Time as Being (Paper)

The idea that you can have no such thing as moments in time is not possible in a human world. In Heraclitus' work he presents an understanding of time in which you have four basic premises: 1) That ‘X equals X’ at T1, meaning that X exists at a moment in time, hence being. 2) That time is infinitely divisible. 3) That because time is infinitely divisible you can have no ‘moments in time’ because for everything that you label a moment you will be able to further divide that moment. 4) That because you cannot have any moments in time at no time can ‘X equal X’ which results in a world not of being but in a world of becoming. While this is logically correct in the sense that all the premises accurately reflect a logical conclusion we are concerned with presenting the accuracy of these premises in the first. Heraclitus uses the metaphor of a river to explain his ideas about the constant flux of the world and the constant change that takes place. Plato notes that according to Heraclitus, it is impossible to step into the same river twice. By this he means that the river is constantly changing and that the person entering the river would never be able to step into the same water twice, for this water would have been removed down river and replaced by new water. In order for this to be possible he stands in support of an ever changing world with no definable moments in time. This ever-changing phenomenon is not without faults, among them assumptions that time takes place regardless of humans and disregarding the fact that time and its divisibility is contingent upon the constructs usefulness to humans.  

            In order for this ever-changing world to be rational it must be exhibited by physical matter held in a vacuum otherwise this pretense does not hold up well in the physical world. We shall start with the first premise. ‘X equals X’. This premise may come across as straightforward but must be explained here for it has implications on the rest of the argument. The statement of ‘X equals X’ is a statement of Being while ‘X does not equal X’ stands to mean that the item is nonexistent. Unlike statements of Becoming, Being implies that at a specified time, T1, a physical item actually existed whether in a physical or metaphysical form. This is juxtaposed to a statement such as Heraclitus' that we live in an ever-changing world. His world view is a clear statement in favor of  Becoming in which we take a relative existence dependent upon what is exerting power upon us and the setting that we find ourselves in. According to Heraclitus, at all times then we are simply Becoming with no moment of Being. Quite backward I think.

The second premise of the argument is that time is infinitely divisible. The idea of having time being infinitely divisible is not useful to humans. Because, as will be displayed below, time is relative and dependent upon humans for existence, time is simply a creation that we utilize because it is convenient and advantageous for us to do so. The idea that you can have no moments in time is not possible in a human world. If, as has been presented, time is infinitely divisible then it would be true that you can have no moments in time. However, in order for items and objects to interact with each other there must be a specified time, relative to the participants, at which two things come into contact. Therefore time must not be infinitely divisible, for time is relative to the object taking part in an action and is therefore a mere imposition of an abstract, unrealistic idea upon physical items. Therefore we must consider time as an abstract idea and decide if it is: Dependent or Independent, Relative or not. Let us first begin by examining the relativity of time.

            It is my understanding that time is relative to the participants in a given situation and that time is imposed upon items through their relation to those who witness the event. In the cases of black holes we, who are not entering a black hole but observing from outside its range are of the opinion that anything that enters a black hole becomes stationary when it crosses the line into the black holes area of power. This line is termed the event horizon. While to observers on the outside of a black hole the object that enters merely becomes stationary to our eyes, the person that enters a black hole sees themselves clearly continuing to move toward the center of the black hole. In this example time is made relative in an event by those who participate in it. Another example of usefulness is that of a car crash. In this event a person in a car that participates in the crash can see a dramatic difference in their perception of time as it is slowed down. To an observer that stands on the roadway and witnesses this event, time continues to move along at their own regular pace. The time that both participants witness is relative to them. 

            In addition those who are viewing it, humans impose the idea of time and change on the event. By this I mean that in the absence of humans, time does not exist but is merely a system of thought that we impose upon the world around us, in a practical manner, in order to interpret events that we are a part of or events that we perceive to happen. In this example we may take a tree that is in a forest. There are no witnesses to the event when the tree falls. Later a person comes walking by and witnesses a tree lying on the ground. By witnessing the tree lying on the ground we have inadvertently imposed our idea of time on a scene in order to reconstruct what has happened. Through this imposition we have come to the conclusion that the tree has fallen in a time that is relative to us (i.e. last week, an hour ago, etc.). Because we have imposed time, as a system of thought, upon our surroundings we have imposed an abstract, relative idea on an event.

            In collusion with relativity goes dependence. Time, in order to exist, is dependent on people. Because of this time is something that is created, by humans, in order to give shape and meaning to the world around us. In the absence of humans, time does not exist. As previously stated, time is imposed by humans on a situation either while it is happening or after it has happened, and occasionally both. We require time’s dependence upon ourselves in order to construct a world in which to live with relative ease and it is for this reason that moments in time exist. This usefulness of time, in planning events, remembering actions, and keeping schedules is the reason for its existence, not some ethereal notion. Time is because we say it is. Because we create time it is of the utmost usefulness to ourselves that we also enable us to note moments in time. These moments are also relative to those viewing them. A scientist may measure things in nanoseconds for his work but an hourly worker will measure theirs in minutes. Moments, as part of a time that we create, are created for their usefulness to us.  

            Heraclitus' argument against this could possibly come in the form of a rejection of events taking place outside of time. In order for events to take place in Heraclitus' world, time would not be relative nor a human creation. Time itself would take place outside of human interaction and would be what spurs the objects in the world to change. He would also argue that, because time is ever-changing at no ‘moment’ could the idea form in the minds of men that time were a creation of men. In addition to these objections he might also suppose that the senses we use to witness time are simply misleading being as they are of the body and not of the mind. He might also suggest that the idea of time taking place and being ever-changing is only possible to view from outside the body. He would argue that even though there are no humans to witness a river flowing it will continue to flow regardless.

            Logically, none of the rejections is plausible. First let us take the idea that time would take place outside of human notice. This is refuted by the idea previously stated, that time is imposed upon events, upon their being noticed by a human. The human would back-date, so to speak, the time essentially placing the events into their creation of time. Time must be recognized to exist and as the only creature with the agency to recognize this theoretical concept we implement it in a way that works best for us.

            On the second point raised we have already presented the idea of a time creation that is useful to us and therefore divisible to whatever such a point that the individual desires. Say at T2 a person decided to recognize time as a measurement that would be expedient for them and so decided to utilize it.

            On the third point the idea that the only way to view time accurately is to be in a separate dimension so to speak is not a rational statement. The only way for a human to recognize what is is through their own senses. Their own interpretation of time is what creates time in the first place. Also would time be taking place even while we struggled to understand the concept of time while in the body?

            In  summation, the idea that time is an ever flowing river that continuously changes is not a suitable idea for several reasons.  Because time is a human creation we are able to impose our own ideas of time in a fashion relative to our need for its usefulness.

Bibliography

Raven, J.E. , and G.S. Kirk. The Presocratic Philosophers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Print.

