Women's Time

Where do I begin? for some reason I have a lot to disagree with Kristeva. She is saying that capitalism has been victorious in achieving some equality for women in four areas: economic, political, professional and the permissiveness of sexual relations. She attacks Marxian ethics because it does allow for sexual juissance, abortion and contraception. I also dislike her comparison of society's symbolic view of women as castrated men to the literal sense in which Freud once put it.

However, I like her view on motherhood and on motherly love, saying that this kind of love is not masochistic, however, she says that a woman should never have to sacrifice, but sacrifice to what extent? For example, does a mother not have to get up at 3 am at some point in her life to take her child to the hospital? Or did she mean sacrificial in in a sense in which the woman becomes voiceless?

Thesis on Philosophy of History

I'd really like to focus on Benjamin's imagery of the Angel of History whose back is turned to the future and who faces history as he watches it pile up (This is what he calls progress). I wonder why he describes history as a pile of destruction but a destruction that is beneficial for our knowledge. He also talks about the angel being blown back not being able to return to history, I guess it is kind of like everything is forced to the future and can never really return in time.

The Concept of Enlightenment

I was a bit uncomfortable with this essay especially when it came to talking about falsifiability.  For example, how can this guy prove to be true the love between a man and his wife unless he makes marriage something completely material? Also, I wonder why I agreed with the fact that he says to know something is to have power over it. It reminded me of when a friend of mine said to me to name something is already to begin to control such as with illness. I'm not really sure how easy it is to make verificationism a method by which we classify anything as true, since people today believe there are multiple truths.

Reitification

I like Lukacs' explanation of what the contemplative state is; that in which labor works in the system of capitalism and his lack of will is reinforced. Although he makes the human being a machine. If, as he said, Levinas degraded the human being to an ontological level he took it to a very materialistic state. I like his attacks on capitalism saying that it fragments an object and therefore a subject. I agree to a certain extent that the quality of labor (or of an object) should at certain times be valued more than its quantity.

Transcendence and Height

This essay really gave me a better understanding of what Levinas' philosophy of ethics is. I really like what he says truth is according to all other philosophy, which is external reality + representation. Isn't that what the media says too? We are buried deep in a world that idolizes pluralism. I really like that he attacks this. I also got a much better sense of where ethics "come in" (although not really speaking in a sense that they start at a certain point in time). From all the philosophers' essays we have read, I really like Levinas' two essays.

Ethics as First Philosophy

Levinas seeks to place ethics as subsequent thought of philosophy. Really, he wants to turn philosophy to metaphilosophy. He wants the reader to understand that we must go beyond Being. I really like Levinas' thought that there is such a thing as morality, which he calls responsibility, although my view differs a little from his in that it is not a call for self affirmation. He says a being must transcend beyond oneself through this responsibility, which he might call a burden upon the I. In my view, yes, one must transcend beyond oneself and beyond Being, and although responsibility could be a burden at the moment, it later sets the I free from egoism which differs from his definition of freedom.