Theme 3-comments

Theme 3 comments

1.It's a pleasure for me to read your relfection again .You did really well on expaining the concept "theory" with articulated manner.I really like your examples on Newton’s laws of motion,from which I knew theaory is not equal to truth. It can be a "theory" in some limited fields and can also be replaced by new theory.Maybe it's a kind of progess to some extent. Also, The example of quantum physics is very interesting because I've never thoght one theory could be based on other theories.
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2.I really enjoyed your fascinating refection a lot,by its logical structure and well-developed insightful analysis. It's amazing that you could use the instance " pen drops on the ground " to analyze the relationship between "theory" and "knowledge",from which I know theory does not equal to knowledge and it can be incorrect sometimes. Also,I really love your final paragraph,and it is interesting to take God for an instance. Maybe one theory is not necessary to be truth and has its limitation which can be modified by other theory to some extent.Thanks for your impressive essay.Keep it up.

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3.Your eassay helped me have a better comprehension on "theory" and it is well-organized by stating what you've learned according to the time order, which is from Monday's lecture to the seminar. You also made it clear by quoting the meaning of Greek word "theory". From this, I understood the early meaning of theoty,which means seeing and perceiving. It is goodto expain with your own thoughts, like"Paradigm as I perceive it is a way of thinking".
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4.With so much of your own idea and thought,your essay is of good quality.I really enjoyed reading it.You had a good explanation on theory,such as"In generally, theory provide an explanatory framework for an observation".What interested me most is the discussion on "human".You succesufully grasped the aim of this discussion,which is to discuss the relationship between the three concepts theory, human and research. Keep it up.
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5.Your essay is very interesting. I pretty like your instances on "attacked by sharks"and "magnesium carbonate".I could clearly get your point that theory is unnecessary to be true becuse the example of "sharks" is vivid. What I didn't notice before is your point that questioning earlier belief.Obviously it is very important to promote science progress by questioning earlier theory.Like the scientists in Uppsala University,they made angreat contribution to Chemistry not only by creating a new substance but also promting the progress of theory.
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6.It is really good that you expained the concept of theory in a very clear and precise way.As for the discussion of "what is man",you made a detailed list of our view,from which I couldhave a better understanding from multiple perspective.I like the view that man is combination of the human bodies and consciousness.It defined "men"both in physical perspective and spiritual perspective.
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7.I enjoyed your reflection.Definitely you did well in thes reflection. I like your insightful idea that theory and research are inseparable.Although theory is about perceiving and research is about doing,but you can not separate them when doing research in practice. I agree your idea on this.Also, I read the intersting thing is that even though Newton’s laws of motion is proved incorrect in light-speed objects,it can still be used as a theory in may fields.
I like your work.Keep it up.
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8.You really have a good understanding on the conception of theory and I enjoyed your relfection a lot.I extremely like your example about the changing of our thought in the universe.It is quite good example that if one basic theory is proved to be incorrect,it will lead to a series of modification on other theories,just like we chenged our idea from Geocentric theory to Heliocentric theory.Keep it up.
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9.Your reflection is good and interestingand I like it very much.Especially when you expain the idea of "theory of flow" you used the "arrow"to connect each step of the "theory of flow".It can make your explanation easier and clearer by using arrow.Also,I like your sentence "theory is framework or structured knowledge based on that famework rules that explain how and why processes or phenomena work". This summary of the expanation of the theory is really good and logical. Keep it up.
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10.It is really a useful message that hu pothesis is ideas that can be tested. It helps me have more comprehension on theory.Definitely it is interesting to discuss the conception of theory and research.From this discussion I not only knew the meaning and aim of theory but also learned the origin meaning of the word theory from Greek word.It also reminded me about what we learned from Kant because this question is related to the form of knowledge and our perception. I enjoyed your reflection a lot. Keep it up. 
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Theme 3-reflection:Research and theory