Also used: Assorted notes provided on draft #1 by Professor Ali Elamin, University of South Florida, Philosophy Dept. 10/25/2011                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

A Discussion of Papal Authority in the High Middle Ages (Paper)

A Discussion of Papal Authority in the High Middle Ages

The following paper will discuss papal authority as viewed by Ivo of Chartres and will include a discussion on the Concordat of Worms as read in: Miller, Maureen C..Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 

Power in Europe in the 11^th and 12^th Centuries was split between the nobility and the church in a murky power arrangement that neither side clearly understood. In the latter half of the 11^th century the Bishops of Rome began to accumulate more direct power over the various sees in Western Europe placing them in direct conflict with the presiding Emperors and Kings. The most notable of these transgressions was with the Holy Roman Emperors of the German States which erupted into a wider battle with both sides claiming the right to appoint bishops and other church officials. What has been termed ‘The Investiture Conflict’ would culminate in the Concordat of Worms in 1122 with the Emperor Henry V coming to terms with Pope Calixtus II.¹ In the agreement the Emperor gives up all claims to investing Bishops in his lands with symbols of spiritual power and returns all lands and goods taken from the church by himself and his father. In return he was granted the right to invest bishops with secular power.² Some years previous to this Ivo of Chartres raised a few fundamental points on the relationship between King and Church in his letter of rejection sent to one Hugh of Lyon, an apostolic legate appointed by the Pope. In his letter he states that papal authorities have been asserting the power of the Bishop of Rome in ways that hinders the church or does not improve the church at all. He further states that it would be much easier for the local councils to vote for new bishops themselves rather than have them appointed to their posts by the Pope. Ivo also argues against the entire investing conflict because he does not see the harm in a king instating a bishop as it does not involve preforming any sacraments.³ While all these claims were made in Ivo’s Correspondence the only one actually addressed in the Concordat is the issue of the actual investing of bishops therefore, the issues presented by Ivo of Chartres were, for the largest part, left unaddressed in the Concordat of Worms.

In Ivo’s letter to the papal legate he asserts many points. The first and most important of these is the request not to be bound so tightly by papal laws that, according to Ivo, are not necessarily within the canonical laws that are exercised by the bishop of Rome. One may view this as a sign that while the Church was united they did not yet view the Bishop of Rome as the supreme power of the church. This is in spite of the fact that The Dictatus papae was written almost 30 years prior claiming more widespread authority for the Pope.⁴ This neglecting of the Pope’s authority can provide the historian with a glimpse into how the church in the High Middle Ages worked. Judging by the fact that many German bishops during the 1070s and 1080s rejected the authority of Gregory VII and called actively for his abdication until his death in 1085, one might say that the church was not centrally controlled by Popes at the time.⁵ This is fundamental to understanding why this conflict came about in the first place. In Ivo’s opinion the Pope was overstepping his authority by trying to broadly increase his authority not only over Emperors like Henry but also over bishops like Ivo. Central to the Pope’s aims was his claiming succession from St. Peter. In the eyes of Gregory VII this gave him the power to bar kings from heaven, appoint bishops from afar, and create new canon law. According to Ivo and his view on earlier church fathers, this should not be the case but rather the see of Rome should act in reference to the writing of predecessors instead of making up laws which benefit itself instead of the entire church.⁶

The second point made by Ivo inquires whether or not investiture by kings is truly a problem. This almost argues for the king to appoint the bishops otherwise, in effect, the church was saying that the kings and emperors were not holy. This was a direct contradiction to the populist ideas of the time as promulgated by Guibert of Nogent shortly after the letter by Ivo. In this account kings were able to miraculously heal their subjects with the slightest touch.⁷ This is powerful evidence for the social acceptability of Kings investing bishops. If kings were holy how could you deny them that power? At the same time Ivo states that it shouldn’t matter whether or not kings took part because in the end the bishop was invested by God himself. In this objection the historian may see why so many bishops supported the German Emperor in the first place. If the King or Emperor were seen as a holy figure in and of themselves as suggested by the tomb of Edward II and subsequent description in which bones of dead rulers where dispersed amongst his kingdom, the Bishops of his territory would naturally support him as: A-he was the one to invest them originally and B- They saw him as a way to contact god, as with saints.⁸

Ivo also argues that it is the power of the local clergy to appoint a bishop by election and that the pope should not interfere with this right unless that power had been granted by ancient rights of church fathers, which it had not. ⁹ Later, this power will be usurped by the pope as shown in the account of a disputed election in Auxerre. In other words the power of the popes is almost insured by the vague wording in the Concordat. Any power not expressly denied to the pope is still open for Papal rulers to somehow take as their own.

In the Concordat of Worms, the king gives up his ability to invest members of the clergy with symbols of Divine power such as the Staff and Ring. By doing this he has now limited his power to strictly temporal possessions and is therefore reliant on the church to provide him with divine absolution. In return for his cessation of investing with divine symbols Henry receives the ability to invest church officials in a more secular way with a scepter representing the power he is giving them over his lands. In this sense the clergy have now separated themselves further from the nobility by retaining more power for themselves in the form of divine investment which is done at the cost of the Kings and Emperors. The clergy will now solely hold the power to allow people into heaven. This is seen when Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, in essence barring him from heaven as the Pope is the direct successor to St. Peter, the Gatekeeper of Heaven.

In addition to the Emperors not investing clergy with divine symbols, the Concordat also states that any property that was seized by Henry or his father was to be given back to the church.¹⁰ This is actually a major setback for the nobility because large tracts of land that were previously granted to the nobility have since fallen into the hands of the Church through bequeathments and wills. This only served to strengthen the demands that the church made on the nobility.

Adjudicating the dispute between the church and the nobility is not an easy task for the brightest of men at the time of The Investiture Conflict and Ivo of Chartres is no exception. While many of his points about the differences in opinion between the two parties is spot-on the only actual point that is resolved in the Concordat of Worms is in regards to investment of actual bishops and leaves unresolved the issues of Papal authority, clergy autonomy, and the holiness of kings.

1 Miller, Maureen C. “The Agreements of Worms” Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 120-121

2  ibid Miller, "Power and the holy..." pp.120-121

3 Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 115-119

4    Miller, Maureen C.. "Pope Gregory VII, The Dictatus papae." In Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 81.

5 Miller, Maureen C. Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. p. 105

6 Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 115-119

7 Miller, Maureen C. “On Royal Powers” Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 162-163

8 Miller, Maureen C. “The Tomb of Edward II, Foreword” Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 168-170

9 Miller, Maureen C.”A Letter to the Apostolic Legate Hugh of Lyon”Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 115-119

10 Miller, Maureen C. “The Agreements of Worms” Power and the holy in the age of the investiture conflict: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. pp. 120-121

Sartre on Bad Faith (Paper)

 In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre introduces a concept termed bad faith. In the following brief analysis of the term the reader will view the origins and definitions of the term bad faith, their relation to the existential, as well as the use of bad faith in Sartre's other works. In total, the reader will find a compelling reason why the term bad faith can be applied to humans.

To lie to one's self. To be a deceiver of the soul. To understand and recognize and then to ignore. These are the traits that are indicative of someone who is in bad faith. "We shall willingly grant that bad faith is a lie to oneself, on condition that we distinguish the lie to oneself from lying in general." (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 87) Sartre paints a literary picture in his work, Being and Nothingness, that portrays exactly what is at stake for a person who acts according to bad faith. According to Sartre the person who acts in bad faith is essentially performing an act of self-negation. While anyone is capable of telling a lie the person who tells a lie must also be in possession of the truth. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 87). To be in bad faith that person knows the truth of their beliefs, actions, etc, but refuses to acknowledge these truths. The being that they have is therefore based on negating this very being. This self-lying is different from the lying that one might do to others. IN lying to others "The liar intends to deceive and he does not hide this intention from himself..." (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 88). In order for a man to truly be in bad faith he must be in possession of a truth and unwilling to recognize that truth. Once informed of the idea of bad faith the reader should see how bad faith is portrayed in other works by Sartre.

