Category: Philosophy

Circles

Porphyry repeats an account from Antiphon, who reported that while still on Samos, Pythagoras founded a school known as the “semicircle.”

The Vienna Circle (German: Wiener Kreis) of logical empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic, and mathematics. They met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Schlick. The Vienna Circle had a profound influence on 20th-century philosophy, especially philosophy of science and analytic philosophy.

The Bloomsbury Group, or Bloomsbury Set, was a group of English writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists in the early 20th century. Among its members were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, and Lytton Strachey.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics. Founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens, and Thomas Woolner, they formed a seven-member “Brotherhood” partly modeled on the Nazarene movement.

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Ironie, Sarkasmus, Zynismus, Sardonismus

Wenn dein Gewissen rein bleiben soll, darfst du es nicht benutzen.

Otto von Bismarck

Sarkasmus

Es ist Hohn und Spott, zielt darauf ab, den Empfänger zu verletzen oder vor anderen lächerlich zu machen. Altgriechischen sarkázein (zu Deutsch «zerfleischen»)

A sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain. Link

Ironie

Eine Botschaft wird ins Gegenteil verkehrt; man äußert also das Gegenteil von dem, was man eigentlich meint.

The use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning. Link

Zynismus

Sarkasmus und Ironie beziehen sich auf einzelne Aussagen; Zynismus geht weit darüber hinaus. Es ist eine Denkhaltung, die geltende Normen ablehnt und für lächerlich hält.

Contemptuous distrust of human nature and motives. Link

Sardonismus

Sardonismus bezeichnet im Unterschied zum Sarkasmus keinen beißenden, bitteren Spott, sondern einen ärgerlichen und schmerzvollen. Verbunden ist dieser oft mit einem unheimlichen, finsteren Gelächter, dem sardonischen Lachen.

Disdainfully or skeptically humorous: derisively mocking. It is often considered humor in the face of adversity as a statement to oneself, not others.

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John Rawls

The current inequality is unjust and only occurs because the ones with power pass their privileges to their children.

Rawls came up with the following thought experiment: Suppose we all sit behind a veil of ignorance and have to decide how a just society would look like. That is, we don’t know where our place in the society will be with respect to wealth, health, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. According to Rawls we would devise a society with a best worse case scenario, where the ones with the least resources do better than in any other conceivable society.

Such a society can only be achieved if all differences are eliminated as far as possible. The only difference or inequality Rawls considers admissible is due to ability if it increases the well-being of the least fortunate. For him justice is fairness.

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Kränkungen der Menschheit

Freud nennt drei große Kränkungen, die der naive Narzissmus des menschlichen Bewusstseins durch den wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt erlitten habe:

  1. Die kosmologische Kränkung: Die Erde ist nicht der Mittelpunkt des Weltalls (Kopernikanische Wende).
  2. Die biologische Kränkung: Der Mensch stammt von Tieren ab (Darwinsche Evolutionstheorie).
  3. Die psychologische Kränkung: Der Mensch ist triebgesteuert und das Ich nicht Herr in seinem eigenen Haus (Freuds eigene Libidotheorie).
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Hannah Arendt

We ask our children what they want to be when they grow up, not who.

Arendt divides our lives into three parts: Labour (food, a place to sleep, health; the bare essentials), work (production of cultural artefacts) and action (active engagement in our community; how we imbue our cultural artefacts with meaning).

The enlightenment by putting a veil on the political aspect of our lives, dehumanises people, puts the focus on the economic. People get their sense of identity not from their political actions anymore but their job and the public economy. People being cogs without active engagement in their societies are prone to dictatorships.

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