We get introduced to Frankfurts definition to what it means to be person. He defines it as having a consciousness of ourselves. He classifies us in two clubs , first order desire and second order desire. First order desires is someone desiring to do something or not to do it. In the other case, second order desire is a desire that requires a reflective “self evaluation”. He says second order has to be wanting to do something or being moved to do or not to do that. Frankfurts says, first order is for humans and for animals. In addition, he explains what a wanton is . A wanton is defined as a young child, nonhuman animals, and some adults. As well he quotes “wanton does not care about his will”(pg 11). Frankfurts now totally tells us how this wanton doesn’t care and they could go on living life not caring about their actions.

Now one of the most interesting example he shares with us is when he starts talking about two drug addicts. He does mention one drug addict has the first order desire to take the drug because of the addiction and has a second order desire to stop taking the drug. But it’s possible the addiction may be too much and he can’t stop taking drugs. Yet, the second drug addict again has the first desire order to take the drug, but has no second order desire because they are not worried where they will end up. Frankfurts proved his point how humans could have first order desire and second order desires.

Therefore, we all perform numerous actions everyday all day long. For instance, when we are hungry we go make food or order out , when we’re tired we go to bed or take a nap. But all of the actions I , we commit too are prior knowledge of their outcome. A personal example of first order desire is having the desire to graduate from nursing school. The second order desire is wanting to finish school because i will begin my dream career. But this desire will only be considered effective when I study and keep studying day and night in order to graduate nursing school.(word count 366).

After reading the text , I have a definition for causal determinism. Its defined as cause and effect, where events occur to us because we had a previous event that led up to an event. I also take in consideration how causal determinism from my understanding doesn’t have control over events that happen to us. For example, its simple as procrastinating in school and not doing so well in a course. This shows determinism because after not completing the assignments for that class, obviously you will stay behind and not have the best turn out. Who are we to say that a student was procrastinating just because he didn’t do the assignments on time. There are many scenarios that a student could’ve fallen behind. For one, maybe one student already took a philosophy class and knows they can complete all the blogs before the final due date. In the other hand we have a student who is taking first philosophy course and knows he willed a tutor to understand the reading and go to office hours in order to succeed in the course. In other words, we don’t know what could go through a students mind maybe he was dealing with harsh family news, or maybe its in his genetics that his parents were procrastinators in college as well.

Furthermore, causal determinism wouldn’t change my actions that I’ve made up to today. In general we live in a world that can be random, for instance our world is just as random as a game of dice. You could roll the same number or you could roll the dice and the numbers could be different on either side. Yes many can predict their life picture perfect but I must say there are certain actions that occur along the way that could cause and effect us to another event. One thing leads to another and sooner than later its a circle motion event where one thing is cased by one thing and then another thing and it keeps going back . (word count340).

For this blog I chose to write about Leonard stating “eyewitness testimony is worthless and memory can change the shape of a room..”. I agree with him because our minds can’t remember every single thing that we go through in great depth. For instance, I can relate to his saying how testimony can be worthless because its simple when you ask a person to explain something to you for the first time , by the second time you ask them majority of the time they will change their wording or even say something different. This happens all the time, we all do it and we dont realize it but after watching the film it had me thinking how we do it all the time. Yes its a bad thing as well because if your in a serious situation where your wording changes or you explain something different , it could effect your condition. Let’s take a jury trial as an example, it’s a serious situation where we have to be careful what we say and what we remember. Therefore, Leonard kept notes, especially when he wrote on the picture “kill him” to remind himself of who the person he’s hunting down.

According to Hume he says” identity is just a habit we have”. After seeing Leonards habits on how he takes notes and takes pictures of the people that come across him, Hume would see a difference from our conditions. For one, Hume says we can’t say “that was us in a picture” or “how would others know it was you” and I agree with this argument because Leonard does write notes behind his pictures he captures but as Hume stated how could we prove that everybody will know it was “you” . By Leonard doing this he is sticking to the idea or a (habit) of continuing this and not realizing when others see that same picture nobody would be able to prove that the guy on the picture did commit murder. (word count 332).

