The New Journalism

Brief history of American Journalism

• Started off with 'Penny Papers' in the USA- deeply partisan- merchants and politicians. This was a move towards the possibility of writing news regularly for the public rather than the elite. Papers began to be targeted at the working class.
• Mid 19th century, objectivity becomes a factor in journalism because of the creation of wire services. The associated press-AP- needed objectivity to be profitable.
• The first new Journalism-'The Yellow Press' (late 19th century). In New York there was competition between 'Hearst' of the 'New York Journal' and 'Pulitzer' of the 'New York World'.
• Sensationalism- Papers began to use huge, emotive headlines with big striking pictures to allure new readers and keep their interest. There were exclusives, dramatic stories, romance and shocking crimes. This was the start of the tabloids e.g similar to 'Sun on Sunday'. Chris Horrie explains this to be like 'Frozen TV'.
• Many called 'Yellow Journalism' the 'New' Journalism without a soul since all stories published were about sin, sex and violence.
• In the 60s/70s journalists were recording daily events in a formulaic way. (The 5 W's- Who, What, Where, When, Why- the news pyramid). The 'New Journalism' was an attempt to reflect/record events mirroring language and style of the events, therefore, letting it bleed into the copy.

Political and Cultural Scene

• 1960s was a turbulent time- great hope of JFK was destroyed in assignation and also in 1963 disastrous war in Vietnam-controversy of the draft- Muhammed Ali refused to be conscripted into the Army (Vietnam War). 
• Demographic Reasons- baby boom after WW2 which created a powerful youth culture. Organised marches/protests etc. The voice of radical change was young people who wished to rebel against conventions of the older generation. 
•  Sexual Revolution- Sexual freedom- the introduction of the pill meant that women had a choice and therefore gained sexual freedom.
• Reichian free love in mid 60s - (Feud says bad stuff going on in your mind and subconscious) He was a follower of Freud but then fell out with him. He said that Freud had it wrong, you should just let it all hang it, people are unhappy because they keep things in.
• The student movement- worldwide protests of 1968. Civil rights, Black power-use of LSD (introduced by CIA) to access altered thinking of counterculture.
• Prohibition of drugs created subcultures- Hippies, communes, collectives etc. and established much of youth culture has other- deviant.
• LSD was seen as a way to escape controlling hierarchy. Believed that all bad things come from young people.
• Music was central to counterculture. Sartre thought jazz was authentic, the music of the 1960s was a full frontal attack on the norms, drug fuelled and anti Establishment (Bob Dylan)- with the aim to be subvert and political.

Influence of Existentialism

• Ideas formed by Existentialism- Heidegger's Authenticity, Sartre's 'Bad Faith'. Key ideas- freedom and choice. For example Fanon's view of a path to freedom via accelerated choice (violence). As we have seen, for Fanon the act of violence is essentially the extreme expression of choice- choice with real, immediate impact.
• Anti-establishment feeling-''There is a policeman inside your head- he must be destroyed''-began to seep into Journalism.
• Journalists questioned whether basing stories on press releases, press conferences and official statements made by the establishment was really objective- more importantly a true reflection of events? Bad faith.
• New forms of Journalism began to emerge, focus on setting, plot, sounds, feelings, direct quotes and images while still being as careful as before with facts. Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are examples of this new breed.
• This alternative journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. It was also unconventional- shift in form of narration 'telling to seeing'.
• Marshall McLuhan's 'Hot and cold media' in 'New Journalism' objectivity is junked in favour of subjective experience. Most famous example is Tom Wolfe. A huge fan of Emile Zola- greatest writers of natural realism. Zola crowned himself as the first scientific novelist, a 'naturalist' to use his term, studying the human fauna according to Wolfe. 
• Wolfe enters into Journalism first thing he notices is the status competition. This varies though, reporters in 'scoop comp'. 
• People started to use dialogue, new articles with real, intimate dialogue. Real people speaking in a real way. Dramatic shift to try and replicate real life events exactly how they are, exactly the same in print. Attention to detail. Learn everything/ all details to enable you to write in this way. Need to invest time to get this sort of material.

New Journalism page 46 & 47

These are the 2 most important pages about features.

The Journalists embraced social realism. Learnt the techniques of realism from Balzac, Zola, Dickens etc. 

This power is derived from four devices: 

1. Scene by scene construction - telling the story in scenes and not in a sheer ‘historical narrative’. Journalists needed to be at the event to witness it. 
2. ‘Realistic dialogue involves the reader more completely than any other single device - it also defines character more quickly and effectively than any other single device.”
3. - third-person point of view - “giving the reader the feeling of being inside the characters mind.” need to interview the subject about his thoughts and emotions, along with everything is. 
4. The fourth device is the recording of everyday gestures, habits, manners, customs, styles of furniture, modes of behaviour towards children, superiors, inferiors and other symbolic details that might exist within a scene. Symbolic of people’s status of life.
   Small details gives ways in to explain what people are like.

