Theme 1 - reflection post

Since the lecture and seminar I have gotten a better understanding for Kant and his view of life in a sense. First of all I have realised that this course isn´t about finding the right answer. Everything is more or less right or wrong at the same time, it´s more about understanding on how you can explain and look at the world. For me this became clearer during the seminar. Then I could compare my view with others and learn more. What I realised was that I was trying to simplify something very complex, and by doing so I was missing out on the exiting part of learning on different theories.  Of course you do need to know some facts before you can talk about it, but it is when you discuss you get the deeper understanding. My approach towards the two different texts for theme 1, was that them both was about finding out the “truth”. But now I know that it´s so much more then that! And when I now stopped trying to narrow it down, I could learn more and ask more questions and compare it more.

From the lecture I got a deeper understanding about Kants view on life. It was a good lecture and it gave a good background on Naturalism to ideal of objectivity. Since the text, in my opinion, lacked on that it was good to get that from the lecture. It became clearer what Kant was trying to accomplish when we went through some keywords.

A priori: is analytic judgement. Kant say that “all bodies have extensions”, but numbers for example is a concept and therefor knowledge that can be a priori.  If I say that it is 5 students in the classroom then you don´t have to check it and there for that knowledge is a priori.

Posteriori: is synthetic judgment. The opposite of a priori, and you have to check it and you can’t know that for sure, a priori.

And what Kant was trying to accomplish was to find if it was possible to have synthetic A priori judgement, so, having no knowledge of concept but still a priori.

How would this be possible then? Well then we might have to change our way of thinking:

“Lets us assume that our faculties of knowledge does nor confirm to objects, but the objects do confirm to our faculties of knowledge.”

This way of thinking makes it hard to understand objects if you can´t see them. During the seminar my group and I was discussing the branch of philosophy; metaphysics. It involves questioning God and other phenomena that we can´t see. And we imagined what Kant would say if we asked him whether or not God exists. And his answer would probably be: if I can´t see it then I can´t know for sure.

But for the most part of the seminar we discussed if we ever can see the true world?  How we see the world can never be objective, we see through our eyes, our own experiences and knowledge builds up the world according to us. And the seminar leader asked us to imagine the world without humans, and we all did so but since we all could see it then it must then you were still there witch proves that it will always be our own world.

During the seminar I contributed with what I knew and asked questions that could take the discussion further. Like I said in the beginning I think that I got the most out of the seminar, that’s when I got the hang of this course and what is all about. I takes some time before you can let go of the idea of that there is only one correct answer but when you do, the whole world opens up.

Theme 2 - first post

1.What is "Enlightenment"?

There was an era when you replaced myths, rumours and fantasy with facts and real knowledge. An age of reason, where it was important to emphasize reason and analysis rather then just believing on what myths you have learnt from before. 

  

2.What is "Dialectic"?

Refers to different ways of reasoning and using logic, without being affected of excising myths and fantasy. So dialectic is a way to discuss to be able to get closer to the truth.

   

3.What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism is a way of thinking that you should not generalize any object by a word. For example a table is a table, sure, but at the same time it is not the same object. So the word table could be rather meaningless, since every object in a sense is unique. And it depends on the person seeing it, big for be could just as well be small to another person who looks at the object though his eyes. In this text this is important, when you discus objects and try to be as reasonable as possible.

     

4.What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

The meaning and function of myth is to expand the word and also being able to explain the world. By using myths you can find reason and explanations for things happening in the world. But a myth has nothing dialectic about them, and myths are build on little knowledge and logical thinking.

1.     In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and

what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

Here we have what I found regarding the meaning of the two different concepts:
Superstructure: Involves values, norms and things that aren´t directly connected to the production it self. Superstructure is determined by substructure.

Substructure: how the economic activity is design affects the production. Substructure involves the recourses and the actual machines of the production and staff. The economy can be designed like capitalism or more equal and more like socialism.

What this means in the context of cultural production and what the point is to analyze it is that when you understand the connection between the two concepts you can better understand the cultural production. Why the cultural production is how it is, depends on its substructure.

