Language about Language

Philosophy of Mind - Language


Seminar Paper


Frege was born in Wismar, Germany in 1848. He was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. In his childhood, Frege encountered philosophies that guided his future scientific career. His father wrote a textbook on the German language for children aged 9-13, the first section of which dealt with the structure and logic of language.


Though his education and early work were mathematical, especially geometrical, Frege's thoughts soon turned to logic. He wanted to show that mathematic grows out of logic. He is one of the founders of analytic philosophy, mainly because of his contributions to the philosophy of language.


Frege attacked the psychologistic appeal to mental explanations of the content of judgement of the meaning of sentences. He didn't start with the purpose of answering questions about meaning. He formed his logic to explore the foundations of arithmetic answering questions such as 'What is a number?' But after solving such matters, he found himself analysing and explaining what meaning is, and as a result he came to numerous conclusions that were highly consequential for the subsequent course of anlytic philosophy and the philosophy of language.


In his book, Philosophy of Mind, Anthony Kenny talks about Frege's paper, Sense and Reference, published In 1892. In this, Frege believes in a refrence point, that the meaning of the word can only be understood through other words in the sentence. A term's reference is the object that the term refers to, while the term's sense is the way that the term refers to that object. Frege's ideas are hard to analyse. They are difficult to understand and to explain so I have tried my best to make sense of them although I did find that I was confusing myself. (Although that doesn't take much).


Frege aks if identity is a relation? If it is a relation, is it a relation between signs or between what signs stand for? Frege solved this problem by using the sentence "The morning star is identical to the evening star". He distinguished between two different kinds of signification. Where other philosophers talk of meaning, Frege introduces a distinction between the refernce of an expression and the sense of an expression. He explains that planet Venus is the reference of 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' differs in sense from the morning star even though it has been discovered that both expressions refer to Venus.


I think this means that Frege is showing that two different words can have the same identity, such as morning star and evening star both meaning Venus, and the reference Venus, which is only one word, can have two different meanings or identities. This being the morning star and the evening star. This is Frege's substitutivity principle which means replacing parts of a sentence with other expressions that mean the same thing should leave the meaning of the whole sentence unchanged. He continues to say that in general, an identity statement will be true and informative if the sign of identity is flanked by two names with the same reference but different meanings. Whereas Aristotle disagrees and believes that one word can only have one meaning. The reference point, I think is almost like a nickname. For example, 'dough' and 'cash' both refer to money.


In Frege's account of meaning there are items at three levels: signs, their senses, and their references. It's easy to understand that by using signs we express a sense and denote their reference. Frege believed that every sense would have a sense but only one sense. To put it simply, I think this means that every word can have a meaning but only one meaning. However, there is no requirement that every sense should have only one sign. So this means that every meaning can be referenced through different words. For example, although the words 'bank' and 'port' do have different meanings, each type of spelling of the word bank and each type of spelling of the word port do have one set meaning each. However, this slightly confused because if I were to say the word 'tree', for example, I could be thinking of a christmas tree but someone else could be thinking of an apple tree. So to what extent is it true that every sense has a sense but only one sense because in this case, the word tree gives off different senses.
Bertrand Russell adopted Frege's method of dealing with assertions and denials of existence. For example, if we were to say 'The round square does not exist', although this is true, he says we can't regard it as denying the existence of an object called 'the round square'. This is because to say 'the round square' we are referring to a particular object that must have some existence for us to to be able to refer to it.


Frege explains that the sense of a word is different from a mental image. He explains that images are subjective and vary from person to person whereas, the sense or meaning of a sign is something that is the common property of all users of the language.


Frege questions the thought expressed by a sentence. Is the thought, that is to say the content of the sentence, its sense or its reference? If you were to change a sentence by replacing one word of the sentence by another having the same reference, but a diferent sense, the thought of the sentence changes. For exmaple, the thought in the sentence, 'the morning star is a body illuminated by the Sun' differs from that in the sentence 'the evening star is a body illuminated by the Sun'. This relates to his substitutivity principle that the meaning hasn't actually changed but for somebody who doesn't know that the evening star is the morning star might hold one thought or sentence to be true and the other to be false. Therefore, the answer to his question is thought is the sense of a sentence, because sense is the thought or meaning behind an expression or sentence, and in this case the meaning has changed and substitutivity is violated.


Frege then questioned if the thought expressed by a sentence is not its reference, does the sentence have a reference at all? He agrees that there can be sentences lacking reference which are sentences occuring in works of fiction such as the Odyssey. The reason these sentences lack a reference is because they contain names that lack a reference such as 'Odysseus' which Frege says to be untrue and not a real object so therefore, there is no reference. However, we could question this because even though Odysseus is fiction, we still know what the word refers to.


Towards the end of his life Frege became more interested in aspects of language that were not captured by his system of Logic. This was the 'colouring' in expression of thoughts. Scientific lagnuage presents thoughts in plain black and white but Frege says that in humane disciplines, sentences may clothe thoughts in colourful garb, with expressions of feeling. For example, we interject words and phrases like 'Alas!' and 'Thank God!' and we use charged words like 'cur' instead of plain words like 'dog'. These features of sentences are not concerns of logic because they do not change their truth-value. A sentence that uses the word 'cur' in place of 'dog' does not become false because that word means exactly the same thing.  


