EIGHTEEN AMAZING WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS you should have learned about in school but probably didn't

EIGHTEEN AMAZING WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS

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Great Women "Damed" in the Birthday Honours List

I am so inspired. Three of my favourite famous women have been "damed" in the Honours. (Yes I just made that word up - if men can be knighted then women can be damed.) 

Anyway, here they are, the irrepressible and most articulate in the defence of women's rights, Prof. Mary Beard, the unforgettable actor Emma Thompson and brave Kate Adie whose hardback I have telling of her journalistic missions to far-flung and often hostile countries. 

Just my subjective personal preferences, they are three among many creative and humanitarian people, both male and female, who have been honoured.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44397682

Whistler's Mother Gave Birth to Him Today - Born 10 July 1834

and here she is, looking relaxed, a Victorian icon, Whistler's Mother Anna
Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

While most male artists were busy painting wives, mistresses and pretty models, Whistler (1834-1903) chose to paint his mother.  According to his Wikipedia page, in 1871 Anna modellled for him in Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea. She must have been very proud that her son wanted to preserve her in oils for posterity.

Although - it wasn't quite like that. There is a backstory. An MP had asked Whistler to paint his daughter Maggie Graham, according to mentalfloss.com.  It appears Maggie got fed up, and so Whistler was left with a prepared canvass doing nothing.

So his asked his Mum to sit in. The result has been described as iconic as the Mona Lisa.

The ironic thing about this painting is that it was almost rejected by the Royal Academy in 1872, but ended up being widely admired and feted worldwide, which must have been very satisfying for the artist. Its permanent home, when it's not touring is in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, France.

Whistler's Wikipedia page quotes the artist after his painting began to attracted attention::

"Just think — to go and look at one's own picture hanging on the walls of Luxembourg — remembering how it had been treated in England — to be met everywhere with deference and respect...and to know that all this is ... a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the rest! Really it is like a dream."

Human Enhancement - Is it a Bad Thing to Want to Look Better than Well?

Public Domain: goodfreephotos.com

Genetic testing and engineering pose complex moral and cultural dilemmas for scientists, philosophers and humanity in general. Some may win, some must lose - how do we reconcile our differences?

Cures and preventative therapies to combat human diseases are helping to improve our health and extend our lifespan. There is, of course, a downside; for example, although we now live longer, we have to endure a poorer quality of life for a much higher percentage of its total span. Being human, we generally consider that life, however difficult, is better than no life at all. But human enhancement, in the sense of making us, in Michael Selgelid's words "better than well," is a subject of intense debate as discussed in his article "A Moderate Approach to Enhancement."

The following "improvements" to our lives are no longer merely speculation.We can, if we want to:

1.   Genetically test IVF embryos before they are implanted, so that only those with healthy and positive qualities are chosen.

2.   Following on from item 1, parents might eventually select qualities with which to endow their offspring, for example intelligence, height, beauty, strength, etc. These "designer" children would, of course, enjoy better quality lives.

3.   Genetic therapy might remove a "disease-causing genetic missing sequence."

4.   Following on from item 3, it might then be possible to enhance a person's genome for pure human enhancement where there is no threat to life.

Many people are comfortable with the idea that enhancement procedures could, and should, be used to combat disease providing they are safe. But - to interfere with nature merely for enhancement, just for acquiring "desirable traits" presents, for some, a moral dilemma.

So what is morally wrong with human enhancement?

The main objection put forward by Michael Selgelid is that of the social consequences. The procedures would only be available to those able to afford them, leading to an imbalance in social equality. 

"It is hard," he says, "to imagine that they would be made freely available to all via universal healthcare systems, which, due to resource constraints, are often unable to provide even necessary services to all who need them."  

It follows from this that wealthy people and their children would do better than poor people and their children, increasing the division between those who have and those who must go without.

We might now look at the philosophy of objectivism as propounded by Russian-born American novelist, Ayn Rand, who maintained that we should not sacrifice our own lives to others, nor should we sacrifice others' lives to ourselves. 

