Create user profiles
Continue to gather data about each user until there are rich profiles for them and the website can tailor their visiting experience specifically to them. They should be able to get on the website and immediately be able to see the most relevant content to them.
"Unimpaired beholders"
Those that are deemed "unimpaired" either through a process of expert review (us) or by way of peer review (likes from other users) will receive special treatment. These reviewers' comments will show up at the top of comment streams and can receive some type of differentiation (a stamp, different color, etc.).
Concept creators
Those that enjoy writing about the theories and applications rather than actually reviewing websites will be provided the opportunity. We can divide up the website into three different types of text; philosophical material, an analysis of how to apply the doctrine, and website review. These concept creators will be able to write extensively about the possible applications of philosophical ideas.
Gamification
In an effort to keep users engaged, the website can employ the idea of gamification. It is a way to get users to continue to return to the website and to provide more information. as part of the user profiles, they can collect achievements and earn points for certain tasks. There can be some type of philosophy boot camp that users can go through and earn more points and get certified. As users contribute worthwhile comments and reviews they can earn more points.
February 7, 2015
February 6, 2015
Critique of Webphil: Moderns
I think if we are really going to make this blog or website legit, we need to have a way to complete our assignments behind the scenes and then only publish/publicize/publicare(latin) that which is meant to go to the public(English). That which is sharable or share-worthy.
For example, if someone was to read the posts from our last class, they were all very good on their own and shared unique insights and where exactly what we were supposed to do, but if someone who didn't understand the format of our class was to stumble upon the blog and read them all together, they might find them a little redundant.
Maybe it's time to create a site or use the WordPress Isaac already created to make WebPhil into what moderns would classify as secondary qualities; something beautiful, good, and useful. Something we could share with our friends, that the masses would understand, and that would look professional.
Unless, we are going for the idea talked about in class that "the struggle to interpret is what makes something beautiful." Because if that's the case, .daetsni taht od tsuj s'tel
For example, if someone was to read the posts from our last class, they were all very good on their own and shared unique insights and where exactly what we were supposed to do, but if someone who didn't understand the format of our class was to stumble upon the blog and read them all together, they might find them a little redundant.
- Lisa: "Kant talked about primary and secondary qualities."
- Topher: "The modern view is that there are two types of qualities; primary and secondary."
- Issac: "The terms primary and secondary qualities came into being when speaking about something or some idea."
Maybe it's time to create a site or use the WordPress Isaac already created to make WebPhil into what moderns would classify as secondary qualities; something beautiful, good, and useful. Something we could share with our friends, that the masses would understand, and that would look professional.
Unless, we are going for the idea talked about in class that "the struggle to interpret is what makes something beautiful." Because if that's the case, .daetsni taht od tsuj s'tel
The MODERNS
Kant
Kant talked about primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities were non-aesthetic qualities such as goodness and usefulness that could be accepted by most everyone as being a part of the thing. Secondary or aesthetic qualities were those that humans created. They were the values placed on things. An example is whether or not something is beautiful.
Social Websites
Primary qualities of social websites would be things commonly agreed upon like whether the site is useful or good. The secondary qualities are more about whether users think it is designed well.
I really like what Kant had to say about aesthetic values not being in the things themselves, but that most people agree about them, and therefore people put the value in the things. On social websites, the websites themselves aren't valuable until people actually start using them. They start interacting, creating, critiquing, and then the site gains value. I think this is important to remember when creating a social website. If the people put the value in the thing, then the things main focus should be the people, and helping them in their use of the site.
February 5, 2015
Moderns and New Media
Contrast with the ancient world
Modern philosophers pushed against the status quo of the ancient worldview that there were standards embedded in the Platonic heavens or in things themselves. It was believed that all things sought to become more like and moved toward their potentialities of the ideal thing that was somehow defined in nature. The modern philosophers, however, abandoned this view and focused on the divide between what exists and what we bring to the world.
