Moderns: Qualtrics.com

Unique Experience

When repeat users visit Qualtrics, they have the opportunity to choose what kind of information they see. This allows them, to some extent, to place their own lens on the website.

However, this is quite limited and could go a little further. Because Qualtrics users have accounts, when they log in they should be able to view a personalized version of the website. Their accounts gather information on them (specifically what type of information they collect) and the website could reflect this, showing them what is most relevant first.

Lds.org does this to some extent with the users' ability to highlight and make notes on certain documents. Qualtrics should do this but I recommend a step further by displaying relevant material first.

Unimpaired Beholders

Qualtrics employees that have unique insight into the world of research have the opportunity to write blog posts that go on the website to educate researchers that visit the website. They provide a more unimpaired view than the majority of people involved in research because they see so many more applications and uses of research products.

However, it might be nice to provide an opportunity for people outside of Qualtrics to write blog posts that appear on Qualtrics' website. This may be a difficult decision, however, because if the writer is good, they could probably get much more attention and interaction by posting via other mediums (such as LinkedIn, research websites, etc.). If the writer is not good, they would be more willing to post on the Qualtrics website but in that case we don't want them. Qualtrics would need to provide some incentive for writers to post quality material. This leads to the last point...

Gamification

The trend of gamification is often blown out of proportion as it is often more important for firms to integrate it than to actually do it right. However, in the path of helping people to become master critics it can be a valuable tool. Because users already have profiles, their information and progress can be easily monitored. Qualtrics.com can include trainings for them that they earn "badges" (or points, titles, etc.) upon successfully completing. Another way for these users to earn badges is to write quality content - these can be customer reviews, helpful answers to FAQ's, insightful information on the research process. This could be a way for Qualtrics users to interact with each other and collaborate on ideas. It would be awesome if it could help Qualtrics build a stronger community and become a one-stop shop for all research concerns and questions.

Lds.net and The Moderns

Critique:
 
Because I wanted to focus on Hume with my critique of lds.net, I decided to dive in and pretend to be a user (since for him beauty is in the eye of the beholder), and see what beauty I could find in the site and its services.  I went through the site again, and explored some of their pages and articles.  They have a lot of interesting material, and I found myself reading multiple articles without intending to.  A large reason I read those articles was because they were right there on the top of the front page, with gripping titles.  I did find myself wondering which tabs to select--the ones on the top or the ones on the side, since I could tell that some of them were the same but not all.  So that was confusing and definitely not a design that I could appreciate or find value in as a user.  I also found the order of the drop down menus somewhat illogical.  I wonder if there is a way for the site creators to track which tabs are clicked on most and have those be at the top of the drop down menus. 

Action plan: 

 

Organize tabs better so as to not confuse the user, and allow for them to access the beautiful pages and services of the site. 

Moderns and lds.org

Moderns 2nd Draft

 Who are the "Moderns"

The ancient worldview was that the meaning or beauty of a thing was in the thing itself. The modern philosophers, however, abandoned this view and said that beauty or meaning was not in the thing itself, but in the eyes of the beholder.

Hume
 
Values of things should be decided by not just anybody: those unimpaired, with discernment, and with taste.

Kant
 
Non-aesthetic values should be agreed upon by everyone.  Aesthetic values should be created by those that enjoy creating them. The struggle to enjoy a work of art is what we enjoy about it.

Hume, Kant and Social Websites 
 
Hume's view of beauty might come in to play when the website is being created.  Experts including graphic designers, programmers and user experience designers should be the people that first judge how a site should be created and designed.
Kant's view of beauty would come into play more once the website has been designed.  This is when users can interact and find value and beauty in the site themselves.  Because the whole purpose of the social website was for users to use it and value it,  this is when the site achieves the most important form of beauty.  Because of this, even as the experts are designing it and trying to make it beautiful in their eyes, they should keep in mind the next step for the sites beautification: the users engaging on it.

What would these folks have to say about your Social Website? - The Moderns

There was a class of intellectuals from about 1500 -1800AD that people who like to philosophize and sound smart call “the moderns.” Which, maybe isn’t the smartest name because it was only modern to them then… But regardless of the name, they do actually have some good suggestions on our more modern world today in regards to social media and what makes a good social website.

 Check out below to find out what they have to say:

Adjusting the Blog

Hume: Value/Beauty not in thing itself, but created by beholder.

Kant: People enjoy creating values and understanding all of it.

For now, the "beholders" of our blog are just us, so I think it is important we feel comfortable using it and see value in it.  A good thing about the blog is that we all have been able to be creative and figure out our different preferred ways of expressing our ideas whether it be videos, pictures, etc.  I think the way it can be improved, or the thing that I as the beholder do not value, is how long the posts are usually.  I want to read all of the material, but I find myself just skimming it most of the time.  So I think it would be really good if we wrote 3-4 sentence summaries if our posts are long.  This would allow someone who is just scrolling through to be able to get the general idea. 

Hume, Kant, and WebPhil

To be perfectly honest, I doubt that anyone of intelligence and experience who views WebPhil in its current state would consider it to be beautiful. Our posts, while sharing a common theme, repeat many of the same ideas and thus would serve only to overwhelm and confuse visitors. WebPhil does not have Plato's organic unity. We should only publish what we want the public to see. On the Facebook page of PHIL 214, for example, I have only included the most exemplary posts on the main timeline, which is what the public will see when they visit the page. Something similar should be done for our site, or perhaps we should even create a new site which we will then strive to attract visitors to. Yes, I know that Kant said that the process of interpreting something should cause one to feel the sublime and struggle with their deeply held beliefs, but that doesn't mean we should confuse everyone who visits our site. Let's figure out how to make this site beautiful; how to make it worth looking at and admiring.

WebPhil in light of modern philosophy

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.

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.

• 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."

To all summarize the same material in our own unique ways is the point of the first and second drafts, but the public might not want to see all these. These are good on their own, but messy and disorganized when together.

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

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.

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.