...1. INTRODUCTION Fig 1 Bungie, The Traveler, 2012. Digital artwork, 1095X787cm. (2012: The Traveller in Destiny) This essay will attempt to examine and briefly describe Aesthetic theory as part of visual communication, as well as the three different disciplines used to study it namely philosophical, scientific and artistic. A visual example from the Destiny video game, has been selected to be examined and related to the theory of aesthetics. 2. AESTHETICS THEORY 2.1 Aesthetic Theory According to The Handbook of Visual Communication, Aesthetics theory tries to describe why we as human beings find appeal in specific visual shapes and configurations. In essence it asks the question, what is beauty? It therefor attempts to determine why we find certain things beautiful (Dake 2005:3). Beauty is something that affects us on a deep emotional and psychological level; therefore aesthetics is a crucial and fundamental part of visual communication. The three approaches – philosophy, science and art, have been used to understand and study Aesthetic 1 theory. However visual art gives us the most thorough and complete definition and understanding of the theory (Dake 2005:3). The philosophical branch is the oldest discipline from which Aesthetic theory is studied. This discipline uses rational thought –arguments supplemented with theories and hypotheses, to try and illustrate what beauty is. It is criticized for using written words to try and define the concept of aesthetics when...
Words: 687 - Pages: 3
...with one format and end with the other . Below is a template/ sample of a philosophical answer Philosophy Essay Template/General Outline for Critical Answers You do not need a formal “Introduction”. You can just immediately say what you are going to do in the paper. The Basic Structure [Paragraph 1] [First one or two sentence(s) restating the question as your thesis] [Section 1: Summary] [Say what you are going to do in this section of your paper.] *Now state each step in the philosopher’s argument in your own words.+ [Assert the reasons the philosopher gives in the text for his/her conclusion.] [Back up that assertion with a quotation or two.] [Explain why the quotation(s) you used are important.] [If you have done the above for each of the philosopher’s premises in the argument, you can now restate the conclusion of the argument.] [Section 2: Critical analysis/critique of the argument] [Analyze each premise of the argument you summarized.] [Explanation] [Is the premise true or false?] [Explain why you think so.] [Give an example to support this.] [Explain your example.] [Clarify your explanation.] [Consider possible objections the philosopher could have to particular criticisms you made above.] [Conclude with a sentence asserting that you have proved your thesis.] Detailed Explanation and Examples 1. [Paragraph 1] Explain the purpose of your paper. [This means restate the essay question]. a. [First one or two sentence(s)] For example, if you are being...
Words: 2231 - Pages: 9
...Ethical Arguments Your essay should be a position paper, not a report. The paper must make an ethical argument in defense of a thesis. It doesn’t matter what thesis you defend, but the argument must be clear and coherent. Depending on the topic, some outside research may be appropriate, but do not let that obscure the main purpose, which is to make an ethical argument. There are several possible ways to structure the paper, including one (or more) or the following: • Articulating and applying principles (such as love, respect for autonomy, respect for persons, the principle of utility, etc.) to the issue or to cases. • Investigating how one or more ethical sources work to support a particular view: for instance, how biblical principles or a religious tradition or a particular philosopher/philosophical school can be used to support your position on a focused issue. Such an approach should be critical, that is, with an awareness of where the philosophical or religious tradition is unclear or problematic and how others could use the tradition in a different manner. • Contrasting the arguments of two or more authors on an issue. • Developing and contrasting the pro and con arguments for a particular position. • Developing and answering a series of questions from general to particular, or particular to general. • Analyzing a case study. The reader of an ethical argument is looking for three main things in your essay: 1. a clear and interesting...