According to Frege, in his paper 'The thoughts', the same sentence said by two different people, is said in different contexts and therefore, express different thoughts. One thought may be true and the other false. For example, 'I am hungry' said by Peter expresses a different thought than is expressed by 'I am hungry' said by Paul. Although I think we could argue with this because the word hungry is used by both people and that word gives off only one sense which is the need for food. So, it's not entirely true to say that they express different thoughts. Also, to say they do, in a way contradicts Frege's idea that every sense has a sense but only one sense.

However, Frege does also admit that the opposite can happen. For example, if on the 9th December he was to say it was snowing yesterday, he would be expressing the same thought as if on the 8th December someone says 'It is snowing today'.


Russell disagrees with Fege's idea that every sentence has a proper name with a sense and a reference. Russell believed that any genuine name must stand for something, must 'directly represent some object' but he thought that not all apparent names were genuine names. For example, Russell thought Frege was wrong to treat the word 'Aristotle' and the phrase 'the tutor of Alexander' as being the same kind of symbol, each a name with a sense and a reference. This is understandable because if Aristotle is a genuine proper name then it does not have a sense only a reference. On the other hand, 'the tutor of Alexander' isn't even a name at all, it only has a sense because the tutor of Alexander doesn't have an exact reference.


Kenny explains that Frege and Russell believed it is essential that language should contain only expressions with a definite sense. They meant that all sentences containing expressions shoud have a truth-value. If we allow into our system sentences lacking truth-value, then inference and deduction become impossible.

Cooking in Comfort

For our second feature, Becky and I produced a short cooking guide in which we prepared a three course meal for four people at just £12. The aim of the feature was to show young people on a budget, and also as Sally Churchward said on WINOL LIFE it can be aimed at people with a good income, that cooking at home can save you money.

So many people are always going to restaurants, sometimes more than they would like to purely because the food is quick and it's easy. However, our feature shows you that it can be just as easy in the comfort of your own home, cooking with your friends and it does save you a lot of money.

Becky and I learnt a lot from the feature ourselves, particularly as I have never actually cooked a meal from scracth (scary thought), so this allowed me to see for myself just how fun and educating cooking can be.

This was also our first time on WINOL LIFE, a chat show where are features are shown to a professional guest who then give us their feeback. It's a great oppurtnity to recieve a professional opinion and advice in order for us to improve on our future features.

Sally Churchward was our guest on this week's WINOL LIFE and she gave us some great advice about our cooking feature. She told us that the shots were brilliant and the whole idea and aim of the feature was very impressive. However, she did say that we need to bring ourselves into the feature more so we have more time in front of the camera. She also said we were fashionable but we knew that already.

We have taken her advice on board with our feature this week so you will have to come back to watch it!

Sigmund Freud

In Anthony Kenny's book "Philosophy In The Modern World" Sigmund Freud is described as the continental thinker who had the greatest influence on Anglo-American philosophical thought throughout the twentieth century. Surprisingly, he is not a philosopher at all, Freud regarded himself as a scientest and an inventor of a new science.

Freud was born in Moravia in 1856. Fread is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression. In 1860 his family moved to Vienna, where Freud trained as a doctor and joined the staff of the General hospital in 1882 where he specialised in brain anatomy. Freud also collaborated with neurologist, Joseph Breuer, treating hysterical patients under hypnosis.

In 1895, in conjunction with Breuer, Freud published work on hysteria which presented an original analysis of mental illness. Freud gradually started to stop using hpnosis as a method of treatment and he began to replace it with a method he called psychoanalysis. He described this form of treatment as nothing more than an exchange of words between patient and doctor.

Freud believed that the reasons for hysterical symptoms was because the patient had repressed memories of a pychological trauma. He found that having the patient lying down on a couch and talk about whatever came to mind would help the patient recover through a process of free association. Freud was investigating the mind and treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and psychoanalyst.

In 1900, Freud published the most important of his works, "The Interpretation of Dreams".  Freud argued that our dreams are coded so we are unable to interpret them and all codes are repressed sexual desires.
In Freud's view, dreams were all froms of wish fulfillment which meant these were attempts by the unconscious t resolve a conflict of some sort. whether iwas somehting recent or something from the past. However, because the information in the unconscious is often disturbing, the preconscious will not allow it to pass unaltered into the conscious. The exercise of free association, reveals thge underlying pattern of the unconscious mind.

In 1923, Frud published "The Ego and the Id". In this, Freud describes our Id as the dominant part of our personalities. He descirbed the Id as our basic desires and instincts which we develop from birth but it should be repressed. The ego is the most superficial portion of the id and one which has been modified by the influjence of the external world. The superego dominates this ego and represents inhibitions of instincts that are characteristics of man.

WINOL LIFE with Sally Churchward

Fashion First!

So after a fantastic summer of sun, sea, and long evenings with wine, I'm back at uni and working on the famous WINOL, Winchester News Online. It doesn't quite compare to sunbathing on the beach with a piña colada and a good book, but I must say my first week has been a great success, surprisingly!

When I was told I woud be working on features, I was so pleased! It was exactly what I wanted and after producing my first feature, I'm now excited for the next! I didn't know what to expect when I came back but after Katie, our features editor, explained everything we needed to know, it all became clear. Producing a feature to a deadline every week, I must admit, did sound worrying at first but Katie couldn't have been more helpful. I wasn't sure whether I would have enough ideas or even if they would be any good but now I already have features planned in advance and I can't wait to get filming them!
Chris also stressed a point that I now keep telling myself! He said that mistakes are actually good and the only people that don't make mistakes, are people that don't do anything at all. Well thank goodness he mentioned this!