• Ultimate New Journalism piece is 'Fear and Loathing' (Hunter Thompson).. “Gonzo Journalism” Gonzo Journalism can often be obvious by such features as: fly on the wall, shaky footage, being authentic. Louis Therox - Gonzo Journalism
• “Performance Journalism” (eg SUPERSIZE ME) Michael Moore etc
  You become the story and are central to the story.

Totalitarianism

Key question: 'Can good people commit evil acts?' How could this happen?

• Focus on the 20th century where there was nearly 100 years of relative peace before World War One but then there were huge atrocities in Russia, China and especially Germany.
• Totalitarian Regimes-Plato's Republic- against these ideas:Contract Theory, idea that the powers of the state should be limited (even by Hobbes). Liberalism personal freedom protected by the state.
• Hannah Arendt argues that the 20th Century Totalitarian Regimes were different to anything that had come before the central purpose of Totalitarian Regimes was to destroy the individual. She was fascinated with the newness/strangeness of this new political model: ''Everything we know of Totalitarianism demonstrates a horrible originality- its very actions constitute a break with all our traditions.''
• But she saw the imperalism as a precursor to Totalitarianism because it contained so many traits which the new regimes could use. One such trait of imperialism was the development of racism. Once established, ways of thinking and behaving that denied rights and therefore was available for Totalitarian Regimes to adopt. ( Eg. General Kitchener's actions in Boer War).
• Our individuality makes us difficult to control and gather up into a collective movement. To destroy this individuality two methods are used:

1. State terror
2. Ideology

• The purpose of the terror isn't just to murder vast numbers of people but to also destroy their individuality and ability to act against the government- not just to act, but even the thought of acting (Orwell).
• Ideology compliments the policy of terror, it eliminates the capacity for individual thought and experience among the executioners themselves.
• Ideology is also a type of specialist knowledge as Popper pointed out is often used as a justification for the authority of rulers. It is also a way to avoid responsibility.
• The ideology (natural or historical movement) gives them ' the total explanation of the past, the total knowledge of the present, and the reliable prediction of the future.' It frees you from common sense, blissful don't have to worry. This breakdown of the stable human world means loss of the institutional and psychological barriers that normally set limits to what is possible.
• For Hannah Arendt the first move the Nazis made on the road to the 'Final Solution' was to deny Jewish people citizenship. Therefore making them stateless and with no 'natural rights'.
• Society is fragile and can break down very quickly. In order to be civilised human beings we need to inhabit a man-made world of stable structures. Being part of society enables us to be civilised- gives us access to a shared reality.

Control of Language

• Orwell was horrified by the capacity of Totalitarian Regimes to attempt to control minds, by manipulating language. Thought takes place in purely linguistic terms.Therefore, Control language, and you control thought and so mind control (may be) possible through manipulation of language.
• In the USSR - experiments with ‘linguistic reform’
  Idea was Utopian - ban words for racial difference, and this was to abolish racism. This resulted in horrible, ugly distortion into Communist-speak - all - jargon, cliches, ritual phrases, slogans. A form of language designed to prevent thought.
  
  1984:Ministry of Peace - organises war
  Ministry of Love - organises the police
  Ministry of Plenty - gathers taxes

What is your personal responsibility in a dictatorship?

• Would I collaborate?
• May 11 1960, Israeli secret service kidnapped Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and he stood trial in Jerusalem  for crimes he had committed during the 'Final Solution'. Eichmann's main responsibility during the Holocaust had been the organisation of the transport of millions of Jews from across Europe to concentration camps.
• For the Israelis the trial had 3 purposes:

1. Trying Eichmann for his crimes
2. Educating the world about the nature and the extent of the Holocaust.
3. Legitimising the Jewish State.

• For Hannah Arendt it was a shock to see Eichmann since he was no monster, not what she expected him to be like. He claimed to be a law abiding citizen and so it became apparent that you don't have to possess great wickedness in order to commit great crimes. She believed that he did not think while he committed the crime- didn't make a choice. This thinking is crucial for existentialists. He claimed to just follow the rules- it was his required role/duty.
• Hannah Arendt is saying that he didn’t make a choice and you can not avoid choice. He didn’t chose so he got put in this position.
• He had derived this particular moral precept from his reading of Kant.
  Kant’s categorical Imperative: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. 
• Arendt responds - this was outrageous on the face of it and also incomprehensible since Kant’s moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man's faculty of judgement which rules out blind obedience.
• Satre: the only thing I cannot escape is the need to choose but the possibility of recreating oneself is rightening - people will try to avoid this freedom. This is ‘bad faith’. 
  Arendt rejects the physiological interpretation - Eichmann is neither perverted or sadistic. In her view he just acted according to a brutal law that had become normal. What was his crime according to her was that he failed to think, he failed to judge 'he failed to choose’.
  Even if eighty million Germans had done as they did that would be no excuse for you - what had become banal was the failure to think. This is Eichmann’s crime - HA
• Arendt is saying that we must look to our personal judgement (thinking) rather than the law in order to know how to act because law may turn out to be criminal as in Nazi Germany. In which case we have responsibility to oppose bad law even a responsibility in those conditions be defined as disobedience - indeed sometimes disobedience is exactly our responsibility and this is what Eichmann failed to grasp. 
  