Words: 537 - Pages: 3
...for Writing Ethical Arguments Your essay should be a position paper, not a report. The paper must make an ethical argument in defense of a thesis. It doesn’t matter what thesis you defend, but the argument must be clear and coherent. Depending on the topic, some outside research may be appropriate, but do not let that obscure the main purpose, which is to make an ethical argument. There are several possible ways to structure the paper, including one (or more) or the following: • Articulating and applying principles (such as love, respect for autonomy, respect for persons, the principle of utility, etc.) to the issue or to cases. • Investigating how one or more ethical sources work to support a particular view: for instance, how biblical principles or a religious tradition or a particular philosopher/philosophical school can be used to support your position on a focused issue. Such an approach should be critical, that is, with an awareness of where the philosophical or religious tradition is unclear or problematic and how others could use the tradition in a different manner. • Contrasting the arguments of two or more authors on an issue. • Developing and contrasting the pro and con arguments for a particular position. • Developing and answering a series of questions from general to particular, or particular to general. • Analyzing a case study. The reader of an ethical argument is looking for three main things in your essay: 1. a clear and interesting thesis, 2...
Words: 536 - Pages: 3
...Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of Aristotelian mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that anti-mimesis "results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.".[1][2] The philosophy holds that art sets the aesthetic principles by which people perceive life, and does not imitate life. What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. As in an example posited by Wilde, although there has been fog in London for centuries, one notices the beauty and wonder of the fog because "poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects...They did not exist till Art had invented them.".[1] McGrath places the antimimetic philosophy in a tradition of Irish writing, including Wilde and writers such as Synge and Joyce in a group that "elevate blarney (in the form of linguistic idealism) to aesthetic and philosophical distinction", noting that Terry Eagleton observes an even longer tradition that stretches "as far back in Irish thought as the ninth-century theology of John Scottus Eriugena" and "the fantastic hyperbole of the...
Words: 533 - Pages: 3
...Shannon Shull 1 Writing assignment 1 9-9-13 A Philosophical Argument on Forced Vaccines “A Philosophical Argument on Forced Vaccines” is an article written for infowars.com by a man named John Burke. Burke published this article on July 16, 2009, arguing that the medical field and doctors don’t always know what is best for anyone. He encourages the readers of this article to do their research about the good and the bad of the vaccines that the government makes them get. He is not writing to change their opinion on vaccinating their child; he just simply says there is a lot of research out there that most people don’t know The article was posted on www.infowars.com. Infowars homepage of Alex Jones, an American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and documentary filmmaker. Jones has different articles published on his website that would make you believe that he is against the government and the requirements to vaccinate children. Burke’s audience seems to be geared towards those debating against if they should immunize their children. It all started when Burke was involved in a discussion with a friend about vaccines. The friend had a child who wasn’t up to date on their vaccines and the friend was debating on whether or not to get them. Without thinking about it Burke automatically was in favor of yes you should get the vaccines. After a few days Burke thought back on the conversation and was asking himself why he didn’t think more about the topic before...
Words: 1240 - Pages: 5
...Essay 1: Personal Memoir Essay #1 reflects on and expresses a strong tone on a real or imaginary event in your life. This 1000 word essay requires constructing a narrative. As we study narratives, we will examine using effective style and language and the following patterns of development: narratives that lead to a sudden insight, narratives that report facts and historical events, and narratives that illustrate a position or a philosophical perspective. We will also examine techniques of writing descriptions of people, places, and things, using comparisons, and writing dialogue. This part of the course also includes a study of writing as process, sentence structure, major sentence errors, modification, parallelism, and manuscript mechanics. A review of basic sentence structure will provide guidance in writing sentences effectively with variety, emphasis, and correctness. Assignment: 1000 word Personal Memoir Purpose: To write a well-organized narrative; to review eliminating sentence-level errors; to practice revision skills. To reflect on an experience and express an attitude, tone, or mood about an experience. Convey a tone about that experience, perhaps one of joy, anger, bitterness, or nostalgia for example. Narration is your primary writing strategy. Description is your secondary or supporting strategy. Subject: You may fully develop either (1) your free write essay on the last 45-minutes of your life, or (2) any real or imaginary event in your life...