According to Hume he believes that self is an illusion or a fiction because self is collection of impressions that we make perceptions which we get from our thoughts. In other words he’s saying we don’t have direct impressions of our selves. In my understanding he says how could we know or how can others know we did something. In the reading he mentions many quotes that bring interest for example he says something about knowing ourselves that it has to be a constant idea and our impressions must be constant as well. But he does realize how we as humans will change our impressions and will be subject to change since we are getting more mature as we grow. I can relate to couple of things where in my past I learned how we can change and when i was a child i would enjoy speaking to my father and spending time with him. But now that I’m a women I don’t even talk to him, and perhaps I could say I don’t want to spend time with him. Or we could simply change by having activities from the past that we enjoyed but now we don’t do those activated because we’re not interested. Hume also mentioned ” If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is suppose to exist after that manner. But there is no impression contestant invariable(pg 326). Hume is trying to explain to us how having pain , joy or passion don’t exist all at once, he says his impressions don’t last forever, and for nobody else either. For instance, when we have a happy moment in life like a birthday party for your children, you don’t have the joy or the same joy you did before their birthday. Thats because when we are in the present of having joy you’re happy and after the birthday party is over you’re not as excited as you used to be when you were planning it for your children.

Therefore, with Humes arguments I am convinced on how we all change and we all grow up and someday get more mature and won’t enjoy doing the same things as we used to do, or simply be interested in things we used to do back in the day. Another thing that I thought was very interested about this reading was how Hume explained his main point, he said we need perceptions but also senses. He explains in the reading further on how without senses we would “stumble in life”. Humes says we need to hear, smell, touch and feel and without it we wouldn’t be alive. I agree with him but he did mention that when we’re dreaming or sleeping he doesn’t consider us having the knowledge that were asleep and can’t know something without our senses. (word count486 ).

In the reading, I definitely understood Descartes point of view explained how people can have the ability to doubt and how anything could be certain or not certain. Yet, Descartes explains in his youth he was believed in the false and how doubtful was everything. He knew he had to let go of the opinions he had and get “rid of his knowledge” because he wanted to form a new strong structure in science. Descarte says ” that is possibly why our reasoning is not unjust when we conclude from this that physics, astronomy, medicine and all other sciences which we have as their end of the consideration of composite things are very dubious and uncertain(pg 7). In other words, Descarte is stating how many people don’t doubt anything that issuing said or presented to them but how people can learn from the truth through senses. Later in the reading , Descarte says “at the same time I must remember that I am a man and that consequently I am in the habit of sleeping and in my dreams representing to myself the the same things or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their awakening moments”(pg 7). Here Descartes in my opinion says we all dream and we can all have dreams in our sleep but we don’t know what is real or the truth. For instance, who can say that our dreams or illusions we have in our sleep will occur. He also says “But in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment(pg 7). To me this quote is stating how once we sleep, we have illusions and dreams but when do we know that it is a dream? or an illusion? , I consider Descartes examples to be an amusement to the reader,he used the word “astonishment” and he states how he doesn’t know when we are dreaming, or having illusions.

Overall, In my opinion Descartes has proven how anything could be certain not certain very clearly. I agree with his idea on dreaming and how we can consider if it’s true or not. But I must share after dreaming who doesn’t wish we could go back and close our eyes once again and keep dreaming. And at times we can’t even remember exactly what we dreamt of , but we do remember at times small pieces of our dreams. (word count437).

In the text “What Is Art?” (excerpts) I agree with Leo Tolstoy’s definition, art is an expression of a feeling, experience in such a way that audience to whom art is directed can share the same feeling or experience. For instance, many artist and many of us have can disagree and agree with this definition. Yet, art can be seen in may ways. For example, Tolstoy’s art must have three components….

#30. And the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three conditions:

1. On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmitted;
2. On the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is transmitted;
3. On the sincerity of the artist, i.e., on the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself feels the emotion he transmits.

Example: http://www.returntonaturecolorado.com/home/cremation-services/

An example of art work consider to fit into Tolstoy’s category would be this image as presented. I don’t consider death as art, but I do consider this image to be art and it would fit into Tolstoy’s definition. For one at least everybody has lost somebody that meant the world to them. Individuality comes into play because not only you’ve been through this but you know the feeling of losing a loved one. And for the most part when somebody hasn’t experienced losing somebody meaningful they can’t relate to the feeling they don’t share individuality.

