Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vG67C17uAjBNRuF4sZI5bXILh7LrZNXM19dc-MfAhAc/edit?usp=sharing

	~ March ~
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6 Review timeline	7
8	9 Kierkegaard + Nietzsche on our own sites	10	11 Pragmatists overview	12	13 Pragmatists 1st drafts	14
15	16 Pragmatists on WebPhil	17	18 Pragmatists 2nd drafts (Dallin) Work on pages	19	20 Pragmatists on our own websites	21
22	23 Analyze each philosopher page, agree on standards	24	25 Report cards - rough drafts	26	27 Critique each other’s company pages	28
29	30 WEBSITE READY Craft invitation and submit with website to companies	31	Notes:

	~ April ~
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1 Charles visit	2	3 Work on philosopher video filming	4
5	6 Work on philosopher video filming	7	8 present draft presentation script	9	10 present draft presentation script	11
12	13 - practice presentation Companies should have RSVP’d	14	15 - practice presentation	16	17 No school!!!	18
19	20 Presentations	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	Put a someone in charge of each video (philosopher video, WebPhil video, our class video)

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche on BYU Humanities

Kierkegaard preached loving condescension: getting down on someone's level in order to lift them up. He discussed authenticity and the fight against despair and resignation. Finally, he outlined three different levels of being: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. With that in mind, let us see how these principles can be applied to the BYU Humanities website.

To my mind, "loving condescension" in a website translates to a welcoming and robust interface. A Kierkegaardian website should introduce its purpose and content in a way that is easy to understand, even if its visitor has no prior knowledge of its subject. The BYU Humanities website does not do so. It fails to include an obvious mission statement or text box that outlines the goals of the website, or even "humanities" in general. Perhaps, one might argue, it would be insulting to the intelligence of most visitors to define "humanities." I doubt that. Most people would appreciate the gesture, even if they might not consider it necessary. Erring on the side of caution is essential for a website to be accessible to everyone. This idea of accessibility relates back to Plato and Aristotle, as a matter of fact.

Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, championed the powerful individual, or the Übermensch. He emphasized the will to create values and the will to power. He believed that those who create should do so with respect for their audience, as if their audience were creators themselves. To inspire, to exemplify, to strive to break free of moral and societal restraints, these are Nietzschean values. Can they be applied to the BYU Humanities website? Perhaps, in a (grossly) simplified way, they can.

To be quite honest, Nietzsche is not a philosopher who can be simplified coherently. It is difficult to quantify the degree to which a website was created with the idea of the will to power in mind, for example. Perhaps, then, a website which defies the norm, whose creator took pride in his work and could be critiqued as such, could be considered Nietzschean. I honestly don't know. I hesitate to apply the term here. Regardless, let's look at the BYU Humanities website anyway. It has what you might call a "slick" interface, and clearly attempts to follow the minimalist and modern schools of thought. From a technical design standpoint, however, there is room for improvement. Margins could be matched up, dividing lines could be thinned, and fonts could be changed to agree with each other. For example, mixing serif and sans serif fonts in content boxes is a major no-no, and one which I am frankly surprised to see. The website as a whole is on the right track, but definitely needs work to be considered a website which other creators could draw inspiration from.

Kierkegaard and Nietzche on LDS.NET

(I just looked at the "Buzz" tab for this critique)

Kierkegaard:


Principles:

• Kierkegaard believed that people should be congruent with their moral beliefs. 
• Kierkegaard taught about how to teach people to be authentic to their moral beliefs. When teaching someone about the obligation they have to their moral beliefs, you cannot just preach to them, you need to help them move into a more vibrant relation to his or her own convictions. You need to get down to their level and create action. 

• Kierkegaard believed the ideal of objectivity held by scientific researchers subtracted self-concern which was the taproot of our best selves. 

Applications:

•  A social website should be authentic.  Your users should trust you to live up to the image you present (and hopefully your image is a good one). 
• The buzz page definitely lives up to the image of the website, in that it provides interesting content for LDS members.  I found myself clicking on videos as soon as I pulled it up.

• A social website should drop to their level and help people move. A social website should help people move from believing in something (having values) to taking action.  For instance, Facebook helps people not only believe that connecting with old friends is a good thing, but actually do it. 
•  This page helps people to act consistent with their values by allowing them explore current events within the Mormon community, and even has a link to LDS share which lets people share the Gospel online.  
• 
  
• People should be able to look out for their interests.  A social website should allow for each individual to truly dive in and feel that they are able to keep their own self-interest in mind while using it.  
• By making the Buzz page so diverse, it allows people with all sorts of interests to find a purpose there.  However, the tabs that are listed in the drop down menu are again listed at the top in a semi-chaotic fashion and in a different order from the drop down menu.  This isn't very friendly to users.  It makes it less fun to try to sort through them and select the option you are most interested in. 