  

Bureaucracies

• The new industrial state= the system which satisfies everything that is a human need.
• Max Vaber looked at the rise of bureaucracy. He believed that charisma is essential to gain bureaucratic power.
• The main source of power is by having a legal routine authority (dividing and sorting out rules).
• Keynes was concerned with over population. He believed that foreigners will come to wherever the money is. Government spending can defer the problem but isn't able to ultimately solve the problem. In order to forever defer the problem, money should just be printed according to Keynes because even inflation can be controlled.

The Depression

• Capitalism collapsed in 1930s and so there was famine and mass unemployment. This meant that many went into the army. Keynes supported this military movement ( military Keynesianism).
• 1950s was the era of American prosperity. Keynes is the great 'God'. The far left/ far right (including Heidegger, Sartre, Maoism and Franz Fanon etc) is 'beaucratic technological militaristic nihilism'.
• Global fight between capitalists and workers.
• America spend vast amounts of money on the military in order to keep people employed. This is the equivalent to the NHS in the UK.
• Nihilism is prevalent for Western civilisation according to Heidegger. The most obvious form of nihilism being religion.

The new industrial state

• 'The military Industrial Complex' (Eisenhower). Need to avoid conspiracy theories, people from elites naturally think the answer is to increase public spending but tell everyone it's being reduced.
• People want an aristocracy not a democracy. A highly trained, intelligent bureaucrat is what's needed to run the country.
• Heidegger suggests it to be a violent movement ( nuclear weapons-government spending).

Critiques of the managed society

• Intellectual revival of Adam Smith and Hume (and Aristotle against Kant and German Idealism). Reaction against subjectivity and against existentialism. The importance of money as an objective measured of social worth and the point of social existence.

1. Joesph Conrad- Heart of Darkness.
2. Anthropology- reveals the essential irrationality of man, rejection of Rousseau's (and Marx/Engles) point of view of pre-historic human nature. The true human is a violent monster and females exists only to reproduce.
3. Frazer- The Golden Bough- Real human nature is subordinate males.
4. Vietnam- The first 'entirely bureaucratic technological' war, an 'automated death machine'. The end of the age of the nation state (the defeat of the USA). Also the end of the age of Enlightenment in terms of Heidegger.  

Existentialism

Existentialism the idea that there is no point to anything. If there isn’t any point to anything what's the point of living? We need guidance but the Existentialists say that there is no right or wrong.
Existentialists say you should make any decisions for yourself. t’s all about choice. 

To make a choice is at the heart of existentialism, violence is like a accelerated choice. Preferred to do something. Violence is the ultimate type of choice by Existentialists.

Existentialism as an agent for political change via Existentialism principles established by Nietzsche, Heidegger- a call to arms from Sartre and the explicit embracing of violence by Franz Fanon: 'The rebel's weapon is the proof of his humanity. This irrepressible violence is man recreating himself'.

Key figures in Existentialism are:

Nietzsche: 'God is dead'- the end of certainty and we are faced with a crisis- we need something new to sustain us. This crisis is fantastic according to Nietzsche because it means freedom. It gives us the freedom to find a value for ourselves. When we believed in a superstructure such as Religion we were in the mindset of children (believe everything to be perfect/ have an answer) but the reality of life is that nothing is perfect i.e. 'God is dead'.

Plato believed there to be perfect forms in another world but Nietzsche believed that the world in which we live and experience life is the only world that exists. He believes that human nature isn't universal- our natures are different and it therefore follows that different people can find and follow different conceptions of excellence, different moralities. This is therefore opposing the position of natural rights (Locke) and Rousseau's view of general will (rules set out to guide us in life).

Nietzsche firmly believed that if we are all different and there is no absolute morality we must all have different morals and also have our own rules. Nobody gives us these morals, not even God. 

Ubermensch- The superman the overman, overcomes what has so far defined us as human. The ubermensch will overcome and ignore other values set out. Choice is crucial.

Heidegger: 'Being and Time' was highly influenced by Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness'. The book was about human existence and focused on what it means to exist and consequently the problems of human life.

Believed himself to not be an Existentialist. Said that we must question the nature of the being which causes us to question the nature of being.

There is reason in the world. But where does it come from? Existentialists say it's derived from and is about existence. 