In principle, this seems rational, embodies respect for the individual, promotes personal responsibility and rational self-interest, and the constitutional protection of an individual's rights.  Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D. in "Against Environmentalism" explains her theory which claims that "things qualify as good or evil, valuable or detrimental, only insofar as they serve or frustrate the ultimate value, and the ultimate value is one's life." Rand says, in The Virtue of Selfishness, page 27: 

"Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man - in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life." 

But, here there is a difficulty; the need to reconcile asserting the ultimate value of one's own life when it actually devalues the life of another person or persons. How do we reconcile this difficulty?

Why is genetic enhancement different from other kinds of enhancement?

Michael Selgelid points out:

"We already tolerate a wide variety of inequality-promoting non-genetic enhancements."  

Selgelid is talking about the comfortable lifestyles of the rich; for example, the sports, music and arts lessons, the special schools and holidays. Is there, he asks, any difference between genetic enhancement and the other kinds of enhancement?  

I am not sure whether this is a valid argument. The fact that inequality already exists in society is surely not a good reason to condone further inequalities, in other words, "Two wrongs don't make a right!"  What Michael Selgelid actually concludes is that the main difficulty would be "scale." If the practices became widespread, then "their impact on equality could turn out to be much greater than that which results from currently available non-genetic means of enhancement."

Not only would this be unjust, but democracy and social stability could be under threat. There is, already, a great injustice in medical research resources, where 90 per cent of research focusses on ten per cent of global diseases because it targets drugs expected to provide the maximum profit. Quality of life overall could plummet due to the drain on resources caused by genetic human enhancement. As Rand says, inThe Virtue of Selfishness, page 16: 

"The concept "value" is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: "of value to whom and for what?"

Empirical and Philosophical Questions

The unresolved questions must address the inequality that might result from unrestricted human enhancement, and the impact that this unrestricted practice might have overall. But, Selgelid asserts, these are really empirical questions, and not purely philosophical questions. The philosophical questions 

"...concern how the value of personal liberty should be weighed against social equality and welfare in cases where these values conflict." 

This brings into focus the important concept of liberty, although Michael Selgelid is quick to point out that no quality should necessarily have precedence over others.

"Utilitarians," he says, "argue that aggregate benefit is the only thing that ultimately matters to society, ie. the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people, should always be promoted, even at the expense of liberty and equality." 

Egalitarians on the other hand, favour equality above all, while libertarians, of course, are intent on the value of liberty. Each stance has values of right and values of wrong due to the weight placed on the quality they emphasise. As far as Selgelid is concerned, this means they are "out-of-line with commonsense, ethical thinking and what is generally considered to be good policy-making."

Michael Selgelid concludes that the answer must be to maintain balance and apply trade-offs between the qualities of liberty, equality and utility in order to determine:

 "how great the costs of enhancement would need to be for us to be justified in denying people the freedom to enhance themselves and their offspring, and to what extent." 

This, I believe, is one of the most difficult moral dilemmas the human race has had to address and it will be interesting, and maybe even frightening, to see how the situation develops.

Sources:

·      Berliner, Michael S. "Against Environmentalism," Ayn Rand Institute: Accessed 28 December 2013.

·      Selgelid, Michael, "A Moderate Approach to Enhancement,"Philosophy Now, Issue 91, July/August 2012.

·      Harwood, Jeremy, "Ayn Rand," Philosophy - 100 Great Thinkers, Quercus, 2010.

23 March, Six Years Ago Today - Goodbye to Elizabeth Taylor, the World's Most Beautiful Screen Goddess

Public Domain

Elizabeth Taylor was an actress of immeasurable emotional depth and beauty. In her heyday, men around the world adored her and women wanted to be like her.

Elizabeth Taylor was born to beauty and success, a never-to-be-forgotten British-born icon of stage and screen and a "billionairess" in her own right.

For playing Cleoptatra in 1963, she is credited with the distinction of almost bankrupting 20th Century Fox, commanding a $1m fee, which, after lawsuit and counter lawsuit between the stars and the film company, was increased to around $7m. She performed her role of Cleopatra alongside her Welsh husband, Richard Burton, who played Mark Anthony.

