HCJ Exam Revision

1.Outline the verification principle on part of the school of thought known as logical positivism. How might this principle be applied in the work of a journalist?

• Verification principle proposed by A.J Ayer, but the core of the idea can be traced back to Locke and Empiricism.

• If a statement cannot be verified it is meaningless. It is neither true nor false.

• Most associated with the logical positivists movement which began in inter-war Vienna

• Leads back to empiricism, which believes that observation and experiences are the only way to acquire knowledge.

• Strong verification: statements which are directly verifiable.

• Weak verification: statements which are not directly verifiable but highly probable.

• Wittgenstein: “Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent”

• Comte put forth the idea that unverifiable sentences are not only meaningless but it is pointless to consider statements that cannot be verified.

• Karl Popper rejected the idea that meaningful sentences need to be verified, but must be falsifiable.

• Logical Positivism began with discussions from a small group called the Vienna Circle.

• The principle is applied to journalism because everything must be verifiable. It is all about facts. They must be true, and they must be verifiable.

2: What is phenomenology? Can there be such a thing as subjective reality or subjective truth? What sort of standards ought a journalist apply?

• Phenomenology is a doctrine proposed by Edmund Husserl based on the study of human experience in which considerations of objective reality are not taken into account.

• Phenomenology is a branch of philosophy that deals with subjective experience-your own personal reaction to something and why you react that way.

• Originated “phenomena”

• Immanuel Kant-Critique of Pure Reason. Believed that everything has a dual nature. Numinal-The thing in itself. Phenomenal-the unperceived object. His ideas have been proved by quantum mechanics.

• Phenomenologists believe that things aren’t there unless you are perceiving them. Empiricists also believe this.

• At the time phenomenology was founded, there were some who were idealists or rationalists, and some who were empiricists. The idealists thought that reality was all in the mind, whereas empiricists believed that perceptions are of things external to the mind, and that you acquire knowledge through experience and perceptions. Husserl was aiming to resolve this opposition. He believed in the power of intention: that if you want to see something, you will.

• Existentialism is a moral code concerned with phenomenology. Existentialists believe that each individual person is free and responsible for themselves determining their own future through acts of will. They make their own choices and deal with the consequences. An example of this is in Albert Camus book-The Outsider, although Camus does not consider himself an existentialist. The book revolves around a character, Mersault, who makes choices in his life and lives with the consequences, which results in his execution.

• Journalism is all about truth. According to Husserl, if you want to see something, you will. So you can choose what to see and what to believe. Therefore there is no objective truth.

3. Describe in broad terms JM Keynes ideas on monetary policy, with an indication of how the "Keynesian Revolution" came about. Does Keynesianism inevitably lead to social regression, moral failure and serfdom as Hayek suggests?

• Keynes believed that demand, not supply, is the driving factor determining levels of unemployment.
• The central theme was that the government could change the level of unemployment via tax cuts, changes in interest rates, and money supply.
• The driving force was the economic crisis of the Great Depression in the 30s, and consumer society later profited from this in the 50s.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

4. "Facts in logical space are the world" Wittgenstein, Tractatus. Do you agree?

• Followed by the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle.
• Book begins by explaining what the world is made up of.
• Building blocks of reality are simple objects.
• Simple objects combine to create states of affairs.
• States of affairs combine to form complex facts.
• The world is a totality of positive facts.
• Logical Space is the space in which objects and states of affairs exist.
• Everything in logical space is possible, regardless of true or false.
• Links to phenomenology.

5. Choose one thinker we have looked at or one movement and explain why it is significant in journalism.

HCJ Lecture-Existentialism

This lecture focused on existentialism and ideas.

Husserl believed that knowledge is a structure, with some ideas having more priority than others, depending on intention.

In the 1920s, Descartes made the statement "Cogito Irgo Sum" (I think, therefore I am). If a person is thinking, they must exist. He believed consciousness was in 2 parts (Dualism): me, and the world. This was accepted by all until 1927, when Heidegger claimed this was not true, all you can say is that there are ideas. This poses the question: What are ideas? Heidegger says that they are intentions, moods, ambiguity and the act of choosing.

Ideas and meaning is a structure of subjective values, and of decisions. This is where existentialism comes in. Existentialists are obsessed with decisions and choosing. Their lives are endless choices, responsibilities and consequences. The source of these decisions being social interaction, or convenience.

Everybody is a reflection of each other from the people you grow up with, to the people you meet at work. We live

inauthentic lives, meaning you are not the author of your own life.

One thing that was brought up in this lecture is phenomonology. This is looking at the familiar as unfamiliar and vice versa.

For example: Look at the image below. Do you see a duck, or a rabbit? Or both?

In existentialism, the self-possessed individual, a bedrock of the enlightenment and romanticism, is abandoned.

Heideggers claim proved Locke, Smith, Kant, Nietzsche and Freud wrong. Kant believed that all people are fundamentally the same. This is not true, according to Heidegger.

If you take away human interaction and senses, you become nothing. Studies have shown this using isolation tanks.

Heidegger believed that existence is a way of being, a structure of choices. It's not what you do, it's the way you do it. That's what really counts.

Kant said that time is not a unified thing. There are different types of time. This was backed up by Einstein, who claimed that time is a dimension of the Universe. We perceive the Universe in 3 dimensions. Time is the 4th. We cannot imagine a 2d universe, nor a 4d one.

If you were travelling at the speed of light, there would be no time.

If you were travelling faster than the speed of light, you would arrive before you had left.

Heidegger said that time is the structure of being, and has a 3-fold structure:

1) The past = guilt

2) The future = unknown

3) The present = dread

Existential morality aims to reduce feelings of guilt about the past, and promote indifference about the future.

The subjects mentioned in this blog are both featured in Sartres' play: No Exit: A drama set in a timeless universe. There are 3 characters in a blank waiting room. A beautiful lesbian who is in love with an unattractive heterosexual woman who is in love with a heterosexual man, who loves the lesbian. They are stuck in this love triangle, and in the waiting room, wracked with guilt and fear, which consigns them to a "hell" or eternal inauthenticity.

This weeks reading is Albert Camus-The outsider. The character Messarault is an existential hero-he refuses to be determined by other people, he seeks authenticity and tries to live by it. He has no guilt about his actions and does not care about the consequences, thus if his life is not authentic, it is less inauthentic than others.

There will be more about this reading after this weeks seminar.