He first asks what is it that exists? What is the basic beginning of existence? It is Dasein. Simply us, we are Dasein, it is in each of us.

Attacks Descartes and the Cartesian idea that the world is split into two substances:

1.       The mind

2.      The body

Heidegger believed this concept made it impossible to understand ourselves because when you talk about the mind and body we become stuck with the fact that we are our minds. How do we then get out of our minds and out into the world in itself? Hume says you can't, we'll never know everything. Billboard example. Anything in the future is unknowable, everything can be falsified. Instead of Hume's spectacle idea, Cartesian and Dualism, Heidegger believes 'Dasein' is the answer since 'Dasein' is ‘being in the world.’

Our existence is simply our interaction with the world. Our place in the world is not our existence, our existence is the interaction and engagement we make with the world. We make this through choice. You have to make a choice to engage with something and so 'Dasein' is your engagement with the world. Therefore existence is how you engage with the world. The most important thing that defines you is your next decision, it’s the choices you make. You are defined by your choices. 

Das Man

This is the inauthentic self- what Heidegger has in mind in a sort of social construal of the self. It is inauthentic because it is simply a social self, it is not one's own self at all.

Facticity are those parts of ourselves which are simply given- we are thrown into the world. Where you were born. All of the facts that have happened up to this point in your life is a person's facticity. If you are defined what has come before this moment you are Das Man, meaning you are imperfect. For the Existentialist the future is the most important decision, we are creatures of the possible.

Transcendence is my reaction to my facticity- our possibility which may not be realised. I am defined by my choices and I re-create myself but I am not defined by my past (crucial to Fanon).

Sartre's key idea was that existence precedes essence- we create our own purpose. E.g. Simone de Beauvoir: 'One is not born a woman, but becomes one.' We are defined by our own essence.

The Absurd- There is no guiding point/spirit, no teleological driving force- stuff happens, good and bad without reason and so life is in some way ridiclious and absurd.

Bad Faith

The life of a person isn’t determined in advance by God or moral laws according to Sartre. The only thing you cannot escape is the need to choose. People will try to avoid this freedom, however, since the possibility of recreating oneself is frightening.  This is 'Bad Faith'.

The alternative is to take responsibility for your actions and be defined by your choices.

Humanity for Sartre is:

1.      Abandonment- 'God is dead' (Nietzsche) we are alone and there is no one/thing to guide us on how to act.

2.      Anguish- Humans are fundamentally free 'condemned to be free' the responsibility of being free is enormous, no excuses we are the reason for being who we are. We cannot choose our past but we choose how to feel and act to every situation.

3.      Despair- This is the realisation that the world may prevent us from getting what we want, we are the totality of what we actually do.

Existentialism is the reaction to the realization that there is no reason to anything.
 His examples:

· Stare’s pupil ( a real example of a pupil in the Second World War, the choice for a boy to look after his mother whilst the Nazi’s were in France, or should he join the resistance and fight the Germans)
Obviously he loves his mother. But the only chance to get rid of the Nazi’s is to fight them.
Choice between his mother and joining the Free French.
Abandonment, Anguish and despair all felt due to this choice.

Sartre says 'you are free, therefore choose.' You define yourself by this choice. No right choice.

· Bad faith 

Most people think that because you have a certain role they have expectations of you. For example students are expected to go to lectures. But Sartre says No, you are radically free, you have no obligations. It’s a simple choice.

Sartre believes such people are making a metaphysical mistake by turning themselves into inert objects rather than being free beings. 

Logic and Mathematics

Frege, Russell and Whitehead

Creating words and abstract symbols for plural categories requires a system of number words I.E 'symbols' and a logical syntax ( a syntax is a logical system using rules of inference to alter meaning of symbols) for combining these numbers to words. These are altered however, due to rules of modern language.

There are three fundamental attitudes towards languages, including syntactical number systems such as arithmetic but especially numbers.

1. They are natural and can be empirically observed e.g Mill
2. They are intuitions of a harmonic perfect platonic other word eg pythagoreasnism- Descartes, geometry.
3. They're abstract logical objects which are constructed purely from syntax ( Frege, early Russell)

For Frege, numbers are created using syntax

Numerical naturalism/evolutionary psychology. 

Apes and stone age tribes appear to be able to judge simple empirical plurality, typically:

If you are a monkey.

0: absence of a thing ( eg a banana.) 

1= one banana/enough bananas 

2= maybe a lot of bananas/unlimited. 

1 thing, more than one thing and plenty of things. These are the only numbers they need. Even for people from advanced cultures small number words are functionally different to large number words.

For example, if you came into a room and there is one person, you don’t count the one person even with three you can categorise that as a simple plurality. Most people will go up to maybe six or seven objects in a group before counting, using logic relations to the empirical pluralities.

Predicate (In logic and grammar) is the result of a process of a calculation.Subject Verb- Predicate. The result of the action of a verb. Verbs are operators in Frege logic. 