In 1991, a deal was struck with the cosmetic giant, Elizabeth Arden, to market perfumes under Taylor's name and "White Diamonds" and "Passion" produced sales last year of $69m.

A Unique Childhood Star

She was born in 1932 and, as a child, lived in London near Hampstead Heath, where she rode her horse bareback and went to ballet classes like any other middle-class girl. She and her parents left the UK for America when the second World War broke out and they lived in Beverley Hills. Here, this talented young girl won a part in Lassie Come Home, (1943) and later, in National Velvet, (1944).

Taylor is remembered fondly by other actresses who worked with her. Angela Lansbury remembers a strikingly beautiful little girl with bright violet eyes and black hair. Shirley MacLaine comments on the maturity and extreme emotional depth of her performances.

Elizabeth moved, effortlessly, from child-star to adult actress. Her first adult film with Montgomery Clift was A Place in the Sun, followed by many more, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Seven Husbands - Eight Marriages

Taylor had seven husbands and eight marriages, as she married Richard Burton twice:

• Conrad Hilton ~ 1950
• Michael Wilding ~ 1952
• Mike Todd ~ 1957
• Eddie Fisher ~ 1961
• Richard Burton ~ 1969
• Richard Burton ~ 1975
• John Warner ~ 1977
• Larry Fortensky ~ 1991

Elizabeth Taylor was greatly influenced by her second husband, Mike Todd and deeply traumatised when he died in a plane crash after just over a year of marriage.

The chemistry between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton was intense and their relationship was volatile. 

I remember watching a television interview many years ago, in the late sixties or early seventies - Richard wanted something from Elizabeth's handbag and he literally took it from her and riffled through it. She glanced at him sideways, looking half-pleased, as though she welcomed that level of intimacy between them and Burton's presumption that it was actually okay to do that.

She was not always so passive. They argued frequently, yet they found it hard to be apart.

Elizabeth Taylor divorced her last and her eighth husband, Larry Fortensky in 1996.

A Great Loss to the World, but Her Legacy Lives On

At the age of 79 on Wednesday 23 March 2011, Elizabeth Taylor died of congestive heart failure. She'd been ill for a long time and had become overweight and wheelchair bound, but she never lost that indefinable sparkle and overt charisma that were so integral to her persona.

Since her death, hand-written letters have been revealed detailing her young romance with William Pawley Jr dating back to 1949, in which she expresses her great love for this young man. "I've never known this kind of love before - it's so perfect and complete - and mature," she says. 

Charitable Works

Elizabeth Taylor contributed generously to charitable causes. When her close friend, Rock Hudson, died in 1985, Elizabeth Taylor set up her Aids foundation which raised $270m. In 1993, she received an honorary Oscar for outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes and you can watch the video of her acceptance speech by clicking here.

Sources:

• "Not just an icon, Elizabeth Taylor was also worth a billion dollars." The Independent. 30 March 2011.
• England's Elizabeth - Elizabeth Taylor, BBC4, 31 Ma

The Art of Wildlife Documentary Filming

Slow-motion film showed details the human eyes could not
perceive, transforming our undestanding of nature..
Image Copyright Janet Cameron

Sir David Attenborough's easy, friendly style has made him a familiar face on our TV screens and has endeared him over the years to millions of people. Part of his success is surely due to the sense of genuine wonder he conveys at each new discovery. Even after such a long and distinguished career, he is charmed by every new creature he encounters, no matter how bizarre.  Attenborough truly loves his subject in all its many facets and it feels like a privilege to share in his enthusiasm.

Attenborough says that the revelations of the past sixty years have transformed not only our understanding of the natural world but our attitude towards it.

Early filming

Sir David Attenborough describes his delight at seeing his first wildlife film when Cherry Kearton was making friends with some jackass penguins in 1934. At the time, young David was only eight. In those days, cameras were huge, cumbersome items and had to be driven by hand. Attenborough remarks on how unscientific yet how entertaining Cherry Kearton's presentation appears to us today, as he waffles on about a penguin flip, flopping and flapping about like the female she was. Somewhat non-pc by today's standards!