In the play No Exit, Sartre is able to display the way that bad faith would mold individuals into what they are. The one act play in which bad faith becomes evident, No Exit is about three people who have died and are now stuck in hell together. Hell in this instance is a drawing room decorated in Second Empire Style. The play was written in 1944 in France and could have been meant as a commentary on the German occupation of Paris. The three people that are kept in this drawing room are: a mother who cheated on her husband and then threw her illegitimate daughter, new-born, off a balcony, a man who joined the army but deserted before killing anyone, and a lady who seduced her cousin's wife while she was living with them. The room that they are stuck in has no mirrors, therefore the people trapped there could not see themselves as they want to see themselves but can only see themselves through the others in the room. The lack of a mirror can be representative of the lack of reflection on their actions that the people are capable of. The reflections are not corporeal with out a mirror. Instead they are forced to look inside themselves to understand who they are.

Estelle is the one looking for a mirror. With her dependency on mirrors the reader can clearly see the Narcissism inherent in her being. Because she refuses to see herself as she really is and relies instead upon her reflection in a mirror she is the character that is in bad faith the most. She is torturing herself by refusing to know herself as she is. With her torturing herself she inflicts torture on the other occupants, namely Garcin. (Sartre, No Exit )

Garcin is the cowardly soldier. He desperately wants reassurance that he is in fact not a coward. His desire is for peace and quiet more than the other characters. He had ambitions while alive to create a pacifist newspaper but never does. He runs from his actions and then seeks to rewrite them in his memory. (Sartre, No Exit )

Inez wants to be with Garcin, sexually. She works as the mirror for Estelle, to Estelle’s terror. When Inez describes what she sees in Estelle, she makes Estelle afraid/terrorized. She is the only one in the room who is able to see herself for what she is. She also attempts to make Garcin see himself as what he is. At one point she says, "So carry on, Mr. Garcin, and try to be honest with yourself-- for once." (Sartre, No Exit p. 38) This is at the point that she attempts to make Garcin realize that all the justifications that he has fabricated for running away from the army are just fabrications meant to enable him to live with his choices. Inez believes that Garcin understands that he is a coward but denies the truth to himself.

The play revolves around the idea of bad faith. Estelle is the one that is most clearly in bad faith. Garcin is much more ambiguous. He comes across as very indecisive. Inez is the only one who understands why she is placed int he drawing room. She is the only one who does not have bad faith. She understands that her person is defined by her actions. In her case she is defined by the terrible actions that she willingly did. She is the one who attempts to lead, unwittingly, the others to realize why there are in Hell. Hell is other people. There are problems with this way of thinking. In recognizing the negative forces that effect us one must also suppose that these negatives assure the existence of positives. While Garcin wants to focus solely on the negative he does so at the expense of the positive. The negation implies the possibility of the truth. (Sartre, No Exit )

The act of being requires an affirmation of the self by the individual. In addressing bad faith Sartre tries to identify why some people see themselves differently than they actually are. By being what you are and knowing what you are the individual is not living in bad faith. But if the individual acknowledges that they are being in one sense and deny that they are being in that one sense then they are, in essence, living by negation. They refuse to live positively and instead they live through denial. They deny who they are and, by doing so, they deny that they are, in fact, being. They are in a backwards fashion. (Sartre, No Exit )

It is my belief that Sartre portrays the human condition in a convincing fashion. In Being and Nothingness he portrays humanity as existing in a sort of equilibrium. Humans are capable of realizing who they are but shy away from doing so. Sartre uses the example of the waiter who is not a waiter. The waiter knows that he is not 'being' a waiter but is rather being a person who is playing at being a waiter. Sartre states that the waiter is merely a role in which the person playing at waiter is. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 102). The man, acting as a waiter, knows that through such actions he is thereby given rights that pertain to such actions. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 102). "I am a waiter in the mode of being what I am not" (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p.103). By saying this Sartre is affirming that in the first degree he is a man that has being and in the second degree is a man that chooses to act as a waiter, but he is never in the mode of being a waiter.

Through many different mediums Sartre assaults the way that most humans cope with their choices. In his work Being and Nothingness he describes in theoretical detail the way that many people suppress their true being in favor of something that they would rather think themselves being. In No Exit he supplies his reader with visceral evidence of people engaging in the act of self-denial. This evidence, coupled with his theory on being, drives the reader to be moved into accepting his bad faith as a legitimate explanation for understanding the self denial that humans visit upon themselves.

Bibliography

Sartre, Jean. No exit, and three other plays. Vintage International ed. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

Sartre, Jean, and Hazel Estella Barnes. Being and nothingness. New York [etc.: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.

The Eternal Recurrence and the Problem of the Overman (Paper)

The Eternal Recurrence and the Problem of the Overman

Of the multiple ideas presented in Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the two most intellectually stimulating and encompassing pieces contained therein are the philosophical idea of the Übermensch, hereafter referred to as the Overman, and the Eternal Recurrence. In the following essay the reader will find a thorough analysis of these two themes as well as a comparison of their faults, philosophically, in relation to each other.

The first central idea in Nietzsche's work is presented in the First Part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. According to Zarathustra the Overman is the next evolution in mankind [Nietzsche, p. 13]. Nietzsche presents Zarathustra to the readers as the archetype of the Overman. In the First Part Nietzsche presents Zarathustra with all the accoutrements that would accompany an Overman: intellectual prowess, oratory skills, love of mankind, reclusiveness. The Overman, being characterized by such skills and behaviors, is a level of humanity that has superseded the ability of regular humans, but also desires to raise the rest of humanity up to the level of Overman. In order for the regular man to become an Overman there is the task of BECOMING. Zarathustra describes man as,”...a rope stretched between the animal and the Overman – a rope over an abyss [Nietzsche, p. 14].” Zarathustra says that what has made man untenable is,”...not your sin – it is your self-satisfaction... [Nietzsche, p. 14].” In the later part of this essay the reader will see the difficulty of reconciling the becoming required to achieve the status of Overman with the Eternal Recurrence.

The second major idea presented through the mouth of Zarathustra is the idea of the Eternal Recurrence. In the Third Part, Zarathustra presents an idea that all things that now live have lived already and are doomed to live again [Nietzsche, pp. 105-108]. In the theme of eternal recurrence, Zarathustra contemplates a gateway to which he has walked along a path. He stops at the gateway and asks questions of a dwarf there,” This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward – that is another eternity” [Nietzsche, p. 106]. To this the dwarf replies, “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle” [Nietzsche, p. 107]. The idea here being that what has happened is destined to happen again and again an innumerable amount of times. For Zarathustra to stand at this gateway he must have already stood at the gateway and will always stand at the gateway in the future. Nietzsche's conception of the Eternal Recurrence is a romantic idea that is fraught with problems, not just in regard to the Overman but in regard to reason.

The problems that are presented with the Overman include: the ability to transform oneself into something that one does not know about, how to gain something that one does not have the capacity to understand, and to what extent the Overman represents a better humanity than humanity now.

In order for a human to transform, evolve, or otherwise change into something else, that person must understand either what it is they are changing into, how they are changing, or that they are changing. Changing, or becoming, does not necessarily imply an understanding of the end result of this change but would require some limited understanding of the change. If a person is expected to change then there must be a will to change for that change to take effect. Zarathustra acts as the catalyst for this change but does not offer a full explanation of the benefits that this change would provide for humanity with.

The Eternal Recurrence is even more problematic than the Overman. The primary problem that arises from the Eternal Recurrence is the idea of free will. Free will is necessary for humanity to decide what decisions to make and these decisions enable the individual to construct a sense of self, a sense of individuality, a sense of purpose. This is taken away by Eternal Recurrence. If a person has already done something before and is always destined to repeat it then it absolves humans of the responsibility of their actions because, in essence, these are already predetermined actions. Some may counter that if one does not know of Eternal Recurrence then their actions and decisions would retain their value to that individual. While that individual might still see their actions as having purpose that would be a misconception on the part of the individual. The decisions that the person would make would have already been made the same way with the same deliberations an infinite number of times and would continue to be made in the same fashion for eternity.

