Online Video Lectures and Course Materials — Open Yale Courses

Online Video Lectures and Course Materials — Open Yale Courses

The Unknown Blogger Who Changed WikiLeaks Coverage - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

The Unknown Blogger Who Changed WikiLeaks Coverage - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

zunguzungu

zunguzungu

Pressthink

Pressthink

Bhoomi Conference

There is a conference on Sustainable Living organised on the 21st and 22nd of January in St Johns Auditorium by The Bhoomi Network.

For more information visit their website www.bhoomiconference.org

From their website:

This conference is a space to ask questions about the Connections between our notions of a good life and relationships, happiness, economics and ecology. It is also a space to explore leads and directions offered by various thinkers, scientists and philosophers.

* What is the Good Life we really want for ourselves?
* How do we decide what is too much consumption?
* Is our drive to succeed as individuals harmful to our civilization and planet earth?
* Climate change is also a global, political issue – does individual change matter then?

Keynote addresses by Vandana Shiva, Gopinath Menon, Meera Shiva, Devinder Sharma, Nandita Shah, and V S Shreedhara.

Human Rights Certificate Course. Wednesday 5/1/11.

Reading session and discussions

1.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

2.     http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

Why Wikipedia?

The collaborative editing process followed by Wikipedia allows frequent verification of facts and approaches an issue from various angles giving an understanding from different contexts. This method of regular updating and rechecking by different people ensures quick correction of errors. Other useful elements of Wikipedia include the Criticism/Reception section for most articles where the topic’s negative and positive criticism is acknowledged and discussed. Furthermore, the nature, quality and process of the editing and writing of the article itself is evaluated to give the reader an idea of the way the article has been written and by whom and what the reader should keep in mind while using the article as a reference.

For more on the process of editing at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

What is a declaration?

A declaration is an acknowledgement. UDHR is not a law but a declaration. International covenant on women’s rights is still not sighed by India and so can’t impose sanctions.

Eleanor Roosevelt mentions the need for the UDHR as a declaration as opposed to a treaty, because treaties as an agreement on an issue, give space for revolt, debate and retaliation and like rules, are eventually broken. For example, Sati became more widespread after it was banned. After Sati was noticed in 1700s it was debated over for 50 years, as the British did not want to interfere in a religious practice. Its root in the Hindu religion was questioned and researched into, leading to the translation of Hindu scriptures. After the British translated the Bhagvad Gita, that was announced as the Holy book of the Hindus as the Bible was to the Christians, they could not find the religious root to back the practice of Sati and thereby banned it, as they could track no religious grounds. Ironically, the ban resulted in a wider spread of Sati. It was first banned in 1829 but after resurgence, it had to be banned again in 1956. There was another revival of the practice in 1981 with another prevention ordinance passed in 1987. (Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Sati-Belief-beyond-the-law/Article1-345245.aspx )

The Age of Enlightenment and Immanuel Kant

The Age of enlightenment and the works of European philosophers during this time are vital while tracing the origin of the idea of human rights and the drafting of UDHR. Documents include; Bill of Rights of England, Bill of Rights of United States and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France.

One of the men to be immediately associated with this age is Immanuel Kant. The division of human knowledge into disciplines like Arts, Commerce, Humanities, Social Sciences etc was an idea propagated by him and is used in Universities today. He also explores and states the purpose of a University and its role in the development of a student.

Practicality and application of Human Rights

Why is Human Rights part of our Holistic classes?

It is mandatory for the Supreme Court to take the responsibility of teaching the citizens human rights. All UGs must essentially teach HR.

“Items once purchased cannot be returned”Such a practice is illegal. There is a law in India that protects the consumer such that compensation can be demanded if a store doesn’t refund your money on return of a purchased item.

Julian Assange and Afzal Guru, whose works involved huge controversies, could not directly be arrested, as their actions do not violate any law. Being arrested for Assange’s contribution to Wikileaks would go against the UDHR and the right to freedom. So instead, Assange and many others are being charged on account of rape, sexual harassment and spam mail with obscene content and in spite of lack of evidence and unfair trials are being held in custody.

More on Afzal Guru and Julian Assange arrests:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/india.kashmir
http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=2480
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Allegations_of_sexual_assault

Marxism and Labor

One of Marx’s biggest contributions is considered to be his theories on “Labor”. Readers of Marx today are Feminists and Environmentalists. Feminists explore the relevance of labor and its association in the fields of child bearing (woman in labor, labor room etc)

Environmentalists approach Marx’s concept of labor with the question, where did capital come from? Their argument extends to nature being the primary source of capital. 

Brief of Marx’s contribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution

What is Slavery?

Slavery is an economical concept, not social. It is covered under economics and not sociology, as an economical phenomenon.

Capital does not suggest the richest, but simple small activities like a roadside tea stall also involve dealing with capital. Capital primarily involves ownership not money; Ratan Tata paid  1 for acres of land, Infosys in Mysore was given the land for its campus for close to nothing, it is the process of owning the land that gives capital.

