måndag 28 september 2015
lördag 26 september 2015
Post Theme 3: Research and theory
This week has been about theory - what is theory and what types of theory are there? Is there such a thing as weak and strong theory, and what is meant by that?
We read two text and one article we chose ourselves. The first text was by Shirley Gregor and was called “The nature of theory in Information Systems”. It explained in an fairly easy way what different types of theory there are - how you can cathegorize and recognize different approaches in research journals.
The second text was by Robert I. Sutton and Barry M. Staw and was called “What theory is not”. Surprisingly, it was a very good way of telling what theory is by explained what it isn’t - what to think about not doing when writing a paper, wich in turn will actually provide better result and avoid some easily done mistakes.
The last article I read, that was of my own choice, was “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. This article was for applying what we’ve learned this week on a text.
Since my last blog post actually answered the questions for the theme, I’ll go straight to what I’ve discussed and learned at the seminar. In the beginning of the week, I actually didn’t think this theme would be as interesting as the previous ones, but it turned out to be a good discussion anyway. We discussed that theory actually never proves anything completely, which is a strange thought after so many years in school. We accept all these ideas of the world and how it works, but all we do is make research and generalizations. We examine relationships and come up with explanations, and we base this on observations we’ve seen so many times we consider them true. But what is true? How do we know that things don't just happen as a coinicidence, over and over?
We don’t. We make theories on assumptions we find credible, and we use this to build generalizations and new theories. It’s close to the disussion about knowledge - we build on the things we perceive, because that is our reality. We can’t explain the world in theories without using ourselves as a reference point. We trust our senses on what is happening. And to make sense out of our reality, we make cathegorizations and generalizations, and this is not truly objective. When we provide theory, we can't use the nominalistic point of view, because then we would never get any answers.
Is theory knowledge then? Well we can’t know for sure that theory is true so no not really.
Is knowledge built on theory? Yes, if you agree on the definition that theory is not something certain. So once again, we find ourselves finding out that all we know is that we don’t really know anything for sure.
We read two text and one article we chose ourselves. The first text was by Shirley Gregor and was called “The nature of theory in Information Systems”. It explained in an fairly easy way what different types of theory there are - how you can cathegorize and recognize different approaches in research journals.
The second text was by Robert I. Sutton and Barry M. Staw and was called “What theory is not”. Surprisingly, it was a very good way of telling what theory is by explained what it isn’t - what to think about not doing when writing a paper, wich in turn will actually provide better result and avoid some easily done mistakes.
The last article I read, that was of my own choice, was “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. This article was for applying what we’ve learned this week on a text.
Since my last blog post actually answered the questions for the theme, I’ll go straight to what I’ve discussed and learned at the seminar. In the beginning of the week, I actually didn’t think this theme would be as interesting as the previous ones, but it turned out to be a good discussion anyway. We discussed that theory actually never proves anything completely, which is a strange thought after so many years in school. We accept all these ideas of the world and how it works, but all we do is make research and generalizations. We examine relationships and come up with explanations, and we base this on observations we’ve seen so many times we consider them true. But what is true? How do we know that things don't just happen as a coinicidence, over and over?
We don’t. We make theories on assumptions we find credible, and we use this to build generalizations and new theories. It’s close to the disussion about knowledge - we build on the things we perceive, because that is our reality. We can’t explain the world in theories without using ourselves as a reference point. We trust our senses on what is happening. And to make sense out of our reality, we make cathegorizations and generalizations, and this is not truly objective. When we provide theory, we can't use the nominalistic point of view, because then we would never get any answers.
Is theory knowledge then? Well we can’t know for sure that theory is true so no not really.
Is knowledge built on theory? Yes, if you agree on the definition that theory is not something certain. So once again, we find ourselves finding out that all we know is that we don’t really know anything for sure.
fredag 25 september 2015
Theme 4: Quantitative research
This week’s theme is quantitative research, so before answering the questions I thought I would quickly go through what quantitative methods are.
Quantitative methods are built on numbers. The research method was originally built for natural sciences, but today it includes surveys, laboratory experiments, formal methods such as econometics, and numerical methods such as mathematical modelling. Quantitative research is based on gathering data in forms of numbers and analyzing it. This is in contrast to qualitative methods, which are more closely associated with social sciences. Interviews are an example of a qualitative method.
The article I read this week was called “The Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale: An empirical investigation” and had an impact factor of 2,69. As the title says, the article investigates in the usage of media technologies and what the attitude is towards it. With this background, I’ll continue to the questions for this week.
Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
A questionnaire. The participants of the study first answered 40 questions regarding their usage of different devices such as smartphone, computer, telephone etc, and what activity they used it for. The participants answered on a scale from 1-10, where 1 meant “Never” and 10 meant “All the time”. All the numbers in between had a defined answer such as “Once a day”, “Once a month”, “Several times an hour” etc. There was an additional part of the survey asking about Facebook more specifically, questions regarding how many Facebook friends the participant have and how many they know in person etc. For this, the answering alternatives were between 1 and 9 with different intervalls where 1 meant zero friends and 9 meant 751 friends or more. The last part of the interview contained of 16 questions regarding attitudes toward the usage of the devices with its functions and attitude toward switching between tasks, and whether this came with positive, negative or anxious feelings. The answers were a number between 1 and 5, where 1 meant “Strongly agree” and 5 meant “Strongly disagree”.
What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
That you can collect a lot of data in a fairly easy and quick way. Today it’s very easy to reach a lot of people with a survey since most people are active online and can be contacted through e-mail or even through social medias. It’s difficult to analyze some subjects with only quantitative data though, it’s to prefer to combine it with qualitative research.
Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?
I think it seems difficult to research such a wide field - they included all types of devices and functions to the survey. They get a picture of what people tend to think and feel overall but the quantitative data is not enough on its own to really give important information. You want to know why these results occur, and it can be difficult to explain thoughts and feelings through numbers. You get good results on how much time people spend in general on social media. You know what they do on social media. You don’t really know why they do it. So while the quantitative data gives a good background and is easy to present in itself, it doesn’t leave much room for the participants to explain their answers and results, to explain their feelings.
Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
A benefit from using quantitative data is that it is easier to compare results and what different participants have answered. You can make models from it and you can draw conclusions. For natural science subjects, it’s very suitable. Let’s say you want to examine how a new medical treatment works - if you can measure the results you get real quantitative data and you can draw conclusions. But the moment you want to investigate something concerning people’s thoughts and feelings, it gets tricky. This is difficult to put into numbers.
Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
It’s more difficult to compare results. People interpret questions in different ways unless you are very clear and defines everything in the question. It’s still a challenge. Also, people tend to be interested in different things and have different opinions on what’s important. If someone doesn’t mention the same thing as someone else, it doesn’t mean the participants don’t agree with eachother, they just don’t focus on the same thing.
The benefit is that you can ask “why” and get explanations on thoughts and feelings. This is why it works well with social science subjects.
Sources:
http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/quantitative/quanthme.htm#CONTENTS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research
The Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale: An empirical investigation - L.D. Rosen et al. (2013)
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0747563213001982/1-s2.0-S0747563213001982-main.pdf?_tid=67df7970-637a-11e5-acf0-00000aab0f6b&acdnat=1443181488_8fb10a845c65a5aa28a1de909624a3f7
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/260248022_The_Media_and_Technology_Usage_and_Attitudes_Scale_An_empirical_investigation
Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality - K. Kilteni et al (2013)
https://www.kth.se/social/files/56000bc9f2765448c25c5279/Drumming%20in%20Immersive%20Virtual%20Reality.pdf
Quantitative methods are built on numbers. The research method was originally built for natural sciences, but today it includes surveys, laboratory experiments, formal methods such as econometics, and numerical methods such as mathematical modelling. Quantitative research is based on gathering data in forms of numbers and analyzing it. This is in contrast to qualitative methods, which are more closely associated with social sciences. Interviews are an example of a qualitative method.
The article I read this week was called “The Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale: An empirical investigation” and had an impact factor of 2,69. As the title says, the article investigates in the usage of media technologies and what the attitude is towards it. With this background, I’ll continue to the questions for this week.
Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
A questionnaire. The participants of the study first answered 40 questions regarding their usage of different devices such as smartphone, computer, telephone etc, and what activity they used it for. The participants answered on a scale from 1-10, where 1 meant “Never” and 10 meant “All the time”. All the numbers in between had a defined answer such as “Once a day”, “Once a month”, “Several times an hour” etc. There was an additional part of the survey asking about Facebook more specifically, questions regarding how many Facebook friends the participant have and how many they know in person etc. For this, the answering alternatives were between 1 and 9 with different intervalls where 1 meant zero friends and 9 meant 751 friends or more. The last part of the interview contained of 16 questions regarding attitudes toward the usage of the devices with its functions and attitude toward switching between tasks, and whether this came with positive, negative or anxious feelings. The answers were a number between 1 and 5, where 1 meant “Strongly agree” and 5 meant “Strongly disagree”.
