My comments on theme 1

1) Thanks for commenting on my blogpost! I believe that Kant’s theories can be applied to many different subjects, media just being one of them. There might be a more obvious connection to criticize media in Adorno and Horkheimers text, but I think that the texts main focus lies on different things. If Kants' focus is on how we perceive the world, my opinion is that Adorno and Horkheimer focus more on the implications it has in a specific time and context. What I was trying to highlight with my text was the process of how we conceptualize and process these images that we are exposed to. However, I really like how you contributed by talking about the necessity to invent our own ”concepts”, such as defining criteria’s for judging reliable information. I also liked how you in your comment addressed the question of laws and their subjectivity. I recognize your thoughts on biology, sociology and the forming’s of societies from the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harar, which might be of interest to you. But, if individuals have to obey the rules imposed by the majority or leave, why do we have methods of governing in our society today were the majority does not have a say and how does this connect to the subjectivity of the legal systems? In your reflection, you wrote about how education affects perception, but I don’t agree that higher education automatically leads to a person being more open minded. Even if a piece written by a journalist contains arguments from the different parties involved in the conflict as well as experts, I agree with you that it don’t necessarily needs to be true. The agenda-setting theory by McCombs and Shaw shows for example how news media has the ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda. http://u1h4muxc.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-12.html

 2) It is interesting that you also talked about the relation between mental illness and how one perceives the world, as we did in our seminar group. Our view was, however, more linked to conception rather than perception. You mention that people suffering from depression, a couple of decades ago were considered hypersensitive. I did not comprehend from your text whether you were talking about Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) which is a personally trait characterised by high social, emotional and physical sensitivity or just hypersensitive in a more general meaning? I don’t think one can generalize and say that only because someone perceives something stronger, it automatically leads to someone also conceptualising it in a more thorough way. In another comment on your post, JaPaHe writes that highly sensitive people would not only consider the negative sides, but also the positive sides. This made me think about bipolar disorder and how people with it perceive the world as either fantastic or miserable, with no middle ground. I think it would have been interesting if you in the last paragraph about God, would have included something about ontological argumentation. http://u1kq1ay0.blogspot.se/2016/09/second-blog-post-theme-1-theory-of.html#comment-form

3) Thanks for commenting on my blog! I agree with you that it is important to be critical and use our judgment when exposed to ads, but I am afraid that we subconsciously can start to perceive these images that we, with such a frequency, are exposed to, as ”the truth”. I also liked how you in your comment connected my text to theme 2, by adding the concept of mythology. Regarding your post, I think your connection to modern science as well as the insights in how fluctuating the idea of ”knowledge” is, show that you have a very clear understanding of the concepts. I don’t agree with the thought that things loose their meaning without human perception. In Kantian terms I would approach the subject by saying, ”Lets us climb down from us pretending to be gods”. What indicates that meaning arise from a human interacting and perceiving an object? It might create meaning to you, but I think there is a big difference. http://u1j8du7c.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-post-2.html 


4) I found the concept of the ”seven billion worlds” very thought provoking. If we perceived our fellow human beings as carrying their own small universe we might have greater understanding for our differences. However, I am not sure that the more knowledge we acquire by sharing information ultimately leads to us questioning our set of opinions. As we today can access more information than previously, do you believe that there is a risk of choosing to see/read ideas that conform to ones own? Your last paragraph also made me think about what questions we are talking about in the western society today. Are we discussing questions that matter or are we trying to isolate from the more difficult questions by escaping into imaginary worlds such as Game of Thrones? https://u17fpbu5.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and.html

5) I like how you structure your reasoning by clearly dividing your different approaches. It makes your reasoning easy to follow and in some sense reminded me of the teleological arguing for god’s existence, even though your arguments clearly raise standpoints that contrast each other. In your text, you reflect whether happiness is the ultimate goal. If I contribute to the breakdown of the organization my life constitutes of, do you think it possible that something even better might arise from the ashes? What if we change our perspective into something else rather than happiness being the ultimate goal, such as transcending the world to a better place? Is it even possible to find out what a better place is, since we perceive the world subjectively? Your initial reasoning also made me think about how we value different kinds of knowledge in different social settings. For examples it is considered more valuable as a master’s student to have strong reasoning and analytical skills, and the ability to apply the theories as you have done in your text, rather than just memorizing facts. https://u12vkokq.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflections-on-theme-1-theory-of.html.showComment=1474189813657


6) I like how you in your post talks about your previous knowledge and that you have a very forgiving and open approach towards learning something new. If you’re afraid of failing, that could hinder you in acquiring knowledge in an area that is new to many of us. You have been very ambitious using a lot of additional literature. It would have been interesting if you had gone more into depth in describing if these different text books helped you grasping the concepts in a more comprehensive way or if they just added an extra complex element to the learning process. I also found the quote about perception and conception working together to form a whole to be very useful when understanding the relationship between the concepts. https://u1mv5a16.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-second-blog-post.html?
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7) Your thoughts on the positive effects of us being different was refreshing! I agree with you that the different nuances make the world a more diverse and colourful place. But if we don’t interact, then how will we get the advantages of us being different? Not only do we choose what kind of news sources we expose ourselves to, but my view is that we also are drawn to people that share our set of beliefs, resulting in us confirming rather than challenging these. This arises a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Are we drawn to people that share our sets of beliefs and lifestyle, or do we form each other into adaptation and thinking the same as we interact as an evolutionary strategy? This is a scenario were dialectic reasoning as a method could be used so that we are hindered to continue reproducing our opinions and perpetuating our view of our truth being the truest. https://scarsickbg.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-blog-post-2-reading-plato-and.html

8) In the comments student u1j8du7c talks about how our backgrounds does not affect how we interpret e.g. math. I don’t agree with that statement. Even if math is linked to analytical, a priori judgements, we still conceptualize the subject ”math”. Have our parents showed positive or negative feelings towards math? Have you been encouraged in school to learn math? It affects your motivation towards the subject. Even if the subject is based on facts, we are still humans and interpret the ”facts". I appreciated how you applied the theories into discussing rules, values and norms in the world and the difficulties of conforming to one set of ”universal norms” as the human rights could be considered. I don’t agree with body images not being that much of a big deal throughout history. I just think there are different norms now, and that we to a greater extent are exposed to images. If people just perceived each other as they were and accepted that, I don't see why we have had wars and controversies throughout the history? http://u1cq6h0z.blogspot.se/2016/09/reflection-on-theme-1theory-of.html

9) It is interesting how you connected Plato’s and Kant’s texts in your reflection and connected it to empiricism. It would be interesting to hear, as several others have pointed out, how you would apply the concepts to a modern context. My view was that Kant wished he had called it formal or critical idealism so that he would have not been misinterpreted as a sceptical or empirical idealist, as the sceptical idealism is formulated from the god’s point of view, which Kant distanced himself from. https://u1bauz11.blogspot.se/2016/09/theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1474197347986

10) I think it is interesting that you mention how the faculties of knowledge might need to be updated. How is that done? During our seminar we also discussed about updating the twelve categories. I think it would have been interesting to learn more during this theme about how these categories are applied to real world concepts. I have experience a situation that forced me to update my faculty of knowledge. It was when my perception did not correspond to my conception during a sleep paralysis. It is a transitional state between being awake and sleeping where your mind is present, but you cannot move my body and often experiences hallucinations. It was a very strange feeling, where I perceived things I could not conceptualize. http://u1818rgq.blogspot.se/2016/09/post-2-theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and.html