Primary and secondary qualities
The modern view is that there are two types of qualities; primary and secondary. Primary qualities are those that actually are part of the thing itself and secondary are those we bring to it. Because our senses are part of us and not the thing itself, colors, feeling, beauty, goodness, and usefulness are all secondary qualities that we bring. It was also believed that people are generally the same and will place the same value on things.
Hume vs. Kant
Hume taught that value is subjective but is only determined by a select group; those with unimpaired discernment and taste. In other words, beauty is in the eye of the unimpaired beholder. Kant believed differently. He taught that non-aesthetic values are standards to be accepted by everyone and that aesthetic values are judgments to be made by every individual for him or herself. In other words, beauty is in the eye of those who enjoy coming up with concepts.
Social websites in the light of modern philosophy
These concepts can be applied to our new media in a variety of ways:
- Provide all visitors to a website to cast their own lens on the website. They may be able to set preferences as to things they would like to see or an emphasis on certain topics. This may be as broad as choosing whether they would like to critique or be critiqued or as narrow as focusing only on Plato or some other philosopher. It may be worthwhile to build rich user profiles in order to provide the most relevant content.
- There should be a certain distinction for those that are qualified as an "unimpaired beholder." These people can be given special attention and receive a stamp of approval on their comments or edits.
- Those that enjoy coming up with concepts can be given opportunities to build out an analysis of how to apply the philosophies to new media.
- Finally, the website should help people to move along on their path toward becoming master critics. There is a new trend of "gamification" in many aspects of business and recreation. Because of shorter attention spans and the fatigue users experience when going through long projects or articles, producer of content seek to gamify the experience, maintaining the viewer more engaged. The website could have profiles for each visitor that increase in influence/points when the user does certain tasks.
Hume, Kant, and Social Media
Hume and Kant were two
Enlightenment philosophers that were extremely influential in shaping the
debate between empiricism and rationalism, which is, frankly, one of the
biggest debates in philosophy. Hume was a Scottish philosopher who lived three hundred
years after Descartes, and he argued that that reason was subject to desire.
Reason wasn't the master. Hume is famous for his skepticism, as he stated, like
Locke, that we can only have knowledge based on experience. Instead of thinking
knowledge is what you can't doubt, Hume said knowledge is what you experience. But since, for example, we never experience more than one event following
another, we never experience one event actually causing another, and so we
can't have any knowledge of causation. And he said that when we think of
ourselves, we only conceive of a bundle of sensations, nothing more. We
never experience ourselves per se. So we really can't assume know anything
about ourselves.
Kant read Hume and responded to almost all of his critiques. He credited Hume with waking him from his “dogmatic slumber” and attempted to resolve the opposing forces of rationalism and empiricism. And many think he was successful. In his revolutionary Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argued that our experiences are structured by features of our minds. That is, we can't experience the world without providing rational concepts to shape our perceptions.
With respect to the topic of aesthetics: Hume published his most famous work on the subject, “On the Standard of Taste,” in 1757. And in it he wrote thus: “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."
Beauty cannot be objective because if it were, then a world without perceivers could be beautiful or ugly, or that beauty can be detected through scientific instruments, like weight and speed and the like. And what keeps the perception of beauty from being entirely subjective is good and bad taste. And that’s where the word “tasteless” originates – from this idea that something subjective can be attached to a standard of a certain type of person, one with taste. Those with good taste should be praised and looked up to, and their opinions about what they like and dislike should count more than those without taste. Hume stated that “strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty” (“Of the Standard of Taste” 1757, 144). Beauty is in the eye of the healthy, experienced beholder, the one with good taste. If the healthy, experienced beholder likes a work of art, then it is by definition beautiful.
