Category Archives: Contemporary Philosophy

What is a Complex?

Even though I have never taken a psychology class, I am interested in many of their concepts. The idea of a complex in general is defined as a pattern of emotions based around a specific human quality. There is the famous Napoleon complex which states that short people are more envious and harsher towards taller people. I am interested if complexes are naturally within us or if they can change, as a quality such as height can change over a lifetime.

I have not read Freud in depth, but this article presents a strong introduction to his research. It presents his views of the psyche (division of id, ego, and super-ego), and the creation and control of pleasure. One famous theory attributed to Freud is the Oedipus complex, named after the tragic hero of Greek mythology. In the classic play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus unknowingly kills his biological father and marries his biological mother. I’m not sure about Freud’s thought process, but he comes to the conclusion that all males want sex with their mother. He further expands on this by arguing that “the hero of the Oedipus legend too felt guilty for his deeds and submitted himself to self-punishment, although the coercive power of the oracle should have acquitted him of guilt in our judgment and his own” (205). This further makes me question Freud’s philosophy, as this suggests that Oedipus could not help the fact that he had sex with his mother. The morality of his statement hinders my comprehension of his psychology contributions. Any psychology experts want to help me understand Freud’s statements?

Hegel vs. Freud

Both Hegel and Freud venture to explain the consciousness and how we interpret our surroundings. In Freud’s piece, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, he explains how we interact with internal and external events in terms of the id, ego, and super ego, while Hegel explains his ideas in Sense Certainty using the all-excompassing ‘I’.  Continue reading

Freudian Discourse on Nature v. Nurture

 

The classic argument on learning/experience: what has a bigger influence over an individual’s life, his genetics, or his up-bringing? In Sigmund Freud’s “Outline of Psychoanalysis”, he seems to favor the latter.

Within one’s brain, Freud feels that there is different “psychical agencies” that control ourselves. This includes the id, a primal desire that drives us to achieve basic urges; the super-ego, a sort of moral compass; and the ego, a development from the id that analyzes the simultaneous needs of the id, superego, and the stimuli of reality in order to synthesis choices.

In Chapter 1, Continue reading

Why Can’t the Apple Fall Far from the Tree?

For Freud, our parental figures are extremely important to the development and interactions of our consciousness. His model of consciousness is a little different from the others we have encountered so far in that it takes into deeper account the internalization of our external experiences and influences. Unlike the slave consciousness in the Hegelian Dialectic which eventually transcends external objects, Freud describes a process of token keeping in which external influences like our parents, culture, and “what is taken over from other people” are internalized and ever present in the “psychical province” which he calls our superego (An Outline of Psycho-Analysis 147). Continue reading

Animal Psychology: Complexity of Thought and Emotion

In the end of Chapter I Freud references “Animal psychology” (2), stating that his “general schematic picture of a psychical apparatus may be supposed to apply as well to the higher animals which resemble man generally” (2). I found this point to be fascinating. Do animals experience emotion the way in which people do? Can they distinguish between need and desire? Is their psyche compartmentalized into the same ultimate categorization of id, ego, and superego?

In my opinion, I think that this could be a possibility based off of my own personal experience with dogs and cats in addition to stories I have heard. I believe that animals experience emotion and make decisions based off of such feelings. Just a couple hours ago, a friend was telling me how her dad when he was a kid fell into a deep pit, and would most likely have died if not for his pet dog who ran barking to the nearest adult and led her to the place where his owner had fallen in. How could this event have taken place without the dog recognizing that his owner was in danger, and that in order to save him he had to involve someone who was capable of rescuing the little boy, indicating the capacity of emotion and decision-making based off of it? There are so many stories similar to this one that I consider it true evidence of animals’ capacity for complex emotion and emotional thought.

From my own personal experience, my dog has always gotten extremely excited when my family is enthusiastic about something. He will jump up and down, wagging his tail, any time we talk in loud voices excitedly or start laughing about something. Furthermore, when I am sad or another family member looks a little down he will sit down by our sides, and put his head in our laps, looking concerned.