Once free will has been excerpted from the equation and humans are no longer the motivator of themselves, what remains to be answered is: Who or what is that motivator? In his debasing of christian morality, it is the belief of the essayist that Nietzsche would object vehemently to the view of an omnipotent unmoving mover. If it is not some demagogic entity that controls the actions of the world then it would be some wispy metaphysical term that would, at the same time, allow control of the universe and yet be 'non-living'. This is untenable.

To compound the problem one must also inspect the individuality of humans. In a cyclical time scheme the same people would recur doing the same actions, at the same places, with the same thoughts. If this were the case then one must pose the question; In each new cycle is the individual a new individual doing the same things or is it the same self doing the same things? In both cases there are inconsistencies. If one becomes another, different, identical self then you would have created the same person at a different time, in a different cycle, thereby creating a person that looks, thinks, and acts the same but is separated by time from his former selfs. This would make him a 'different' self which would nullify the Eternal Recurrence by putting a different person at different points in time instead of the same person. If one were to retain their individuality and were to remain the same self throughout the different cycles of time then one must account for the loss of memory between different cycles. If in each new cycle the individual is the exact same individual then that same individual should retain the memories from each previous cycle. If those memories are not retained then it is a new person in each new cycle. They would be connected to each other only because each new biological entity is doomed to repeat the same actions as the last. There would not be any metaphysical link that would tie these individuals together into one self.

The final problem with the Eternal Recurrence lies in its beginning. For something to recur it must first occur. Much in the same way that in order to draw a circle with a pencil one must first set the pencil to paper. Once completed, this written circle will recur indefinitely in a cyclical fashion. The same logic can apply to the Eternal Recurrence. There must be a linear starting point to a cyclical view of time. Once that linear starting point is established the recurrence will continue indefinitely. But for everything to occur in an eternity backwards and an eternity forwards there can be no starting point. Everything must be as it has been and will be.

These fallacies with the Overman and the Eternal Recurrence come together in the form of free will. If free will is negated by the Eternal Recurrence, how should the regular man will himself to become the Overman? The choice to become an Overman is based on a time-line that is purely linear. Attempting to reconcile this to the cyclical time-line of the Eternal Recurrence is almost impossible. If becoming an Overman requires free will and the Eternal Recurrence suppresses free will to the point of non-existence, then one, the other, or both, must be false

The two theories of the Overman and the Eternal recurrence are not compatible. The Overman, the next logical evolutionary step for humans, and the Eternal Recurrence are logical entities in their own right but when added together they turn what were two logical arguments into two mutually exclusive arguments.

Bibliography

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Thomas Common. Thus spoke Zarathustra. 3 ed. New York: Modern Library, 1917. Electronic Copy.

Platonic Biomedical Ethics (Paper)

The following paper was written for a Bio-medical ethics class at the University of South Florida under the guidance of Mr. Nathan Draluck. May it be informative to you. Enjoy.

Platonic philosophy provides a way for doctors and patients to operate on the same intellectual plane by providing a stable and apparent ethical system based on the 'form' of good and the derivatives of good actions. The doctor and patient will be shown to rationally be of the same biological entity. The differences between doctor and patient are merely physical and the ability is real for all patients to be doctors. Because of an overpoweringly strong current in the biomedical community, dualism^# has become smothered and doctors have become intensely concerned with biological treatment, even when it is harmful to intellectual activity. Due to this lack of understanding on the part of doctors they have effectively relegated the patient to a subjugated role in lieu of affording them any large autonomy.

This paper will focus predominately on the relationship between doctors and their patients through the prism of Platonic Ethics. Furthermore, the paper will show that when considered in a rational way, Platonic Ethics provides an approach that is both safe for the doctor and engaging for the patient.

The reader will find three imitative case studies in which will be found a clear argument for the use of platonic ideals in treating a patient. Case one will expound on The Theory of the Forms and attempt to explain the actual differences between the patient and the doctor. While this may seem clear on the surface, the true difference, I believe, is actually nonexistent. In the second case we will examine the dualistic nature of Platonism and how this is translated, or not, into biomedical ethics. In the final case we will examine the autonomy of both parties involved in medical decision making, the patient and the doctor, and attempt to discover how autonomous each party actually is by defining autonomy in a platonic sense.^*

The Platonic theory of the forms is a rationally sound argument for the understanding of things around us. In order to give the reader a basic understanding of the arguments that follow it is necessary to provision the reader with the basics of Platonism. The chief metaphysical quality for Plato is The Theory of the Forms.^¤ The following will explain in detail the fundamentals of Platonic philosophy which will then be expounded upon later.

The basic principle upon which The Theory of the Forms is based is participation, particularly participation in the the Forms themselves. The Forms are metaphysical traits that exist separately from humans but are present in the world through different objects participation in them. For instance, a person is tall because they participate in the form of Tallness. In a more basic understanding, anything that can be denoted as a adjective, whether it is a color, size, or description of any kind, is a reflection of that things participation in said forms. In addition to these forms is an overarching Form of The Good, under which all forms fall. A trait of all forms are that they are forms of good. The way in which humans understand the various objects around them and, in some sense, their own being itself, is through their understanding of forms. These forms are discoverable through dialectic discussions with other intelligent beings.

One of the most important ideas contained in The Theory of the Forms is the idea that once a person has begun to understand forms as forms themselves they are ethically required to help other beings, through dialectics, to understand these forms. Now if dialectics is the only way to discover forms and forms are what allow us to understand the intelligible things around us, it stands to reason that through dialectics all knowledge has the ability to follow. While these may seem like rather arcane ideas when presented in short, it is strongly suggested that the reader view the complete Platonic works for themselves.

This brief overview has the ability to directly improve the doctor-patient relationship through several means. If we understand that doctors have a larger degree of understanding than their patients then we must also concede that because of this the doctors have a larger responsibility to impart this knowledge to their patients. The doctor must be willing to impart information, through dialectics, to the patient to increase the patients understanding of any medical conditions, preconditions, possible and probable outcomes from procedures, etc. A failure to do this on the doctors part would result in actions that would not be in accordance with Platonic Metaphysics and therefore would not fall under the form of The Good but would rather be a privation of good.^* While the doctor would have the ethical obligation to inform the patient of knowledge in which the patient was lacking, it is also the responsibility of the patient, in pursuit of knowledge, to attempt to discover, through dialectics, as much knowledge as possible. In doing so, medical knowledge would naturally be incorporated into this knowledge. From these interactions one may gather that through the form of the Good anything that transpires between a patient and doctor will be for the benefit of both parties as long as both parties willingly engage in Good, Selfless acts in accordance with Platonic Metaphysics.

Following this, one must make the argument that in these situations the parties involved have an overt obligation to do certain things. In order to arrive at this point the reader must first realize the following: that both the doctor and the patient are human beings who are capable of knowledge. If this supposition holds true then we can infer that there are obligation that each party must meet. The doctor has an obligation to search for knowledge in the same manner as the patient has an obligation to search for knowledge. With this primary obligation the reader can draw, among others, two distinct conclusions: That the patient should take into account the doctors suggestions for treatment only if they are unwilling to complete their own studies on the subject matter and, if this is the case, paternalism is to be considered opted into at this point in time. In cases in which the patient is unwilling, while possessing the ability to, attain the same knowledge as the doctor they have themselves mandated that their relation with their doctors will be a paternalistic one. While paternalism carries a heavily weighted connotation of loss of power, or immediate and unwarranted deference, it carries the heavier connotation of the inability to use dialectics. Therefore, paternalism should not be viewed as inherently negative but rather negative due to its association with non-dialectics.