What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
That you can collect a lot of data in a fairly easy and quick way. Today it’s very easy to reach a lot of people with a survey since most people are active online and can be contacted through e-mail or even through social medias. It’s difficult to analyze some subjects with only quantitative data though, it’s to prefer to combine it with qualitative research.
Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?
I think it seems difficult to research such a wide field - they included all types of devices and functions to the survey. They get a picture of what people tend to think and feel overall but the quantitative data is not enough on its own to really give important information. You want to know why these results occur, and it can be difficult to explain thoughts and feelings through numbers. You get good results on how much time people spend in general on social media. You know what they do on social media. You don’t really know why they do it. So while the quantitative data gives a good background and is easy to present in itself, it doesn’t leave much room for the participants to explain their answers and results, to explain their feelings.
Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
A benefit from using quantitative data is that it is easier to compare results and what different participants have answered. You can make models from it and you can draw conclusions. For natural science subjects, it’s very suitable. Let’s say you want to examine how a new medical treatment works - if you can measure the results you get real quantitative data and you can draw conclusions. But the moment you want to investigate something concerning people’s thoughts and feelings, it gets tricky. This is difficult to put into numbers.
Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
It’s more difficult to compare results. People interpret questions in different ways unless you are very clear and defines everything in the question. It’s still a challenge. Also, people tend to be interested in different things and have different opinions on what’s important. If someone doesn’t mention the same thing as someone else, it doesn’t mean the participants don’t agree with eachother, they just don’t focus on the same thing.
The benefit is that you can ask “why” and get explanations on thoughts and feelings. This is why it works well with social science subjects.
Sources:
http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/quantitative/quanthme.htm#CONTENTS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research
The Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale: An empirical investigation - L.D. Rosen et al. (2013)
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0747563213001982/1-s2.0-S0747563213001982-main.pdf?_tid=67df7970-637a-11e5-acf0-00000aab0f6b&acdnat=1443181488_8fb10a845c65a5aa28a1de909624a3f7
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/260248022_The_Media_and_Technology_Usage_and_Attitudes_Scale_An_empirical_investigation
Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality - K. Kilteni et al (2013)
https://www.kth.se/social/files/56000bc9f2765448c25c5279/Drumming%20in%20Immersive%20Virtual%20Reality.pdf
måndag 21 september 2015
fredag 18 september 2015
Post Theme 2: Critical media studies
For this week, the theme has been “Critical media studies” and we’ve read two texts. The first one was written by Walter Benjamin in 1936 and was called “The work of art in the age of technical reproductivity”. It discusses production and how it affects the society - the substructure and the superstructure. More preciesly, it discusses what reproduction does to the culture and politics, and what “aura” is.
The second text was “Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, written in 1944. In conclusion, it shows the thoughts that were a result of the Enlightenment, the society at the time, and the culture industry (this is a bit different to my answer to the first question for this week's theme, where I explained the epoque "The Enlightenment", which of course has to do with enlightenment but is not the exact same thing).
This week, I once again found the philosophical lines of thoughts the most interesting. Especially the discussion about nominalism, which was a concept difficult to grasp at first but the seminar truly helped. As I’ve understood it now, it means the idea that objects are unique. There are no general qualities other than the name. There may be many objects, let’s say pens, but all they have in common is their name. They are all unique. Each leaf on a tree is different, they just go by the same name. Everything we have in front of us is real. This is different from the platonic realism, which despite what it sounds like says that the world is only an reflection of the real world.
Nominalism and Enlightenment is therefore connected, they are a matter of perception and science. It is not about abstracts. From what I understood this week, this also means the idea that you can’t group object together - can’t do cathegorizations. The danger of nominalism, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, is that when you only observe you cannot question. Therefore, this can be an obstacle in the development of the society. Things couldn’t change. Connected to how media works, media would only show the way society is and not give room to anything else. Benjamin on the other hand sees revolutionary potentional in the media with the entrance of the working class on the film screen. As he sees it, this gives the working class a tad more dignity, and he is a little bit more optimistic. A suggestion we discussed at the seminar was if showing homosexual relationships in media has made people more positive and aware, which later on made homosexual marriage legislated. I think this might be true, the first step is to show the reality or the way things could be, and by spreading ideas they can be put into action. Today, I don't think anybody oppose that media has revolutionary potential, especially with the entrance of Internet and social networks.
