philosophy of the humanities: media studies
notes
exam:
à 2-word answers & around 30 word answers
à every text has at least three sub questions
week 1
seminar 1 - Plato: “The Allegory of the Cave” (The Republic, 380BC)
background:
§ Plato precursor to philosophy of science
§ how is knowledge of the world possible and how is growth of such knowledge possible? (cf. logical
positivism and Popper)
§ painting fragment fresco Scuola di Atene (1509-1510)
- Rafael (1483-1520)
- Plato (427-347 vChr) in discussion with Aristoteles (384-322 vChr)
- as old man, Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of
Athens, a fresco by Raphael
æ hand gestures: Aristoteles points to the earth, Plato points to
heaven, Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in
knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while
holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, Plato holds
his Timaeus and gestures to the heavens, representing his belief
in The Forms
æ theory of forms: material world as it seems to us is not
necessarily the real world, it’s merely an image, theory of Forms
(or theory of Ideas) typically refers to the belief that the material
world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only an "image"
or "copy" of the real world -> i In some of Plato's dialogues, this
is expressed by Socrates, who spoke of forms in formulating a
solution to the problem of universals, the forms, according to
Socrates, are archetypes or abstract representations of the
many types of things, and properties we feel and see around us, that can only be perceived
by reason (λογική). (that is, they are universals)
æ in other words, Socrates was able to recognize two worlds: the apparent world, which
constantly changes, and an unchanging and unseen world of forms, which may be the cause
of what is apparent
§ allegory of the cave as most important passage in history of philosophy
§ it should be read allegorically, representing something else
æ allegory: kind of a story, an allegorical story is where the characters and the events in the
story are meant to represent or symbolize something else, very often something real,
sometimes and in this case allegorical story has a one to one relationship
æ not all stories are allegories, for example lord of the rings, talkien was clear that the ring
does not meant to symbolize the atomic bomb or anything so he wanted the reader to take
the story he presented as it is
§ Glaucon (Plato’s brother) listens to Socrates
§ epistemological theory
Plato’s Proto-Cinema
§ L/DeVries: Aristotle rejects the Pythagorean-Platonic conception that ideal mathematical forms
and relations are more real than the observable world of phenomena (p. 44)
§ what is ‘more real’ in the cave?
§ on the people in the cave: will he not fancy that the shadows (...) are truer (...), will he not have a
pain in his eyes? (515)
§ but what happens: what our senses observe is less than what lays out there in the background
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, philosophy of the humanities: media studies
notes
text ‘The Allegory of the Cave’:
summary:
§ cave dwellers (prisoners), bound up in chains, can’t turn their head around, only talk to each
other, looking at shadows casted on the wall, coming from behind a low wall and a fire’s light,
shadows of what people are holding up, noises are echoing in the cave, up above the cave there
is an exit to the sunlight
§ Glaucon: “You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.“
Socrates: “Like ourselves, I replied” (515)
§ we are the prisoners in the cave
æ when you name something you see or are doing, you identify it -> how do we learn? as kids,
we learn by naming things, we learn by rendering our world intelligible to us, humans are
able to carry out this unique activity, us humans have a natural impulse to try and
understand what is in front of us
æ activity of naming is the activity of reason, i.e. our reason coming to intelligently
apprehending an intelligible world
§ to the prisoners, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images
æ what the prisoners see, in this case like the horse or the bird, that we see here, is not the
horse or the tree it is a shadow of a statue, which is itself a copy of the real horse they are
many times removed from really identifying the things giving the things the name that they
properly deserve the name
æ they simply do not know any better as they have been in the cave their entire lives
§ we don’t exactly get to know how (he is compelled to stand up) but one of the prisoners is
released into the sunlight: the sun represents truth, knowledge, he now has access to the truth,
critical knowledge -> the sun = reason
§ he sees himself in relation to the light, the world
§ a world of ideas is ideal for Plato, in contrast to a phenomenal world, a world of appearances
(images, shadows)
æ “Better to be the poor servant of a poor master," (3) -> better live a poor life in the real
world than live a glorious life in the unreal, rather suffer in the real world where knowledge
is real than in the shadow world
æ BUT he is in pain because of the light of the fire, his response is sceptical and he’s ‘unhappy’
æ when going back down, other prisoners would believe he’d been hurt: “Men would say of
him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to
think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loosen another and lead him up to the light, let
them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.“ (517) -> double blindness
æ passage as reference to Socrates being killed in Athens -> killed by Sophists who always
want to keep people content, might alsobe the ones holding up the objects?
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, philosophy of the humanities: media studies
notes
out of the cave, into the light...
