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Simone de Beauvoir on Feminism and Existentialism
Simone de Beauvoir was an extremely influential philosopher and feminist that roamed this earth not too long ago. De Beauvoir was a woman of many talents. She was a writer, feminist, philosopher, and teacher, just to name a few. De Beauvoir was born January 9, 1908 in Paris, France. She was fortunate enough to live nearly 80 years when she passed away on April, 14 1986 also in Paris, France. Her years on this earth were well spent. She brought attention to many different issues that were of concern in the 1900’s. She especially focused on feminism and existentialism. When you think of famous and iconic philosophers, the name Simone de Beauvoir most likely does not come to mind, but her work forever changed the way the world sees women and their place in society. She also focused greatly on the concept of existentialism with her lifelong partner, Jean-Paul Sartre.
These two met when they were young and found that their beliefs on life aligned quite nicely. They focused on the ideas of free will, rights, responsibilities, and desires. All of these concepts came to be known as existentialism, an arguably newer and more radical branch of philosophy. The Christian faith believed that each human was placed on this earth with a predestined plan, but de Beauvoir and Sartre proposed a different theory. They thought that everyone was born with free will. It was thought that nobody had a certain plan they were designed to follow; they could do as they pleased. She argued that this notion of free will was not as desirable as one would think. Possessing free will enables a person to make choices that may harm themselves and others. While studying this ideology, de Beauvoir began to think about her own life’s meaning and how her free will was being compromised as a result of gender inequality. She noticed how she, and other women, were unable to pursue certain aspects of life as they were repressed by men and society alike. She combatted one societal expectation by never marrying. Not only did she refuse to marry, but she had love interests with other women.
William K. Clifford’s “Ethics of Belief”
Clifford writes that action is a stored belief. If an individual does not realize their belief, it is kept deeply in themselves to be an influence in the future. Like every experience, influence builds and builds and builds. These influences shape our lives and our actions. This aggregation of influence is our thoughts and are represented through action. With that said, a man who thinks strongly about one side of a question could never investigate it without bias. Clifford believes that every action or firm side should be questioned and to gain all evidence is to come with a justified decision. Belief, however, may not be presently justified, and therefore, actions must be made on probabilities that may justify future belief.
Clifford forms the argument that what we do not know is similar to what we do know. He uses this for what goes beyond our experience and infer from our experiences themselves with no proof of the beyond. The example of believing a statement from another person is given. We may believe him/her when it is reasonable to suppose he knows the subject which he speaks and speaks it as truth as far as he knows it. Clifford says it is wrong to believe with insufficient evidence and essential to doubt and to investigate. Therefore, it is worse to presume to believe. Clifford believes that it is better to believe a falsehood with tremendous evidence for it over a truth on faith.
William James’s “The Will to Believe”
William James wrote his essay/lecture “The Will to Believe” in the defense of believing in religious matters. He uses the idea of hypotheses and options to convey the willingness of man to act. The degree of which you are willing to act is however, based on how appealing the option you choose between the two hypotheses. The option is not an option, but the hypothesis you decide to choose. James continues to denote these hypotheses as living and dead. The living hypothesis is seen, to the individual, as a possibility. The dead hypothesis means it is not a possibility to the individual. He also calls forced options as hypotheses where one has to be an option rather than an avoidable hypothesis where an option is not taken. Thirdly, momentous hypotheses are unique and trivial hypotheses are not unique, insignificant, or reversible. He uses these all to define a genuine option, which is living, forced, and momentous. Even though “The Will to Believe” is defending the belief of religion, he uses the same reasoning in everything between chemical reactions in a lab by a scientist and the belief of GOD by any individual.
James believes we must make decisions irrational based on our passions. Not every situation can be logically decided. My example of this is: do I eat waffles or pancakes in the morning. They are essentially the same, but what is the choice in the situation (definitely waffles). He then uses the forced argument of believing in GOD or not to believe in GOD. As GOD cannot be logically evident, we must believe in our passions alone. After all, this decision is to include or exclude you from heaven, so it would be nice to know for certain.
Where I Stand
Before I read the “The Ethics of Belief'' and “The Will to Believe” I thought I would wholeheartedly and logically side with William James. After reading both essays, I sway from one to the other. Both arguments are very compelling whether you believe in GOD or another religion or even no religion. I do believe that we should question authority and presume doubt with virtually every situation. However, I do not believe it is evil to hold religious beliefs because we can not logically prove and show irrefutable evidence of our faith(s). Now, I do side with James that goodness or badness can come from religious belief and that having religious beliefs is a momentous decision. The important part is that you decide to have faith and live your life accordingly.