This has been a long text about what I learned this week. To wrap things up, I'll also tell about how I worked and contributed. I spent a lot of time reading the texts, and to be honest a lot of googling trying to figure out parts of the vocabulary and new terms. At the seminar, I discussed mostly when we were divided in smaller group and listened closely to both the seminar and the lecture to understand the theme better. In result I think, as I've written above, that I've grasped the subject somewhat and that this has been an interesting week.
Theme 3: Research and theory
1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
I like one of the explanations given in the first text, the one by Gregor in The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. It said that theory is for providing explanations and predictions, and is testable. I would say that theory is what explains why something occurs, theory is an attempt to knowledge in the best way we can. The second article, What Theory is Not written by Sutton and Staw, contained exactly what the name of the article indicated and it provided some interesting points for writing theories. To explain it to a first year university student - theory is not references, it is not data, neither diagrams nor hypothesis. Theory is to explain why something occurs, and to just show data or representations of data is not enough. To just drop references is not theory, without logical arguments how the theory is relevant, others' theories are not bringing something to the table for your own research. Hypothesis are for explaining what is expected to happen, but again - it doesn’t provide with the answer why it happens. Theory answers to the question “why?”.
2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?
To be able to describe the theories I’ve come across, I will tell about the article first. I’ve read an article called “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. The article was from 2007 and explored whether Facebook creates or formes social capital among college users. This includes researching if Facebook is a platform for only “offline” relationships or if it’s being used to form new relationships, but also how the use of the social network affects the users pshycologically.
The article has an explanationary character, which according to the description by Gregor “provides explanations but does not aim to predict with any precision. There are no testable propositions”. Early on in the article, the authors define what is meant by the term "social capital" and gives background to what social networks are and also to Facebook. It presents the methods of the study, the result and then discuss why the results looked the way it did. It doesn’t state that the study’s result gives an absolute answer to the question formulation, it rather speaks in terms of “it appears to be”, “one explanation is”, “suggests” and “may play a role”.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The benefit is that the explanation theory is answering the questions “how?” and “why?”. The subject that has been researched gets an explanation. The limitations of this theory though, can according to Weber be if it contributes with new or interesting insights in the area. It is also unclear if the information from the study can be used further on and actually used again.
I like one of the explanations given in the first text, the one by Gregor in The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. It said that theory is for providing explanations and predictions, and is testable. I would say that theory is what explains why something occurs, theory is an attempt to knowledge in the best way we can. The second article, What Theory is Not written by Sutton and Staw, contained exactly what the name of the article indicated and it provided some interesting points for writing theories. To explain it to a first year university student - theory is not references, it is not data, neither diagrams nor hypothesis. Theory is to explain why something occurs, and to just show data or representations of data is not enough. To just drop references is not theory, without logical arguments how the theory is relevant, others' theories are not bringing something to the table for your own research. Hypothesis are for explaining what is expected to happen, but again - it doesn’t provide with the answer why it happens. Theory answers to the question “why?”.
2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?
To be able to describe the theories I’ve come across, I will tell about the article first. I’ve read an article called “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. The article was from 2007 and explored whether Facebook creates or formes social capital among college users. This includes researching if Facebook is a platform for only “offline” relationships or if it’s being used to form new relationships, but also how the use of the social network affects the users pshycologically.
The article has an explanationary character, which according to the description by Gregor “provides explanations but does not aim to predict with any precision. There are no testable propositions”. Early on in the article, the authors define what is meant by the term "social capital" and gives background to what social networks are and also to Facebook. It presents the methods of the study, the result and then discuss why the results looked the way it did. It doesn’t state that the study’s result gives an absolute answer to the question formulation, it rather speaks in terms of “it appears to be”, “one explanation is”, “suggests” and “may play a role”.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The benefit is that the explanation theory is answering the questions “how?” and “why?”. The subject that has been researched gets an explanation. The limitations of this theory though, can according to Weber be if it contributes with new or interesting insights in the area. It is also unclear if the information from the study can be used further on and actually used again.
måndag 14 september 2015
Post Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science
This week, the theme has been knowledge. What is knowledge and what is science? For the assignment, we have read two texts. The first one was a dialogue between Socrates and Theaetetus where they discussed what knowledge is by reasoning and with logical arguments based on what they know and have experiences previously. The second text was by Kant and introduced the terms a priori and a posteriori. Kant’s theories presented a tool to cathegorize our world and reality.
