Philosophy

You can listen to the Tablets LP here, now preserved for posterity on YouTube because there were only 9 physical copies in existence.

These  are the Google Slides to a presentation I gave in November 2022 to Dr Freya Jarman's weekly postgraduate colloquium on Thursdays from 4-6pm in the Music Hub at the University of Liverpool.

Naturally, without my dialogue all over it, some of the information is missing, but you can see the slides for my presentation regarding the background to my dissertation research. After a twenty-minute blast through my reading and laying out the position I was critiquing, we had a lively class discussion lasting about half-an-hour, regarding cultural production and novelty in genres and styles in the twenty-first century, which I enjoyed hosting and chairing, and defending my ideas despite, even though I had to make it clear I was merely laying out a position I'd found in the literature, not one I necessarily fully believed, which is why I am doing the resarch into it, to see what the strengths and weaknesses of that position are. 

This is my dissertation on Wittgenstein and Artificial General Intelligence

This received a grade of 70, a first (only just), which was brilliant considering I knocked it out in a month in what was basically in a panic right up to the 2pm deadline on the 3rd of May (my birthday) and because I couldn't get all my ideas in and didn't really know what I was doing having spent four months on my postcapitalism tangent.

Marker Rebecca Davnall didn't really buy into what I was saying, but supervisor and second marker Richard Gaskin must have bumped it up a bit, because it covered so much material that wasn't covered on his Wittgenstein module ealier in the year.

It could have been better, but the main task was getting the job done in the end. It's 10,000 words, which was the first time I'd written that many academically. I hope to do a better job with the 35,000 words of my upcoming MRes thesis.

An essay on the question: Assess the view that Shakespeare’s Othello engages with the philosophical problem of other minds.

This was for Richard Gaskin's PHIL327 Philosophy of Literature module that I enjoyed, because I enjoyed Gaskin's company and insight – nuggets such as:

Main strengths:

An excellent essay, full of suggestive points and bringing much sophistication to bear on the question.

and

Guidance for future:

Your style is somewhat too florid in places. We need a clearer and plainer text.

with much detailed feedback as to what was good and bad, and correcting every single micro-flaw in my grammar and usage.  His comments about my academic informality and floridity were an ongoing concern. Grade was 75.

If you enjoy tormenting other minds, then you'll certainly enjoy the character of Iago – to see how everyone dies in the end when his thanatotic and nihilatory drive is revealled to have gotten the better of him and he's just mindfucking for no real reason, other than because he can. Everyone can do that though. Sane people don't bother.

An examination essay on the question: What problem is Wittgenstein trying to address in On Certainty? Is he successful?

This was for Richard Gaskin's module Themes from Wittgenstein. I can appreciate that my philosophy degree is starting to look extremely Gaskin- and Wittgenstein-heavy. It just turned out that way. It was better than it being Hegel-heavy. An undergraduate degree isn't really deep enough to go into specifics on a huge range of philosophers, so given Richard was an expert on the philosophy of language, I chose to work with him a lot in my third year, because this approach can illuminate philosophical and intersubjective problems in a very useful way.

I got 71 for this answer.

Main strengths:

Well written and readable, wide-ranging, souveraen, as we say in German, and based on solid reading. Despite my criticisms below and in my in-text comments, I do think this is a first-class piece of work (but only just).

Naturally despite this feedback, he ripped it to shreds in the in-text comments. Souveraen means soverign or ranging, I think.

An examination essay on the question: Do you agree that the things we gain from literature ‘form no corpus either of belief or knowledge’ (Stolnitz)? 

Do you agree? Well do ya? I did not. 

Another answer tailored towards Richard Gaskin, that he was kind enough to mark this 74.

Much of this was gleaned from the seminar we had on this topic, and really just consisted of me writing up my ideas from that seminar. 

Go to your seminars kids! Just get out of bed and turn up.  You'll be amazed what'll happen to your grades.

This piece of work references Echo and Narcissus (1903) by Waterhouse, a fine painting that lives at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, that beautifully represents a topic that I have made a decent career from analysing. Gaskin hadn't noticed the reference to narcissi in the story by Wells, as being a metaphor for the self-obsession of the main character in his set text for that week.

An 1500-word examination essay answering: Critically consider Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘overman’.

I went on a deep-read of Nietzsche in the Sydney Jones library for a couple of weeks beforehand and read my way through all of his major works: Ecce Homo, Will to Power, Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, Gay Science, On the Genaeology of Morality –. a serious cram. (I should really go and spend some time in Germany learning to speak the language, given I can read it so well). Then I sat down and knocked this out while (purposefully) possessed with his thinking. Nietzsche is one of those philosophers that really needs to consume you for you to get his angle and see the world from it. Having done so, its not really worth tearing him to shreds for it. Every time I go back to him, I enjoy it, while finding him seriously funny at the same time.

Dr JJ gave me the grade of 76, with the simple feedback: Fluent and energetic discussion. (probably because as an exam answer it was purposely pretty bonkers. The footnote at the bottom of the first page was my favourite part).

A 2000-word assessed essay answering: "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman” (Beauvoir). Discuss with reference to existential themes in Beauvoir’s work.

Yep, pretty standard undergrad question on SdB! 

I read a load of The Second Sex and found it an interesting experience, but also found it a bit of its time. It gave me an interesting hinge on understanding everything that came afterwards. I think 'femme' meaning both woman and wife in French is revealling in itself, if we're thinking in structural terms, and something is lost in translation a little. I'd like to be fluent enough to read French philosophy one day. 

