Modern Philosophy

KilbridgeMcQuaid Jesuit

Epistemology

What can we know? Of what can we be certain?

René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1929), conveys Kant’s view on representations. We can never know things-in-themselves (noumena).

René Magritte, The Human Condition

Harvard Shield, 1640’s. The Old and New Testaments reveal the nature of the

universe, but reason is limited

Harvard Shield, current. The nature of the universe is no longer a closed

book.

The Question of Free Will

Free will, decision-making and morality…

The Force : Is it like Schopenhauer’s Will or Bergson’s

Élan Vital?

Hegel

Professor John L. Heineman, Boston College

Marx

Professor John L. Heineman, Boston College

According to Hegel and Marx, the “individual” is swept up in the great forces of history (whether material or immaterial: society or geist).

The individual does not really exist and certainly is at the mercy of these deterministic forces.

Hegel and MarxNietzsche

What do you envision as an ideal world?Are we progressing toward it?What prevents or opposes that dream?Do we have the power to make it happen?

Self and Society

Existentialism and The Meaning of Life

The Dilemma of Free Will and Purpose:

If there is a grand scheme to the world, one in which we serve a purpose, do we have free will?

If there is none, and we do have free will, to what end do we exert our will?

A Cry for Freedom or a Plea for Meaning?

Sources: http://dreamstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/thescream.jpg; http://carolinekoopman.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/strangerthanfictionpubc1.jpg

Harold Crick, Stranger than Fiction and Edvard Munch’s The Scream

Source: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/drupal/files/images/apple.trimmed_0.jpg; http://www.cbc.ca/arts/images/pics/arts_strangerfiction_392.jpg

Reality and illusion, beauty and horror, freedom and conformity:

How do we become authentic individuals out of a social existence?

Rene Magritte and Stranger than Fiction

Disillusioned Darkness at the break of noonShadows even the silver spoonThe handmade blade, the child's balloonEclipses both the sun and moonTo understand you know too soonThere is no sense in trying…

The hollow horn plays wasted wordsProved to warnThat he not busy being bornIs busy dying.…

words like bullets barkAs human gods aim for their marksMade everything from toy guns that sparksTo flesh-colored Christs that glow in the darkIt's easy to see without looking too farThat not muchIs really sacred.

- Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

The Meaning of Life

Does life have meaning?

What is a good life?

What is “purpose”?

What is a “goal”?

What is our goal?

Happiness

What brings sustainable happiness?

Aristotle: VirtueSomeone who would willingly die?Stranger Than Fiction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbtYQHagMEA&feature=related)

NYC Subway Hero (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2329222n)

Virtues• Cardinal

– Fortitude– Temperance– Justice– Prudence

• Theological– Faith– Hope– Love

Postmodernism

• Liberating ourselves from the mistaken notion that there are grand narratives or objective truths.

• Vocabulary and recurring phrases:•  Critique of institutional power structures• Fragmented narrative perspectives•  Social construction of reality/norms•  The map replacing the territory •  Deconstruction•  Irony

Mrquale.com

Postmodernism asks:

Are you a tool?

Commodification

Are you, in any way, the products you purchase?

Are you the product of social constructs?

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Untitled, Barbara Kruger, 1987

The ironic use conventional images and fashion to critique conformity and social norms.

This then becomes the norm.Ironic, eh?

http://tvrecappersanonymous.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/its-memorial-day-charlie-brown/, http://askastylistapp.com/2010/06/14/bedazzle-me-surprised/. http://stylesell.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_archive.html

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The Examined Life

• Reflect on Experience• Act based on Reflection• Pursue Knowledge• Practice Virtue• Love

What we haven’t explored:

Analytic philosophy, the dominant philosophical movement of the English and the American academies.

Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein are two important philosophers who formed and adopted this approach.

They focus on language analysis and formal logic.