During this theme we discussed a lot about "theory". In the lecture,under the instruction of professor, we spent time on how to define "human". That was an interesting topic. At first I thought human is a kind of annimal who can stand on their two feet and create many useful tools. During the discussion in our group we supplemented it that human is a kind of high intelligence creaticve creature who can stand on their two feet and who can also write, read, spkeak, etc. While in the class dicussion, we made a deeper insight on it, which human both have huaman's body and human inside spirit. That is to say,  human have spiritual pursuit and complex emotions, such as lying, hiding feelings, culture etc. Inspired by classmates, I also put forward the opinion that human is a kind of creature who can know they(and their race) are mortal, which the professor also explained "living towards death".
As for "theory", there are different ways to understand it. Theory is from Greek word which means viewing or looking. Originally, it means that we should use our eyes and our senses to observe the outside objects, to know and to get knowledge. That is to say, in ancient times, knowledge is very related to "theory". Maybe "knowing is about seeing" to some extent. In modern science, theory usually refer to scientific theories, which is different form that in ancient times. As we learned from this lecture, theory is "a set of propositions" and used to explain phenomena. Normally, a theory can be overthrown and relpaced by a new theory as long as it is proven in applicable in its field. While in the two articles "The Nature of Theory in Information Systems[1]" and "What Theory is Not[2]", the authors classified  "theory" and try to make it better recognized for us. But sometimes it can also lead to to much confusion when we decide to classify one essay and try to find which kind of theory it used. For example the author of "The Nature of Theory in Information Systems" classified theory into five different types: analysis, expalnation, prediction, explanation and design and sction. But it is hard to figure out which type the author used in "Noise in an intensive care unit[3]" because it contained a few solutions in it while it did not contain any prediction. Also, in the seminar our group discussed a lot on whether the type of analysis is the basement type for all papers because if you lose the analysis, it's hard to draw any conclusion, let alone prediction. While on the other hand, in the paper of art and architect, analyzing may not be the necessary one, becsuase in some kind of papers, their "analysing" may be used in a totally different way. May be we can draw the conclusion that analysis is the basement of paper, but not necessary.
What is the difference between "theory" and "research"? In my perspective,research is very related to practice,which means we should do by ourself and investigate on the experiment objects. On the contrary, theory is related to perceiving, which means we should think by ourself and explain the phenomena.

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References
[1]Gregor, S. (2006). The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 30(3), 611-642.
[3]Sutton, R.I.&Staw,B.M.(1995).What Theory is Not.Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384.
[2]Salandin,A.,Arnold,J.& Kornadt,O., 2011. Noise in an intensive care unit. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(6), pp.3754–60.

Theme 2-comments

1.http://cloudsong223.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2after.html?showComment=1443431071140
2.http://cscmediatechnologyassignment.blogspot.se/2015/09/reflection-of-theme-2.html?showComment=1443433353324#c2424163329868918457
3.http://theoatmeth.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-seminar.html?showComment=1443433950656#c7839331071373541607
4.http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflections-0-false-18-pt-18-pt.html?showComment=1443434528275
5.http://platotheplatypus.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-reflection.html?showComment=1443435272474#c6978045652115360339
6.http://thetheoryandmethodofeverything.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflections.html?showComment=1443436050665
7.http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-after.html?showComment=1443442547415
8.http://u1vfukfo.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-posting-critical-media.html?showComment=1443448123828#c76030017458295002
9.http://mashasthoughts123.blogspot.se/2015/09/seminar-2-reflection.html?showComment=1443448723874#c3582622655081836723
10.http://mediatechnologyatkth.blogspot.se/2015/09/reflection-what-ilearnt-during-week-38.html?showComment=1443450048991#c2796593153514386008
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Theme 4-pre Quantitative research