References:
FilesTextsIntroClifford_Ethics_shorter.PDF (brandeis.edu)
JAMES Will to Believe.pdf | Powered by Box
How is someone supposed to judge whether a decision was a positive or negative call? With the felicific calculus algorithm Jeremy Bentham Believed he Figured out a way to accurately judge this. He used questions to ask himself after he decided to measure on the hedonic scale. A hedon is what Bentham decided to call the unit of measurement for his algorithm. These questions were focused more around things like the intensity, duration, certainty, uncertainty, extent, nearness, farness, and purity of the decision he made. Making decisions using this system is primarily focused toward pleasure rather than pain. When making these decisions, the person making it does not only think of them selves, they have to think about everyone involved in the situation. An example of this would be if there were 50 people in a room and 48 of them wanted to turn the lights off then, that person would agree to turn off the lights as well because it maximizes the pleasure of the majority in the room. Where the fault in this utilitarianism is that if those same 50 people were in a room and two of them had a different belief than the other 48, and the other 48 wanted to kill them because of it then the person who wants to maximize pleasure is going to agree to kill them. Obviously this is where the fault of this philosophy is.
Karter Schlegel
Section 4
Darwinism
Charles
Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 and passed away on April 19th,
1882. He was the second son of a society doctor (Robert Waring Darwin). His
mother died when he was only 8 years old and was then taken care of by his
sisters and father. His father ended up sending Darwin to study medicine at
Edinburgh in 1825 and there he learned about the sciences studying plants and
rocks. With his mentor Robert Edmond Grant, a disciple of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck,
he began to collect sea slugs to try and understand the origins of more complex
creatures. However, in 1828 his father switched him from Edinburgh to Cambridge
for a more religious college.
Three years later he got the opportunity to travel
around the world and conduct research on the HMS Beagle leaving England on
December 27th, 1831. Through his voyage he discovered and noted
fossils and how they mimic certain animals of modern times one of them
resembling a giant sloth creature (the Megatherium). The discovery of these
fossils led him to think of how and why these animals died out and for what
reason some of them are still here today although with them being changed from
what they used to be.
In 1834 he received word that to keep the population
from rising in England the poor were sent to workhouses and kept from the
opposite gender. With this information Darwin coined the term natural selection
which is the process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its
specific environment. Finally, in 1835
he visited the Galapagos islands where he discovered the different types of
finches but did not realize it at the time thinking they were different species
entirely. The following year Darwin returned to London and in 1837 John Gould,
an ornithologist, realized that the finches on the Galapagos were all the same
species and further led Darwin to think more about evolution.
It was not
until two decades later that he published On the Origin of Species (1859)
detailing how evolution happens and how natural selection fits in with this. The
reason why he did not publish earlier was that he feared that many of his ideas
would be censored at the time and he would be ostracized. In 1862 he published
another book, The Various Contrivances by which British
and Foreign Orchids are Fertilized by Insects, to support the
previous about orchids and how they were cross pollinated and how changing one
thing led to a new subspecies of the orchid in later variations.
Later Darwin was challenged on how the modern human
was a descendant of “Old World monkeys”. As a result, he published the books The
Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
in 1871. In The Descent of Man Darwin explained the origins of
humans and how civilizations came to be. In Selection in Relation to Sex discusses
how feathers on a hummingbird are used to attract female mates. This natural phenomenon
was called sexual selection and Darwin related it to humans as well.
By this time Darwin had secluded himself into a laboratory
to experiment and write all these books and with his second to last book The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) explains how that
facial expressions show both humans and animals thoughts. This helps further relate
and support Darwin's theory of evolution and how humans are related to their ape
ancestors. Darwin ended up writing his autobiography between 1876 and 1881 with
it being meant for his family more then the public. Following this in 1881 he
published his last book The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action
of Worms. A year later he would suffer from a seizure then a heart attack and
passed away leaving all his work behind.
Sources:
BBCnews. “Theory of Evolution: How Did Darwin Come up with It? - BBC News.” YouTube, YouTube, 30 Nov. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU.
Charles Darwin. 15 Apr. 2021, www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.
“John Gould.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/John-Gould.
