Out of the several philosophers that we saw in The Examined Life, which of them seemed:
1. To have the most appealing outlooks on life;
2. To have the least appealing (or comprehensible) views of life?
In summary, here they are in order of appearance in the film:
1. Cornel West - Harvard and Princeton educated, Dr. West has spent the majority of his studies examining race, gender, and class in American society. He is considered a "neopragmatist", similar to that of William James' pragmatism (something has value if it works), where language is the primary vehicle for understanding the world and trying to make meaning from it. He has called himself a "non-Marxist socialist" primarily because he's a religious person and cannot reconcile the fact that Marxism dismisses religion. He also tends to be suspicious of all forms of authority, because they can lead to tyranny and / or abuse. One of his latest books is called Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism.
2. Avital Ronell - her parents were Israeli diplomats and she was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She is a professor of German language in New York and has translated French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his earliest works introduced into America. She follows a school of philosophy called Deconstructionism where she tries to discover the underlying meanings of words and language. She feels that " language is a material that cannot not interrupt, suspend, resist, exceed, and otherwise trip up the very message it is charged to deliver," because "words can go AWOL (absent without leave" or in many instances, be misunderstood or misinterpreted by the listener / reader. In many respects, this problem with language has led her to believe that there are no guiding Truths. One of her latest books is called Stupidity.
3. Peter Singer - an Australian philosopher who has become very popular with his most well known for his strong moral beliefs about animals and eating meat. He is opposed to animal experimentation as well as eating meat. He follows in the school of Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham) which tries to maximize the greatest good for the largest number of people. He also feels very strongly that the wealthy have an obligation to provide help for those in extreme poverty (remember the $200 pair of shoes ruined to save a drowning child). On his own website, he claims to give 25% of his income to non-profit groups that are devoted to the poor. His latest book is The Life You Can Save.
4. Kwame Anthony Appiah - as mentioned in the film, he's the product of a Ghanian father and an English mother, he studied at Cambridge and has taught at some of the top universities in the U.S. His studies have included examining the intellectual history of African Americans and he also deals with language and semantics - the underlying meanings of words. In the segment we watched, Appiah talked about our notion of identity in a multicultural world. He doesn't believe that race should form your identity, but that we should look for universalities between us to do that. Forbes Magazine named him one of the Top Seven Most Powerful Thinkers in the world - Judith Butler is also on this list as well. Appiah's latest book is called The Honor Code.
5. Martha Nussbaum - is a professor at the University of Chicago with an interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy along with concerns over feminism, political philosophy and morality. From ancient Greek and Roman philosophies, she has explored the idea of neo-Stoicism which acknowledges that things outside of our control have a great influence on us. She has also tried to draw attention to the political and gender inequality and the lack of opportunities for women. She's a strong believer in inclusion of other cultures and feels that those who promote Western culture (our culture) at the expense of others is paternalistic. In the field of moral psychology, she wrote that emotions like shame and disgust are legitimate emotions to use to make legal judgments. Her latest book is The New Religious Intolerance.
6. Michael Hardt - Hardt is a political philosopher from Duke University who was born in 1960. As he mentioned in the film, he spent time in Latin America during the 1980s learning from the Marxist political movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He has criticized globalization and sees it as a form of American imperialism. Nations' power to control their own destiny has declined as American (and European) companies have expanded to control various aspects of developing countries' resources. His major work, written with Antonio Negri, is called Empire. Globalization has spawned new forms of racism and cultural change, and that the focus of political power has shifted from governments to corporations. This shift is less democratic because there's very little if any recourse to stop / control these corporations.
7. Slavoj Zizek - Zizek is a neo-Marxist and has been considered the "hippest philosopher in Europe" by many and also called "the Elvis of philosophy." He hails from Slovenia and has written many books. He tends to provoke with his statements, like comparing Julian Assange to Mahatma Gandhi. He rarely gives straightforward answers to questions: "I like to complicate issues. I hate simple narratives. I suspect them. This is my automatic reaction." He is also an athiest and has written extensively on movies, violence, and other topics. He apparently wrote a review of Avatar first w/o having actually seen it first: "I'm a good Hegelian. If you have a good theory, forget about the reality." His primary influence is philosopher Jacques Lacan. One of his latest book is Living in the End Times.