Visual Perspective and Feedback Guidance for VR Free-Throw Training
Visual Perspective and Feedback Guidance for VR Free-Throw Training is an article from IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.  
In this article, researchers tended to find whether people can adapt themselves in VEs (virtual environments) by overcoming the distance underestimation. In order to find out the impact in three different VEs (first-person perspective, third-person perspective,third-person perspective+guidance condition), researchers created basketball-free-throwing immersive condition for novices to be trained in. By recording subjects' initial parameters and trajectory of ball in three different VEs, researchers could record the players' motion and performance in different VEs. Then by anayzing the questionanaire of the subjects, researchers drew the conclusion that incorrect perception of distance can affect people's performance and using third-person perspective+guidance condition of VE is the best way for player to overcome the influence on distance underestimation. 
1.Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

In this eassay,the researchers built several mathematical models and collected empirical data from the motion of subjects. Author recorded the initial parameters and trajectory in eache VEs, and then drew different picture on ball's trajectory, release speed values, height values, angle of entrance in the basket, etc. In addition, the author made an questionnaire for novices to find out perceptual fidelity of each person in each kind of VEs. Using quantitative reseach method, we can collect the precise data from phenomena or participants. It is much easier for us to draw conculsion on the phenomena and make prediction on it. Take this article for instance, using data of players' motion and depicting the picture on different data, we can have a clear impression on the experiment. However," it is still difficult to relate these results to actual perceptual disturbances"[1]. Using quantitative method can not draw a conclution and explain the relationship between data and phenomena.

2.What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
we can use the quantitative method to depict an image for the detailed data, such as the "drag coefficient" and "horizontal distance" in this article. we can also record the data to study on a specific motion of a body or a  trajectory of a object. By recording the hight of the throwing ball, we can draw a trajectory of it,we can know the peak or the trough of the movement of the ball. It is very useful to make easier for us to anylize the regularity of something.

3.Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?
In this article, researchers tended to find the influence of Virtual Sports Training  on basketball player.While the reseachers didn't find the a directive relationship between these data and players' performance.They just analyzed these data and recorded the success rate. what matters a lat is the questionaire on these payers. These recorded data should be more detailed. For exmple they did not record the movement of the joints of players. They can record more data to have a better unstanding on the motion of players, such as recording joints motion data and the height of each jump.

Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality
Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality is a quite amazing and impressive article. In the article, this experiment is based on the  Immersive Virtual Reality, and researchers tended to find out whether ownership illusions have and substantial influence on behavioral and cognitive changes. In order to find the answer, researchers created three different Avatar types(including plainly white hands) in a drum performing environment and 36 participents took part in this experiments. By recording the data of the upper body movement(Neck, Head, Upper spine, Clavicles, etc.) and making questionnaire, researchers successfully accomplished "Participants and Subjective Ratings" and "Motion Data Analysis". Finally we can make out that body ownership illusions towards virtual body representationns can have a significant impact on the changes of behave and cognition[2]. This article successfully translated the performativity of the participants into a numerical quantity. Moreover it successfully combine the qualitative judgments  with data to draw the conlusion.

1.Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
Using quantitative methods, we can get precise data from the experiment and it is useful for us to clarify the experiment. Take the article for instance, author quantified the performativity of the participents into data matrix. In this way, we can obviously observe the difference of the movement of one participant in different Avatar. Using data is more persuasive than other other methods, because these data come from reality. On the contrary, using data is more abstact because there are lots of mathematical data and models in it. There are not direct logic relationship between the phenomena and data. It is hard for us to understand sometimes.