Our first feature we decided to produce, was a fashion feature on Autumn trends. As the weather gets colder, fashion changes and so it was a perfect time to see what styles you were hitting the high streets in. Becky and I produced the feature together and it was a topic that interested us both so we thought it would be a brilliant feature to get us used to filming.

Once we were out in Winchester with our equipment, we found that everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong. On the day we set for filming we didn't even get any filming done.

Problem number one: Microphones.
We got into Winchester high street at 12pm, set up our tripod and camera and connected the microphone frequency to the camera. At that point we realised we only had one radio mic, and we needed two! Not such a great start, so take this tip: Always check your equipment first! We walked back up Winchester's own Mount Everest to the university and by the time we got back into town, it was nearly 2pm. We set all the equipment up again, this time ready to go!

But welcome problem number two: Sound. 
With a lot of time wasted standing infront of a camera shouting 'hello' into a microphone with an audience waiting for something spectacular, we found that the headphones were not picking up our voices. The audio levels on the camera were moving, brilliant! The radio mics were all set up to the same frequency and their audio levels were moving too, Super! But nothing was coming through the headphones. So, after a couple of hours of tantrums and a McDonalds, we phoned Katie who cleverly suggested that we try the headphones in a mobile to see if they work. How had we not thought of this?! Hoping to blame it on the headphones and find that they don't work, strangely they did! With no cause to our problem, we couldn't decide whether to risk it and film our piece in the hope we had audio when we got back.

But that was problem number three: Time.
It was now nearly 6pm, shops were shutting and Winchester was almost dead so we thought we would leave it for another day. A whole day and we had no film.

Thankfully when filmed on Monday and everything went well, ready for our deadline on Tuesday. We found ourselves spending the day filming and the evening editing. Our commitment really showed when we found ourselves editing in the newsroom until 1am with a KFC and a shared hot chocolate to keep us going.

Tuesday morning we arrived at the newsroom looking like a pair of Zombies off a set from a horror film. We still had sonme editing to do and our deadline was extended until wednesday. Once our package was finished, the results were definitely worth it all. Everyone was impressed and we recieved the feedback we wanted. We still have a lot to improve on as we realised the radio mics are on camera so next time we will be sure to clip them onto our interviewees and keep them out of shot. I'm so glad everything went wrong when it did as it has prepared us better for next time!

So take a look at this week's fashion feature and come back for next week's!

THE ACT OF UNION 1707 AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF SCOTLAND IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Britain is a unitary state as opposed to a federal one. This means that all ultimate power in the UK is held by the central government at Westminster. Any power that both the local government and regional government appear to have is delegated to it by the central government and can be taken back at any time. Scotland entered the union through the Act of Union 1707 and saw the appointment of the first Scottish secretary was recognised in 1885.

The Acts of Union 1707 was two Parliamentary Acts passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England and in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland which introduced the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on the 22^nd July 1706 after negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. The Acts joined England and Scotland together into a single United Kingdom named ‘Great Britain’. The Acts took effect on 1^st May 1707 and on this date the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament untied to form the Parliament of Great Britain.

The English purpose of the Act was to ensure that Scotland would not choose a monarch different from the one on the English throne. Both countries had shared a King for much of the previous century, but the English were concerned that an independent Scotland with a different King might make alliances against England. In Scotland, it was claimed that the Union would enable Scotland to recover from the financial disaster, as a result of the Darien scheme, through English assistance.

The Scottish Parliament had significant power devolved to it at the time of its creation. Though areas such as foreign policy, employment legislation and control of the monetary system were reserved for the Westminster Parliament, Scotland took control of areas such as education, agriculture, and law and home affairs.

In its 1997 election manifesto, the Labour Party had committed itself to a referendum on the question of devolution for Scotland. The referendum that took place in September 1997 presented the Scottish electorate with two questions: whether there should be a Scottish Parliament and whether the Parliament should have tax-varying powers. The questions offered voters the chance to vote ‘no, no’, ‘yes, no’ or ‘yes, yes’.

No party won an overall majority in the Parliament elections so the LibDem and Labour groups went into coalition to form an administration. Though the administration has been criticised in some areas, such as the debacle over Scottish public examination results, it has made significant moves in other areas such as addressing the issue of student loans.

In 1999, after almost three centuries, a devolved Scottish Parliament was opened after a referendum in Scotland. As a devolved institution, the roles of Scotland changed. The new Scottish Parliament does not affect the powers and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to make laws for Scotland, which remains a constituent country of the UK.

 Whilst it has power to make laws in Scotland – in addition to the UK Parliament – over many home affairs issues, there are other reserved powers such as defense and foreign affairs over which it has no power.

J’accuse by Emile Zola

Emile Zola was a French novelist, playwright and journalist born in Paris in 1840. His father died in 1847 and his widowed mother had planned for Zola to have a law career but he failed his examination. In the build up to his breakthrough as a writer, he worked as a clerk in a shipping firm, and then in the sales department for Louis Hachette, a French publisher. Zola also wrote literary and art reviews for newspapers.