Words: 309 - Pages: 2
...University of Phoenix Material Metaphysics Matrix and Essay Part 1 Matrix: Analyze metaphysics in philosophy by completing the following matrix. Provide a definition of the branch of philosophy as given in a philosophical source (the readings, supplemental materials, or outside academic sources) and list a minimum of three historical developments, theories, key contributors, and principal issues. Bullet point answers are acceptable. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ...
Words: 632 - Pages: 3
...Nothing in the canon of early Confucians directly corresponds with the concept of a person.[1] Yet, the philosophical content of their works seems to commit Confucius and those who followed in his wake to various implications about persons. Three recent thinkers have been especially important in trying to specify the features of a Confucian theory of the person. Herbert Fingarettes’s Confucius: The Secular as Sacred is roughly of the same vintage as John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, and while it is a much more slender volume, it has had within its sphere a similarly far-reaching influence.[2] In the wake of Fingarette’s work, two other important essays were produced in honor of Fingarette: “Rights-Bearing Individuals and Role-Bearing Persons,” by Henry Rosemont Jr., and “Reflections on the Confucian Self: A Response to Fingarette,” by Roger T. Ames.[3] Each of these thinkers sees Confucius as offering an alternative understanding to the received Cartesian view of the person. In each case, the Confucian stance on the person is interpreted as being overwhelmingly social as opposed to the western view, which is characterized as being impossibly individualistic. Against these three currents, I will argue here that the Confucian understanding of a person is not so alien to western understandings, and I will use the seminal piece by P.F. Strawson on persons to demonstrate this.[4] Since I will refer to it throughout the treatment of the other authors, I will begin by briefly specifying...
Words: 3417 - Pages: 14
...Eastern Philosophy Matrix and Essay Part 1 Matrix: Analyze Eastern philosophy by completing the following matrix. Provide a definition of the branch of philosophy as given in a philosophical source (the readings, supplemental materials, or outside academic sources) and list a minimum of three historical developments, theories, key contributors, and principal issues. Bullet point answers are acceptable. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Historical...
Words: 832 - Pages: 4
...J.D. Greening Nietzche Seminar Prof. Hawley 1/21/2015 Philosophy Exegesis Essay “Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and enjoys his observation; for it is out of those images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life” (The Birth of Tragedy, 15) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>F. Nietzsche</Author><Year>2008</Year><DisplayText>(Nietzsche)</DisplayText><record><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>F. Nietzsche</author></authors></contributors><titles/><title>The Birth of Tragedy</title><periodical/><dates><year>2008</year><pub-dates/></dates></record></Cite></EndNote>(Nietzsche). This passage was extracted from one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s works, particularly the one entitled, the Birth of Tragedy. In order to have a clearer understanding of the Nietzsche meant when he mentioned these exact words in his work, it would be important to be familiarized with the context in which he said it. Part of that includes knowing what the work in which the phrase was a part of was all about. The Birth of Tragedy is a highly philosophical work that is divided into a total of twenty six chapters which includes the...
Words: 1646 - Pages: 7
...general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and especially with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom (Drew).” The second definition of cosmology is: “the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe (Drew).” Therefore, cosmology is the study of the origin of the universe, and it can be interpreted through a philosophical or scientific perspective. But for this essay, I will interpret cosmology in a philosophical, literary perspective to study “cultural perspective which the universe is shaped, ordered, operated, and men's role in it.” The goal in this essay is to illustrate philosophical, literary similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cosmologies by using King James' The Fall and David Cusick's The Iroquois Creation Story. The Eastern and Western cosmologies are defined by philosophical and literary perspectives, not based on geography, culture, and language. The Eastern cosmology is based on collectivism and Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang is Chinese philosophy which describes “opposite or contrary forces and actually complementary, interconnected, and inter-depended in the natural world (Palmer, 25).” This means that evil is necessary for good to exist and vice versa because they complement each other. Collectivism is “the idea that the individual's life belongs not to him but to the group or society of which he is merely a part, that he has no rights, and that he must...