Syntax- is it learnt or innate? Chomsky. Its complicated it would be impossible for a child to learn it, it must be innate. Against John Locke who thought nothing is innate we learn things. Human syntax is subtle compared to syntax on a computer. On a computer it used predicate logic. Fuzzy Logic vs Neat Logic.

Attitude 2: Pythagoreanism/Platonism

Prime numbers are pre-existing external supernatural forms- necessary pre- conditions for consciousness- the 'logos'. All other numbers are just rational combinations of prime numbers (contra Kant). For Platonism existence is a predicate of numbers and other external forms. Primes exist in a non-human dimension just as the ideal objects of aesthetic perfection and the ratios of geometry. These are eternally true and ultimately mysterious and part of the panoply of Orphic religion (Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy)

The special religious significance of the prime number three, people behave abnormally to numbers. You wouldn’t say you have a magic word, but with numbers people do. E.g you have the rule of thirds. Three quad triads in music. A beginning, middle, end. Three stages. etc. Other primes have religious and even magic significance, The Greek’s feared no.1 and zero. Greek counting began with two. zero would not be something they entertain. It is naturally impossible to have nothing, nothingness cannot be an object. Islam love the no.1. There is only one substance, allah. 

Aristotle's physics was a matter of solid geometrical shapes; what differentiated air from water was the number of faces of the sold geometrical fundamental objects.

Pythagoras and all Greeks regarded only plurals as natural numbers and so they began counting with 'two'. Frege had the same problem in logic. There is no one on the road, does not mean the same thing as the road is empty and anyway the road is not empty because it contains at least the road. 

Special Problem of nothing and zero

The introduction of the concept of zero came from India. Entire Arabic numeral system was introduced in the middle ages after the fall of Rome. It is a very difficult concept because zero = nothing which = something. This is central to Aristotle's 'Law of Contradiction'.

Modern Philosophers of mathematics have thus asserted that zero is a neutral number, logically derived as 1-1=0

'Nothing' is a philosophic absurdity  that someone like Heidegger would asset. Also the qualitative have a differential gap between 0=nothing and 1= something as big as the universe. 

Zero is nothing and nothing is something. The first rule of Aristotle's logic was not to contradict the moon is the moon the sun is the sun. therefore the sun isn't the moon. 

The problem here is the consistently. 

0+1=0 but 0x1=0 so what does +1 mean? 0+1=1 1+1=2

plus 1 is doing different things all the time. it is not a stable syntactical object. Frege solves that. Numbers are platonic entities, not known as things in itself.

Attitude Three: numbers as logical objects

The problem of zero and 'nothing' remained unsolved until Ferge (1848-1925) decided to link logic and arithmetic in an overall system of philosophy of language with arithmetic as a special case of language. He wrote this in the book: 'The foundations of Arithmetic'. This was then adapted by Russell and Whitehead as an attempt to demonstrate the logical basis for numbers.

Frege's Method

All things that are identical are equal to themselves. ( This is apriori, deductive.) 

It follows all things which are pairs are identical to all other pairs regardless of what they are pairs of.The class of all pairs contains all pairs and this can be given a purely nominal symbol eg two a word or numeral, it does no matter.

Larger numbers can be built as logical constructs along the lines of the class of all things which are pairs of pairs we can attach any symbol we like to this the conventional one would be ‘four’. 

One is the class of all things which are not associated with other things

Zero as a class of all possible objects which are NOT equal to themselves. There are no such objects by definition. See Axiom. An Axiom is a thing which is identical and equal to themselves.

Russell (1872-1970)

It’s possible for a sentence to make sense but have no reference. It makes sense but there is no point of reference. This conversation would make sense but there are no reference points.

Seminar Paper on Phenomenology and Existentialism

Freud and Psychoanalysis

·         Freud was the greatest influence on Anglo-American philosophy even though he was technically a scientist and not a philosopher.

·         Freud was born into an Austrian family of non-observant Jews in 1856. Later in Vienna, Freud trained as a doctor and went on to study brain anatomy. In 1895 Freud published a booked based on ‘hysteria’, this was to be the first analysis of mental illness which led him to develop his idea of psychoanalysis.

·          In 1900 he published the most important book of all his works: ‘The interpretation of Dreams’ in which Freud argues that dreams are repressed sexual desires.

·         Freud summed up psychoanalytic theory in two fundamental theses:

1.       The greater part of our mental life, whether it’s our feelings or thoughts, is unconscious.

2.       Sexual impulses are supremely important and can cause mental illness if suppressed. Sexual instincts are basic human instincts.

·         Towards the end of his life Freud focused on the ‘Mental Apparatus’ which includes the personality being divided into the Id, ego and the superego. As long as the ego is in harmony with the Id and the superego then all is well but if not then mental illness is inevitable.