2.Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
Qualitative method is kind of  "a psychologist seeking to gather an in-depth understanding" on phenomena. It has near relationship with recognition and understanding. It tells us "why"and "how"and give us an understanding and explain. On the contrary, the use of the qualitative method is limited compared by quantitive method.
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References
[1] Alexandra Covaci Anne-Hélène Olivier Visual Perspective and Feedback Guidance for VR Free-Throw Training  IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications(2015) 
[2]Konstantina Kilteni, Ilias Bergstrom, and Mel Slater Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality IEEE VR (2012)

Theme 2-reflection:Critical media studies

Last week, our second theme was based on Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction[1]" and Adorno and Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Enlightenment[2]".There were lots of interesting things I'd never thought before the class. 
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin was a Jewish philosopher who lived a wandering life and committed suicide on the eve of going to the U.S. That was definitely a pity. In this essay,Benjamin discussed a lot about commercialism,capitalism and communism in order to find how culture (in its new age) relate to politics and in order to try to reveal that German national socialism was horrible when it wasn't obvious to everyone at that time. He thought it was dangerous if we only took everything for granted, just like most people in that time. What is interesting during the seminar is that our cognition changed with the development of technology. In 18th century, running horses were portrayed that while running, its four hooves were all in the midair. But in the 19th century, with the development of photograph, all of sudden, people realized that horse didn't look like that.They were running in a totally different way, which horses always hold one leg on the ground while running. This was what Benjamin proposed indeed. With the aid of technique and new media, people could start realizing that world actually is not actually as they thought was, just like the view on running horse. In that time, government used media to take control of people’s minds. But Benjamin was optimistic about mechanical reproduction and he want to use the new technique to make art reachable for ordinary people and to evoke people’s reconsideration of the world. Although it has big disadvantages of losing the aura of art, at the same time,every one can have the chance to enjoy the art,which is called exhibition value.He tried to use this way to be against Fascism. 
Dialectic of Enlightenment
As for Dialectic of Enlightenment, I think is more difficult than Benjamin’s essay. In the seminar I knew that after they arrived at the U.S, they realized people are not enlightened in this country. people are blind by American commercialism to the extent that they didn't think. They tried to find how can we safeguard enlightenment and how can we make it survive. Then they based this essay on myth. How can we understand this? Maybe enlightenment has something in common with myth. I think that myth is characterized by the fare of unknown, it tried to imitate the nature in order to explain the unknown. When we are over enlightened,We just reproducing the world and just reproduce the natural process. We seems to be against the fundamental idea of enlightenment. That means we will have ended up mindless factor in enlightenment thought. Then the enlightenment seems equal to myth. Adorno and Horkheimer also emphasize the "Nominalism". In other words, they want to emphasize the "uniqueness"and "individual" of object in order to let people think what they perceive. One interesting point during the class is that I misunderstand the meaning of "dialectic"in this text. I thought "dialectic" just is a conversational method in order to find out some truth, just like Plato’s and Socrates’s. Whereas Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer all came from Marx background and had some differences. Marx discussed the material as conversation dialectical point of view but involves around history. For example, first you have one condition in history. This condition is contradicted with the opposite condition, and then result into the third alternative one. Then the third alternative becomes basic condition again which we can against it and develop it. This is a sort of developments over history to gain more and more knowledge. There were also differences between Benjamin and Adorno and Horkheimer. Benjamin didn't mean to give the answer to you. He posed a question for you and meant to make you to consider your own alternatives. Whereas Adorno and Horkheimer expressed their worries on how to safeguard the enlightenment(I'm not sure).
(u1ucvszr)

References：
[1]Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction trans.by Harry Zohn(2005)
[2]Adorno och Horkheimer Dialectic of Enlightenment trans. by Edmund Jephcott

Theme 3-pre:Research and theory

Journal
New Media & Society 

New Media & Society is an international journal which is founded in 1999 by Nicholas Jankowski and Steve Jones[1]. It is aimed at publishing papers in different fields for peer review ,such as media, cultural studies, communications, etc. As for field of media, This journal engages in"discussions of the issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development", which has big influence in the field of media.

