Compare and contrast Marx and Hegel on their understanding of the development of history.  

Hegel:

dialectic: there is an idea, mind, and spirit that is beyond this world. Whenever we try to catch it, we are claiming a thesis. The thesis can't explain the idea/mind/spirit, so the antithesis is found, which together with the thesis forms into a synthesis and continues on.

Marx liked that idea, but also took the idea from Feuerbach that there are only material forces--no idea/mind/spirit.

Explain Marx's idea of alienation.  Be sure to include all three types.  

Definition: we work for our existence, it's not a part of our essence

Types:

from our labor: don't feel connected to what we're making

from ourselves: we have two selves: the on the job self and the off the job self. The harder we work, the less we are worth

from each other: we must compete for jobs, different class interests, classes develop as a result

What are the five epochs of history according to Marx?  

1. primitive community: thesis which leads to antithesis
2. slavery: produces more goods, not very efficient
3. feudalism: don't belong to a person, belong to the land
4. capitalism: sell yourself: produces many more goods (better than feudalism)
5. socialism: workers take over, the state withers away

Explain economic determinism.  

Money makes your decisions (production and districubtion of goods) 

Politics, religion, laws etc are built on the base of natural resources

Give two of the criticisms of Marx and explain how a Marxist might respond.  What was Bakunin’s criticism of Marx?  How might Marx respond?

1. Why not industrialized countries? All countries with Marxist revolutions were feudal Answer: the problem is that we're trying to do two things at once 
2. The state will wither away?! A: we're new at this, we've only been doing this since 1917, A2: No real communist countries, A3: it will only work if it works for the whole world
3. Bakunin: This sounds great, but people aren't like that, people are basically greedy. A: you've been taught to be greedy

What is the difference between the Lamarckian and Darwinian explanation of change in a species?

Lamark: conscious drive and inheritance of acquired traits (giraffes want to stretch)

Darwin: 1. struggle for existence, competition occurs (only some survive and reproduce) 2. survival is not random (traits that enhance survival are passed on) 3. overtime there is an accumulation of these traits

What is the difference between observation and inference (forming an hypothesis)?

Observation: what you can actually see happen

inference: an educated guess as to what will happen or the pattern based on the observations

What are the steps of the scientific method?

1. Observation of phenomena
2. creation of hypothesis
3. make a prediction based on hypothesis
4. perform experiments to prove hypothesis false

What are the consequences of using the scientific method?

If your hypothesis, experiement are disproven, then you discard

If it's not disproven, you start over a lot.

Explain the value of a theory when it is ‘just a theory’?

Explain the limitations of a theory as imposed by the scientific method.

Explain natural selection.

Explain Freud’s challenge to the Rationalist Credo.  How rational are we?

Name and describe the structures of Freud’s tripartite model of the mind.

• Id: unconscious, irrational, pleasure. Fueled by instincts
• Ego: rational, reality (meet your needs)
• Superego: ideal self: morality

unconscious

Source: Freud

Definition: self of which we're not aware

Significance: the id

libido

Source: Freud

Definition: psychic energy, something going on all the time, fueled by energy

Significance: HELP?

sublimation

Source: Freud

Definition: redirecting

Significance: a defense mechanism

repression

Source: Freud

Definition: forgetting

Significance: defense mechanism

eros

Source: Freud

Definition: life-seeking, sexual

Significance: id

thanatos

Source: Freud

Definition: destruction

Significance: id

In what respects is Freud a determinist?

We determined by unconscious instincts (eros) and use defense mechanisms (repression, rationalization, sublimation)

1. stages: instinct driven--done mostly by age five
2. patterns: set for life by five
3. main point: nature and nurture

What is Skinner’s contribution to our understanding of “anthropology,” especially the nature of determinism?

Assumes:

1. We are all empty organisms coming into the world (we bring no nature with us)
2. environment causes behavior (everything learned is from environment)
3. behaviors follow lawful patterns (man is machine)

Describe Skinner’s view of mental processes, and his critique of traditional views of human reason.

• reason is irrelevant (doesn't account for any of our behavior)
• private and public events subject to the same laws (things that can't be observed)
• self knowledge is limited (always has to be reinforced)
• thoughts do not cause behaviors (both thoughts/behaviors influenced by environment)

positive reinforcement

Source: Skinner

Definition: introduce positive consequences 

Significance: behavior change

negative reinforcement

Source: Skinner

Definition: remove or avoid negative condition

Significance: behavior change

punishment

shaping

freedom is an illusion

What are the three stages along life's way?  How are Agamemnon and Abraham examples of the last two stages?  

Stages of life: Aesthetic, Ethical, Religious

  Agamemnon: 

·      He doesn’t want to sacrifice his daughter

·      Gives us his own pleasure (having his daughter) for all these other people

·      Tragic hero

 Abraham and Isaac

·      There’s no ethical reason to do it

·      God is calling on him to be unethical

·      Tempted to be ethical

What does Kierkegaard reject in Hegel?  Why?  Is there anything he might accept?  How does his critique of Hegel compare with Marx's?

Reject:

• why we we assume things are progressing? 
• all oppositions are swallowed up (creates apathy and is demoralizing) 
• irrelevant to daily life (philosophic fragments: they have nothing to do with each other, but that's how life is)
• there is no freedom for the individual (can be anything)

Aesthetic stage

Source: Kierkegaard

Definition: live for pleasure 

Significance: stages on way of life, most people live here

Ethical stage

Source: Kierkegaard

Definition: give up-even our ethics-to God

Significance: Stages of Life: Knight of Faith (Abraham)

Objective Truth

Source: Kierkegaard

Definition: Truths for which there are objective criteria to determine truth or falsehood

Significance: detached knowing

Subjective Truth

Leap of Faith

Dionysian

Source: Nietzsche 

Definition: Non-rational, instinct, adventure, dauntless suffering

Significance: abandonment and loss of self: Live dangerously!