In this image clarity is present because as said before many of us can feel pain, sadness by simply remembering when you lost somebody. Therefore, I agree with Tolstoy how “art” can send a message and transmit the same feeling to others.

The third component that Tolstoy discussed was sincerity. I believe this is presented in this image by whether the artist being able to transmit his emotions to the the audience. For instance, many of us can agree on when you see this image if you have lost somebody in the past, you can relate yet, if you haven’t lost anybody meaningful to you then it makes things complicated to agree with Tolstoys definition of art. Therefore, artist and audience have to relate to the image that shares the same message. (Word Count 360).

According to Aristole poetry is defined as a mean of mimesis or imitation. He says as humans we are naturally interested in poetry. For instance, his writing focuses on tragedy , many of us are going through tragedy but it also helps us to arouse emotions of fear and pity. Aristole, defines fear as felt for ourselves fear of how we would feel in their position a sense of a fellow feeling or feeling with someone. Pity is defined as felt for someone who comes to grief without deserving it. Aristole says ” There are, again, some arts which employ all the means above mentioned- namely, rhythm, tune, and meter. Such are Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry, and also Tragedy and Comedy;”( part 1). He is stating how art can either harm us since it’s bringing up fear and pity. For instance, If a person doesn’t feel or isn’t going through an emotion, grief, or feeling depressed we can laugh at others since they don’t know what It feels like to be in their position. In addition , he divided tragedy into six parts. First one is having a plot , character, thought, dictation, melody snd spectacle. He states how having a plot should follow unity throughout the whole sequence. But the plot can still be enhanced by a use of reversal and recognition. Aristole discusses thought and diction , thought is usually longer more fantastic and deals with more action. and after reading his work, In my opinion the three words that are used in his writing are thought, diction, and plot.

Based of Aristoles work and readings I can relate to his message of artwork in poetry and how it imitates a message to a couple of us.For instance, nowadays when we see a homeless person staring or standing on the side of the street asking for help, either money or food, we drive pass them and we get a feeling of either ” I did something good today by giving them my spare change ” or ” he can go find a job”. We get into this thought because either we see other people in front of you giving them “money” and you follow their actions just to fit in. Or you drive off because the first two card in front of you drove off and didn’t give them anything. It’s all a matter of what we see being done and then as humans we make up our minds to do something. (word count 407).

In the film Existenz we get to see many things that you wouldn’t expect to watch, or how the film would relate to Plato before watching this film. At the beginning of the film i was very confused, yet once the second part of the film began I started noticing how the game Existenz was gettin intense and how it was looking for the reality in fact it was all reality. The game was so realistic that the players didn’t realize it was real. At some points, they were freaking out because they couldn’t figure out how to stop the game. At first, the film starts by introducing the main character and the creator of the game Existenz. But once they ask for volunteers to play the game together i realize how the scenery and art behind them is related to the last supper .This brought an idea of religion . As well, further we get into the film I realized how the main character known as Allegra Geller and the partner Ted Pikul get friendly with one another. Yet the film is continuing and I noticed how the deeper we get into the film the more disgusting and disturbing it gets. Plato in the reading Allegory of he Cave “Observe then, said I , that this part of such a soul ,if it had been hammered from childhood, and had thus been struck, free of the leaden weights, so to speak, of our birth and becoming, which attaching themselves to it by food and similar pleasures and gluttons turn downward and the vision of the soul”.(pg 751, reading sec 519). Plato discusses how the body is gross here and it fits into film. For instance, one scene is when they arrive at the gas station and the gas owner helps Pikul to get a port but the scenery is gross, the chair, the bulling looks old and not organized but yet both main characters still get the port for Pikul just because Allegra wanted to see if her pod was infective. And by watching the film and how the game trancendenz begins we notice how both characters start to lose trust with one another, art makes somebody look like the bad guy or either good guy. For example, in the film once Pikul points the gun to Allegra, he tried to get rid of her, but at that point in the film both were very confused either if they won the game, or either if they were in the real world. In addition since Pikul was playing more of similar character in Platos writing known as a socrates, he was more of the outside thinker. He didn’t know how to react too many things in the game.