Research paper 

Noise in an intensive care unit[2]

Summary: There is a phenomenon that patients and staff in hospital are exposed to quite high noises environment. In order to find out the influence of the noises, researchers did a survey of hospital staff and made an measurement of different noise levels in two German hospital. The survey shows that noises from staff themselves and medical equipment will disturb hospital staff and add more stress on them. Similarly, the measurement also shows that there are many noise-peak which can influence patients and staff.
purpose: The patients' health conditions and staff's working performance are both vital. As we known, noise can induce changes in our quality of sleep. By doing this research , investigators tied to find out whether the noises in hospital can effect on staff anf patients.  
Method: Researchers divided this investigation into two parts. In part one, they did a survey of the acoustical situation for the hospital staff. Finally fourteen nurses and seven doctors completed this survey. In part two, researchers used integrated acoustic-level-analyzer to record the intensity of noises respectively in two different care units. Measured data were recorded over 48-hour period and finally these data were calculated and compared by five different rating level. 

Recommended articles

1.Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.

"Theory is about the connections among phenomena, a story about why acts, events, structure,and thought occur[3]." By a taxonomy, A theory consist of analysis, explanation, prediction, and prescription. On the contrary, we consider "references, data, variables, diagrams and hypotheses " these five features are not theory. 

2.Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?
The major theory in paper "Noise in an intensive care unit" is based on Analysis and description. By analyzing a survey of the hospital staff, the paper presented the current situation of the nurses and doctors in detail. In addition, the paper made a detailed description of the measurement on noises, by analyzing the intensity level of the noises, counting the quantities in each hour, calculating the influential level of the noises, etc. The author well explained how this noise environment influence us performance and when this noises might have a strong influence on our quality of sleep. For example, by counting the quantities and intensity of noise, we found noises increased during the shifts. In this way, the author well explained why our working performance might get bad during each shift. However, the author did not predict what extent noises can influence us to. 
3.Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
By using the theory for analyzing, we can have a better understanding on what we measured in detail. Also ,by using the theory for explaining, we can know the causal relationship among what we observed. Only when we know what the subject is, can we make an good prediction on it. In other words, analysis is the basement of the frame of theory and good explanation is based on analysis. On the contrary, if we only make these two theory,we can not know what the subject will be. We can not make a foresight design and action. 
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References：

[1]Wikipedia New Media & Society (2015.09.17)

[2]Salandin,A.,Arnold,J.& Kornadt,O., 2011. Noise in an intensive care unit. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(6), pp.3754–60.
[3]Sutton, R.I.&Staw,B.M.(1995).What Theory is Not.Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384.

Theme 1-comments

1.The instance of "table" is of great impression because you gave me an very explicit example on how to explain the difference between"objects confirm to cognition"and"congnition confirms to objects". Also,you well expressed the meaning of "pure reason" by quoting what Kant said.

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2.You well explained the meaning of"a priori"and "a posteriori".From "a priori",I believe Kant speak highly of the importance of apriorism,which suggest that we should form an cognition at first, and then oberve the objects to obtain knowledge of it.

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3.It is good to talk about what diffidulty you met in your group.I believe you'd spent quite much time on thinking about what's the meaning of the Kant's words.It is interesting that we can also turn the "expression" and finally got the similar meaning. While,it would be perfecter if you could also add more about your understanding on this reflectin.

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4.Your explaination of your understanding is perfect and explict.In your reflection,you mentioned about what your group talk about on these two question,which makes your essay more naturallly.It is impressive to mention what seminar leader said in the class, such as "raw sense data","pen","God's point of view",etc.
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5.In your essay, you well mentioned the evolution of the philosophy on recognition of the world.It is impressing to talk about the "mechanical world" , "primary qualities "and "secondary qualities",becauseI did not catch this part in the class.