National Geographic Society. “Charles Darwin.” National Geographic Society, 22 Aug. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/charles-darwin/.
OpenMind. “Charles Darwin and Evolution.” YouTube, YouTube, 11 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0B6os-6uuc.
Responded Questions: Feb 9, Feb 18, Feb 25, March 4, March 23, March 30, Apr 6, Apr 15, Apr 20, Apr 22
Ash Warner Section 7
Manifest Destiny: The Belief
that Changed Western History
Manifest
Destiny is the philosophy/ideology that the United States was destined by god
to expand its territorial boundaries on westward in America. This philosophy
drove most of the territorial expansion of the United States and was the direct
cause of a significant amount of US history. Most of American history is because
of the ideology of Manifest Destiny in some way or form even before the term
was officially coined. The idea or belief to keep expanding the United States territorially
was already preconceived into the American way since the time of the founding fathers.
The philosophy changed the course of US history, and honestly western history
as well forever and the effects of Manifest Destiny still linger to this day.
The basis
of Manifest Destiny, which is the divine belief that they have the right to expand
for personal capital was responsible for more than just the westward expansion
of the United States, Manifest Destiny was a similar belief to the southern
expansion of the united states fought so heavily for during the late 18th
century and the early 19th century. This similar belief by Americans
was responsible for the horrendous the treatment and genocide of Native
Americans during this time was historic to say the least. Most Native Americans
during this time were either killed or “relocated” to a new area due to not
just the westward expansion, but also the southern expansion by the United
States. After winning the revolutionary war, the United States and Great Britain
signed the Treaty of Paris which gave the United states full control over the
13 colonies and the territories of modern day, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Alabama,
Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Which was great for the US
because they were finally free of British rule and could officially govern themselves.
A problem occurred however as they were trying to settle onto their newfound territory
in the early 19th century, they were met with Native Americans who
were not willing to leave their homeland because it was their homeland. The Americans
were frustrated with the Native’s stubbornness because they wanted the land so
they could grow cotton on it and the believed the Native Americans were holding
them back in the way of expansion or progress. So, what did the Americans do? They
pressured the United Sates government to intervene and were pressured the acquire
the territory they believed they had the right to, which then began the many
relocations of Native American tribes in the Americas.
The president who was the most head over heels for removing Native Americans off of their homeland, allowing white settlers to settle there, was seventh president of the united states and the first president to be from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson before his presidency was notorious for the negotiation of nine out of the eleven treaties that were signed to remove Native Americans off their land, which were more of tradeoffs of land in the east for land out west, or what we call modern day Oklahoma. These treaties were known as “relocations” and devastated the Native Americans as a population. The most famous relocation of Native Americans in US history is arguably the trail of tears. The trail of tears took place roughly between 1836-1870 which started when the Cherokee Nation signing the Treaty of New Echota, which was heavily challenged by the actual Cherokee people. 15,000 Cherokee men, women, and children all had to leave their native land and leave for what is what we call modern day Oklahoma. They were not allowed to even gather their things from their homes because the whites had already looted and stolen everything so due to lack of resources like food, water, and other supplies 4,000.
The belief of manifest destiny has absolutely changed the course of not just American history, but as well as British, French, Mexican, and Native American history as well. This belief system had a global effect that showed how relentless America was to keep expanding and have America spread from one coast to another, in which they proved they would. If it weren’t for the divine belief in the expansion of the united Sates, who knows what the maps of America, Mexico, and Canada would look like. As damaging as the belief system was, it was ever so as important however that it happened.
https://www.britannica.com/video/222022/did-you-know-Manifest-Destiny
Works cited:
“Disparities: Fact Sheets.” Newsroom, www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/.
History.com Editors. “Mexican-American War.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/mexican-american-war/mexican-american-war.
“Indian Removal.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html#:~:text=They%20were%20not%20allowed%20time,way%20to%20the%20western%20lands.
“James K. Polk.” Omeka RSS, projects.leadr.msu.edu/uniontodisunion/exhibits/show/manifest-destiny/james-k--polk.
Manifest Destiny - The Philosophy That Created A Nation, rupanx.tripod.com/manifest_destiny.htm.
“Manifest Destiny - The Philosophy That Created A Nation.” Manifest Destiny - The Philosophy That Created A Nation < Manifest Destiny - Michael T. Lubragge < 1801-1900 < Essays < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and Beyond, www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/1801-1900/manifest-destiny/manifest-destiny---the-philosophy-that-created-a-nation.php#:~:text=Manifest%20Destiny%20%2D%2D%20The%20Intangible%20Of%20American%20History&text=It%20can%20not%20be%20tied,ideology%20that%20created%20American%20history.