Words: 1411 - Pages: 6
...Post-Modernity Raymundo R. Pavo, University of the Philippines Mindanao, Philippines Abstract: Post-Modernity, with its stress on freedom and creativity, is a vantage point that can dispose Filipino thinkers to philosophically formulate, construct and develop thought systems. This liberating milieu can be reckoned as a fertile occasion where Filipinos can explore the conditions of possibilities that grant a philosophical status to thoughts, statements or constructions that either come from or pertain to the Filipino mind. Such that when we use the concept Filipino Philosophy, we are well-conscious of these two interrelated points – The Identity and Referential Nature of the concept Filipino, and the connotation/intension of the term Philosophy. Is it Filipino? Is it philosophical? These are the questions that have guided the ruminations in this philosophical treatise. And as an initial insight to such questions, we propose a kind of vantage point that can address the identity and referential nature of the term Filipino in a Filipino Philosophy and the philosophical substance of its claim. This perspective, we shall argue, may be construed by a social-scientist-philosopher. As a social scientist, this thinker is mindful of the descriptions or characteristics that may be regarded as telling of the Filipino milieu. As a philosopher, this thinker makes it his task to regress – to speculate on the logical assumptions or presuppositions that regulate activities that are suggested...
Words: 10004 - Pages: 41
..."Whatever IS, is RIGHT" (l.292), a theme that would soon be satirized by Voltaire in Candide.[1] More than any other work, it popularized optimistic philosophy throughout England and the rest of Europe. Pope's Essay on Man and Moral Epistles were designed to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. Moral Epistles have been known under various other names including Ethic Epistles and Moral Essays. On its publication, An Essay on Man met with great admiration throughout Europe. Voltaire called it "the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language". In 1756 Rousseau wrote to Voltaire admiring the poem and saying that it "softens my ills and brings me patience". Kant was fond of the poem and would recite long passages of the poem to his students [2]. However later Voltaire renounced his admiration for Pope andLeibniz's optimism and even wrote a novel, Candide, as a satire on Pope and Leibnitz's philosophy of ethics. The essay, written in heroic couplets, comprises four epistles. Pope began work on it in 1729, and had finished the first three by 1731. However, they did not appear until early 1733, with the fourth epistle published the following year. The poem was originally published anonymously; Pope did not admit authorship until 1735. Pope reveals in his introductory statement, "The Design," that An Essay on Man was originally conceived as...
Words: 427 - Pages: 2
...Are you a communist? No, a citizen of the United States of America can’t be a communist. But Karl Marx was a communist, or at least he founded some of the main principles of communism, and Karl Marx firmly believed in some of the things that make this country what it is, like equality. But, Karl Marx was still a great political philosopher of his time, and a humanitarian. To really understand the principles of Marx’s teachings one would have to study him, or at least read an essay that describes Marx’s life. There are three key elements to understanding Marx they are his childhood and education, the people that had the greatest influence on him, and his writings. At 2:00 A.M. of May 5, 1818, the life of the greatest political philosopher began. He was born in the Rhine province of Prussia, and was born to Henriette and Hirschel Marx (Payne 17). Hirschel Marx was a rich lawyer, and he was also a Jew (World Book Encyclopedia 236M). On August 26, 1824 Karl and his whole family were baptized, so his family turned away from its traditional Jewish teachings to Protestant Christianity (Payne 21). At the age of twelve Karl entered the Friedrich Wilhiem Gymnasium. He stayed there for five years excelling in foreign languages, but not really caring about mathematics and history (Payne 23). Karl’s father decided that Karl would attend the University of Bonn to study law (World Book Encyclopedia 236M). Karl became an active member of “poetry clubs,” while studying at the University...
Words: 1210 - Pages: 5