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6.I'm sorry that you could not attend the seminar last week. Definitely, you've done much work on trying to understand the recommended literature. It's pretty usefull to use some illustrations inessay. As you illustrated ,I can easily figure out what stucture Kant used.
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7.You've well quoted the Copernican Revolution and Rohlf's words,making it more clear for me to catch"kant's idea of objectivity". Also,your metaphor on "playground" is quite interesting and unique, but I did not understand it quite well. Maybe you mean that different scientist can hold different view of one subject through the faculty and categories.
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8.It is extremely fascinating to use our major knowledge to expain the relationship between "conception" and "perception"!Maybe we can also use a camera(or a microphone) and computer to explain this. Also,I agree with you on the view of "synthetic and analytic judgements".it is also impressive.
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9.Your reflection is logical and expicit.Also,during the fisrt seminar,we all got the point that if there is nobody in the world, the pencil is not a pencil, because it loses its value and becomes meaningless. It was also interesting. We also discussed a lot on baby's cognition.I still don't understand until now.Maybe analytic judgement is kin of a priori,and we use the forms of intuition and categories to get the apriori to get knowledge of the world,enven though we can not understand the real world.
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10.You did quite well in that you could share so many points to us.I really love the example of Albert Einstein.Indeed I was in the other group that time.We all diacussed much about baby.What is interesting is that language can narrow down the baby's horizon,because when he was born,he is totally open to the world.Whereas,it is also his first step to open to the world.(from the seminar leader) quite impressive.
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11.I love your explicit point that "A priori: judgement could be verified before experience". Also, It's great that you found what we missed to discuss in the class. What you talked about on Socrates gave me inspiration. For example,"knowledge is already in our head, we just need to give a birth for knowledge". It's a good point.
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Theme 1-reflection:Theory of knowledge and theory of science

Theaetetus

“How to get knowledge of the world”and “what is knowledge”are both difficult topics for me to understand. To have a better understanding of Plato’s Theaetetus,I surfed the Internet to search for some materials about Socrates. Socrates was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher and was one of the founders of Western philosophy. He used the dialectic method to debate with others,which have a significant impact on the later philosophers. Although he didn’t bring forward his definition of the knowledge, I was inspired by him and understood that it is the soul that view things herself through the organ and forms the conception automatically. Socrates imagined himself as a midwifery helping young thinkers to create  noble thought. In fact he did well.From putting forward this question,Socrates made sure that Theaetus was a man with noble though. Also,I searched many other philosophers’ works. In Aristotle's works,he attributed our cognition to our learning from experiences. In this way,our conception plays an important role on obtaining knowledge. Meanwhile, Socrates did not stress the importance of experiences.Maybe it is his limitation in that time.

Critique of Pure Reason

As for Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,he proposed an new idea that objects must conform to our cognition. It is hard for me to figure out what Kant said. In the lecture class,the professor told us the history of the philosophical development and gave us a clear explanation of Kant’s thought. As far as I am concerned,the meaning of “cognition must conform to objects” is that we can not have a knowledge of a object until we perceive it. We use our different method to observe the object and carry out experiment to figure out what it is. By doing this, we can form a conception of a object after our observation of it. On the contrary,Kant put forward the idea that "objects must confirm to our cognition",explaining that we should form a conception first,which is also called A Priori. For human,we can not get knowledge of the world because our knowledge is limited. Let us assume,as if we were the god sitting there with totally object view of the world. Then from that stand of points,we will see human can not have the objective knowledge of the world because our conception of the world is structured by your faculty of knowledge. Different people may have different A priori. The same object in different places will have different meaning.For instance,a can of Coca Cola dropped in jungle will be regarded as an artifact from god,and the primitive will pray towards it. That is because our recognition differs from primitive’s recognition .Even the same object,what you perceived from the object may differ from what I perceived.Every one has different world and your world is different from mine.In fact,Kant investigate the critic of pure reason to see how it is possible to have knowledge of the world. A priori is organized according to categories and form of intuition. These outside “bodies” are constituted by form space,time and twelve categories from our conception.Meanwhile,perception is a way for us to perceive the world. Perception and concetpyion supplyment each other. If we can not perceive objects,our cognition have nothing to be based on. Meanwhile,If we can not form a conception,what we've seen before our eyes become meaningless. That is to say:"perception without conception is blind; conception without perception is empty". All in all,our cognition is formed by forms of intuition and twelve categories.  

