what I did
The articles are really difficult to read and even more difficult to understand, even though these were easier than the last ones. I have no prior experience of philosophy or philosophical texts so it is really difficult for me to grasp. To actually gain some kind of understanding of this I had to look up a lot of new words and concepts, and read more about for example the Enlightenments etc. to understand the articles.
The articles are really difficult to read and even more difficult to understand, even though these were easier than the last ones. I have no prior experience of philosophy or philosophical texts so it is really difficult for me to grasp. To actually gain some kind of understanding of this I had to look up a lot of new words and concepts, and read more about for example the Enlightenments etc. to understand the articles.
This week seminar was really great, Henrik Åhman answered questions that we had and then we moved to having group discussion - the discussion forces you to view the texts from a different view. For me I understood the text much better and realised that I even misunderstood a lot in the texts.
what I learnt during the week.
I learned a great deal about what a great impact culture and tradition has had on society. The lecture with Henrik Åhman was really interesting and I learned much about concepts and movements that I was familiar with but never fully understood. He talked a lot about historical movements and how social media influenced society - how it was misused and abused to trick people to believing in new values.
During the lecture we talked about truly understanding a text. Henrik Åhman told us that we need to read the text in the “context” from where it were written to really understand it. For example if it was written in a bar, it should be read in a bar. I thought this was really interesting, and I reflected on how much perspective and personal experience can affect one’s way of interpreting a text. For example if a text is written during a war we, the readers, need to take this under consideration even though the actual war isn’t mentioned.
I learned more about what nominalism truly means. Nominalism means that things, such as chairs or horses are called that way because we have decided it to be so - words are a social construction. There is no “ideal-horse” which what we call horses look like. It is just humans who have chosen to group these animals as horses. However, in a nominalistic point of view it is not good to generalise. Nietzsche claimed that the language we created “lies” and makes us believe that object are more alike than what they truly are, for example humans. However, believing like this - being an extreme nominalist - leads to no structure at all. Everyone lives particular lives, and nothing can be grouped.
A bit of nominalism can be seen in a lot of discussions today, one example the debate about feminism. We need to get away from the definition of “man” and “woman” and stop generalising gender. Society should not see women as a group but instead look at the individuals. Some people think that women should be housewives, since this would resemble the “ideal woman” in the “idea world”.
It is important to have a bit of nominalistic thinking, but it also important to actually question the finding and not just bluntly accept them. A nominalistic society would never work since there would be no structure.
I think you are right that culture is a great extent related to the historical context. For example the birth of literary aesthetics under the dictatorship of fascist, used to cater the fascist ideology style such as the movie we have seen during the lecture.
SvaraRaderaThat's interesting! I also believe that historical circumstances like politics, affects the way that the politicians use mass media and that in turns affect the society and the people living in that society. Therefor also changing the culture in the society
RaderaHi,
SvaraRaderaI like how you in the end of your reflection mention feminism and how gender generalization are built upon our nominalistic way of seeing things. I believe that we need to "get rid of" our imprinted ways of differentiating women and men and stop generalizing the genders, just as you say in your reflection.
I think that it could be this nominalistic way of seeing things that make our society improve as slow as it actually is in some instances. I think we need to change our way of thinking to be able to step out of old, and often bad, thoughts and ideas, to develop our world into the better (to remove gender generalization fully for example).
In your last paragraph, you mention that it although is important to have a somewhat nominalistic way of thinking. It what cases do you think that a nominalistic way of seeing things are really vital?
Sorry for a somewhat messy reasoning from my side and thanks for a good reflection!
Hello! Thank you for your comment!
RaderaI agree with what you are saying about stepping out of old ideas and leave them. However, I believe that is the difficult part of it all. Changing people's and most importantly society's way of thinking is very difficult. In some very modern countries (like for example the U.S) the housewife-thinking style still exist. The most effective way to change this would probably be by offering parental leave to both parents (it's not offered for neither). After some time, both fathers and mothers being home would become normal. However, this would mean that change is happening by force of the state. I wonder, how much is the state really allowed to go in an dictate how to live our lives in our homes? I mean, in this case, it would be a good change - but that is only in our perspective. Having a state that dictates this thing could be misused very badly. But if not this way then which? The other ways are so slow, just as you say. In Sweden we've hade the state kind of helping us in the way of gender equality when it comes to taking care of children by having parental leave divided to mothers and fathers. Many disliked the fact that the fathers could not "give" all their days to the mothers. But today it's kind of normal, right? So what is the correct way of making change?...
I believe that having a nominalistic way of seeing some things are vital due to structure. We need structure in our lives and our languages and that happens by defining things in a nominalistic way - like the fact that all chair are called chairs. Through this definitions, communication is possible through language and words since we both have the same interpretation of the words.
Sorry for my very long answer.
Cool that the seminar helped you a lot, I felt the same way (as I'm sure most of us did). It's interesting that you by the end of the week realized that you had misunderstood some things prior to the lecture and seminar for this theme. I think that these texts, as you say, are really advanced and it would be hard to understand all of it without a professor (or correlative "expert") pointing out the main theories and what not. Thanks to your post I realize the relevance of having us students writing two posts for each theme. The post prior to the theme is good for preparing and makes it easier to grasp the following lecture and then we get to reflect upon what we have learned during the week. By writing only the one or the other I think we would miss out on some knowledge or revelations that we would receive from their combination.
SvaraRadera