8. Judith Butler - is currently a professor of rhetoric and literature at the University of Berkeley, California. One of her primary philosophical keys is gender studies and how sex and gender roles are flexible or shouldn't be as confining as we tend to see them in our society. Gender identity does not necessarily reflect who are in our "inner core" - meaning, that just because we are men or women does NOT mean that we should be bound by those male and female roles. Gender is supposed to be a secondary characteristic to who are, not a primary one. Also, her political philosophy has been influenced by her religion, Judaism, and she believes in a "Judaism that is not associated with state violence," and has said that Israel does not represent all Jews. As mentioned in the segment on Appiah, Forbes named her one of the top seven thinkers in the world and she has been called "a big-deal academic, ... and oft-cited academic superstar...the most famous feminist philosopher in the United States," "the queer theorist par excellence," and "the most brilliantly eclectic theorist of sexuality in recent years." Her most popular book has been Gender Trouble.
This blog will be due by Friday, June 14 by class. This blog is part of your final exam along with your answers to the questions on the film. You can turn them in on Friday, June 14.
Also, please read this article for Friday (after the exam) for an enlightening discussion on the ethics of punching a Nazi. https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/jan/31/the-punch-a-nazi-meme-what-are-the-ethics-of-punching-nazis
Out of the philosophers the one that had the most appealing views on life was Kwame Anthony Appiah because he thinks that our main purpose in life is to help the world around us and not just ourselves, but not just the world around us the entire world. This sounds a bit communist when he says that people should give their money to other people instead of spending it on themselves and that idea sounds like you should make only the amount of money you need to survive and not to live in comfort although it sounds like the happiest world available given the current options.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher with the least appealing philosophy is Slavoj Zizek this is mostly because I and the majority of the class couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth and because I think that people should do something about climate change and I am also a big fan of nature whereas this guy seems to want us to purposefully speed up climate change and destroy the earth to get us further from nature. He has come to this solution because he views nature as chaotic and man made things as ideal and calm thus the faster we get rid of nature the better.
The Examined Life provided us with examples of the beliefs of more current philosophers. Out of all the ones that we saw, the one that resonated or appealed the most with me would have to be Judith Butler. I feel that her trying to break down gender stereotypes is such a big thing, as some people judge people solely on what society says each gender is supposed to be and how they are supposed to act. Women are so much more than the people who cook, clean, and do other menial household chores. Contrary to what men in history gave them credit for, women are more than capable of thinking for themselves and achieve just as much if not more than men. They prove life is more than just physical strength. The same can be applied to men. Men have feelings too, and men are getting better at expressing themselves instead of being the dark and brooding type. Now I do not think that men need to go and wear their feelings on their sleeves as some women do, but I think it is perfectly alright for men to cry and say what is truly bothering them.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher that did not quite have the most appealing outlook to me would have to be Slavoj Zizek. His thick accent made it hard to understand what he was saying but from what I could make out, it felt like he was saying that we should accept the world for what it is and stop trying to change it. This would have been all fine and dandy if I ignored the fact that he was going on and on about the environment and ecology. It just came across like he was saying that we should stop trying to prevent global warming and all the pollution that we have caused. I don’t know, maybe I misinterpreted his actual message, but that is just what I ended up hearing.
Overall, this video was great in allowing us to hear from philosophers who are actually alive and being able to catch a glimpse into the lives of real philosophers.
-Jordan Matthews
There's two philosophers who have ideas that I agree with: Judith Butler and Kwame Anthony Appiah. I really like how Butler took initiative to expand sexual equality and the labeling that we have clung to it. I agree completely that gender should not be our most defining quality and we should not cling to it as if it is our only identity. By breaking the stereotypes that we pin to the terms Men and Women Butler could really expand our world into something so much greater. I also enjoyed Kwame Anthony Appiah similar statements involving stereotypes. Race should never form your identity and its a shame that in our world we have to conform and change our lives based on the color of our skin. I also agree with the point that he made about giving and how we should be generous people.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher whose view i didn’t really connect with was Slavoj Zizek. Maybe he could have been saying something really great and life changing but I truly couldn’t understand what he was saying. During his entire section majority of the class were just staring confused. From the info above i’ve learned he’s an atheist and I would he very interested in hearing his comments and views surrounding that.