2.     Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

Yes as the technology develops so does the culture. Many years ago to be able to capture the nature you had to do a painting while you to day can use the camera on you phone. This means absolutely that the culture has revolutionary potentials. Thanks to the technical development the culture develops too and ere is where Adorno and Horkheimer differs from Benjamin. Benjamin is rather negative to this and mentions the aura as being loosed while Adorno and Horkheimer is rather positive.

3.     Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

How we see and perceive the world is according to Benjamin, a bit like Socrates, through the senses. But Benjamin emphasize that perception can be both naturally and historically determined. How you we perceive the world changes over time and this could be actually be the explanation why. One example is beauty, what is beauty? What is beauty when it´s naturally determined could be when feature of health and wellbeing is something you feel attracted to so that you future kids get the same standard. While for the historically perspective depends on historical events and changes over time. 

4.    What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

Aura is the eliminated element, which get lost in art objects.  Benjamin meant that it s “which withers in age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art”. Reproduction jeopardizes the authenticity of the work of art. This is hard to capture, like the example that was given was the picture of nature does not show the same experience that actually being in it would. A natural object has not been shaped by anyone who would have given the object some characteristic features that would give the object a different aura. 

Mechanical reproduction = Do not touch the work of art but still the quality of it´s presences always depreciated. 

week 1 - first post

To start off this blog post I will describe some of the important concepts of the texts to be able to answer the question. By doing so it will be easier to understand my thoughts and my answer and thoughts regarding the questions.

Question 1:

Metaphysics = Objects must conform our cognition. Can be used to describe objects you can’t see.

A priori knowledge = knowledge obtained independent of experience.

Posteriori knowledge = knowledge obtained of experience.

So now for the answering of the question:What we could read about in Kant’s text, and what we can read in the question, is that by instead of letting our own cognition decide the object, the object should decide our thoughts. And by doing so might get closer to the truth. But this is not an easy thing to do and Kant explains in the text that the difficulties is that it is hard to have that mind set. But by presenting this example below I think that the benefits of this way of thinking will be clearer. Say for example that you have a cell phone in front of you if you only let the object speak for it self, you can see what is truly is. The material and so on, you really have to investigate what it can do. And since I study media technology I can´t help but to think that if the cell phone has great design then it will be easy to find all it´s functions. If you don’t let the objet confirm your cognition then you might let your experiences speak more than the actual object. So who is closest to the truth? Lets say that you walk in to the woods with the cell phone and then would like to call home. For the first one you know its impossible cause you never saw any indications of that possibilities.  And the for the second you now realise the your out of battery.

So to sum up the example I would say that if there is a new area to analyse then I might be better to let the object speak for it self or else you might lose some fundamental facts. So by letting knowledge be a priori then you find out more facts then if you base some thoughts on experience. But this leads us one step further; how about the thing we as humans cannot see?

Like what happens after we die? There are many different ideas of what will happen, but can we know for sure? What it says in Kant’s text, that I thought was quite interesting, was that now when you don’t really have any experience of it then we only let the object speak for itself. So can anyone be wrong? Not really in the text I find this quote: “But I can think whatever I like, as long as I don´t contradict myself” and find it very comforting. And gives me the sort of feeling as long as you decides the “truth” and can´t contradict, then its true for you. And that is as close as we can get to make this not really scientific religions and beliefs true.

Question 2:

Empiricism= basing ideas on experiences and other observations. 

So now for the answering of the question:

”Knowledge is perception” by that you mean that by using senses to evaluate the world you get knowledge about it. How does the objects look like, feel like, smell like and so on? What you can see and experience is what you can know. But even though we all use our eyes to see we will not see the same things. This is what Socrates means by ”not using eyes to see with but rather through them”.  If I look at something I might notice different things from what my friend would base on what other experiences I have. When the senses together with experiences you have will result in a difference in what you are deceiving. Therefor it´s can be seen as it´s a bit subjective and dependent a lot of the person and his/hers earlier experiences.

So how can you establish scientific facts? With empiricism you base theories on experience, it is a example of posteriori. Something can be known if it can be proven by experience. So to go back to my earlier example, it could rather take place in a different way.  If you have a lot of experience then you would know how a cell phone looks like and functions. And know that you have to charge the battery to be able to call. And in that situation the second person would have the upper hand. So it is not enough with just one experience, its when experiences is in a greater picture it can be known. More than one person have to see and experience through their eyes and still see the same thing to establish some facts.