During his early years as a writer, Zola wrote several short stories and essays, four plays and three novels. Hachette fired him in 1865 after he published a sordid autobiographical novel called La Confession de Claude which met with poor appreciation from the general public and caught attention from the Public Prosecutor.

Zola went on to write a twenty-novel cycle called Le Rougon-Macquart subtitled a Natural and Social History of a family during the Second Empire. It follows the life of a fictional family living during the second French Empire between 1852 and 1870 and is an example of French Naturalism. As a naturalist writer, Zola was highly interested in science and especially the problem of heredity, the passing of traits to offspring, and evolution. The series traces the environmental influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution.

From 1877 onwards, Zola published more novels part of his twenty-volume series which established him as a successful author. He was an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism and a major figure in the political liberalization of France.
In 1898, Emile Zola risked his career when his article ‘J’Accuse’ was published on the 13^th January on the front page of the Paris Daily L’Aurore. The article was published in the form of an open letter to the President. Zola wrote the controversial story following a case known as the Dreyfus affair. He knew he was putting his career and more at risk as he says in his letter ‘Since they dared, I too will dare.’ This sentence itself, I believe portrays Zola’s point of fairness because if they had the right to start this affair he had the right to publish this letter. Zola highly expresses his opinions and throughout the letter he uses the word ‘truth’ to stress the importance of religious freedom, justice and fairness that was being ignored.  

The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal in the 1890’s. A Jewish artillery officer in the French Army, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted for treason in November 1894 after the French intelligence discovered papers containing military secrets in a wastebasket in an office in the German embassy left there by someone from the French army. Anti-Semitism and the fact Dreyfus was highly intelligent led senior officers to suspect him even though there was no direct evidence. Dreyfus was innocent but found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island where he was put in solitary confinement.

Although French Army officer Georges Picquart came across evidence that suggested Dreyfus was innocent, and that another officer, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, was guilty. However, rather than freeing Dreyfus, the decision was made between the French army to protect Esterhazy and ensure the original verdict was not overturned. The army’s reason was “What difference does this make if a Jew dies on Devil’s Island.” Esterhazy was coached how to lie in court and was confident he would not be found guilty. French officer, Hubert-Joseph Henry forged documents that made it seem that Dreyfus was guilty and then had Picquart assigned duty in Africa. Before leaving, Picquart told some of Dreyfus’s supporters what he knew. It was announced in the Senate that Dreyfus was innocent and Esterhazy was guilty but the right-wing government refused new evidence to be allowed and Esterhazy was tried and acquitted. Picquart was sentenced to 60 days in prison. In his letter, Zola says ‘A council of war, under order, has just dared to acquit Esterhazy, a great blow to all truth, all justice.’ He uses strong words to express his passion he has for fairness, freedom and justice.

The Dreyfus affair completely divided France between the reactionary army and church, and the more liberal commercial society. The political right declared the Dreyfus case to be a conspiracy of Jews.

After Zola’s letter was published it formed a major turning-point in the affair. The government offered Dreyfus a pardon which he accepted and in 1906, Dreyfus was completely exonerated by the Supreme Court. Zola said, “The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it.”

Zola throughout his letter is very passionate in Dreyfus’ defence as he imagines Dreyfus suffering, in his words, ‘the most dreadful of tortures for a crime it did not commit.’

In his opening paragraphs, Zola addresses the President and describes him as honest and he is convinced the president is unaware Dreyfus’ innocence. It seems he is almost using sweet talk because he wants the President with great power, to gain his trust and support Dreyfus.

Zola goes on to list politicians and military personnel who he held responsible for the anti-Semitic conviction. He believes commander Du Paty de Clam was the first to accuse Dreyfus and believes he put Dreyfus through a ‘torturing insanity.’ Zola purposely uses passion and emotion throughout his letter that I felt effectively gave vivid images of Dreyfus’ experience. In his letter he is fighting to clear Dreyfus’ name and wants to make, not only the President, but the public reading it, feel appalled towards those who were involved in his conviction. He compares the torture of Dreyfus and the torture of those who knew the truth yet weren’t able to free an innocent man.

He also describes how this miscarriage of justice not only affects one man and his supporters but also women and children. Dreyfus’ wife was terrorized and put in danger by commander Du Paty De Clam. Zola is also trying to stress that wives and children are also involved in Dreyfus’ conviction and are in danger because they are loved by men who without any care can sleep at night knowing that at innocent man is suffering. Zola was considering the rights of everyone and was trying to use children and women to convince the President that this controversial story will cause conflict amongst all of France, dividing the country and affecting everyone.

Zola turns his attention to Picquart, and praises him for his honesty. He thinks that Picquart, who was the only honest man who did his duty, became the victim of ridicule and punishment. He’s trying to portray that all the honest men who were doing no wrong were being punished which to me and many people, is cruel and doesn’t make sense.

When concluding his letter, Zola effectively lists those he accuses individually, he effectively makes the names noticed and his points clear with his reasons identified.

His letter is clearly defamatory and Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel on 7^th February 1898
and was convicted on the 23^rd February, sentenced and removed from the Legion of Honor. But rather than go to jail, Zola fled to England.

He says in his letter, he has no hatred for the people he accuses which suggests that he does not want to appear judgemental however this seems contradictory as his letter clearly shows emotion and passion throughout. But the main purpose of the letter is to restore justice and to rightly free an innocent man and to punish those who are guilty.  