Drawing upon The Theory of the Forms as outlined above, the reader shall find a discussion of Platonic Dualism, and how this is translated, or not, into biomedical ethics, in the anteceding argument. The first necessity in order to do this is a more thorough understanding of Platonic Dualism itself. Like most dualistic philosophies Platonic Dualism is a dualism of the mind an the body in which the mind is always superior to the body. In Platonic Dualism the terms for mind are many and varied but this paper will use only two interchangeably: mind and soul. Upon the death of the body the soul/mind are loosed to live among the forms and the forms are the highest ecstasy the mind can have both while contained in a body and upon the souls release from said body. Of paramount importance in this dualism is the idea that one should not deliberately kill ones body in order to release ones souls. To do so is an act of both desperation and an act demonstrating the pinnacle of a privation of good. While suicide is not acceptable in Platonic Dualism the body should always be treated in an inferior manner while the mind should be treated in a superior fashion. The reasoning behind this is that it is through our minds that we control our bodies therefore making our bodies a tool for our minds.

The dualism presented above has a very real connection with contemporary medicine. While this type of dualism is still extremely relative in contemporary society, many doctors focus their attention solely on the bodily ailments of their patients even when it can be detrimental to the patients mental health. The focal point of modern medicine is to prevent the death of the body through natural causes and this death is viewed as the ultimate item to beat. However when viewed realistically through a Platonic prism the death of the body can actually be a good act because it frees the mind from the constraints of the body. This is not to say that it is not worthwhile to treat the body, for it is worthwhile but only to the extent that it helps the mind. Put another way, the mind should be the focal point of medical procedures, while the body should only be treated in a fashion that neither hinders the mind nor makes the mind powerless. The example we can use to illustrate this is hypothetical in nature but revealing none the less.

A patient who has experienced some worldly calamity is in a coma and there is evidence that the brain has retained its capacity to function. The body of the patient is kept alive through a life support system. The doctors have the ability to bring the patient out of the coma but doing so will have repercussions on the mental state of the patient. Modern medicine will tell us that the patient is alive but comatose and therefore removing the comatose state is of the utmost importance even if this will result in a diminishing of the patients intellectual capabilities. From a Platonic viewpoint this is unacceptable. While the removal of the comatose state would certainly benefit the patient, it would only be of benefit if said removal was non-damaging to the intellectual abilities of the person in question. Therefore the 'Good' act in this case would be to let the patient either: remain in a coma or die of natural causes and thus have their soul separated from their body thereby preserving the intellectual capacity of that being.

The final sense in which Platonic Metaphysics has a role in Biomedical Ethics is in the sense of autonomy. The Platonic Sense of autonomy can be summed up in 4 points:

1. Autonomy is based upon the mind and its power over the body. ^*
2. Autonomy is for the mind to be free from coercive outside influence.
3. To be autonomous one must understand that actions that are willed through the body from the mind affect other individuals, who also have autonomy.
4. To be autonomous one must be cognizant of the fact that their mind has the capacity to learn any number of forms and their derivatives that are present in material objects.^*

Through these four points the reader can draw several conclusions about the roles of patients and doctors in autonomous relationships.

In order for a patient to be autonomous the mind must have power over the body and therefore the patient must have an active mind.^* A patient must understand their medical conditions and should only assent to things that they understand. If they do not understand things then they are willing themselves into a paternal relationship. This is acceptable but must be actively recognized by the patient. This lack of understanding is a lack of participation in dialectics on the part of the patient as the patient has the same mental ability as anyone else to learn. This understanding is predicated on the patient having an active mind.

Several of the obligations that are required of patients are also required of doctors, namely that they possess an active mind, among others. In addition every doctor should understand their patient's medical conditions and only recommend things that they understand. If they do not understand things then they are responsible for informing their patients of such. This is acceptable but must be actively recognized by both the doctor and the patient. One of the most damaging things that a doctor can do to impede upon the patients sense of autonomy is coercing a patient into a therapy that is not agreed to by the patient unless that patient has willingly approved of a paternalistic method of treatment with said doctor. If the patient has knowingly entered into a paternalistic relationship with the doctor then any treatment that the doctor orders that is beneficial to the patient is acceptable.

To display the way autonomy would work in a Platonic sense we turn again to our coma patient. In this thought experiment the coma patient is alive in the body but dead in the mind. In this situation the patient would not be able to control their body as they have no mind of which to speak. Without the use of their mind the patient would lack any type of autonomy and if autonomy is central to person-hood then this coma patient could not be considered to be a person. While they are still a human being genetically and they have a living body, the lack of a fit mind robs them of all right to person-hood. The doctor would not be able to treat the patient due to the fact that without a mind they are not human and therefore cannot understand their condition nor their treatment and could not consent to any given medical approach.

In conclusion the doctor-patient relationship can be effectively governed by a thorough understanding of Platonic metaphysics as they apply to Biomedical Ethics. The doctor and patient are both capable of the same knowledge and patients who willfully lack the knowledge of a doctor are knowingly committing themselves to a paternalist relationship with their physician. In addition, the modern medical approach places an inordinately large emphasis on the bodily health of their patients and not nearly enough of doctors resources are dedicated to ensuring the intellectual activity of a patient is preserved. Finally, the autonomy of a patient must be preserved at all times in order to serve the best interests of the patient.

#Body-mind dualism.

*In this sense autonomy would involve the definition of 'self/soul' as opposed to the definition of biological entity, further expanding upon the dualistic nature of Platonic philosophy.

¤A much broader understanding of The Theory of the Forms can be found in other works by Plato: The Republic, Phaedrus, Parmenides, and Sophist among others.

*Borrowed from Aquinas, Summa Theologica .

*Refer to Platonic Dualism

*Refer to Platonic Theory of the Forms

*Here active is used to mean fully functional

Abelardian Ethics (Paper)

  For Abelard the key to ethics is not in the acts that are perpetrated but in the consent, will, and desire to perpetrate them. In order to illustrate these claims and explain why it is sinful to consent to acts, Abelard uses four examples: a monk among women, a man with a homicidal master, a man marrying his sister, and two hangmen.

  The monk in Abelard's example is forced into sexual relations with women against his will. Here will is used to mean consent, as opposed to will meaning desire. For the monk to be engaged in sexual relations of any kind is prohibited by his solemn vows. The question here is whether the monk has committed any sin. According to Abelard there is no sinning on the part of the monk because he did not consent to the acts performed upon him by others.

  In the case of the servant with the homicidal master who kills his master in self defense, there is sin involved. Because the man desired life and so killed his master to prevent him (the master) from killing the servant, he had the will to murder. Even though he did so in self-defense he had a desire to kill his master to save his own life. However, this desire alone was not sufficient to make him a sinner. That final turn comes when he consents to killing his master. Desire alone cannot commit sin in the same way that a person who has a disposition to being mad is mad only when they consent to be mad, not all the time. Our servant in this case is a sinner for consenting to murder but not for murder itself. In Abelard's words he is a sinner without a bad will for as Abelard points out he is not to be blamed for not wanting to die.