-Riana Richards
Out of all the philosophers presented in this movie, I think that Kwame Anthonv Appiah had the most appealing outlook on life; though his ideas may seem a bit too optimistic. He beliefs that humanity should develop a cosmopolitan attitude, meaning that we are responsible fore one another. Humanity is naturally selfish. We may think we are doing something fore the good of the community, but we are just helping ourselves. You can call it the invisible hand theory or what ever else, but there is no such thing as an altruistic action. Thusly, the view of Kwame is a little bit too optimistic, that is that we view ourselves responsible for the wellbeing of any person in humanity, but still it has good intentions.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher that is the least appealing to me is that Slavic trash man dude named Slavoi Zizek. Because of his thick accent in this movie I could not understand a word he was saying. Form the things I have picked up though is that he thinks we should not worry about the future, but rather we should just enjoy our lives now. Its kind of like that whole cape diem expression. But he thinks we should just coexist with trash because he thinks its beautiful in some way or another and the world will die anyways. If I got this wrong I’m sorry but I really could not understand what he was saying.
The prompt to this blog was “Out of the several philosophers that we saw in The Examined Life, which of them seemed: 1. To have the most appealing outlooks on life;
ReplyDelete2. To have the least appealing (or comprehensible) views of life?” These questions have multiple meanings, so before I get into the meat of the questions, I’m going to define the ones I’ll be answering. The devil is in the word “appealing”- we must ask whether the philosophies are appealing to us or how positive they seem. I will be answering which are the most appealing to me specifically.
1. The philosopher who appeals to me the most is Martha Nussbaum. Her first major appeal to me is her focus on the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. This is very interesting because, beyond historical value, not many modern philosophers mention them. This drought of referring to the past is, to me, problematic, because I find it extremely hard to say that you are the only person to have thought in this certain way.
The second reason I prefer Nussbaum over the rest is because of her social views. In her 2010 book “From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law,” she takes a very interesting view of how disgust plays a factor into anti-LGBT laws. She is very good at calling out bigotry and othering in this book, exposing it for admittedly natural but necessarily stifled disgust. I think she takes it a little too far in lumping incestual relationships into the LGBT community, because incestual relationships can in fact have real biological, physiological detriments
Lastly, Nussbaum appeals to me with her philosophy of Neo-Stoicism. Much like Stoicism proper, it holds that you must live your life to its fullest extent possible, but it is Stoicism thinned, because it still recognizes the now-scientifically-confirmed fact that your exterior influences your mental interior.
2. Conversely, the philosopher who I find the least comprehensible and appealing is Slavoj Zizek. Overall, the quote that he refuses to give concrete answers seems like a simple mask for indecisiveness and/or vagueness in his philosophy. My impression is that this refusal is so as to make him harder to argue with as well. Maybe he does this for another reason, but a man of his intelligence must do it on purpose for a reason. I only wonder what it is.
Even though other philosophers on the list lean towards Marxism, I feel Zizek is the most immersed in it. Since communism has killed so many people (see my recent blog on it at https://jstollmanphilosophy.blogspot.com/) I personally feel that Zizek’s fame may be dangerous. Add to this his tendency to provoke, and I see a very unappealing philosopher. Pessimistic nihilism plays a part in his mind, saying literally “I'm a pessimist. I think it's good if the world ends" in reviewing Lars Von Trier’s film Melancholia. After reviewing this, you can see why I personally believe that Zizek is the least appealing (but that’s not to say worst) philosopher on the list.