Rural Rides

William Cobbett was an English journalist, agricultarlist and political reformer born on the 9th March 1763 in Farnham, Surrey. He was taught to read and write by his father and first worked as a farm labourer.

Cobbett enlisted in the British Army in 1784 and made good use of the soldier's spare time to educate himself in English grammar. He obtained discharge from the Army in 1791 and in 1792 he fled to France. He intended to stay a year to learn the French language but this was at the time of the French Revolution, and the French revolutionary wars were in progress, so he left for the US in 1792.

Cobbett became a controversial political writer and in 1802, started his own newpaper called the Weekly Political Register. At first he supported the Tories but soon became a radical. By 1806 he was a strong advocate of Parliamentary reform. After sucessfully publicising the radical movement, the Reform Bill of 1832 was introduced and Cobbett won the parliamentary seat of Oldham.

Cobbett wrote many polemics, arguing strongly on subjects from political reform to religion, but is most famous for his book called Rural Rides, which he published in 1830. Cobbett began writing the book in the early 1820's at the time when he was an anti-Corn Law campaigner, newly returned to England from the US. He disapproved of proposals for remedies for agricultural distress suggested in Parliament in 1821. He made up his mind to see conditions for himself, and to "enforce by actual observation of rural conditions", the statements he had made in answer to the arguments of the landlords before the Parliamentary Agricultural Committee.

Throughout his book, Cobbett describes a series of journeys he took by horseback accross the countryside, from Southeast England to the English Midlands. The book is set in the form of a diary, Cobbett wrote down what he saw from the point of view of both a farmer and a social reformer. Cobbett describes in detail the scenary of the early nineteenth century countryside and its people and community and expresses his own opinions.

Concern and passion for mostly the people is shown throughout his book. Cobbett descirbes his past memories of when he visited these same places when he was young. He seems to enjoy talking of his childhood yet at the same time, he feels anger because the system will ruin the many places he spent his childhood in.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Germany. He was a German philosopher, sociologist, historian, political economist and theorist, journalist and revolutionary socialist. He developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. He was born to Jewish parents and coverted to Lutherism. His ideas have played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He has published many books throughout his lifetime, his most significant being The Communist Manifesto which he wrote with fellow German revolutionary socialst, Friedrich Engels.

In 1849, Marx fled to London with his wife, Jenny Von Westphalen, where he lived until his death on 14th March 1883. His Tombstone read:

"Workers of the world unite" and "The philosophers have only interpreted the world - the point, however, is to change it."

Marx was interested in, and critical of, Hegel. He became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians. They were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions, but still adopted his dialectical method in order to criticise established society, politics and religion. Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms arguing for the primacy of matter rather than idea. Hegel saw the spirit as driving history, however Marx saw this as unnecessary mystification, obscurring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world.

He said that "Hegelianism stood the movement of realisty on its head, and that one needed to set upon its feet."

Marx believed that you could explan everything about a society by analysing the way econmic forces in shape social, religious, legal and political processes.

Marx achieved a fusion of:

1. Hegelian philosophy (especially the philosophy of history and dialectics).
2. British empericism (especially econmics of Smith)
3. French Revolution politics (especially socialist politics, Man is born free but everywhere is in chains).

Marx's most significant work, The Communist Manifesto, was a short book published in 1848. It has since been recognized as one of the most influential political manuscripts. It was Commissioned by the Communist Party, and laid out the Party's purposes and program. Rather than a prediction of Communism's potential future forms, the book presents an analytical approach to the class struggle and the problems of Capitalism.

The Manifesto contains Marxist theories about the nature of society and politics, they say: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." The book was written and published at the time of the Capitalist society, and they discuss how eventually the Capitalist society will be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.

The text begins with "A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies." This suggests that Marx and Engels know that governments and society have a fear of communism.
Their passion is to advise communists about how to continue promoting their cause, despite those who are against it, as they go on to say: "It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself."

The Communist Manifesto talks of class differences and struggles. The Manifesto argues that the class struggle under capitalism is between those who own the means of production, the ruling class or bourgeoisie, and those who labour for a wage, the working class or proletariat.

HCJ - Romanticism - Kant and Hegel

Immanuel Kant was a German professor of philosohpy at Königsberg, in Prussia. He was researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy during and at the end of the 18th century Enlightenment. Kant's ideas moved philosophy beyond, the debate between the rationalists and empiricists. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer amended and developed the Kantian system, bringing about various forms of German idealism.

Kant  believed in the idea that within the limits of criminal law, every man could do as he pleased. he had a love of freedom and was a believer in democracy.

He believed

"There can be nothing more dreadful than that the actions of a man should be subject to the will of another"

meaning you should only do what pleases you, and not because someone tells you too.

Kant's theory of perception maintains that our understanding of the external world had its foundations not merely in experience, but in both experience and a priori concepts. Kant’s magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason, in 1781, aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. This was Kant's most influential work which has often been cited as the most significant volume of metaphysics and epistemology in modern philosophy.  

Kant believes that our understanding of the external world is not found mainly in experience, but in both experience and a priori concepts, offering a non-empiricist critique of rationalist philosophy, which is what he and others referred to as his Copernican revolution.