As time passed and camera technology advanced, wildlife photographers were able to achieve better and better shots. During the 1950s, most wildlife was still unfilmed and also unseen except by explorers. Most people were thrilled and surprised because, whatever they were shown, it was new and exciting.  At this time, filming was in black and white, but gradually, further technical innovations revealed more detail.  Attenborough had to describe accurately all the colours and markings of the exotic creatures presented to the public for the first time.

Filming Underwater - Hans and Lotte Hass Swim with Sharks

There was a breakthrough in the 1960s when Australian biologist and film-maker, Hans Hass, constructed a special housing for his camera so he could take it underwater and film sea life. Along with his wife Lotte, he scuba dived with his underwater camera. The young couple swam among sharks, creatures that, at that time, had a fearsome reputation. Attenborough says of the public reaction to the filming: "The nation was astounded"  and he remarked that this film changed our collective perception about sharks.

Wildlife in Colour and then ~ video!

During the 1960s a second TV network introduced colour, an amazing breakthrough, especially for art, science and wildlife programmes. Sir David Attenborough filmed thirteen one-hour programmes in his Life on Earth series, covering thirty countries. He explains how thrilling it was to be able to present a programme where he could be seen skipping from one continent to another within several short sequences. Filming took place, for example, in Morocco, Japan and Australia and the films were watched by 500 million people.

The documentary was interspersed with amusing anecdotes, for example, the time the naturalists were attempting to talk underwater by using a "bubble helmet" and microphone. Attenborough's bubble helmet was faulty and started filling up, much to his horror. He explains the joy of watching dolphins and realising the extent of their sociability and their intelligence. These beautiful, curious creatures adored playing with any bits and pieces, like twigs, that they could find to toss about.

Until 1980, it was only possible to film for about ten minutes underwater, but then the new video cameras changed all that, and the film could run for 30 minutes, recording extraordinary behaviour never before seen.

Night-time Filming Reveals Uncomfortable Truths

Night-time filming was problematic, as if you shone a spotlight in order to film an animal, all you captured was the sight of your subject running away. On one occasion in 1972, bats were flying around Attenborough's head in a panic while the smell of ammonia from their droppings assailed his nostrils. Then the lights were turned out to calm the bats, and, despite the team being convinced of the bats' infallible radar, one flew straight into Sir David Attenborough's face! 

All of these problems were eventually solved by the use of infrared light. Most of lion activity takes place at night, and in 1990 a pride of lions was filmed chasing and bringing down an elephant, something people might not otherwise have known. Nevertheless, it was a distressing sequence to watch. A kiwi looking for sandhoppers was also filmed, and the bird never knew anyone was there. Iguanas in the Galapagos were shown to lose all their heat when they dived for food. After the hunt, they had to bask in the sun to "recharge" their energy. A rattlesnake stalked an unsuspecting mouse, and a springtail jumped 15 cm into the air, equivalent to a human leaping over the Eiffel Tower.

Slow-motion and Filming at Speed

Slow motion produced further amazing footage, including the flight of a kestrel, showing movements that could never be perceived by the naked eye. Speed helped us to see the struggle for survival among plant life. Most cameras use 25 frames per second. One frame per second speeds everything up 25 times, revealing that the most aggressive plant is probably the bramble, waving from side to side.

"The wonderful thing about wildlife film-making is that there is always something to surprise you," says Sir David Attenborough. "No matter how much you've seen and filmed."

Aerial Filming

Filming in the air from small planes in order to get an overview, for example, of wildlife in Africa, proved difficult. The noise of the engine would frighten the animals so researchers started to use balloons. That wasn't too successful as the wind frequently blew them in the wrong direction. Helicopters were able to fly high but the vibration of the plane would affect the quality of the filming. A stabilising mount was invented that kept the camera vibration-free.

Now it was possible to film successfully regardless of whether you were on land, in the sea or up in the air! 