In a similar fashion to Hume, Kant stated that beauty depends on the eye of the beholder. It depends on enjoying the object. But he differed from Hume in that he believed it is the judging of an object that provides the experience of pleasure, not the object itself. Kant distinguishes between two main types of judgments, reflective and determinative ones. In technical terms, a determinative judgment is one where we subsume given particulars under universals that are already known. (For example, since you have in your mind the concept of a table, you are able to place a thing with a wooden top and four legs into that concept when you see it, and thus mark it as a table.) Reflective judgments, on the other hand, occur when we have a given particular and attempt to infer a universal from it. These are harder to make. They require that a category be created to classify an object. Much of philosophy, as it turns out, is just creating categories or concepts for things. Now, a judgment of the beautiful, for Kant, is a judgment that invites the viewer into a reflective state of mind.
Kant read Hume and responded to almost all of his critiques. He credited Hume with waking him from his “dogmatic slumber” and attempted to resolve the opposing forces of rationalism and empiricism. And many think he was successful. In his revolutionary Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argued that our experiences are structured by features of our minds. That is, we can't experience the world without providing rational concepts to shape our perceptions.
With respect to the topic of aesthetics: Hume published his most famous work on the subject, “On the Standard of Taste,” in 1757. And in it he wrote thus: “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."
Beauty cannot be objective because if it were, then a world without perceivers could be beautiful or ugly, or that beauty can be detected through scientific instruments, like weight and speed and the like. And what keeps the perception of beauty from being entirely subjective is good and bad taste. And that’s where the word “tasteless” originates – from this idea that something subjective can be attached to a standard of a certain type of person, one with taste. Those with good taste should be praised and looked up to, and their opinions about what they like and dislike should count more than those without taste. Hume stated that “strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty” (“Of the Standard of Taste” 1757, 144). Beauty is in the eye of the healthy, experienced beholder, the one with good taste. If the healthy, experienced beholder likes a work of art, then it is by definition beautiful.
In a similar fashion to Hume, Kant stated that beauty depends on the eye of the beholder. It depends on enjoying the object. But he differed from Hume in that he believed it is the judging of an object that provides the experience of pleasure, not the object itself. Kant distinguishes between two main types of judgments, reflective and determinative ones. In technical terms, a determinative judgment is one where we subsume given particulars under universals that are already known. (For example, since you have in your mind the concept of a table, you are able to place a thing with a wooden top and four legs into that concept when you see it, and thus mark it as a table.) Reflective judgments, on the other hand, occur when we have a given particular and attempt to infer a universal from it. These are harder to make. They require that a category be created to classify an object. Much of philosophy, as it turns out, is just creating categories or concepts for things. Now, a judgment of the beautiful, for Kant, is a judgment that invites the viewer into a reflective state of mind.
For
the viewer, the joy in interpreting a work of art is what makes it beautiful.
This is the key. Kant states that art should cause viewers to come up with
their own interpretation or way of thinking about it. The struggle to describe
a work of art is what we enjoy about it. This is a step above Hume's definition
of beauty, as the critic must not just be a person of taste, but must enjoy
interpreting the work of art for it to be considered beautiful. This is the
aesthetic experience. Kant called it “the free play of the imagination.”
Turning now to social media: Hume would say that content on a social media site should be evaluated and analyzed by intelligent critics with good taste. Their consensus on a particular site should constitute what the operator of that site should change in order to create a work of beauty. Perhaps the idea of beauty in a website is questionable to some. Certainly, it takes less work to design a blog than to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. However, the basic concept is the same: beauty is in the eye of the healthy, experienced beholder, and if this beholder likes something, then it is a work of art, and therefore, beautiful. Art is not beautiful because of what it is, but because of what people think of it.
To take this a step further, we will consider what Kant might say about social media. A website should inspire its viewer. Perhaps it might even make them uncomfortable as they confront judgments of "the beautiful and sublime," as they grapple with their current paradigms and feel the need to understand what they are viewing. If this is artfully and tastefully done, a website will leave a lasting impression on its visitors and thus, hopefully, create success for itself.
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