Kant uses a conceptual disitinction to distinguish propositions in two types. These are analytic propositions and synthetic propositions.

•  Analytic Propostions are true by nature of the meaning of the words used in the sentence. There is no further knowledge required to know the sentence is true other than to understand the language and to know the meaning of the words. For example:

"A tall man is tall"

• Synthetic propositions are propositions that tell us something about the world. The truth or falsehood of these statements derive from somethig outside of their linguistic content. For example:

"Tuesday was a wet day"

Kant disagrees unlike empiricists, e.g. Hume, and rationalists, e.g. Leibniz, that all synthetic propositions are only known from experiences.

Kant claims that elemntary mathematics like arithmetic, is synthetic a priori, meaning its statement provides new knowledge but not knowledge that has derived from experience. A priori proposition is one which though it may be from experience, is seen, when know to have a basis other than experience. He accepted that geometry and arithmetic are synthetic but are likewise a priori. Emperical propositions are ones we cannot know except by the help of sense and perception, e.g.facts of history and geography. Kant argues Space and Time are not derived from experience but are forms of intuition.

Kant's other influential work included a short story he wrote after the Lisbon earthquake. In this essay he debates whether the west wind in Europe is moist because it has crossed the atlantic ocean. This relates to Rousseau's idea of pureness.

Hegel often criticised Kant although, Hegel's systems could not exist if Kant's hadn't first. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, born August 27th, 1770 and died November 14th, 1831, was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German idealism. He published only four books in his lifetime:

• Phenomenology of Spirit 1807, this was Hegel's account of the development of consciousness from sense-perception to absolute knowledge.
• Science of Logic in three volumes published in  1811, 1812 and 1816, the logical and metaphysical core of Hegel's philosophy.
• Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences 1816, this was a summary of his entire philosophical system.
• Elements of the Philosophy of Right 1822, Hegel's political philosophy.

Hegel's works have a reputation for their difficulty, as I  soon realised when reading his work. he introduced a system for understanding the history of philosophy and the world itself. Hegel's thinking can be understood as a constructive development within the broad tradition that includes Plato and Kant.

Hegel was a free-will believer. The French Revolution for Hegel constitutes the introduction of real individual political freedom into European societies for the first time in record history.
He believes in 'the state'. He believes the state is existing realized moral life. Truth and unity is found in the state laws, universal and rational arrangements. He comes to the conclusion that the state is The Divine Idea.

He also believes in a very interesting idea, one that I can't argue with or find any other conclusion for. He says to suppose the universe as a whole to be spherical is self-contradictory. This is because nothing can be a sphere without boundaries and to have boundaries you need something outside of the sphere, at least empty space, but everything is inside the universe so there are no boundaries.

Modern philosophy, culture, and society seemed to Hegel fraught with contradictions and tensions, such as those between the subject and object of knowledge, mind and nature, self and Other, freedom and authority, knowledge and faith, the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Hegel's main philosophical project was to take these contradictions and tensions and interpret them as part of a comprehensive, evolving, rational unity that, in different contexts, he called "the absolute idea" or "absolute knowledge". This is similar to the big question 'What came first; The chicken or the egg?' The Absolute of an uncle is a newphew because without the nephew, there wouldn't be an uncle as you need a nephew to say you're an uncle. Therefore, the Absolute is a nephew, but then the newphew exists because if his parents etc. This whole system is called 'The Absolute Idea'.

It's also interesting to know that Hegel likes the idea of war. He believes that states are individual and war rightly prevents states from coming together. This relates with his Dialectical process. The Dialectic is the winner and war brings a winner and change which he believes is needed for a civil society. He believes The Absolute of the world is everything inside it and we can't get there as individuals, we get there through the Dialectic and become the absolute through social change.

He says:

"We Progress, we change. This change is a dialectic process. We move in this direction because there is a spirit guiding us into this direction".  

Radio Bulletin - Written Piece

Story 1 – prescription charges (with audio)

NHS Prescription charges in England are to increase by another twenty pence, the government has announced.

Patients in England will have to pay £7.40 for each item prescribed by a doctor.

Campaigners including the British Medical Association disagree with the rise and Doctors and patients have warned the extra charges could cost lives for those who cannot afford their medication.

But not all Healthcare providers disagree with the rise.

Sue Champney, a Dispenser for Lloyds Pharmacy, believes the increase will be a benefit.

[insert audio]

Story 2 – Adult social care (no audio)

Hampshire County Council has made a proposal to change the way adult social care is paid. The meeting held on Monday discussed the changes to the current Adult Social Care service including the need for individual financial assessments.

The Council said they aim to bring the services together so plans will ensure people choosing from the range of non residential and short term residential services would contribute based on their ability to pay not the services they choose.

Felicity Hindsman, the Executive for adult social care, said the current system was not fair and the individual financial assessments are needed for people using the services.

Story 3 – Holiday parks (with audio)

Family holidays abroad are less likely to take off this year after the UK’s biggest holiday companies increase fuel surcharges.

Tour operators add as much as £160 to the price of a long haul trip.

But this could be a benefit for the UK’s economy with more people holidaying closer to home instead. People are expecting they will holiday in Britain in a bid to save money and Britain’s family holiday parks are likely to see more visitors this year than they have in the past.

Pamela Andrews, Sales Team Leader, at Sandy Balls holiday centre in The New Forest, said parks will benefit.