-Jake Stollman
I think the philosopher from the documentary with the most appealing outlook on life would be Peter Singer. I think his Utilitarianism helped him to have a positive outlook on life. Utilitarianism is the "doctrine that an action is right insofar as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct." Peter's belief in utilitarianism shows in his opinions of wealthy and poor and what he believes should be done to help poverty. His outlook on life seems to be happy and more positive, because he wants to bring happiness to himself and everyone in the world. I think that Peter Singer's idea of not eating meat goes along. with his Utilitarianism in the sense that he not only wants happiness for people, but he also wants this for animals rather than for them to die. He also is very giving and gives 25% of his income to non-profit organizations that help the poor. I think ultimately, Peter Singer has a very appealing outlook on life due to his belief in Utilitarianism and his efforts to help others and make people happy.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher I believe had the least appealing outlook on life was Slavoj Zizek. Part of this reason is because I honestly did not know what he was saying in most of this film, due to his very heavy accent (which I was kind of cool but would have been cooler if his words made sense). Also, from what I seemed to understand (at least I think I understood) is that Slavoj believed capitalism is approaching a terminal crisis and the world is going to end soon. To me, his talk felt very much like he also believed in ignoring the problems in our environment like climate change, etc. which I believe is a problem that shouldn't be ignored. Slavoj's ideas were very unappealing to me because of his negative outlook on life and the environment he lives in.
Judith Butler’s ideologies appealed to me the most because of her views on gender as a secondary characteristic of who we are as humans. She thinks that we should not be confined in our gender, and should be flexible. Society has created a divided among the two genders, so much so that when a non-conforming citizen does something that is “out of the norm”, socety tends to shun them Although, newer generations are beginning to break this stigma, the world’s gender schema is that women are the more caring, weaker and loving of the two and men are the stronger, aggressive and more hard-wired of the two. So if society is presented with a male that can be classified as weak or too caring, they are often questioned and even looked down upon (vise-versa with women). This schema has created things such as toxic masculinity, where men feel that they must be inherently strong. Boys often grow up with the burden of feeling like they HAVE to play sports, football in particular, and if they don’t they aren’t tough enough. Conversely, rarely do you go to an elementary playground and find little girls playing flag football or basketball with the boys. They usually sit to the side, collecting rocks, swinging on the swingset or braiding each other’s hair. Now, a simple explanation for this might be that they just enjoy doing those things, but it could also be that if they went over and even tried to play with the boys, they’d be laughed at or shunned by not only the little boys but the adults as well. Starting off at a young age in our American society, kids are taught that gender is their primary human characteristic, and I think Butler’s philosophy is a step toward altering that.
ReplyDeleteI disagree most with Slavoj Zizek’s ideas. Based on the explanation of him, I think he is extremely arrogant and seemingly trouble making. I think he and I are very different in our ways of thinking because I try my best to avoid dissatisfaction and resolve issues, whereas he finds contentment in complicating issues. He is also an atheist, and I believe in faith, that there is a higher spiritual being.
After watching the movie The Examined Life, the author that seemed the most appealing to me based on his or her outlook on life was Avital Ronell. She had a quote, “The responsible being is the one who thinks they have never been responsible for enough.” This quote means that the person who always thinks they do not have enough to be responsible for or enough responsibility in their life are actually the ones in the world that handle responsibility the best. They are so good at dealing with their responsibility that it feels like they do not have as much in their life compared to others. While it is actually because they are better at handling responsibility. I also agree with this philosopher when she was asked why she was suspicious of philosophy when it claims it is looking for the meaning of life. And she responded with “The craving for meaning can lead to a devastation. Things are just there.” I liked that. I vibed with that. She implied that there is no purpose to search for the meaning of life because all it will cause is disappointment. Later she suggests anxiety as a form of ethics and states If we are not anxious then we are not ethical because they ponder on the rights or wrongs of things. I agreed with that, being anxious shows you care about something.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the movie The Examined Life, the author that seemed the least appealing to me based on his or her outlook on life was Martha Nussbaum. I disagreed with what this respected philosopher was saying. At one point, she disagreed with social contract thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant and when I was learning about these philosophers I agreed with what they were saying. Then she just disagreed with them. Then, later, she said “people think that women are physically weaker.” Then she went on to say how that was wrong. But research literally shows that genetically men are physically stronger based off of the muscle development and the muscle fiber characteristics.
-Brody Hiipakka