Here is the table of Categories:

Quantity	Quality	Relation	Modality
Unity	Reality	Subsistence	Possibility
Plurality	Negation	Causality	Existence
Totality	Negation	Community	Necessity

(u1ucvszr)

Theme 2-pre:Critical media studies

Enlightenment:

In history,enlightenment is a European philosophical movement stressing thr importance of reason[1]. Apparently,enlightenment is the advance of thought. It is aimed at “liberating human beings from fear” and “installing them as masters” and is also aimed at disenchanting the world. However,It already contains the germ of regression[2] and it is totalitarian in some aspect. Enlightenment suppresses everything to conform the standard of calculability and utility. To some extend,enlightenment itself is a kind of  myths.

Dialectic:
The dialectic is using opposite views to elicit truth. If we want to find out the truth of something,we should get different views from the discussion. Thinking of the opposite opinion,we can have a better understanding through different angles. Using this dialectic method,Adorno and Horkheimer aimed at awakening the public that there are till many disadvantages of promoting enlightenment. We should review enlightenment from different angles. In some points,Adorno and Horkheimer put forward the question that how can we safeguard the enlightenment,and how to make sure the enlightenment can go on a right path.
The "Nominalism":
Nominalism is a metaphysical view and nominalist deny the existence of universals. They believe everything is individual and unique. Obviously this view is different from what enlightenment advocate. Enlightenment make everything to be calculable and regard everything which cannot be resolved into one ,as illusion. By using “Nominalism”,authors stressed enlightenment could be dictator one day,which makes us review or re-evaluate enlightenment. 
Meaning  of "myth":
In ancient times,people uses Myth to explain something and make the society in order. It has a more powerful state than others and control citizens. Similarly,Enlightenment has something in common with the myth. In myth,we use mythical figures to explain the cause of nature, and in enlightenment,we just replace the mythical figures for “the subject”. Enlightenment is a kind of dictator using its theory to govern bourgeois justice and material flow. In this books, enlightenment itself will regress to be myth.
1.superstructure & substructure:
In this essay, superstructure represents for all area of the culture which are not directly to do with production,and substructure represent for all the things which is related to production,such as economy. From analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective,we can understand that the developmental tendencies of art under present conditions of production will be of great importance,no matter in the superstructure or in the economy[3]. With the development of the technique, it is more easily to reproduce an art than ever before. The new technique bring the diminishment of the arts’ aura. Also, the arts began to be based on politics rather than ritual. Using the Marxist perspective,the author would like to stress the point that the present production could set an revolution on the demands in politics of art.
2.revolutionary potentials:
In Benjamin's point of view, culture have revolutionary potentials.People's view will change as the time goes by. When photography came out,the art met the crisis. Also, after the film being produced out, our concepts would be changed. The arts would not be aimed at few people any more ,and would be aimed at the public.The conception of art is not used for the ritual. In stead,it is used for politics.All this above are revolutions for the culture. In my view, Benjamin’s perspective has differences to the perspective of Adorno and Horkheimer. Although they all show their anxiety towards the changes of our culture,they are on different stressing points. Adorno and Horkheimer were worried that enlightenment might force the culture to be unity and depressed into myth,while Benjamin was worried about the changes in tendencies of art could make arts lose their aura.
3.historically determined perception:
We perceive this world through our senses and we form a conception out of nature at first. We admire beauty naturally,and avoid danger subliminally when we see some dangerous things.These are from our nature. But we can also get knowledge from our experiences and form our own conception. A baby does not know how to express his feeling but an adult can. our perception can be determined by new knowledege. In ancient times,we regarded the earth is a plane,but when we recognized earth is spherical,our perception changed totally. From then on,human have a different perception towards the earth. Similarly,we believed the earth is the centure of the universe until Galileo support for heliocentrism. In total,our perception can be both naturally and historically determined.
4."aura":
In my point of view ,the aura of an art object is not only the artistic value,but also its authenticity.When one work of arts has aura,it means this wok has its own value and uniqueness,in other words,"its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be". Authenticity is the essence of an art,which reproduction can not have.While the aura in natural objects means some lights from these objects.

