rights, black power, the use of LSD was big, it was seen as a way to escape heirachy and have 'real' experiences. The prohibitions of drugs brought about subcultures, such as hippies.
4. Music was a core element, protests songs were drug fuelled. It was a full frontal attack at the norms.
Influence of existentialists - Heidegger authenticity, and Sartre's bad faith.
Two key themes are choice and freedom.
Fanon's path to freedom was the act of violence, and this violence was the extreme choice.
Anti-establishment feeling, was the idea that there was a policeman inside our heads, that had to be destroyed.
New Journalism was about representing real people in the real world. Examples of this breed were journalists Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe. There was a shift in telling to seeing. Marshall McLuhan outlined hot and cold media. Hot media was explicit it was telling whereas, cold media was ambiguous, interpretable and more so seeing.
Tom Wolfe was heavily influenced by Emile Zola, who was a natural realist. Wolfe outlined that features should have a scene by scene construction, paying close attention to small details, right down to peoples mannerisms and gestures, to allow people to live the story not just tell it. Wolfe shows this in his article Radical Chic by telling us small details such as the food in the penthouse suite, creating a sense of atmosphere Wolfe outlines that they should be a third person point of view, and most importantly that real dialogue is included. This is shown when there are elements such as "Mmmmmmmmmmmm" in radical chic highlighting the tasty delicacies. Also explicit in Hunter S Thompson's piece Kentucky Derby as scene by scene narrative takes us through the story from the airport to the derby, dialogue and graphic detail right down to his whiskey stained notebook brings alive the drunken fuelled weekend.
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