I think the most interesting part of this week’s theme has been to question how we percieve the world, to discuss what we learned from the texts and the lecture on the seminar. Through discussion and the lecture, we’ve come across Kant’s cathegories which are a priori in themselves but can be used to describe a posteriori. To think about how we define the world, and that a posteriori is something that the majority of all people agrees on, is an interesting view of the world. To think about the world as something we understand through man’s cathegorization, which in fact is an understanding through concepts we’ve created. Objecivity is not objectivity in itself since we have created the term and definition, but we can still call it objectivity since we have decided on it’s meaning. We use our senses, but how we percieve the world is determined by more than just the data we collect. We percieve under a lot of conditions, such as culture, language, our gender and our point in history and time. As discussed in one of the two questions for the theme, we see through our senses rather than with them - they are merely tools. Through context, we create meaning.
I prepared for the theme and seminar by reading the texts and answering the questions. While reading the text, I came up with a lot of questions especially regarding terms and vocabulary which has made it necessary to search for more information to be able to comprehend the text. By preparing properly, it was rewarding to discuss the theme and what we learned to straighten out the question marks. I think being well prepared also contributed to my seminar group since I could take an active role (and function as a secretary by writing down the concepts we had problems understanding).
I think this week has been very educational. I realized though, that even by preparing properly, I did not understand the theme completely until the lecture and seminar - I found the texts quite difficult. Even after discussing them, I don’t think I fully understand everything, which I guess is a part of philisophy. The area has been completely new to me, which is also why I find it so interesting.
For my education, I think it might be good to reflect on what science is and what empirical result is. But even more so, I think this week’s theme has been generally educative and interesting since it’s been within an area we haven’t explored previously.
fredag 11 september 2015
Theme 2: Critical Media Studies
Dialectic of Enlightenment
1. What is "Enlightenment"?
The Enlightenment was a period during the 18th century in which science and reason were emphasized over beliefs and tradition. It was a time in which insitutions like the church was challenged. During the Enlightenment, it was believed that knowledge is power. Anything that did not conform to calculability and utility was to be taken with suspicion.
2. What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectic is a method for reasoning and resolving disagreements, to seek for the truth by rational arguments.
3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text? Nomalism denies the concept of universals, which is the charactheristics of objects. It also denies abstract objects, objects that are neither spatial nor temporal. It says that everything is concrete.
It is an important concept for the time of which the text is speaking, the Enlightenment, in which science was put in front of faith, and nominalism denies anything that is not “real” nor unique.
4. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
They argue that myth exists to report, to name and to tell origins - to narrate, to record and to explain. It is a way of preserving stories and history. They also say that humans are free from fear when they have an explanation of the world, myths therefore also functions as a way to fill in the blanks and not leave anything unknown to man. During the Enlightment, science takes a leading role in explaining the world instead of through myths.
2. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?
Yes. in two different ways. It can either be techological in the sense that technological development has the potential to create new artforms. Photography is an example of this. Art can also be used for politics and propaganda, Benjamin talks about the Fascism movement introducing aestetics to political life.
3. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).
4. What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?
When talking about aura in natural objects, Benjamin defines aura as “the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be”. It’s the aura created by the spatial distance between the observer and the object. I think this definition is somewhat difficult to understand, but interpret it as natural aura being the objects presence in front of the viewer. This is in contrast to watching a reflection of reality through a camera lens or through a painting.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Adorno, Horkheimer - Dialectic of Enlightment (1944)
http://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf
Susan Buck-Morss - Aesthetics and Anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin’s Artwork Essay Reconsidered (1992)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/778700?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
2. What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectic is a method for reasoning and resolving disagreements, to seek for the truth by rational arguments.
3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text? Nomalism denies the concept of universals, which is the charactheristics of objects. It also denies abstract objects, objects that are neither spatial nor temporal. It says that everything is concrete.
It is an important concept for the time of which the text is speaking, the Enlightenment, in which science was put in front of faith, and nominalism denies anything that is not “real” nor unique.
4. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
They argue that myth exists to report, to name and to tell origins - to narrate, to record and to explain. It is a way of preserving stories and history. They also say that humans are free from fear when they have an explanation of the world, myths therefore also functions as a way to fill in the blanks and not leave anything unknown to man. During the Enlightment, science takes a leading role in explaining the world instead of through myths.
The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity
1. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?