Nietzche:

Principles:

• When you create something, you should create it with the belief that the viewer/listener is a creator themselves. 

Applications:

• When designing a social website, make it for users as if they are website designers themselves. (If you are writing, write as if your readers are writers, if you are dancing, dance as if your audience are dancers themselves.  Basically just assume your consumers will be critical and intelligent about the subject themselves.)
• I am no web designer, but if the web designers built this as if the users would be web designers, I do not feel they did a very good job.  I feel that they made quite a few mistakes and bad design choices that even an untrained eye can see. 
  

Modern Period

The ancient world view was that there are standards for things, ideals about the way that things should be. The debate was over whether these ideals existed in the heavens or whether they were embedded in things themselves. The modern world abandoned this view. They recognized that ideals or standards for objects were things that we imposed on them. Modern thinkers saw a divide between what exists in the world on its own and what we bring into existence with our minds via perceptions. The necessary properties that an object has are its primary qualities. These include things like taking up space and being in time. The accidental properties that an object has are its secondary qualities. Secondary qualities include sensations like color, hardness, odor, as well as values such as beauty, goodness, usefulness. Two of the most significant modern thinkers were David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

Hume

1. David Hume
   Historian
   Born: May 7, 1711, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
   Died: August 25, 1776, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
   Education: University of Edinburgh
   


Teachings

Value, he determined, must be subjective in some sense, rather than objective. He thought value was inter-subjectively determined. This means that each person on his or her own arrives to a consensus about what should be valued. That value judgement is made by answering a simple question: do I like this? But not just anybody determines what that consensus is. Hume says that we must trust those who are unimpaired, who have discernment, and who have taste to ultimately determine what is valuable. For Hume an unimpaired person is one who lacks disability such as blindness or deafness, a discerning person is one who makes well informed kinds of decisions and a tasteful person has an appreciation for things that have long been appreciated.



Applications

For Hume a good website is one that people with taste like.

• Unified by being liked -- we can quickly see that the masses like the content; professionals (those who like what has traditionally been liked over time) like the content; and peers (those who like what we have liked) like the content 
• Accessible by sensibility -- we participate by consuming and liking the content because of how it affects us or how other similar things that have stood the test of time have affected us 
• Ongoing by tradition -- we hope to like what will endure into the future 

Kant

Immanuel Kant
Philosopher
Born: April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Germany
Died: February 12, 1804, Königsberg, Germany
Education: University of Königsberg (1740–1746)



Teachings

Kant said that it was Hume who awoke him from his dogmatic slumbers, meaning that instead of just accepting principles he wanted to figure out the reasons for them.

Kant saw that there were limitations in empiricist thinking. He sought to determine what it is we need in order to even have experience at all. He thought that there are concepts that we bring to experience that are pre-built into us. These are concepts we all share, like space and time. Just try to imagine having an experience that occurs without location or duration. There are other concepts that we formulate ourselves, and we enjoy doing so, which Kant calls the free play of the imagination. To Kant, more important than just whether we like something or not is if we enjoy the process of thinking about and assessing things.


Applications

For Kant a good website is one that people like because of their authentic, reflective judgement. 

• Unified by being being articulately reviewed -- we can see that articulate, authentic reviewers all like praising it 
• Accessible by sense -- we can participate by formulating fitting concepts to describe the best content 
• Ongoing reviews -- we can continue to articulately review the best content 

Descending Alone Before Ascending Together

Soren Kierkegaard gave a parable about a King who wanted to win the love of a peasant girl, or a Maiden from the video above. In order to do this, he had to first dethrone himself and descend to her level. Only in this way could he know that her love for him was for him and not for his status as King.

There is similar sort of matching when it comes to using social media. You must speak to the level of your audience. Marketers know this, and they do it well. There is a science of statistics to knowing what what people want and what works and what doesn't work in terms of the medium you use to get it to them.

The sad thing about our society though is that what people want is often not what they need. And, what they need is not what they want. In order to elevate the culture, first one must do as the King and descend to its level. But, where you start is not where you end.

The culture will drag down weak souls and so you must do as Nietzsche would say and overcome the herd mentality of the masses. You must be strong to do this and not merely pander to their needs.

BYU, where I attend school, has a TV station who has a two fold purpose for their television programs:

1. To Entertain
2. To Educate

It is helpful to look at the two as inversely related. The more entertaining, the less educating it is; and the more educating it is, the less entertaining it is. The best is to do both, but there is a delicate balance and that's why it is key to know your audience.

You have to find out where they are at on the continuum or merely wanting to be entertained to wanting to be inspired, enlightened, or invigorated to act and change.

The parable of the King and the Maiden relates back to Jesus Christ and how he became a man, a mortal, to descend in order that we might ascend and that we might be like him. And, that our love for him will be as his love for us already is and always was. Just like the King.