(u1ucvszr)

References:
[1]The Free Dictionary by Farlex  (2015.9.9)
[2]Adorno och Horkheimer Dialectic of Enlightenment trans. by Edmund Jephcott
[3]Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction trans.by Harry Zohn(2005)

Theme 1-pre:Theory of knowledge and theory of science

Many philosophers in the history discussed about the topic”knowledge”. Different philosophers had different view on it. 2000 years ago,Aristotle supposed “all knowledge must begin with information acquired through the senses[1]“ and he had a more precise definition on the knowledge ,which is "we possess scientific knowledge of a thing only when we know its cause[2]."Recently I’ve read the Plato’s Theaetetus and Preface to the second edition of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.I saw the light of wisdom from their works and noticed the difference between them. In Theaetetus,Socrates imagined himself as a midwifery helping Theaetetus to create a noble thought and he stressed that the soul views some things by itself and lead to Knowledge. Meanwhile, in Kant's works,we noticed that he tried to find a breakthrough to save the metaphysics and tried to put it forward to the secure course of a science.Here are the questions as follows:

1.In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

if one subject can go to the secure course of a science ,it should be cognized a priori.even though metepphiscs[3] is oder than other science,it always get stuck and can't move forward. Meanwhile,after long groping time,mathematics and natural science has already moved in the secure course due to some revolutions. Kant tried to find a new way and make a revolution on metaphysics.He assumed we should form a prior before the perception of outside object, and we should form our priori through the experiences. In this way,we can cognize the objects a priori ,and make the objects correspond to our concept a priori later.For example,I can not know outside world totaly because mankind's cognition is limitted. Different people will have different knowledge about the same grass.Let us assume that we form a congnition first. If we supposed their will be a grass,we'll form a pre-cognition of the grass firstly and then will see the grass later. The knowledge of the grass confirm to our a priori, which will help us a lot to know the object.

2.At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

In my point of view,there are three levels to understand this. Firstly,If we see and hear “with”the eyes and ears,it means we obtain information from outside object and this things have no relationship with our perception. However,different observer may get different information from the outside because nothing is self-existent[4]and what we get is the combination of object and sense organ. "Through" the eyes and the ears ,we are be able to combine our these outside object with our eyes or ears,and get the exact information. Secondly, our body is like a sort of Trojan horse,and numerous senses perch in it. It is the mind that uses these senses to help us perceive object. So we can not perceive the outside “with” the eyes.Our mind create the information itself for us “through”the eyes.Thirdly, Socrates disagree with the opinion that “knowledge is perception” ,he put forward “with”and “through”in order to help Theaetetus realize that soul view things herself through the organ. Only in this way, can Socrates pull Theaetetus out of his old definition of “knowledge”and deliver a noble and true birth for Theaetetus.

In empiricism,knowledge is a posteriori and based on experience[5]. Since knowledge can be created by sensory experience, empiricism has something in common with what Socrates said. Socrates emphasized human can gain the knowledge by the help of their soul through sensory organs and empiricism also claims knowledge could be gained from perception.Also,there are little differences between what Socrates said and empiricism because Socrates did not mention that knowledge can be continued revision,but empiricism stresses that one’s knowledge can be improved by revision.

(u1ucvszr)

References：

[1]History of Philosophy Aristotle: Forms and Souls(2015.9.5)

[2] Aristotle Posterior Analytics, trans. by Mure, G. R. G. at Logic Museum

[3]Kant Critique of Pure Reason trans.by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood

[4]Plato Theaetetus trans.by Benjamin Jowett

[5]Wikipedia Empiricism (2015.9.5)