Apollonian

Will to Power

Consolations of Man

the Herd

Contrast the Master morality to the Slave morality (include an explanation of the terms good, bad, & evil).  

Master Morality:

• strong, powerful, noble, has a powerful presence, knows his own worth, instinct for honor, open minded, courageous
• live with style
• Good: traits that make man respected and feared
• bad: anything that is weak, the herd

What does it require to become an adult?  How is Nietzsche’s atheism heroic?

One must:

• realize God is dead (there never is)
• say yes to live
• become fully awake--ubermensch

What did Nietzsche mean by "God is dead"?   

What is the effect of the death of God on the slaves?  on the masters?   

Master:

Death of God is relatively minor for the heroes

Herd:

devastating for the herd, values have collapsed

How is Nietzsche similar to Kierkegaard?  To Sartre? [to Dostoevsky?]  How is he different? What affirmations are common to these existentialists? [On what do they all agree?]

N/K: believe in freedom, but K believes in God: person decides, N believes God is dead

N/S: can't rely on truth, must give up idea of God, but S believes everyone can do it

N/D: freedom, but D believes that freedom creates a burden

radical freedom

being-in-itself

being-for-itself

bad faith

intersubjectivity

Explain what Sartre meant by “existence precedes essence.”

According to Sartre, what does it mean to “become an adult?”  How does his view differ from the existentialism of Kierkegaard?  Nietzsche?

Sartre would say that you must shed all expectation, avoid bad faith, and take your own responsibility.

Kierkegaard would say that you can never become an adult because all you care about is pleasure.

Nietzsche would say that only a select few, "heroes" can become adults.

Contrast the five points of Modern and Postmodern epistemologies.  What are some of the practical implications of Postmodern, as opposed to Modern, epistemology.

Modern:

1. timeless: isn't just true for one period
2. certain: truth that is not subject to reexamination
3. foundational: basis that we build other things
4. objective without divine grounding: I can ground knowledge in what I do
5. Known by undifferentiated, generic human individuals: totally objective and apart from who I am as an individual

Why is Derrida suspicious of meta-narratives?  

Explain the objection that Derrida's writings are self-refuting.  How does Derrida answer this objection?

Don't his writings represent a conceptual order, an attempt to communicate "meaning"? Is this not exactly what he said to not do?

Response:

Destabilizes languages, and puts words under "erasure" (uses a word then crosses it out, saying there is no such things) to get you to realize there is nothing.

there is nothing outside the text

metaphysics of presence

meta-narrative

Source: Derrida 

Definition: an over-arching explanation for everything

Significance: worldview; how people live

Nature is a-grammatical

Source: Nietzsche

Definition: we make up the subdivision

Significance: not everybody thinks the same way, such as Polish people don't have wrists

Canon

Source: Postmodernism

Definition: More or less approve books

Significance:  Selects the best of the best

DWEM literature

Identity Politics

DuBois: the Negro as a Problem

 Double Consciousness

the Other

In what ways does Postmodernism pose a critique of the Enlightenment Project?

Explain the positions of both the Cultural Conservatives and the Enlightened Traditionalists in response to the canon.  

Enlightenment:

Open the cannon: it's not big enough, not perfect, not complete. the idea that it should remain closed is the WRONG approach to the canon.

Cultural: 

All the canons are oppressive: they favor white middle class. We need to decide what goes in by recovering our heritage. There are real differences between traditions and heritage, and we need to bring them out, not ignore them.

Indicate how both the Multiculturalists and the Separatists differ from the Cultural Conservatives and Enlightened Traditionalists in their response to the canon, and how they differ from each other in their treatment of "dominant culture" texts and minority texts. 

M/S:

Canons are oppressive

recover heritage/not smooth out differences

C/E:

Canons closed/open

civilization is fragile/need universal readers

Describe the assumptions of liberal feminism.  In what ways is liberal feminism a “modern” movement?

Feminists are man-haters, bra-burners and obsolete.

It is a modern movement that seeks justice for women.

What are major differences between premodern, modern and postmodern worldviews—especially when it comes to human nature?  What implications do these views have for attitudes toward gender?

Premodern:

universals are known through reason

fixed sex difference

Modern:

rejection of previous ages

males and females are similarities, and that's what matters

Postmodern:

no meta-narritive 

recognize differences of experience

How has postmodern feminism changed discussions of epistemology?

How have feminists like Carol Gilligan challenged traditional (i.e., Kantian) views of ethics?

Tradition: highest levls of morality are rations: impersonal "do your duty"

Alternative: ethics of care vs. ethics of duty: maternal thinking consider private life as well as public

Source: Kierkegaard 

Definition: we are what we do

Significance: acceptable cure for the agony

Superior to objective: we need involved knowing, not detached knowing, which objective gives us

Helps us avoid agony: make it true for you

Source: Dostoevsky

Definition: A craving for universal unity

Significance: true meaning of the temptation

Source: Dostoevsky

Definition: someone to keep my conscience

Significance: true meaning of temptation

Source: Dostoesky

Definition: someone to worship

Significance: true meaning of temptation