Humanistic Tradition Conclusion

For my last blog I figured that I would conclude by talking about some of the things that I have learned throughout the course. We began by talking about the Renaissance and then kept going until we reached the Enlightenment. During this time we talked about the difference in painters, scientists, and musicians of the time. We also explored many works by many different people that explored the same thing. In one book we learned about all the different things that go into painting, and what the author actually thought about painting. In another we learned about what it would take to be a prince. Another thing that we did throughout the semester was analyze different works of art. One of the things that helped me learn the most was the critiques that we did throughout the semester. In the critiques we had to put what we learned in the class and use it to judge a cultural event that we attended. This helped me to use what I had learned in an everyday situation.

Serious Movie

This week we watched a video about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table searching for the golden chalice. This movie wasn’t actually that serious of a movie, but it was a good way to end the semester. It begins by showing King Arthur trying to find knights to join and become part of the Knights of the Round Table. Once he has found them God comes to them and tells them to go on a quest for the golden chalice. The movie then follows them as they go to complete the quest. It doesn’t actually end well since King Arthur doesn’t get to retrieve the chalice since he is arrested by the cops. This movie deals with humanities since it is a way of expressing culture. This movie was obviously meant to be a comedy and it wasn’t actually that bad of one in the end. I thought that I would talk about this since I haven’t really discussed film that much before. Film is in a way like a play except you can use special effects and you don’t have to attend it live to view it. Film is probably the top way that culture is spread today since pretty much everybody watches TV.

Raphael's "The School of Athens"

1)      Raphael’s painting “The School of Athens” actually appears to be a school about philosophy. In the painting there is a gathering of opposites. Plato heads one side and Aristotle heads the other. Plato’s side is composed of mathematicians and writers and people who are down to Earth. Aristotle’s side consists of physicists and people who are concerned with the heavens. The way in which Plato and Aristotle are pointing could be analyzed in two ways. The first is that Plato is pointing up to say that you need to know about down to Earth things as well as the heavens to truly understand philosophy and Aristotle seems to be saying the same thing by pointing down at the ground. The other way it could be interpreted is that since Plato uses deduction, which is from general to specific, he is pointing up to symbolize where you should start. He is saying that you should start at the top and then work down. Aristotle is pointing down since he uses induction, which is specific to general, so you start at something specific and then make general conclusions based on that. Overall, this is probably the best painting I have seen this semester.

Pico della Mirandola

                    Pico della Mirandola was the personification of renaissance life because of all that he did. First of all, renaissance means “the rebirth” or the revival of learning and culture. Mirandola was a perfect fit for this since he was extremely smart and sought to relate everything to God, thereby solving the problem of the one in the many. The problem is how everything in the universe relates to the one God. Mirandola stated that all of the things in the universe are symbols of God. Like religion, speech, and philosophy, they are all images and expressions of God. Whereas the medieval view of this was that nothing on Earth resembles God, Mirandola reversed this by saying that everything that humans can think, imagine, and create are expressions of divinity. Since humanism in the renaissance was about relating man and God, Mirandola is a perfect example of making this happen. He went even further by offering to defend 900 theses on religion, natural philosophy, and magic.

The Four Idols

             This week we talked a lot about Francis Bacon. He is known for using the inductive method of thinking.  That is looking at a bunch of facts and then coming to a conclusion based on those facts. But before beginning this the person must clear his mind of certain biases. Bacon also came up with four different types of biases that people experience. The first one is idols of the tribe. That is doing stuff according to your race and culture. The second one is idols of the marketplace. This involves language, since we have to know what it means to understand it. So a scientist must be careful when he is using language so that everyone can understand what he is saying. The third one is idols of the theatre. This one involves whatever religious or philosophical view that you are influenced by. The fourth and final one is idols of the cave. This one involves our own attitudes toward something. So in order to be a true scientist one must be able to put aside all of these biases and think logically.

Hamlet Part 2

I will now start up where I left off the last time with the letters sent to England to kill Hamlet. Hamlet managed to escape this by switching the letters and having the messengers killed instead. When he got back home Laertes challenged him to a duel since Laertes blamed Hamlet for the death of his sister and father. Claudius planned on having Hamlet killed by poisoning wine that Hamlet was meant to drink. Laertes also planned on having an advantage on Hamlet by putting poison on the tip of his sword. In the end when Hamlet and Laertes where fighting Laertes cuts Hamlet but Hamlet manages to kill Laertes. Hamlets mother then drinks the wine and she dies. Hamlet seeing this forces Claudius to drink the wine and Hamlet dies last due to his wound that had been poisoned by Laerte's sword. So all in all the ending was pretty intense.

Hamlet Part 1

This week we focused completely on Shakespeare's book "Hamlet". One of the things that I had never known before was that going to one of Shakespeare's plays wasn't an elegant occasion or anything like I thought that it was. It was instead a casual event that the lower to middle class people attended.

The play started out with us learning that Hamlet's father had just died and his mother was marrying his father's brother. We then see the ghost of Hamlet's father tell Hamlet that his brother killed him by pouring poison into his ear. His father now wants Hamlet to avenge him by killing Claudius. To prevent people from catching on to what he is going to do Hamlet acts like he is mad. One of the things that people wonder about this is if by Hamlet acting mad he actually becomes mad. We finished the the first half by Hamlet sailing off to England where Clausius had sent notes to England to have Hamlet killed.

Overall, I rather enjoyed reading this book. It is pretty easy to read and has a good storyline, other than the fact that Hamlet and his mom have a little thing going on.