Some may be skeptical of my theory, but just based off of what I know and have heard, I think that animals do have a certain emotional capacity, and display certain characteristics, behaviors, and actions that imply complex thought. Some species display affection for their offspring in such a way that could only be described as love. They show concern when things are going poorly, and they consistently mourn the loss of their loved ones, some even becoming unable to move past such deaths, slowly wasting away until they pass themselves. Also, just think about animals that became friends with others outside of their species, or who adopt offspring of other animals. These are actions that go beyond instinct, displaying complex emotion.

In conclusion, although I am unsure of how we would measure whether or not animals’ psyche is compartmentalized into id, ego, and superego, or their ability to distinguish between need and desire, I am convinced that animals experience emotion and make decisions based off of these feelings.

Any thoughts?

Independent Study and Technical Schools

Hey guys! So we’ve read a lot on education and about how philosophers like Friere, Foucault, and Gatto strongly dislike the educational system that we have today.However, none of these philosophers, except for Friere (kind of), gave any solution to the problems in education. I think that I might have a partial solution to the problems in education; actually, I didn’t really think of this, but the high school I went to did. I’m thinking that every high school can implement these solutions. The first is allowing a student to do independent study-which I will explain a bit more later- and allowing them to attend a technical school while they are in high school.

So independent study was a really cool program at my school for juniors and seniors. If students were on track with their credits, they could decide to study and research and do projects on things that they found interesting and wanted to learn about. For example, if the only thing that really interested you in high school was molecular biology or learning about the civil war, my high school would partner you with a person who was a professional on that information, and you would work with that person and do research projects for the remaining two years of high school (as well as doing your normal school work).This program is a solution, I feel, because it allows students to be trained in something that actually pertains to the goals that they want to achieve in their life and that can actually be useful to them in the real world. This is one of the big issues that the philosophers had with our educational system, and I think that this program provides a partial solution because students at least have some kind of authority over what they are going to be taught and do in life.

The other program that my high school did was allow juniors and seniors go to a technical school for half of a school day, and then spend the rest of the school day taking their regular classes. So, if the student wanted to become a nurse, or a mechanic, or a cosmetologist, or a photographer, they could get more than basic knowledge and experience in the field of their choice before going into the real world. Also, the technical school is great because it gives students the chance to decide if the program that they’re in is really something that they would like to do for the rest of their lives as a career.

Both of these programs, I believe, give students some power when it comes to their education and what, specifically, they are being taught while in a public/private school system. I believe that if we implement these programs in every school, then education would be a better system overall, and people would be more excited to go to school and obtain a degree. What do you guys think?

Knowledge: Good or Evil?

This is a question I thought about from a while back. During our readings on knowledge, it seemed to me that the ancient philosophers liked to write about how they would educate their citizens in order to reach their ideal worlds, while the Enlightenment philosophers taught about how they believed the process of knowledge works without setting up definitive restrictions of how people should be controlled. For instance, Plato talks about the Myth of the Metals as a means to maintain order in The Republic while Hegel writes about the didactic method of obtaining knowledge. This makes me question as whether knowledge is a means or an ends. Is the use of false knowledge (Myth of Metals) morally corrupt if it accomplishes the goal of a peaceful city? Continue reading

Discourse on Experience

This will be a short blog compared to others, but it is a tho Continue reading

Gatto’s Seven Lessons

John Gatto’s Dumping Us Down illustrates the negative aspects compulsory state-controlled schooling. Gatto spent 30 years as a schoolteacher and certainly knew everything there is to know about school. He is certainly a credible source and his account should serve as motivation and reason for change and evolution. He talks about how the educational system teaches the students seven negative lessons calling himself the seven-lesson schoolteacher. After going through a fine explanation of every one of the seven lessons, Gatto asserts that the system produces confused, cruel, passive, violent, and materialistic kids. Continue reading

What Creates Sexuality?

John Storey’s book on power presents a new way to think about sexuality. We commonly associate the Victorian age with hypocritical views of sexuality that produced draconian laws, but Storey writes that the Victorians did not repress sexuality, they actually invented it (Cultural Theory and Popular Culture 130). Storey expands on his unorthodox view by explaining how suppression causes creation. Even though the Victorian era produced laws that imposed moral disapproval of certain sexual behaviors, this also created a reverse effect of the suppressed behaviors becoming a subculture of society. Continue reading