[insert audio]

The differences between County and District Councils

The difference between County and District Councils is a confusing matter, even to those who live in the UK. In England, County Councils generally form the top level in a two-tier system of administration. In most areas of England there is a County Council. This is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a County. County Councils are responsible for bigger, more wide-spread services effecting wider communities such as education and strategic planning within a county. A County Council has several district councils which are responsible for smaller local services within their district, for example, local planning and waste collection.

County Councils were formed in the United Kingdom in the late 19^th century. They are very large employers with a variety of functions. More than two million people are employed by local authorities. These include school teachers, social services, the police, fire fighters and many other office and manual workers. Education is the largest locally provided service.

 In Hampshire, seventy-eight County Councillors are elected once every four years by voters in the county to represent the people of Hampshire at County level. To manage and deliver services the County Council staff work from the headquarters in Winchester and in workplaces over the County doing a wide variety of work.

The responsibilities of County Councils include education including schools and youth services, fire and rescue services, libraries, Care and support for older people and adults with mental health problems, libraries, public transport, roads, pavements and rights of way, waste disposal (including that collected by District Councils), strategic planning, trading standards and registrars for births, deaths and marriage. The County Council must provide some of these services by law; others are discretionary.

 Money for the services the County Council provides come from income from fees and charges, government specific grants, government general grant, surplus on District Councils’ collection funds, council tax and council tax benefit contribution.

In comparison to the responsibilities of the County Council, the responsibilities of the District Councils focus on services which affect a smaller area and community within that county. These include housing, waste collection, council tax collection, local planning, licensing, cemeteries and crematoria, homelessness services, public car parks, public toilets and street cleaning and leisure facilities. District councils with borough or city status may be called borough councils or city councils instead of district councils, but their role is exactly the same.

During a Hampshire County Council cabinet meeting in Winchester, discussions that came up were based upon the way adult social is paid, for example, and public transport including bus services. These are both larger topics affecting wider areas within Hampshire.

However, after attending a Safer Neighbourhood meeting in Winchester, the difference in issues and proposals discussed in a County Council meeting and District Council meeting were clear. The Safer Neighbourhood meeting raised issues affecting only Winchester, and the different areas, known as bands, within Winchester. They discussed issues such as homelessness in Winchester’s high street and speed cameras which were set to be placed in different bands of Winchester.

Although County Councils and District Council have different responsibilities, they both work together to deliver services to their local areas.

Radio Bulletin

I've had a nightmare with internet access recently, hence the lack of blogs, but now i'm back on track I'll be sure to keep you all updated.

I've now finished my radio bulletin. The following is a link to the bulletin on SoundCloud, the only possible way I could think of publishing it onto my blog so if any of you know of a better way please do let me know.

http://soundcloud.com/zoelouisex/bulletin1-mixdown

Feel free to leave your comments.

Romanticism

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born on the 28^th June 1712, was a major Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18^th-century Romanticism. He had a powerful influence on literature and taste and manners and politics. His political philosophy heavily influenced the French Revolution. His importance came mainly from his appeal to the heart and sensibility. His theory was all about feeling and nature – not reason. He is known as the father of the Romantic Movement, the initiator of systems of thought which infer non-human facts from human emotions, and the inventor of political philosophy. Rousseau was educated as an orthodox Calvinist and at the age of twelve, he left school and was apprenticed to various trades, but hated them all. At the age of sixteen he fled from Geneva to Savoy.

Having no means of subsistence, he went to a Catholic priest and represented himself as wishing to be converted. The formal conversion took place at Turin, in an institution for catechumens; the process lasted nine days. He represents his motives as wholly mercenary: “I could not dissemble from myself that the holy deed I was about to do was at bottom act of a bandit.” But this was written after he had reverted to Protestantism, and for some years there was reason to think he was a sincerely believing Catholic. In 1742 he testified that a house in which he was living in 1730 had been miraculously saved from a fire by a bishop’s prayers. During his early years, there were various periods which he spent as a vagabond, travelling on foot, and picking up a precarious livelihood as best he could,

Ever since his time, those who considered themselves reformers were divided into two groups, those who followed him and those who followed Locke. Sometimes they co-operated and many individuals saw no incompatibility.

Rousseau’s first literary success came late in life (1750). He won a prize for the best essay on the question: ‘Have the arts and sciences conferred benefits on mankind’? According to Rousseau, “Within an instant of reading this, I saw another universe and became another man.” Rousseau found the idea to which he would passionately dedicate the rest of his intellectual life: the destructive influence of civilization on human beings. Rousseau argues that the arts and science have not been beneficial to humankind because they arose not from authentic human needs, but rather as a result of pride and vanity.

In the essay, titled ‘Discourse on the Sciences and Arts’, Rousseau contended that science, letters, and the arts are the worst enemies of morals, and by creating wants, are the sources of slavery. He is for Sparta and against Athens. Like the Spartans, he took success in war as the test of merit; nevertheless, he admired the ‘noble savage’, whom sophisticated Europeans could defeat in war. He held that science and virtue are incompatible and all sciences have an ignoble origin. Education and the art of printing are to be deplored; everything that distinguishes civilized man from the untutored barbarian is evil. He argues that man, by nature good, is corrupted by civilization. Inequality, luxury and the political life are identified as extremely harmful.  