Husserl’s Phenomenology

·         Edmund Husserl’s life can arguably be compared to Freud since both men were born into Jewish families in Austria and also both men devoted their lives to scientific study of the human mind.

·         Husserl believed that the data of the conscious comes in two kinds:

1.       Physical e.g. colours and smells

2.       Mental phenomena e.g. thoughts

·         In his logical investigations of 1900 he argued that logic cannot be derived from psychology since there is a sharp distinction between logic and psychology.

·         Husserl also believed that there are two essential parts to a thought:

1.       That it should have a content and

2.       A possessor

For example, a dog. When you see a dog you know it is a dog and then the thought that you have that the dog is a dog is your own thought therefore you are the possessor of the thought.

·         Concepts are therefore, in the ‘Logical Investigations’ defined on the basis of psychological terms. This means that Husserl was able to disown his earlier psychologism and make a clear distinction between psychology and logic. A line was also drawn between psychology and epistemology (the study of knowledge and justified belief). Husserl managed to do this through a reinvention of psychology as a new discipline of Phenomenology.

·         Phenomenology was developed during the 20^th century by a group of collaborators in Munich who created the ‘Phenomenological Movement’.

·         Phenomenology is :

1.        The science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.

2.       An approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

·         Phenomenology is not the same as Phenomenalism. A Phenomenalist believes that nothing exists expect phenomena and also that statements about such things as material objects have to be translated into statements about appearances.

·         Husserl deliberately left open the possibility that there is a world of non-phenomenal objects although, these objects are of no interest to him- we have absolute immediate knowledge of the objects of our own consciousness while we have only distorted knowledge about the external world.

·         Immanent perception provides the subject matter of Phenomenology; this is because immanent perception is a person’s immediate acquaintance with their own current mental acts and states. Immanent perception is self-evident. Whereas transcendent perception is a person’s perception of their own past acts and states of physical objects and events and of the contents of other people’s minds.

·         Only Consciousness has absolute ‘being’ since all other forms of ‘being’ depend upon consciousness for their existence and so Phenomenology is the most basic of all disciplines- all items that are its subject matter provide the data for all other branches of philosophy and science.

·         By the mid of the 20^th century all had changed amongst philosophical thinking, English and foreign philosophers went their separate ways with their philosophies. In Europe Existentialism (which is a philosophical theory or approach that emphasises the existence of the individual person as free and responsible, determining their own development through acts of the will.) was fashionable and was led by Jean Paul Sartre in France and Martin Heidegger in Germany.

The existentialism of Heidegger

·         Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), was one of Husserl’s many pupils.

·         Heidegger published the ‘Sein Und Zeit’ was published in 1927 which translates as ‘Being and Time’ in English. Within the book Heidegger claims that Phenomenology up to that point had been half-heartedly studied. He adopted consciousness as the subject matter of Phenomenology and so the first task was to study the concept of being (Sein) since ‘Being’ is the starting point of all philosophy.

·         Heidegger invented words to help him explain his philosophy in greater depth. ‘Dasein’ meaning ‘being-here’ or ‘existence’, is the most important of all the words Heidegger created.

·         Thinking is the only way of engaging in the world. ‘Dasein’ is prior to the distinction between thinking and willing.

·         He emphasises the temporal nature of ‘Dasein’- think of it not as a substance but as the unfolding of a life:’ Our life isn’t a self-contained, self-developing entity’

·         The activity of ‘Dasein’ has three fundamental aspects:

1.       Attunement- the situations into which we are thrown manifest themselves as attractive or alarming etc. and we respond to them with moods of various kinds.

2.       Discursive- It operates within a world of discourses among entities that are articulated and interpreted for us by the language and culture that we share with others.

3.       Understanding- in a special sense- that is to say, its activities are directed towards some goal.

These 3 aspects all correspond to the past, present and future of time.

·         Heidegger’s opponent Gilbert Ryle admitted at the end of Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ that he had nothing but admiration for his ‘Phenomenological analysis of the root workings of the human soul’.

·         Concepts and judgements can be thought of as instruments for coping with the world. However, there are more primitive instruments, things that are tools in a literal sense. E.g. A carpenter relates to the world by using a hammer- doesn’t need to be thinking about the hammer to be using it well. Consciousness of the hammer may get in the way of the concentration on his project that is his true engagement with reality.

·         In 1929 Heidegger succeeded Husserl as professor of Philosophy of Freiburg and in 1933 became Rector of the university.

The Existentialism of Sartre  

·         In contrast to the right- wing existentialism of Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre developed a form of existentialism that was more left-wing.

·         Sartre was born in Paris in 1905-1980.Later in life he taught philosophy in high schools from 1933-1935 where he began to develop his own philosophy. His first essays are detailed studies based on the philosophy of the mind in the Phenomenological mould.