One of the pinnacles of wildlife success was that of Mark Smith, who in the winter of 2007 went to Pakistan to try to film the snow leopard. It took a long time and lots of patience, but eventually, at the turn of the New Year, he captured shots of a snow leopard lying sphinx-like on the mountain. Altogether, he was in Pakistan for eight months.

Not only did he get shots of the snow leopard, but the animal turned out to be a new mum. The result was a euphoric victory for Mark Smith, who secured beautiful images of both mother and cub.  

Source: 

Attenborough, David, "Life on Camera" Part 1, 60 Years in the Wild, BBC and THIRTEEN in association with WNET New York Public and Media. Produced and Directed by Miles Barton, First broadcast: 16 November, 2012.

Problems of Definitions in the Philosophy of Art

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

    

The terms 'necessary condition' and 'sufficient condition' are used to attempt to define the qualities that make a work of art. A 'necessary condition' is a quality without which the work would not meet the requirement of being judged 'art'. It should apply, in common, to all works that are described as art. For example, X is a necessary condition of Y if, and only if, Y cannot be without X.  

A 'feeling' is not a 'necessary condition of art, says the philospher, Oswald Hanfling, "...someone may create a work of art, say a beautiful vase, without any intention of passing on feelings he has lived through."

'Sufficient condition' specifies a quality that may be defined as follows: 

X is a 'sufficient condition' of Y, if X, by itself, guarantees Y. In other words, a 'sufficient condition' is present in a work of art and is sufficient in itself to justify the label of art. If the quality is not sufficient, this could be because this quality may also be present in other artefacts or works of nature that are not art. Hanfling asks if 'beauty' can be considered a 'sufficient condition' of art and concludes that it cannot. 

"No, for many natural objects, scenery, etc. are beautiful without being works of art."

Hanfling looks at a quality shown by W. Tatarkiewicz, which considers the effect of art on the receipient: "...capable of evoking delight or emotion or shock. Hanfling says this cannot stand as a 'sufficient condition' because:

"...if fond parents take photographs of their children, these may be capable of producing delight... it would not follow they were works of art."

The Historicist Fallacy

The philosopher, Monroe Beardsley, questions the 'historicist fallacy' - that philosophy cannot judge past societies or epochs in modern terms. The 'historicist fallacy' is that art means no more than how a given historical period conceives it to be, which leads to the 'radical relativist" view that no conceptual scheme is better than any other. "But, evolving a better literary theory... than they had, would not prevent us from grasping their beliefs." 

He argues that once people thought whales were fish, but that this does not prevent us from studying the early stages of the whaling industry. He says, "What we want to understand... is what is going on?"

Beardsley's Key Presuppositions

Beardsley's first meta-aesthetic is that aesthetic theory "... should mark a distinction that is theoretically significant." Secondly, "...that in selecting key terms for aesthetic theory, we ought to stay as close as convenient to ordinary use." Beardsley's third meta-aesthetic condition is that artwork "...should be of the greatest possible utility to inquirers in other fields besides aesthetics" and especially in the fields of art history and anthropology. Fourthly, he believes that "...art and the aesthetic should be conceptually linked."

Beardsley's necessary condition for art is that it should be an aesthetic experience. His sufficient conditions are that it is either "...an arrangement of conditions intended to be capable of affording an experience with marked aesthetic character, or belonging to a type of arrangement typically intended to have this capacity."

In conclusion, the key presuppositions of Beardsley's theory are as follows:

·      A work of art must be an aesthetic experience where participation is active and searching.

·      It is not necessary that the artist's intention was to produce a work of art. Art can be produced by creating religious artefacts, for instance. He states, regarding the painters of Lascaux who probably did not know they were producing art, "But it does not follow that they were not producing art."

·      Other periods and cultures can be judged using modern theory in the context of their own beliefs.

Sources:

·      Beardsley, Monroe C, "Redefining Art" Theories of Art and Beauty, The Open University, 1991.

·      Hanfling, Oswald, 'The Problem of Definition' Philosophical Aesthetics, Blackwell Publishers, 1992.