  In the third example Abelard gives a man marrying his sister as the purported sin. In this example we are told that knowledge about the purported act that is going to be committed is necessary for the consent to the act to be considered sinful. If a person knowingly decided to marry his sister he has given consent to eh act therefore, even before the actual marriage, he has committed sin. However if he does not know that the person he is marrying is his sister then he had no intent to commit sin and therefore is free from blame.
  In the fourth and final example given by Abelard we are shown that intent, as mentioned above, is based on what God considers to be sinful or not. When hanging a man to comply with Justice, i. e. God's Law, it is not sinful to kill someone as it is not the intention of the executioner to sin but rather to uphold an ideal. This is opposed to the hanging of a man because the killer holds a personal grievence with the executed and therefore is only seeking vengeance. His intent here is to purposefully commit a sin rather than uphold Justice. Because of this he has committed the act of consenting to kill while the righteous executioner has only consented to upholding Justice.
  In addition to these example Abelard says that a life without sin or the temptation to sin is none existent. We must struggle against our desire to sin in order for us to lead a moral life. The disposition of our mind at a point in time might make sinning more likely but in the end the individual must always willfully, knowledgeably consent to the perpetration of said act, even if that act is not carried out, in order to sin.    

Black Swan (paper)

A psychotic thriller, Black Swan leaves the viewer attempting to guess what is real and what is not throughout the entire film. Natalie Portman's portrayal of a deranged ballerina struggling to understand herself leads the viewer through a wild ride of sex, music, jealousy, and rage to conclude in a climactic performance. Some elements of the film worthy of critical analysis include characterization, back-story, climax, the orchestral accompaniments and realism and anti-realism.

    The characterization in this film is absolutely outstanding not just because of the character development but also because viewers are allowed to view each character through two different prisms, that of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) and through a traditional cinematic lens. When viewer character through the eyes of Nina the viewer will find that each character is tinged in darkness reflective of the way in which Nina's jealousy effects her understanding of the people around her. This is evident in the scene where Nina is late for a rehearsal and when she finally arrives in the studio she finds her 'friend' Lily dancing her parts. This is actually normal for any ballet as the viewer comes to understand that Lily is the understudy of Nina. To Nina however she sees it as a significant threat to her chances of success. Throughout the film the director of the ballet is also used to shape Nina as a character. He is adamant about her inability to correctly express the emotions of the black swan. This incessant pushing by the director leads to Nina's growth as a character but also leads to he psychotic breakdowns. These breakdowns are immensely important to the films overall message.

   To add to the mystic surrounding Nina the director attempts to provide the viewer with a glimpse of what her life was like prior to attaining a role in the ballet. She turns out to be a relatively sheltered child that still lives with her mother under very strict guide lines. The interesting part about Nina however is that she has a compulsion to scratch absentmindedly at the back of her shoulder. This is known to have gone on for quite awhile as her mother comments that she is at it again. This foreshadows the mental instability that Nina has and allows the viewer to begin to attempt to decipher whether scenes are actually real or have Nina's mental interpretation woven into them. The addition of this little bit of information allows the viewer to construct a significant, if small, back-story for Nina. The viewer begins to grasp the mental inconsistencies of Nina in a way that wouldn't have been accessible without the added light of her back-story.

    This back-story helps to lead to the climax of the film when Nina thinks she has stabbed her self-anointed 'arch-rival' but in reality she has stabbed herself. The climax proceeds to Nina dancing her soul away until, in the final scene of the film, she jumps from a ledge onto a mattress and as people crowd around her to congratulate her on her outstanding performance they see that she is bleeding to death from her self-inflicted wound and she whispers, “I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect.” This statement is the epitome of the movie itself and allows the viewer to grasp the drive that was required of Nina to perform with such talent. The downside is that in order to reach her true potential she had to demonize everyone who wished her well and injure herself to the point of death.

   The injury to Nina also allows the viewer to examine the realism or direct anti-realism that is present in the film. Perhaps the starkest example of realism is not Nina herself but the people around her. The people that she is surrounded with are, seemingly, perfectly sane individuals who have no problem in coping with the world around them. Lily seems to be a person this is exemplified in. Lily, while driven to perform, is not nearly as polarizing a character as Nina is. This is due to the fact that while she is a somewhat wild individual she conforms to what people might expect from a younger female. She is a reasonable, sound-minded individual that the audience can relate to. She is the character that reflect the mental faculties that Nina lacks and is a grounding point for the viewer through her depiction as a realistic person.

   The orchestral accompaniments for the film are also a standout. In keeping with the drama and psychotic thrill of the film the music is arranged in a manner that allows the viewer to be pulled in and held in place while remaining seemingly unawares. The action in the film matches up perfectly with the soundtrack at the most important moments allowing insight into the emotion of the characters. The roaring crescendos and the screech of strings allows the viewer to remain on the edge of their seats while the softer melodies remind the audience that the characters are but human after all though they may embody things that most people leave hidden. The music truly allows the audience to peer into the souls of the performs and understand on a more basic level what drives them to do what they do and the emotions that they feel at the time of action.

   The realism that Lily displays is in direct opposition to the anti-realism that is portrayed in Nina. Nina, while at first seeming to be a regular woman, is depicted as a slightly insane individual. Her hallucinations add the element of anti-realism that makes the film become a masterpiece. The way that she reflects her inner trouble is done in a fashion that both excites the audience yet still seems unrealistic. The audience would not expect for her to stab her understudy and yet the film portrays it as so, at least at first. The climax of the film also serves as a point of anti-realism with Nina sprouting feathers directly from her flesh. While this is entirely anatomically unrealistic it does serve an ulterior motive, allowing the audience a window into her psyche. Therefore the anti-realism which is found in the movie is used to facilitate a bonding on an emotional level between Nina and the audience and enhances the empathy with which one might view her character.

   In all Black Swan is a masterpiece that draws in the viewer and holds the hostage for the duration of the film. The adeptness with which the director creates his characters is especially important as the way that we understand Nina and the way that we understand Lily enable the viewer to understand the meaning behind the film, that perfection is paid for dearly but is also worthy of reverence. The way in which the direct contrasts the realism depicted by Lily with the psychotic elements of Nina keep the viewer guessing what actions are real and which are imagined while at the same time showing the audience what is happening in Nina's transformation from a girl into a woman. The back-story provides even more evidence of the mental unsoundness in which Nina operates. But the shining moment of the entire film is in the climax with Nina giving her soul away to transform into the Black Swan and her breathless exclamation of her perfection allows the denouement to nearly outshine the rest of the film. Tying everything together though is the amazing sound track of orchestral music which sets the tone throughout the entire film and allows the viewer to feel as dark and depressed as the transforming Nina feels.

'Run, Lola Run' An Analysis (paper)

A classic look at German existentialism, Run Lola Run clearly portrays the type of philosophy Germany is famous for. The live in the moment style and the way that the three different scenes are portrayed clearly illustrates the philosophical concept known as "all possible worlds" in which individual actions can drastically change the way that a world turns out to be. What some people have termed to be moral tendencies in the film are little more than various outcomes of different events. In no way does the story take a moral stance. That really is the genius of the movie. It simply states what life could be and makes no assumptions about what life actually is. Within this framework we will observe the ways in which the film uses realism and anti-realism, verisimilitude, characterization, and flashbacks to present its subject matter in a curiously fun way.