·         In 1943 he published ‘Magnus Opus’ ‘Being and Nothingness’ which was greatly influenced by Heidegger.

·         ‘Being’ for Sartre is what underlies all the different kinds and aspects of things that we encounter in consciousness. To say that an object is without a cause isn’t to say that it is its own cause, the object is just simply there. Sartre call this ‘gratuitous’.

·         In Sartrean existentialism, ‘being in itself’ (en-soi) refers to objects in the external world- a mode of existence that simply is. It is not conscious so it is neither active nor passive and contains no potentiality for transcendence (go beyond the limit). This mode of being is relevant to inanimate objects, but not to humans, who Sartre says must always make a choice.

·         One of the problems of human existence for Sartre is the desire to obtain ‘being in itself’, which he describes as the desire to be God -this is a longing for full control over one's destiny and for absolute identity which is only attainable by achieving full control over the destiny of all existence. The desire to be God is one of the ways people fall into ‘bad faith’.

Derrida

·         Jacques Derrida possessed hostility towards Phonocentrism, the idea that sounds and speech are superior to written language. He believed this to be the case because speech is closer than writing to the thinking that is idealized as the ultimate, transcendental object of signification.

·         Phonecentrism was part of his attack which he called the ‘Metaphysics of Presence’  and was mainly focused on targeting the philosophical work of Husserl.

Freud

• Similar to Descartes, Freud was concerned with the misery of human condition. Our unhappiness means that we are undivided and therefore alienated from ourselves this is the same starting point as Marx. We don't know what we want, unhappy inside. Freud therefore came to the conclusion that we're all troubled and so Freud's career was an attempt to answer why the human condition is the way that it is. Freud says we are controlled ( psychoanalysis) even if we don't realise we aren't as rational as we believe to be. Therefore it can be said that Freud discovered the unconscious mind- says he discovered in psychoanalysis the archaeology of the human mind.
• Dreams, Freud said, are the road to your unconscious.
• Seen as sexual renegade- sex is at the centre of our motivation this causes humans to be damaged ideas of ourselves as noble creatures. This is a challenge to the Enlightenment because we aren't the type of people the Enlightenment would want us to be- we're not ran by our rational mind (Newton part of the brain).
• Overall Freud was very pessimistic about human beings. He described his philosophy as being: 'full of darkness but with a little light'.

Attack on Plato

• Freud followed Plato's idea of the tripartite self E.g humans are made up of reason spirit and desire ( the allegory of the chariot). Plato stated that our rationality, our ability to control our mind is of the most importance. However, Freud believed rationality to be our weakest point because we are driven by our desires and we don't realise (alienated-Marx term).

Attack on Marx

• Marx thought of the self as the tripartite self: natural, alienated, species self. He believed that we progress towards a better, happier self. We have the ability to evolve therefore it is possible to overcome the state of unhappiness. Freud rejects this idea by calling it idealistic. Unhappiness is part of us,  the most dominant part of us is aggression which is caused by unhappiness. Unhappiness is a state which will always find ourselves in, can't escape it- consistent with Hobbes.

The Freudian Personality

• Pain is what it means to be human. We are divided, we cannot find peace because we are at a constant war with ourselves. Divided into 3 distinct parts- always in dispute with each other:

1. The Id
2. The Ego/Self
3. The superego

 The Id is the most dominant part of us- at our core from birth. A reservoir of the unconscious, 'a cauldron of seething exoitations'. The Id demands fulfilment, full of aggression an sex- there is an instinct to gain pleasure and avoid pain. The Id dominates our personality even though we don't know that we are dominated by feelings of aggression and sex.

The Ego or Self - reality principle, the least powerful part of the personality- the voice of reason. Moderation, commonsense. It is turned towards reality- the real world. It is hopelessly embattled and besieged. We are all born with the ego.

The Supergo - internalised rules of parents or society, therefore we are not born with the Superego. It is gained and developed from wider society eg external influences. It is irrational just like the Id and is constantly fighting against the Ego.

• Society is full of suffering because it is full of pain:

1. We are decaying, nature.
2. Nature- the external world- the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
3. The greatest pain is our everyday interaction with other people. Other people are out to get us, to hurt us but we are irrational beings and so we are inclined to hurt others.

• Freud thinks the answer is psychoanalysis- but not open to everyone ( needed to strengthen  the Ego) the masses will continue on their destructive path.
• He outlines some ways to contain these urges- the Id is so powerful that it needs distracting but you cannot control it, too dominant, can only contain it.
• Coping mechanisms are:

1. Intoxication- only a temporary chemical solution.
2. Isolation- also temporary as only for a few people.
3. Religion - a type of sublimation- a way to control constant demands of the Id.

Sublimation is finding socially acceptable ways to release our aggression eg through sport or by working hard. This is the only thing he believes is to give you real satisfaction is to be aggressive.