However , Plato as said before ideas are real , in the allegory of the cave he uses the cave to show us how the prisoners were away from the truth and everybody had different opinions, and viewpoints about living in the cave. Art is further away from reality. Which brings us back to the film Existenz and Plato have a circle where both events occur and show us how there are different viewpoints. First we have Platos cave where the prisoners can’t get out and they are stuck there which they’ve never seen the sun before, that’s because they are scared to leave the cave. They don’t know reality. The second phase in that circle between the film and Plato is we have a crowd a classroom where we think we know what is real and what is art. Yet not everybody does. Then we have the film Existenz where we think that characters are not real they don’t know what is real or wrong. But as said before once they start to play to game they move in toward trancendenz and that’s where as an audience we get to see how behavior can change. Therefore the further we get into the circle Plato would say the deeper we get into the cave. Overall, the realists and game players were trying to show us how it’s compared to the Allegory of the cave because it was a metaphor by showing us how realists were trying to show us to see the truth and stop playing the game.

In this reading we analyzed how Plato has his way of thinking.

Difference between “beds in the world ” and “idea of a bed”: Plato says since everything is changing nothing can stay the same which is an example of “beds in the world” . In other words, the physical objects can’t be real. Plato says the” idea of a bed” we can think of it as something that we will be needing. For instance a bed, desk, or chair.

Where does art deceive us? : According to Plato he states how art can cause us to believe something that isn’t true. For instance , he uses a clear example of how an artist paints a picture of a carpenter and then the artist presents the image to any other person. Right away the person beliefs that whatever is drawn in that painting is the correct meaning of a carpenter. This clearly tells us how people can be imitated to belief something that isn’t true. In other words, Plato says art is fiction. Another example, that I thought about while reading plato’s work was how nowadays many of us go see a film, and we believe everything that’s presented us. Many of us think its easy and pretty what we see in the movies or media, which isn’t correct at all times. Yet, many of us say it’s true off what is presented to us. Therefore, I agree with Platos work that he presented. Reasons I agree with him, he says that art deceives us. It’s very true many of us think that art can be something positive and always true. Even today all of us commit that mistake of thinking art is all pretty. But let’s take in consideration how art can fool us. Perfect example that I thought was who our president really is and what’s he accomplished. Many of us at first believed in him but he wasn’t the man who he said he was before he was President. Our president fooled us with his proposals . Yet until this day he hasn’t presented or done anything positive that would “Make America Great Again”. Therefore, I agree with Platos words of wisdom and realize how he says many things that we as a society believe is the Truth.

In this reading Clifford goes back and fourth to believing in what’s wrong and what is right. It seems like he can’t make up his mind. Let’s get into this standard argument that I got from his writing..

1. People believing in revising their issue or situation to where they are correct and only they know the truth in their heads.
2. They believe in this and feel comfortable and satisfied with what they consider the “truth”.

Conclusion: Therefore, we should think about our thoughts and actions before we do something that can bring consequences, and not have to revise our words so we feel satisfied about the consequences.

From reading Cliffords work he really has a hard time deciding whether a belief is wrong or its right. According to Clifford his thesis is “Its wrong always, everywhere and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” The standard argument, I agree is valid because all the premises are valid. I agree with these because to me it means they are sound and valid since we don’t have enough evidence to belief in whats wrong and right. For example he says” When I believe things because I want to believe them and because they are comforting and pleasant (pg 6). This tells us how in general society wants to hear what they want. We don’t want to know the truth but we must because as Clifford says without evidence we can’t make a judgement. We cannot continue and think It’s okay to judge without having both sides of a story.

Although Clifford has a very challenging way of writing, from reading this I understood how he believes without enough evidence its wrong to believe something or somebody. This is very clear but there are many cases where you don’t need much evidence to believe something. For example, if you know somebody for along time and you know how they are and their thoughts , you don’t need much evidence to believe in them. Yet, I know you could have different situations so Im not fully agreeing just with one side of the story. But there could always be that one where Cliffords thesis doesn’t apply too. (word count 364).