The film itself, as mentioned above, exudes philosophical musings. The director has broken the film into three different but equally important pieces. That of acceptance, that of anger, and that of acceptance. In the first run Lola takes the path of accepting that her father is leaving her and her mother and proceeds to find many already robing the convenience store. She plays a mostly passive character throughout the first run not making thing happen but rather allowing things to happen to her. In the second run she becomes angry with her father and proceeds to rob the bank that he works for in order to save her boyfriend. In this role she is working in an active capacity to save her boyfriend instead of allowing things to happen to her. The third and final run plays into the theme of 'amor fati'^*. In this run Lola surrenders her ability to either be worked upon or to work upon the world. In accordance with the philosophy of 'amor fati' she allows fate to decide her future, as is evident in the way that she trusts the roll of the roulette wheel in the casino. The common theme throughout each of these encounters is not whether or not her actions or lack of actions are moral or not but whether she achieves her desired outcome or not. Next we will inspect how realism and anti-realism factor into this film.

The idea of having a film that is split into three different scenes about the same story may seem strange, and it is. The way the movie makes up for this is through its use of, for the most part, a realistic setting and actions that the ordinary viewer might find plausible for the situation that Lola is in. For instance, the entire film is actually filmed in Berlin, the actual setting for the movie. For the main core of German viewers they would be presented with a location that they would have had at least passing familiarity with. This might reinforce the way in which they view the film as recounting a possible day in the life of Lola and Manni. On the flip side of this however are the strange nuances that are added to the film, such as the ability for Lola to break glass with her voice when she is in a rage. While this is not a characteristic most people would have the director chose to include it in the film. The pressing question is: why? Even thought he director had gone through the effort to present most other facets of the movie as being realistic he added in this particular attribute to Lola. This was possibly the directors way of saying that the film, as much as it reflects reality does not, in fact, hold to be the absolute reality. In other words the film is meant to not show a realistic setting. The genius of the film however is to reconcile both of these realities into something comprehensible to the viewer. Here verisimilitude proves particularly adept.

Reconciling the outlandish qualities of the film to everyday viewers expectations of real life is a somewhat tall order. The way in which I will argue for verisimilitude in this particular film might seem to be out of the ordinary to some, and they would be correct. The easiest way to convince an audience that something is like their actual life to to provide them with a way to relate to the film. Normally this might be construed as making a film as realistic as possible and to siphon out any unrealistic elements. While this is perfectly acceptable the director of this film seems to arrive at the same believability through a completely opposite route. By this it is meant that the inclusion of certain unrealistic elements actually improves its verisimilitude. The particular example that fits here is that of the animated sequences. When a person views these sequences they are fully aware that the images they are viewing are not of live actors but of animated figures. Despite this fact I believe it is entirely plausible for a viewer to understand more about the character, and therefore characterization, of these more two dimensional characters simply because the viewer interprets that there is less information to know about an animated character than about a full-fledged person. Because of this idea they feel as though they can connect more with a character that they can more easily understand. Therefore the idea of verisimilitude is effective through a non-real medium.

The final idea that is presented in the movie is that of flashbacks. The reader, however, should take caution here as the flashbacks in this film are not your typical flashbacks. Instead of the traditional flashback the viewer is presented with a 'rerun'. Essentially the viewer watches the same film three times. In the case of 'Run, Lola Run' the flashback turns out to be a completely different reality for the characters. The greatest part about this is the fact that in parts of the film inklings of these other realities are still manifest in the minds of the participants. A prime example is when Lola has the gun while she is robbing the bank. She seems to remember, as if from some other life that the safety on a gun must be turned off in order to uses. In her current reality though she seems to actively remember this and turns the safety of the gun off. In this way the different runs in the film are flashbacks in that they are remembering another scene in the film.

In all the film 'Run, Lola Run' uses several great film tools to set it apart from other movies of its kind. The philosophical undertones of the film encourage the viewer to actively think about the film and the meaning behind it, if there is one, while actively watching the film. The way the director uses realism and anti-realism at the same time engraves a strange image in the viewers mind when used in conjunction with the flashbacks. However all of these are made to seem more familiar to the viewer when combined with verisimilitude and the interesting 2D characterization. The importance of the movie in world-wide cinema is even more important however than the actual film itself. The way in which this film allows a person to view film opens up a large Pandora-like box for other directors to explore and therefore the legacy of the film, while great in and of itself, it eventually outshone by the brilliance of the directors use of his professions paradigms.

*“Love of Fate” (from the Latin)

Greed (Paper)

Inherent greed is, much like inherent value, an abstract, insupportable idea. In order for greed to be inherent it must be able to remain the same object in everyday life as well as in a complete vacuum. This is not a viable position for the following reasons: it is ever affected by human ideas and ideals, it is a contextual concept, and it is a creation of emotion put into words by human minds. For these reasons greed has, for the vast majority always been a word with a dark connotation, describing someone or some action that seems to be divergent from their beliefs. In this sense environmentalists have a long history of decrying the business world, among others, for their selfish and self serving ends in essentially raping the environment. While this may be true is some sense and from some perspectives it is not, by far, a universal Truth. Greed as defined by Miriam-Webster Dictionary: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed. This need has indeed led into a serious conflict between humans and the environment. Surprisingly enough however is that it might also be the beginning of a recovery leading to a better situation both for the inhabitants of the Earth and the Earth itself. Greed, therefore is contextual in its meaning and, among the more compelling human actions, has the capability of being one of mans lowest driving forces, that of self betterment.

One of the most ideal situations for a relationship between The Earth and Humanity is the principle of Stewardship in which humans see themselves as custodians of the earth instead of the earth being subjected to the wanton Wants of our desire. This stewardship is easily justifiable as a good business model. The past trend of simply taking from the earth what we need and not caring about its long term survival was less than solid in an economic sense. We were living for immediate gratification that in the end would have left both us and the earth worse off. While the businessmen of that time, as they always are and probably always will be, were motivated by turning a quite buck, perhaps in addition to slightly more altruistic motives, it soon became apparent that continuing the path of earthly destruction would no longer be accepted by the vast majority of people. This idea is particularly supported by 'Deep Ecologists'. This greed that drove business then however is still prevalent now. Businesses still strive to earn the most money while spending the least. To this end however stewardship is the best investment that can be made. Instead of creating machines and technology to deplete the earth to its breaking point business are now seeing the immense profit that can be made by investing in the welfare of the earth. Investment in renewable resources has been on the rise for the last decade. This trend shows not only a move towards helping the earth but also a move into an economically stable mind set for businesses. When an investment into solar energy is completed the investment would pay for itself over time and after the initial cost has been recouped become a fiscal money maker. In this way stewardship ethics is not only become morally responsible but also fiscally responsible by preserving the resource that is used to create profit and this urge to create profits is driven not by the selfless cause of conscience but by greed for that extra dollar, by greed.

This simplest way for the environmental crisis we find ourselves currently mired in is entirely mental in its formulation. With only a slight change of thinking on the part of many, the terrible costs that the earth has been made to bare on account of overzealous businesses and unconcerned humans could be entirely reversed with dramatic benefits not just for the earth but also for those attempting to gain a better social position in life through money. With the implementation of this change the world itself would, at the risk of sounding naive, become a better place. If people began to think of their actions in relation not just to themselves but to other people and other things around them then the human race would find themselves quietly sliding into roles of stewardship instead of remaining greed-driven. The immediate rewards in the short term would in fact perfectly coincide with the current attitude of 'me first' thinking. With realizing that people can be made happier by helping the planet by feeling proud of their accomplishments, the move from selfishness to stewardship is not a long road.

