L5: "The Freudian Consciousness"

SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
 

[Image available under Wikimedia Commons]

"The secret antagonist of the intellect" The misery of the human condition. People alienated. [MARX] Sex becomes important in the Media as motivator. People no longer considered noble creatures. Challenges Enlightenment.

The Freudian Personality. ID. From birth. Aim to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Demands fulfilment. "Spoilt Brat" EGO. Reality and Reason. Rational. The least powerful part of the personality. SUPEREGO. Socialisation. Person punished with guilt. Attempting to live up to impossible standards of perfection. Society as collective.

Psychoanalysis. The exchange of words between patient and doctor. Believed he discovered the 'archaeology' of the mind. Dreams as the 'royal road' to the unconscious. Reveal real problems. The existence of  a "subconscious". Method aims to try and distract/contain the ID.  No real satisfaction unless destroying enemy. 
 
"The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious. What I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied" [FREUD]

L2: "Empiricism vs. Idealism"

KARL POPPER (1902-1994)

"Logical Positivism" The Vienna Circle (FREUD, WITTGENSTEIN). Attack on Empiricism. Metaphysics as "gibberish" consisting of theories that have not been verified. Rejection of DESCARTES, his Cogito branded a "non-verifiable induction". Something that cannot be proved through aposteriori reasoning.

POPPER was against the scientific process of induction. Like HUME, he saw the process of induction as "unreliable" but necessary in the quest for truth. 

"Hume has proved that pure Empiricism is not a basis for science... without the principle of induction, then science is impossible" (page 612)

In "The Open Society and it's Enemies" POPPER explains how the state should leave maximum room for self-correction in order to minimise suffering. Each law should be highly experimental. There is no 100% knowledge, therefore everything is untrue/falsifiable. Otherwise known as "The Theory of Falsification".

HCJ Seminar Paper (1.11.12)

Economics

Economics, in this sense is scientific and subjective. Based on fact and according to Karl Popper (1902-1994) cannot be falsified. In his view, policies should be judged as experimental leaving maximum room for self-correction, as stated in his work “The Open Society and its Enemies” (1962). Empiricist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) claims that it is through falsifying that human nature progresses.

Classical Economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) views people as “calculating machines” designed for maximising pleasure and minimising pain. Otherwise known as Utilitarianism, this moral philosophy is hindered by the State, which is viewed as an obstacle to progress. In “The Wealth of Nations” (1776) he states that richer countries come down to too much state intervention. “The hidden hand of the market” in which all value is derived from trade, when in actuality; people should be allowed to be free.

This is the crisis of Capitalism, claimed by Karl Marx (1818-1883) with which the “Iron Law of Wages” will inevitably lead to the fall of Western Civilisation. There is a constant struggle to survive (Charles Darwin, 1809-1882) as humans use up resources to their maximum limit. A prime example being the Golden Age of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, whereby the economic boom lead to high levels of inflation, causing mass unemployment. The rise in monetary value reduced the right of human freedom in the modern world.