Also not so sure of the value of introducing tautologies into popular discourse.

Dr JJ gave me the grade of 76.

A 2000-word assessed essay answering: Could a machine think?

This essay was a fun exercise for me on PHIL309, because having worked in engineering and electronics, I've become quite a cynic, if not an outright sceptic, on the topic of thinking machines and artificial intelligence (it isn't artificial). I find it difficult sometimes to verbalise exactly why and how I think it can't happen, but there's something about the deterministic and logically-bound nature of computation that means that it's not akin to thought. I ended up fleshing out this essay into my dissertation, although took different angles. I was reading Sadie Plant's Ones and Zeros at the time which is where I lifted the introductory quote about Ada Lovelace from.

Dr LG gave me the stellar grade of 80. She was also kind enough to submit it to the School of the Arts' annual student anthology.

The exam on PHIL241 Philosophical Problem Solving answering: Describe and explain, in your own words, Anselm’s argument, and then demonstrate why it is faulty and does not establish the desired conclusion.

A rejection of Bishop Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. Actually got a bit analytic on this one, albeit with the assitance of Just The Arguments by Bruce and Barbone, a must-own book for all philosophy students.

The grade for this was on now-desceased VLE vital.liv.ac.uk which was replaced by Canvas in my final year, so I no longer have access to the feedback, but the marker Dr. VS was convinced I'd knocked it over and gave it 77 or something.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christoper Hitchens is also good for understanding this kind of thing. 

A video presentation on Wittgenstein and the problem of other minds. I made this during the Covid lockdown for the module Philosophical Problem Solving, PHIL241, and received a great mark. I really enjoyed making it and exploring Wittgenstein's take on intersubjectivity.

This received a grade of 75, a first, which was brilliant, and it now seems to be getting a regular drip of views and likes on YouTube, which is cool. 

These are the slides to a presentation I did on Existentialist themes in the movie Blade Runner for PHIL332. I already had too much to do that week (week two of the semester) but when I saw the presentation topic was on Blade Runner, I couldn't resist taking it on, because I've been a huge fan of that film for many years. 

I received the stratospheric grade of 83 from Dr. JJ for my presentation, and was extremely pleased. Using animated gifs as the background of slides was a new horizon in presentational excellence that blew my mind, even if it didn't blow any others.

As before, I have made a decent career out of assessing people for passes or fails of the (so called) Voight-Kampff test. Replicants can be hard to spot in the general population, so it was good of Philip K Dick to provide us with a useful shorthand, and a method. 

This is the handout made in Google Slides for a presentation I did about Wittgenstein's take on Meaning & Rule-Following. This happened the day before the Blade Runner presentation above, so I'd really taken on too much to do, because in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations alone there's months of meat on the bone and I hadn't really had time enough to fully grasp the material. 

Nevertheless, Dr. RG gave me 75 for my prez, which I had to deliver standing up in the middle of the room, while people looked at it on their handheld devices (hence the QR code link) as there was no display screen in our newly refurbished seminar room.

These are the slides to a joint presentation I did with another student on Nick Bostrom's short-story, Golden, about a dog who has had his mind uploaded into a machine. 

Without going into too many details, I am a sceptic (in extremis) where it comes to the feasability of mind-uploading.

Nevertheless, transhumanism expert Prof. MH gave us the stellar grade of 82 for our prez.

These are the slides to a presentation on Galen Strawson's Basic Argument, that I got a grade of 75 for.

The first time I encountered the Basic Argument I thought it was brilliant. I still do, even though I believe it has some flaws that I feel Strawson purposefully glosses over when he talks about it. As a piece of analytic philosophy, its pretty tight and enjoyable, and he has a good point to make.

Now That's What I Call A Pamphlet On Meta-Chess!

A philosophy term-paper from an alternate universe.

An answer to Wittgenstein's needing a laugh.

A thought regarding chess and philosophical semantics.

A document a computer couldn't parse.

An observation on machine cognition.

A comment on unreferenced referents.

A thought experiment regarding bass synthesis as a means for pondering the nature of minus zero.

An (unfortunately) ungradable and inadmissible essay.

And so so much more!

In PHIL110, first year aesthetics, taught by the extremely kind and wise Dr. NG, we were asked to submit a 'Reflective Log' regarding an artwork we liked. 

I used this as an opportunity to write at length about an artwork that I had some history with, which turned into a piece of work that was far too long to submit, but that I was happy with regardless. Sometimes one just has to do the writing one needs to do, and forget about arbitrary word-counts that only exist to spare lectuers valuable time but sometimes serve to reduce creativity.

I enjoyed making the resulting essay white text on a black background, which is something that one doesn't see every day, and was harder to achieve than one might think.

Oh, its on the group the KLF / K-Foundation. Since I wrote this in 2017 theres been even more interest in their activities, and this is quite a good summary of their history and modus operandi, and how I ended up becoming a miniscule part of them.

This also served as a proof-of-work for another organisation concerned with forging artworks and derailing public discourse.

This is the worksheet to an activity for freshers, as an introduction to the philosophy department and Liverpool. 

I wrote it while procrastinating in the SJ because I was a little underwhelmed by the activities put on during my first-year.

I left it as a gift to the department and suggested we run with it, something that may or may not happen in September 2022.

Completing all of it is essentially impossible, but doable should your team be half-composed of mature students from Liverpool who happen to have their cars with them that day. Given the teams will be recent school-leavers, they'll likely just wander off, except for the couple of smart ones, who may as well be filtered out for further training on day one of the first semester.