The Material that comes from Capital is labored upon to form the final product. This laboring upon which transforms the capital into a product with higher utility value is rewarded with wages. A slave in this process can be located at the end of the laboring process, minus the wage payment; a slave is one who is not paid for his/her labor.

A mother cooks a stew; the raw vegetables are labored upon to produce the stew. She is not paid for this labor. Is mother a slave?

Child labor in India when put into this context cannot be termed as slavery because the children are paid, however minimally.

Further reading:

·      Kant- What is enlightenment?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22001690/Emmanuel-Kant-What-is-Enlightenment

·      Right to refuse to kill and conscientious objection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_Objector#United_Nations

Reference:
Pinto, Anil. Introduction to Human Rights. Jan 5^th 2011. Lecture.

STRUCTURALISM- FERDINAND SAUSSURE (Mr. Pinto's lectures in II CEP)

13^th December 2010

STRUCTURALISM

FERDINAND SAUSSURE

Main concepts:

1.       Signifier and Signified

2.       Sign

3.       Signifying system

4.       Sign is arbitrary

5.       Diachronic, synchronic

6.       Langue, Parole

7.       Time

8.       Value, Difference

The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

Diachronic means across time. Studies how language was and has evolved across the centuries.

Synchronic: studies language of the present. Not interested in studying how it used to be and how it should be, but how it is at this given point of time.

Language:

1.       Surface Structure  or Parole

2.       Deep Structure or Langue               

Noam Chomsky

When a child learns a language, it does not learn the surface structure but the deep structure and hence produces words that it has never heard or learnt before.

Saussure called the surface structure as “Parole” and the deep structure as “Langue”.

Chomsky said that every language has a deep structure, but not the same deep structure.

Saussure did not use the word semiotics but the word Semiology.

Semiotics-Charles Sanders Pierce. Saussure and Pierce worked around the same time on similar concepts but they did not know each other.

A signifier is always expressed in time. Only one word is written at a time.

Thoughts and Language:

You have access to thoughts through language and your thoughts are structured in language.

There is no thought beyond language.

HEGEL-gave the concept of dialectic (for more information on this topic: http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/dialectic.htm )

Each history has a spirit of its time and one cannot view it beyond its spirit.

Naming process- calling the object into your world.

The origin of the word in not important to structuralits.

Deleuze- Psychoanalyst, Zizek believed that the origin of a word was perpetually not to be answered.

Only fundamentalists go back to origins.

Origin-no point in arguing how or why it exists. The fact is that it exists.

Language does not require humans to exist. It is independent but it cannot exist despite us. We cannot explain why certain languages are spoken in two completely unrelated places.

“Language of the Gods” (book by B. John Zavrel) maps the history of Sanskrit.

 3^rd and 4^th century- Sanskrit spread to the west without any conquests or trade. Language requires only one person to exist.

18^th December 2010

One signifier in the system has value because it is not any of the other signifiers in the system.

Language cannot have synonyms because each word has a different value.

E.g: ” bachelor” is different from “unmarried man”

Performance studies- speech act. Study speech as an act.

20^th December 2010

1.       Syntagm

2.       Paradigm/ associative.

“Student”= one who studies. No flexibility.

Meaning = value and difference.

A word gets its meaning because of the relationship between syntagm and paradigm in a science system.

Horizontal or Syntagmatic relations- One cannot replace the other. E.g: MENU: Starters, Main course, Desserts- starters cannot be replaced by desserts.

Vertical or Associative relations-  One can be replaced by the other. E.g: MENU: Starters>Soup, momos, fries etc;

Plato's Republic

Notes by Simran Purokayastha , 2nd PSEng.

‘The safest generalization that can be made about the history of Western Philosophy is that it is all a series of footnotes to Plato.’

-Alfred North Whitehead

Plato occupies a central place in European philosophical tradition, for various reasons. He is the first Western philosopher whose works have survived (the fire of Alexandria) intact. These works remain significant in their wide scope, impact, undeniable logic, incisive reasoning and undoubtedly, their power to engage readers.

Plato uses the dialogic form of writing to bring his views to light. Plato does not speak in his own voice, but has the characters of these dialogues speak for themselves, opening up numerous philosophical perspectives in the process. By doing this, he leaves his readers room to interpret his works in radically different ways, which is perhaps why there is little in Philosophy that isn’t covered in Plato’s works. Philosophy therefore, has so far only explained Plato, not challenged him.

In The Republic, one of his most celebrated works and the last book (X) of which is the object of our study, Plato sets out to answer numerous questions in his attempt to define the Ideal State. In the process, he deals with matters not only pertinent to the State and its smooth functioning but also those relevant to the individual and his/her well being.

In order to better understand Plato’s views, one must grasp the propositions he puts forward in his ‘Theory of Forms’, one of primary tenets of Plato’s philosophy. This theory proposes that the world that we perceive around us is a copy or reproduction of another realm, which is perfect (the world of the Ideal). It is a purely intelligible sphere of existence. These Forms of the ideal world are stable and unchanging and define all that exists fleetingly and imperfectly in the world of our senses. The Forms provide knowledge of objective truth. Plato used the term 'nature' to describe the physical world that we perceive through our senses. And, since nature is a copy of the Ideal, it is less perfect. Plato argues that art is only a mere representation or copy of the Physical World (which is already a copy of the Ideal) and is therefore twice removed from reality.