“The Mexican-American War in a Nutshell.” National Constitution Center – Constitutioncenter.org, constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-mexican-american-war-in-a-nutshell.
Pinheiro, John C., et al. “James K. Polk: Foreign Affairs.” Miller Center, 26 June 2017, millercenter.org/president/polk/foreign-affairs.
UW Press - : The Native Population of the Americas in 1492: Second Revised Edition, Edited by William M. Denevan, With a Foreword by W. George Lovell, 1 Mar. 1992, uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0289.htm#:~:text=Denevan%20writes%20that%2C%20%22The%20discovery,have%20been%20as%20low%20as.
Responded questions for Jan
28th
Responded questions for Feb 2nd, 4th, 9th, 11th, 16th, 18th, and 25h
Responded questions for Mar 4th, 9th, 11th, 23rd, 25th, and the 30th
Responded questions for Apr 1th, 8th, 13th, 15th, 20th, and the 22nd
Kendall Perssico
Section 4
Sigmund Freud was most
famously known as psychologist. However, he can also be thought of as a
philosopher. Freud had many ideas about the mind, specifically the unconscious.
He is the founder of psychoanalysis. This is the believe that everyone has unconscious
thoughts, memories, and feelings. Sigmund believed that the unconscious leads
people to act a certain way and can even access them in our dreams.
Freud’s theory on the
personality made a huge impact in the world of psychology. Psychoanalysis used
the idea of laying down and speaking about feelings would make the unconscious
conscious. This created the visual that everyone thinks of when someone says
psychology, a person laying on a couch venting their feelings. Freud would have
patients lie on a couch while he sat behind them. The patients would speak
about their emotions, dreams, and childhood while Freud would take notes about what
they were saying.
Another way Freud theorized the unconscious had a mind of its own was called the “Freudian Slip”. This is the phenomenon that people revealed their true feelings by a slip of the tongue. This could be as simple as a language error or it could be revealing suppressed thoughts and feelings. These can be viewed many times in news segments or live tv, lots of them being sexual slips.
Immanuel Kant: Categorical Imperative
One might ask, who is Immanuel Kant and why is he important. Immanuel Kant is a famous German philosopher. He was known for his understanding in epistemology and his ideology on ethics. He was a turtor for nine years prior to him finishing college. After graduating, he worked as a professor for 15 years at the University of Koinsbergs before he was appointed as the chair of logic and metaphysics, which is the study of how reality and the universe came to exist. Kant kept his job as chairman until a couple if years before he died on February 12, 1804.
Categorical Imperatives
By definition categorical imperatives are "an unconditional obligation which is binding in all circumstances and is not dependednt on a person's inclination por purpose. This means that we as people are obligated to the right thing at all times no matter the circumstances. So, even in situations where you might be able to save someone's life with a lie, you are still obligated to tell the truth, no matter the consequences.
Below are two videos to help your further understand what categorical imperatives are and where there originated from.
Univeralizability: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”- Immanuel Kant
This imperative focuses on the value followed by the statement, "treat everyone how you want to be treated. " Kant believed that people should only act in ways that they would be comfortable with everyone else in the world doing. So, for example, if I was at Walmart and saw a t-shirt that I really wanted but I didn't have the money for, I might be compelled to steal it even though I know it's wrong. Although, I may be able to get away with it, Kant would implore me to think about the possibility of everyone in the store stealing what they couldn't afford or didn't want to buy. This would result in a shortage of items at the store which would ultimately have negative effects on everyone. It’s an argument stating that if you would not agree with everyone else in the world performing an act that you are doing then it is your moral obligation to refrain from taking part in that act.
Here is a video explaing this concept.
The Kingdom of Ends formula is the idea that all good moral humans are working together to abide by the “universal law.” This means that as a collective we should all be working together cohesively to protect the autonomy of each other and in order to do so we must not act selfishly but selflessly.
Summary:
Kant’s categorical imperative is almost a fancy phrase for something that we have all been told or at least heard once in our lives which is to treat everyone how you want to be treated but in this case we must remain morally correct in all situations even if you feel that you are going against the “universal law” for good reason. Kant focuses on the principles of our actions more than the specific act itself.
