Why people take scientific truth as the truth? Whether it is possible to fit God into science? Why creationism is not taught in schools whilst science is? This is an episode that circulates around the conflicts between creationism and science. Continue reading
This is the last episode of Either/Or and the theme of this episode is to explore the relationship between art and economy, such as whether it even make sense to talk about art alongside with economical theory. Different societies and economies are discussed such as capitalism, socialism and communism. The judge and artist structure is quite loose in this episode because it is the finale and we just want to have a more leisure set up. Continue reading
Continuing the topic on the relationship between art and modern society, this episode goes deeper to the topic of how art can reveal new perspective in the modern society and how it relates to creation of art. The judge continues to explicate the revealing power of art and how art can save people from losing oneself into the technological society. On the other hand, the artist keeps challenging the plausibility and the principle of such claim.
After a series of episodes on discussion on the traditional art forms, this episode explores the relationship between art and the modern society. In this episode, the judge claims that art has the special power to provide fresh perspective to the society where new perspectives can be easily blocked.On the other hand, the artist thinks that because of the sprouting of technology, art has become a widespread term that the borderline between art and non-art is blurred. Continue reading
After five weeks of discussion about the aesthetical and ethical concern of various art forms, the hosts have discovered the need to explicate the deeper problem. This is a special episode in a sense that the discussion centers on the ontological and epistemological assumptions that one may be making whilst discussing the aesthetical or ethical perspective of art forms. This is a more difficult episode that reaches into the more fundamental problems. Continue reading
This week is about literature. In this episode the judge considers that there are certain necessary conditions for a novel to be a novel and one of them is the ethical theme. The judge claims that it is the soul and what gives the novel its transformative power. The artist, however, argues that what gives the novel the transformative effect is not the ethical theme but rather the various backgrounds of the audience. As such, the artist goes directly against the judge in terms of the claim that the essence of a piece of literature is not the intentional ethical theme but the artistic technique that evoke various ethical concerns in the audience’s mind. Continue reading
For anybody interested, I recently finished editing an interview I conducted with Dr Eileen John of the Philosophy department at Warwick (which the ever-indispensable Mr Mannie Taur kindly stepped in to film for me at the last minute; perhaps this was the spark of inspiration for our show itself…?). Anyway, her primary research interests feed directly into the issues we occupy our attention with in Either/Or, and the interview may (hopefully) introduce a number of illuminating angles on the state of the debate and her own perspective on our topics. Check it out online here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/capital/osl/media/movies/
As usual all comments and queries are encouraged, but rest assured I am already aware of the avant-garde-amateurship apparent in certain aspects of the footage! The content of the interview is not covered by our current copyright, but some of the central ideas and opinions expressed are from published works, and thus her own intellectual property. Hers, you hear me!? Other than that, enjoy!
This week, the judge and the artist introduced the new section called ‘quote of the day’ (which ended up being a rather intermittent addition to the format!). Anyway, the artist states that there are certain necessary conditions for something to qualify as ‘music’. After fulfilling these necessary conditions, music should also include an emotional affect and such like. As a result, the artist claims that ‘good’ music is when a piece of work has exercised these elements to the fullest degree. On the other hand, the judge seeks to separate different emotional responses into positive and negative categories i.e. good and bad responses elicited by music. In so doing, the judge seeks to develop a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music. Continue reading
This episode takes you right into the aesthetical and ethical debate of music. In this episode, the judge insists that one of the necessary components for music is lyrics since the only way to incorporate ethics into music is lyrics. In this sense, the judge is circling around propositional ethics. On the other hand, the artist claims that one of the merits of music is pure music and the inclusion of lyrics will be disrupting the musical element. Moreover, the artist also challenges the intelligibility of presuming propositional ethics. Continue reading
The debate of this episode circles around whether movie directors have an obligation to portray an accurate account of moral issues. The movies that are discussed in this episode include Lolita and Gone Baby Gone. The judge claims that it is vitally important to outline an account that corresponds to the nature of morality. This means no specific moral issue can be put forward since moral issue itself is an unsettling issue. On the other hand, the artist thinks that there are certain moral issues, such as pedophilia, that can be more easily judged and in this kind of case, the director should by all means underline the correct moral judgment in the film. Moreover, the artist claims that the greatest movies ever made are the ones that have a very clear-cut moral message. Continue reading
Philosophy Tweak 