The capitalist order of production means the system of producing and distribution products in a capitalist society, a society where the producer has ownership over his products. Superstructure is a structure including the culture, norms and values of a society. It is based on the institutions of economi, law and politics. The substructure is where the production is made. A change in the substructure changes the superstructure. In this text, one change is of the reproduction techniques of printing, making it possible for the society to take part of litterature in a larger extension. Hence the superstructure is affected and changed due to the substructure. From a Marxist perspective, analyzing cultural production tells about the society. During the time in which Benjamins article was written, there was a fear that culture and artwork would loose it’s orginality and aura when reproduced. From that perspective one can analyze how technical reprodutivity affects the society, mass production of art versus art loosing its aura.
2. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?
Yes. in two different ways. It can either be techological in the sense that technological development has the potential to create new artforms. Photography is an example of this. Art can also be used for politics and propaganda, Benjamin talks about the Fascism movement introducing aestetics to political life.
I think he means that naturally determined perception and senses are the senses that we use physically - how we experience the world through our own senses. I think what he means by historically determined sense is how we experience the world from an historical perspective - how we put our experiences into a context that are not just related to physical senses but to society and technological development.
For aura in art object, Benjamin means the object’s unique existance - it’s traditional value connected to the time in which it’s created. From the beginning, art was something created for a religious purpose. Over time, the view on art was changed as it started to be reproduced. Art was instead meant for a wider distribution, created with the exhibition value in mind. It’s aura therefore changed.
When talking about aura in natural objects, Benjamin defines aura as “the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be”. It’s the aura created by the spatial distance between the observer and the object. I think this definition is somewhat difficult to understand, but interpret it as natural aura being the objects presence in front of the viewer. This is in contrast to watching a reflection of reality through a camera lens or through a painting.
Sources:
Walter Benjamin - The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (1936)https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Adorno, Horkheimer - Dialectic of Enlightment (1944)
http://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf
Susan Buck-Morss - Aesthetics and Anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin’s Artwork Essay Reconsidered (1992)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/778700?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
http://sociology.about.com/od/Key-Theoretical-Concepts/fl/Base-and-Superstructure.htm https://www.nextnature.net/2012/08/walter-benjamin-on-film-and-the-senses/
https://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/aura.htm
https://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/aura.htm
söndag 6 september 2015
Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science
In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?
Kant has two beliefs. He believes in the idea of empiricism, called a posteriori, the idea that objects and experiences are built and understood by senses and previous experiences. He also believes in a priori, which is not a part of the empiricism and is not about objects seen through use of our senses. A priori means something that is independent from experience, something that is understood from the beginning without prior knowledge. It is not knowledge coming from our senses, it is universal and defined by itself. A rose is a rose, and the truth is verified without our senses. The same goes with Mathematics, it is true by definition. Other examples are space and time. You could argue that you build up an understanding of these two by experience and by using your senses, but according to Kant these exist by intuition and from intitution, your experiences are put into context.
If the idea of a priori is affirmed, our cognition would be expanded by confirming that all knowledge is not empirical. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that explains the world and the ‘being’, including the things which cannot really be measured or explained. What is the humans place in the universe, what is free will, what is existance etc. Kant describes this way of thinking by “leaving the thing in itself as something actual for itself but uncognized for us”, accepting that some truths are true without our definition and that this “provides satisfactory proofs of the laws that are the a priori ground of nature”.
At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?
Socrates states that using the term “with” is not precise enough, instead we should rather say that we hear through the ears and sees through the eyes. It is through these instruments that we perceive our surroundings. These tools combined with our mind, gives us understanding and experience and, further on, knowledge. Applying previous experiences and the information withdrawn from them on other situations can give an understanding, even if it’s not the same experience you encounter. It makes it possible to reason out of what you know and apply this knowledge on other unfamiliar situations or facts. The understanding of the world is built on our experiences which we’ve gathered since we were born in terms of what our senses have memorized - what we’ve seen, heard, sensed, smelled and tasted. There is more to the picture than just the eyes can see, and to hear something is not the same as to listen to it. To understand, you have to go through the channels that physically takes in the data that your mind transform into something that has a meaning.
To compare what is being said in the dialogue between Socrates and Theaethetus to empiricism, we need to start by explaining what empiricism is. Empiricism means basing ideas on experience, on testing and on observing. It states that everything we know comes from impressions and perception through our senses. When talking about science, you often talk about empirical results. This is very similar to Socrates argument.
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