The theory may be reduced to six fundamental propositions. *

First, for every kind, there is a single nature common to things of the kind. For example, beautiful things all possess beauty. Or, humans all possess humanity.

Second, it is having these natures (or characters) that makes things be of the kinds that they are. Using the same example, and by extension, beauty makes beautiful things beautiful.

Third, these natures are necessarily as they are, and have necessary relations to one another. Beauty, for example, is always and necessarily the opposite of ugliness.

Fourth, philosophy is, at least primarily, the inquiry into these natures.

The fifth proposition is that it is by means of reason, and not our senses, that we discover the truth about these natures.

And the last general principle is that this discovery is possible only because the inquirer had prior knowledge of these natures.

Only those whose minds are trained to grasp the Forms—the philosophers—can know anything at all. In particular, what the philosophers must know in order to become able rulers is the Form of the Good—the source of all other Forms, and of knowledge, truth, and beauty. Plato cannot describe this Form directly, but he claims that it is to the intelligible realm what the sun is to the visible realm.

The metaphysical hierarchy proposed by Plato, to summarize, is as follows:

· Ideal

· Physical World (copy)

· Art (copy of the copy)

Based on these beliefs, Plato argues that art needs to be banned in an Ideal State since it gives a false picture of reality to the people. It appeals to the basest part of the soul and allows strong emotions to take control of a person and cloud their ability to reason making it difficult to reach the ultimate reality or Ideal. Furthermore, he has three reasons for regarding the poets as unwholesome and dangerous. First, they pretend to know a lot of things, but they really know nothing at all. It is widely considered that they have knowledge of all that they write about, but, in fact, they do not. The things they deal with cannot be known: they are images, far removed from what is most real. By presenting scenes so far removed from the truth poets, pervert souls, turning them away from the most real toward the least. Worse, the images the poets portray do not imitate the good part of the soul. The rational part of the soul is quiet, stable, and not easy to imitate or understand. Poets imitate the worst parts—the inclinations that make characters easily excitable and colorful. Poetry naturally appeals to the worst parts of souls and arouses, nourishes, and strengthens these base elements while diverting energy from the rational part.

Poetry corrupts even the best souls. It deceives us into sympathizing with those who grieve excessively, who lust inappropriately, who laugh at base things. It even goads us into feeling these base emotions vicariously. We think there is no shame in indulging these emotions because we are indulging them with respect to a fictional character and not with respect to our own lives. But the enjoyment we feel in indulging these emotions in other lives is transferred to our own life. Once these parts of ourselves have been nourished and strengthened in this way, they flourish in us when we are dealing with our own lives. Suddenly we have become the grotesque sorts of people we saw on stage or heard about in epic poetry.

He includes poets along with atheists and contact with foreigners in a list of corrupting influences that stand in the way of an Ideal State.

Despite the clear dangers of poetry, Socrates regrets having to banish the poets.

He feels the aesthetic sacrifice acutely, and says that he would be happy to allow them back into the city if anyone could present an argument in their defense.

All these ideas become clearer through Plato’s cave allegory.

(Please access the following link for an interesting representation and explanation of the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2afuTvUzBQ)

It is evident that each of the elements in the allegory stands for something greater. The chained prisoners represent the uneducated mass of humankind. The shadows on the wall are dim representations of imitations of real things. The reality for the prisoners is the people’s poor understanding of the nature of the things they see. The released prisoner’s forced, steep ascent out of the cave into the sunlight is akin to the difficulty of an education in Mathematics that, according to Plato, is essential in one’s preparation for philosophy. The reluctance of the prisoners to make the steep climb is like students’ inclination to think that hard work is not worth the effort. The bright sunlit world outside is actually the abstract realm that reason reveals to the soul. And the prisoner who is acclimatized to the outside world is a symbol for the philosopher who has mastered the dialectic. The parallels are numerous!

Plato, in the voice of Socrates then outlines a brief proof for the immortality of the soul. The proof is essentially this: X can only be destroyed by what is bad for X. What is bad for the soul is injustice and other vices. But injustice and other vices obviously do not destroy the soul or tyrants and other such people would not be able to survive for long. So nothing can destroy the soul, and the soul is immortal.

Plato’s arguments are extremely convincing and often deal with and outline inscrutable nuances of human life and eternal quest. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, that his works continue to be relevant in today’s times and definitely more engaging than most other philosophical treatises.

References:

· Pinto, Anil. Plato. Christ University. Dec. 2010. Lecture.

· The Sparknotes piece on Plato’s ‘The Republic’ http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/republic/section10.rhtml

· The sources mentioned below.

* The books ‘Coffee with Plato’ by Donald R. Moor and ‘The Cambridge Companion to Plato’ edited by Richard Kraut (both available in the Christ University Library, UG Section (Philosophy)) were extremely helpful in understanding Plato’s works. Strongly recommended.