Having won the prize for his essay, Rousseau adopted the simple life and sold his watch, saying that he no longer needed to know the time.

In 1754, Rousseau wrote his second essay: ‘The Discourse on Inequality’ which elaborates on the ideas in his first essay. He held that ‘man is naturally good, and only by institutions is he made bad.’ Rousseau traces man's social evolution from a primitive state of nature to modern society. Humans differed from animals, however, in their capacity for free will and their potential perfectibility. As they began to live in groups and form clans they also began to experience family love, which Rousseau saw as the source of the greatest happiness known to humanity. The development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property, and the division of labor and resulting dependency on one another, however, led to economic inequality and conflict. As population pressures forced them to associate more and more closely, they underwent a psychological transformation: They began to see themselves through the eyes of others and came to value the good opinion of others as essential to their self esteem. He said:

“The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”

Rousseau criticised Hobbes for asserting that since man in the "state of nature . . . has no idea of goodness he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue." On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature" and he especially praised the admirable moderation of the Caribbean’s in expressing the sexual urge despite the fact that they live in a hot climate, which "always seems to inflame the passions". Rousseau wrote that morality was not a societal construct, but rather "natural" in the sense of "innate", an outgrowth from man's instinctive disinclination to witness suffering, from which arise the emotions of compassion or empathy. These were sentiments shared with animals, and whose existence even Hobbes acknowledged.

Rousseau speaks of a state of nature as a ‘state which exists no longer, perhaps never existed, probably never will exist, and of which none the less it is necessary to have just ideas, in order to judge well our present state.’

Natural law should be deduced from the state of nature, but as long we are ignorant of natural man it is impossible to determine the law originally prescribed or best suited to him. The wills of those subject to it must be conscious of their submission and it must come directly from the voice of nature. He does not object to natural inequality, in respect of age, health, intelligence etc., but only to inequality resulting from privileges authorized by convention.

Rousseau posits that the original, deeply flawed Social Contract (i.e., that of Hobbes), which led to the modern state, was made at the suggestion of the rich and powerful, who tricked the general population into surrendering their liberties to them and instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of human society.

Rousseau sent this essay to Voltaire who replied: “I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours.”

In 1754, having become famous, Rousseau was remembered by his native city and invited to visit. He accepted but as only Calvinists could be citizens of Geneva, he had himself recovered to his original faith and Rousseau thought of living there. His drawback being that Voltaire had also gone to live there. Voltaire was a writer of plays and an enthusiast for the theatre, but Geneva, on puritan grounds, forbade all dramatic representations. When Voltaire tried to get the ban removed, Rousseau entered the lists on the Puritan side. The opportunity for attack on Voltaire was too good to be lost, and Rousseau made himself the champion of ascetic virtue.

Their first public disagreement was in 1755 after the earthquake of Lisbon. Voltaire wrote a poem throwing doubt on the Providential Government of the world. Rousseau saw no occasion to make such a fuss about the earthquake. He believed it was a good thing that a certain number of people should get killed now and then. He argued the people of Lisbon suffered anyway because they lived in houses seven stories high; if they had been dispersed in the woods, as he thought people ought to be, they would have escaped uninjured.

Rousseau’s most important work is The Social Contract published in 1762. It outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. It became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition. The treatise begins with the dramatic opening lines:
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they.”

According to Rousseau in the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them and this double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom.

Rousseau believes that by joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. Rousseau’s general will, or rule of law, refers to the interest of people as a whole and believes it exists to protect individuals against the mass. The idea of the general will is to have order in society where all the people are in agreement with each other.

Rousseau’s belief in beauty and innocence of nature was extended to human beings as civilization had corrupted man. He argued that people without civilization were pure, beautiful and free. Rousseau believes the island Tahiti, founded by French explorers was the perfect example for the way of life and man should aim to be these people. The island was described as an earthly paradise where men and women live happily in innocence, away from the corruption of civilized society. This can be compared to Thomas More’s Utopia published in 1516.


More created an island which contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly, reasonable social arrangements of Utopia. They have communal ownership of land so private property doesn’t exist. Men and women are educated alike and there is almost complete religious toleration.
Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher and advocate of Women’s Rights, and author of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’ In this she responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education to better their position in society. She believes women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be ‘companions’ to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men. She criticized Rousseau for his confinement of women to the domestic sphere – unless women were domesticated and constrained by modesty and shame, he feared "men would be tyrannized by women. For, given the ease with which women arouse men's senses, men would finally be their victims. "

Journalism Blogs

I have been searching the internet for other journalism blogs to have an understanding of the many different views of other students and professional journalists. It interests me to know what others within the journalism industry think of the different skills and knowledge journalists need to have in order to progress in their career. Being a journalism student and learning all these new skills and techniques that are necessary for journalists to have, has lead me to wonder whether people in the industry believe they are necessary and what uses theyve had from learning them. Whilst browsing the web, I found the following blogs which debate the need for shorthand. People have continuously stressed the importance of shorthand for reporting, and having learnt shorthand, I think it's a brilliant skill to have. However there are others who instead believe its a handy skill to have but not essential.


I have left a link and my comment on the following blogs:


A blog about the need for shorthand
http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/students/2008/05/09/shortchanged-without-shorthand/#disqus_thread


A blog questioning the need for shorthand
http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/3086