context for ford - uncertainty, language, application tasks

7/31/2019 Context for Ford - Uncertainty, Language, Application Tasks

1/14

Today

- Pick up with some more thinking about uncertainty

- Pick up where we left off yesterday

- 20th Century thought

- Applying the knowledge

- Some reflection


2/14

Uncertainty

I talked a lot about the problem of uncertainty yesterday.This was particularly relevant to the ideas of Kant.

- remember, how can you and I ever know that we are bothseeing the same colour?

This was a problem of perception, which lead to an

uncertainty in a universal reality.

The problem of uncertainty was made even stickier by agrowing body of philosophy about language.


3/14

The problem of language

We think of language as a stable system of communication -without it, wed be a little bit screwed.

A Swiss man named Ferdinand de Saussure, challenged thisthough.

He discussed the problem of the sign and the signified.

This developed into skepticism over the stability oflanguage.


4/14

So...

We end up in a situation where the modern position is extremelyuncertain:

- left without a value system because of science- left without a fundamental human essence because of the flux ofpersonality- left without the certainty that what I see is a stable reality- left without a faith in the ability of language to communicate- left without the comfort of other people because capitalism pushes us

towards individuality and isolation

Throw in two world wars and Einsteins attitude that event time isrelevant and not necessarily stable, and things are looking particularly

bleak, especially for the philosophical.


5/14

Going back: Modernisms

With science challenging the way we see the world, throwingout old traditions for new one, the arts began to do the same.

The value systems of old no longer applied, but no valuesystem took its place, and so artists became completely free tocreate their own beliefs around what art should represent.

After the likes of Nietzsche, there is both no God and noessences, no fundamental truths; everything is in flux.

Art became a way of representing the human condition - oftenalone, without a God to give life meaning.


6/14

The Absurd: Albert Camus

Much of our life is built on the hope of tomorrow, but tomorrow bringsus closer to death, which is the ultimate enemy.

The world is strange, foreign, inhuman place, which is effectivelyunknowable as rational thinking and science cant explain the world -rather they just end up creating stories, which are essentiallymetaphors, and are just images of the truth.

It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises

when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of theworld, when "my appetite for the absolute and for unity" meets "theimpossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonableprinciple."


7/14

Absurdism

Humans search for meaning in their lives.

This leads to either: the belief that life is meaningless, or abelief in a higher power, e.g. God, but also secular beliefslike the American Dream.

Hope must be rejected. Only by rejecting hope for tomorrow

can the current day be lived to its fullest.


8/14

Existentialism

Existence comes before essence.

There is no fundamental essence to human existence - nothing

fundamental determines who we are.

It is the choices that we make, the accumulation of our decisions thatultimately determines our essence.

Our acts determine who we are and then we must become responsible and

accountable for that person we have become.

Again, the individual is fundamentally alone. They are freed from the cageof a predetermined essence, but must face the very difficult task of takingownership of the creation of their own essence.


9/14

Applying the knowledge

Why?

Youve been given a lot of information and its importantthat we reinforce that knowledge so it isnt lost.

Applying that knowledge to a new situation is a great formof reinforcement.


10/14

The exercise...

Im going to put a painting on each table that speaks to thethinking that Ive talked about.

Youll have some post-its, and your task is to spend some timewith each painting, discuss it with your group and use thepost-its to make connections between what you see in theimagery and what you re-call from the slideshow.

Its not about being correct here, its about digging backthrough the new knowledge and applying it.

e.g....


11/14


12/14

The exercise...

Im going to put a painting on each table that speaks to thethinking that Ive talked about.

Youll have some post-its, and your task is to spend sometime with each painting, discuss it with your group and usethe post-its to make connections between what you see inthe imagery and what you re-call from the slideshow.

Its not about being correct here, its about digging backthrough the new knowledge and applying it.


13/14

The condition of the modern

human...This exercise is aimed at further applying the knowledgeyouve gained by sythesising it down to its core.

The task is simple:

As a group, based on what youve learnt, create onesentence that describes the condition of the modern human.

Think very carefully about this - its a thinking and acrafting of language activity.


14/14

Reflections

What is something new that youve learnt in English thisweek?

What are you still struggling with?

What is a question youd like to ask?

How could the work youve done impact on yourunderstanding of Rock Springs?

context for ford - uncertainty, language, application tasks

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