• Imposing moral limits on the Id ''Love our neighbour as ourselves''. Men are not gentle creatures, they're aggressive forces. Religion puts impossible demands on us, all animals can't reach level of divinity.
• The key to psychoanalysis is that you are hiding something from yourself. Freud claimed he had found a way to deal directly with the unconscious- this is the Id.

Attacks on Freud

• Popper - Freud was vague so Karl Popper believed that his theories couldn't be proven.
  Schopenhauer spoke of similar things such as controlling sexual urges and being controlled by internal, irrational forces therefore it is possible that Freud was actually not the first person to raise these theories.
• Reich believed the complete opposite- the unconscious forces inside the mind are good and it is their suppression by society that distorts them and made people dangerous ( similar to Rousseau). He believed that the underlying energy was sexuality and if this was released then humans would flourish.

Modernism

• Kant's influence on aesthetics was to study the emotional sense to beauty. Artists are the closest to the beauty form of real objects. All of us 'normal' people can only see the shadows of the beautiful, perfect forms.
• The most powerful aesthetic response is to music according to Nietzsche etc. Materialists believe that our reaction to music is our neurons responding, however, Nietzsche believed music to be a tool that can be used to overcome 'the will'.
• Nietzsche concerned himself more with art than with beauty and Wagner was one of his greatest influences.
• Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's ideas of 'the will' are very similar. They both agreed that every human is a function of power which must be embraced.
• Similarly both men stated that the two ways to successfully escape misery is:

1. Intoxication
2. Dreaming

• Schopenhauer was strictly Kantian but the main difference between the two philosophers is that Schopenhauer believed that is only one noumena in the world which is the universe. We have the 'will to survive'.
• Human happiness is created by controlling 'the will'. This can be done through intoxication and music can be used as a tool to overcome desire as well as 'the will'.

Aesthetics

• According to Plato and Aristotle believed that happiness is supreme good. Kant challenged this because he believed that duty was the supreme ethical motive.
• Bentham believed that the greatest happiness principle was pleasure. Aristotle made distinctions between pleasure and pain as he refused to link happiness with the pleasure of the senses.
• Bentham promoted the Utilitarian motto: 'Greatest amount of good (happiness) for the greatest number of people'. This motto was open to criticism since people argued how you measure happiness or the greatest number of people? Also is it just people that should be considered to be happy? Recent Utilitarians have included animals.

• Kierkegaard observed aesthetics as ethical rather than an aesthetic category. An aesthetic person searches for immediate pleasure whether this is from a natural source or an artistic source.
• He believed that there are three modes of life:

1. Religious
2. Ethical
3. The aesthetic

• Life is the progress through these modes of life onto the most important mode, the religious mode.

Economics

In the 18th-19th Century economics was a popular subject amongst philosophers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Ricardo, Malthus and Smith. Economics claims to be a science and came about in the period of anti-enlightenment.

All of the following are Economists:

• Adam Smith wrote the book 'The Wealth of the Nations' which explored the reasons why one country is richer than another country. He believed that one of these reasons is Racism, wealthy countries are characterised by free individuals. Countries find themselves poor when there is too much government intervention.

Another one of his books which he wrote had a similar moral philosophy to Hume. For example, people always looking out for themselves- giving to charity to give yourself a good feeling, an ego boost. Therefore he believed in a philosophy which says that we are constantly weighing up what will give us the most pleasure by avoiding pain.

The law of unattended consequence - trying to help people but then you end up damaging them more in the process. You must allow people to be completely free economically.

• David Ricardo believed that all money comes from trade- reveals in a scientific way its true value. This is a metaphysical view. A spirit of value of things which is in things. According to Ricardo a world of contingent objects is worthless and is only valuable once humans apply conscious effort. This therefore can be described as the labour theory of value, a theory that states that the more labour that is put in to an object, the more value something has.

• Tom Malthus was associated with the Victorian period and had an outlook on life which believed that humans will always starve to death, since we always eat everything. To be man is to be on the brink of extinction. This is true since agriculturally we cannot make our own food.

Another theory of his was that marriage and no sex means that there will be no starvation. This is because in the 19th Century the human race almost bred itself into extinction, there just wasn't enough  resources to satisfy the vast population. Modernists disagree with this statement since they believed that with every mouth brings another pair of hands.

• Karl Marx believed that labour is the only real source of value. However, the more workers there are the more of a decrease in worker's wages.  Profit and capitalism consequently causes a large fatal flaw in the system. People won't be able to buy aggregated food. It is the workers that make objects valuable.

• Keynes Philosophy Keynes solved the Marxist problem of wages. Keynes offered the 'trade cycle' which means that if wages were so low people could be employed again.  The great depression of the 1930's was solved by World War 2 because men went into the army and this allowed women to work in factories. Everyone then stopped worrying about the superstition of gold as now people were able to use money in everyday life.