§ what is the usual end of the allegory? -> when it is clear that the path to light is the path out of
the cave
§ even if you are in the light, you could still be ignorant, it’s up to you à philosophy and
knowledge lie in the soul
æ seeing vs light: Socrates talks about education and how humans exist in the world,
education helps humans to better see the world/enlighten us BUT even if you’re in the light,
you can still be ignorant, it’s up to individuals to see what life brings about/find out if there
is another world
æ “The eyes may be blinded in two ways, by excess or by defect of light.“ (518, p. 4)
§ 519 (p. 5): last opportunity
§ notice how “he” distinguished from “they”
æ first separate from the group (515-516)
æ later even against the group (517)
§ we all have the capacity to learn
§ at the same time, Socrates makes clear that ‘true or false’ is a too narrow framework: when it
concerns knowledge, it is about ‘the idea of the good’
æ also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful ad right (517)
æ philosophers have virtue of wisdom which can either be turned towards bad/evil or good à
education towards knowledge/good, only the educated can serve the state + rulers are
ideally reluctant to rule (philosophers ideally don’t seek power)
...but then back into the cave!
§ the business of us who are the founders of the State will be (...) to descend again among the
prisoners (519)
æ not ‘they vs he’ anymore but ‘us’
æ in the divine state it’s about the fact that citizens become each other’s ‘benefactors’ (520)
§ ‘double duty’ (520, p. 6)
æ no longer limited to ‘bodily qualities’ but will contain ‘the virtue of wisdom’ a ‘divine
element’ (518)
æ ‘cleverness’ is not enough
æ reward: (they will be) truly rich, not in
silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom
(521)
æ philosopher king’s (‘taught’ to leave the
cage) double duty: duty of knowing for
yourself as well as duty of delivering it to
others
§ overall condition: the morals that
are given to us (by the light) cause
us to descend back into the cave
and teach others (double duty)
§ ascending from opinion (doxa) to knowledge
(episteme)
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, philosophy of the humanities: media studies
notes
week 2
seminar 2 - Immanuel Kant: “The Conflict of the Faculties” (1794)
background:
§ Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
§ Königsberg (after WWI, Kaliningrad)
§ Critique of Pure Reason (1781) -> epistemology
§ Critique of Practical Reason (1788) -> ethics
§ Critique of Judgment (1790) -> aesthetics
§ Political Writings (4th Critique) -> conflict of the faculties (1794), “To Perpetual Peace” (1795)
beyond Kant’s Copernican Revolution
§ before Copernicus, people thought that heavenly bodies surround the world (mind’s are
surrounding the physical world), Copernicus said that it’s the world surrounding these
heavenly bodies
§ Kant’s answer: instead of our mind confirming the world, the world confirms our mind
à Kant’s Copernican Revolution: synthetic a priori against vulnerability to the scepticism of
Hume 1711-76
à first metaphysical distinction between phenomena and noumena – leading to ground
breaking statement:
-> epistemology, 1st critique (highlighted in Leezenberg)
after the French Revolution (1789) in Prussia
16th century
æ rationalism: the mind gives us the truth, the mind as a faculty, ‘I think therefore I am’
(Descartes)
æ empiricism: you can only prove the truth by sensory experience (e.g. only if you can
touch it, I can confirm the existence)
æ BUT all events have causes, but I can’t always and always verify this by sensory
experience -> leading Kant to ask the critical question of how can we prove the existence
of something metaphysical
æ Kant is concerned with a few metaphysical issues: God, freedom, immortality
æ Kant thus asks all epistemologists of the time: ‘How synthetic a priori propositions are
possible? and, true?’
definitions
- a priori: e.g. ‘all physical events are spatial-temporal’, I know that it is but I don’t
necessarily experience this (I don’t sense the time, we just agree on it), for Kant, most
mathematical statements are synthetic, we agree on them, we don’t ‘see’ the numbers
(informed by experience but not derived)
- a posteriori: completely and only derived from experience
- synthetic: e.g. ‘all bodies are light’, what the predicate (bodies) includes is not in the
word itself, it can be but we don’t know, you have to go out into the world and check
- analytic: e.g. ‘all bachelors are unmarried men’, you don’t question this because the
word bachelor means unmarried men
- form: why I know this comes from a priori statements
- matter: comes from sense experience
- phenomena: things that we see as something, it’s in our human nature, we always have
experiences as representations/phenomena
- noumena: a thing in itself, beyond human experience/sensory perception, it might exist
but we can’t sense it, we agree that it exists because of common sense/a priori, e.g. God
is a noumena, we can’t ‘see’ him
§ “As phenomena, human beings may be subordinate d or subject to the laws of nature; but beings
in themselves, they (...) can posit the moral law for themselves. They are free.” (Leezenberg 2.2)
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