Along these sames lines, Emmanuel Kant, seen by some as an ardent advocate for animals to not have the same rights as humans, in essence creates a list of traits that reserve human rights for those that have rational thought, mobility, and inherent value. As with many other philosophers, the very idea of something having inherent value is plagued with a myriad of problems. In order for something to be valuable in and of itself it must be able to maintain this characteristic in a vacuum uninfluenced by any other object. In Kant's essay Rational Beings Alone Have Moral Worth, he advocates a system in which Humans, and Humans alone have wroth because they are intrinsically valuable. He says that we are “an end in itself” not merely a means for others to use or exploit to their own ends. He supports this idea by labeling everything that does not think rationally as things and everything that does think rationally as persons. Here he begins to exhibit the very anthropocentric view he has of the world. He goes further to use this view as a reason for humans to use anything not capable of rational thought for their own ends and he supposes that anything not able to rationally think for itself has value only as a conditional property that is contingent on a humans need for it. With this view he has given the world a view in which human needs, human greed, has become the central tenant by which we assign value to non-human entities.

Pushing the boundaries even further than Kant, Utilitarianism is a prime example of human greed especially as it interacts with nature. Many utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, contest that the best way in which to serve the environment is to simply act rationally without the interference of emotion. While on the surface this would appear to be an acceptable way of thinking it is, in fact, not. By creating a “weight-watchers” theory for human interaction Singer simply creates a system in which the person committing the action is able to step back easily and justify their actions with a simplified mathematical equation. For instance, one could easily justify cheating on ones spouse through utilitarian thinking. After the act of cheating the person justifying it might say that they became more relaxed afterward resulting in a (+1) effect for them. The same can be said of the person with which they had relations with resulting in an additional (+1). However the significant other of the cheater is devastated when they find out resulting in (-1). However, according to utilitarianism the overall outcome of the episode is a net effect of (+1) therefore making it a “good” practice. One can easily see how the same reasoning can be used in an environmental sense with Humans and nature interacting with business as the cheater. In this scenario, anyone sufficiently fluent in both utilitarianism and business could endlessly justify their actions on paper through a mathematical equation similar to the one above.

Among one of the more contentious ideas submitted by environmental philosophers is the idea of an Experiencing Subject of a Life (ESL) and their place in the world. Tom Regan is a major advocate of this idea. The problem with Regan's proposal is the fact that as a rational Human he has the ability to guarantee animals rights as ESLs but can reject other forms of life. This difficulty still retains that humans are at the top of the spectrum of life that can give or take away rights as easily as one might blink. This in turns leads to the thought that if humans are still at the head of the table of life, why do we remain there. The most obvious reason is because we, as humans, still retain rights for ourselves that create a better living. In other terminology we are basically greedy. We subject the other life forms of this earth to our own “rational” interpretation of what constitutes an ESL. In this way we are able to continue taking advantage of other life forms, plants for instance, that sustain us. The problem with this theory is that it has exactly the same problems as Contractarianism. Regan says that Contractarianism is arbitrary as it requires the metaphorical ability to sign a contract in order to be elevated to having rights. If an animal can't “sign the contract” then they are just out of luck and will continue to be viewed as resources for human consumption. This resource oriented view by humans in regard to nature is the central problem with humanity in respect to the environment. However, while he puts this problem forward as being backward in thought he actually advocates a system in which he is willing to accord rights to animals but not to any other life form. In this aspect he is both contradicting himself in theory as well as practice. While this may be so one must ask the paramount Socratic question: Why? Why would Regan want to include only some living things and not others while at the same time subjecting humans to the same rights as animals but still allowing humans to delegate who or what receives those rights. Once again we must welcome or trusty old friend greed to the stage. It is for greed and self image for which these mistakes are committed.

While advocating rights for all animals Regan still reserves the ability to award rights just for humans. In this way humans are still seated in that Zeus like chair at the pinnacle of the Pantheon. This image of humans as originators of rights still propels Regan to entitle us to more lucrative rights in order to maintain his ingrained ideas about life with humans centrally located. In addition to these problems the Idea of an ESL having inherent value poses a problem for many of the societal institutions of the world. For instance, when would it be appropriate to deprive a human of their rights? If it is whenever they harm another ESL then the animal world run into a huge problem for the same rules would have to apply to them as well. Any carnivorous animal would be deprived of right simply for engaging in actions that it considers required. A lion would be right-less for hunting, an instinct that has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Also part of this dilemma is figuring out who is responsible for taking these rights away. Would it be humans? It seems like Regan would attempt to make it so simply by the fact that we are the ones dispensing rights in the first place.

Perhaps one of the best explanations about humans and their desire to amass as much of anything they can is the late German born Philosopher, Erich Fromm. His headline work in relation to human greed is To Have Or To Be? In which he describes his two modes of humanity, having, a materialistic oriented thought process, and being, the emotional, productive mode of life. He states the the overwhelming majority of humanity is stuck in a having mode of life. This leads in turn to greed in which one try to achieve happiness through material wealth instead of intellectual thought. The being mode is something that he advocates as the ideal form of thought in which one does not have possession of things in a permanent manner but instead attempts to share with the world with others in our pursuit of happiness. This idea though is, in my opinion just as greed-driven as the having mode of being. That is not to say it would not better humanity to embrace his idea of being instead of having for it would drastically cut the amount of material possessions which we have. Instead it would substitute our desire for material possessions for those of ideological possessions. Instead of coveting the most up to date technology we would strive to acquire the latest thoughts and ideas. We would begin to envy people of higher intellect instead of people with more wealth. While this would certainly improve the lost of the earth in a very practical manner, i.e. trash, it would not help remove the idea of greed from the human psyche. It simply replaces it with something else.

Al Gore's treatise on environmental concerns proposes the idea that humans are simply addicted to abusing the environment. He explains that in order to leave our bad habit behind we must enter into a therapy course to change our mindset away from destroying the earth and instead preserving it. While his thesis is intriguing it is simplistic of its view of human nature and proposes and at its heart lies greed. In order for the world to continue and for our lives to continue we must take drastic action in the way that we think about the earth. Changing our philosophical outlook is indeed a requirement. However changing our view of the world is of immense benefit to ourselves. Our self-preservation is the driving force behind this required change. That is not to say that severing our addiction to abusing the earth by this means is a terrible thing. On the contrary it is a requirement. However when doing so it is necessary to be honest with ourselves. We must admit that the reason we are doing so and embrace greed as a power that will do “good”.

The core tenant of greed as exhibited by humans is closely tied to an overwhelming feeling of anthropocentrism. These two concepts correlate directly with each other with greed becoming the central offshoot of an anthropocentric mind. When a person sees the world as revolving around themselves and think that they have a a larger impact on the earth than anything else, that person comes to see the world in a largely anthropocentric way. As they continue to view the world in this way they are better suited to view the earth as merely a resource waiting to be plundered for their own personal benefit. This leads to serious problems when this person comes into a position to reap what the earth has, as in a business position or government position where they would have the direct ability to affect the earth over a large area. When found in this type of position these individuals would be more prepared to use the earth as a way to better themselves without considering the impact of their actions over a wider area. This greed driven decision stemmed from the way that they view the world, through anthropocentric eyes.

In all the majority of philosophers currently speculating on the idea of an environmentally sound relationship between humans and nature have largely failed to deal with the anthropocentric, selfish, greedy motives of humans. Instead they have focused on other more narrowly defined traits rather than deal with the ultimate issue at hand. If they had instead dealt with the problem at its base, greed, they would have come to much the same conclusion, that greed and nature are not inherently opposed but rather opposed because of the human use of greed for things that damage nature. This realization should come as no surprise to those who study human interactions. The simple step to stewardship is not far and would have a resounding impact on the world. Business would continue to make money, people would remain happy, if not become happier, and nature would become revitalized all through a simple attitude adjustment. And this is, I think, exactly what is needed.