Ideas for senior thesis!

[Virgil]

The point is a valid one. Genuine Marxism has yet to be experienced in any country in the world - more often than not it turns to oligarchy before getting anywhere near achieving a communist state(see Cuba, etc.,etc.).

It is impossible to put Marxism into practice in real life without denying people's freedom. Period. I has not been done because it cannot be done.

[Etienne]

It is impossible to put Marxism into practice in real life without denying people's freedom. Period. I has not been done because it cannot be done.

But first, Marx is not only this. Second, back in the Middle-Ages, who would have thought about a political system like ours (even though they had democratic examples from the past, it only applied to a city-state, and we have plenty of small-scale examples of communist-like communities that are working very well). Marx saw communism as a natural evolution through the democratic process. Do I think it will happen one day? To some extent, yes I believe it will. Do I hope it will happen? No I don't, but mostly for philosophical reasons, not because "it can't work". Oh and saying that communism (even in stalinism, castrism, maoism, etc) doesn't work is putting your head in the ground. It does work, it might not reach our values, but it is a workable system for a State (in the cold sense of the term).

[Virgil]

But first, Marx is not only this. Second, back in the Middle-Ages, who would have thought about a political system like ours (even though they had democratic examples from the past, it only applied to a city-state, and we have plenty of small-scale examples of communist-like communities that are working very well). Marx saw communism as a natural evolution through the democratic process. Do I think it will happen one day? To some extent, yes I believe it will. Do I hope it will happen? No I don't, but mostly for philosophical reasons, not because "it can't work". Oh and saying that communism (even in stalinism, castrism, maoism, etc) doesn't work is putting your head in the ground. It does work, it might not reach our values, but it is a workable system for a State (in the cold sense of the term).

If you read my post entirely I said:

It is impossible to put Marxism into practice in real life without denying people's freedom. Period. I has not been done because it cannot be done.

Yes, it can be put into practice, but not without "denying people's freedom" as I said.

[Etienne]

If you read my post entirely I said:

Yes, it can be put into practice, but not without "denying people's freedom" as I said.

I know, the second part of my post wasn't directed at your post, I should have pointed it out. The first part still applies however.

But my main point lies exactly OUTSIDE of the communist, or even political considerations, Marx also brought insights and theories that are applied in the study of other fields. So if you had talked about communism instead of Marx then we could have agreed, but Marx political theory is not any form of communism attempted (and any of these regime did not try to follow Marx's guidelines, they were inspired or influenced at best) and you should approach his writing with a broader perspective to get his full value, which I repeat once more, is not limited to communism. Simply the concept of class struggle, for example, has a much broader implication than the political aim of a society without classes but is also a perspective of observation. The fact that the only times you've heard of marx was when it was linked to communism doesn't mean that Marx's thoughts is limited to that.

Anyways, I've just been repeating the same things all over again, and all you've been answering is: communism does not work. That's not my point, and I think you can understand that, or am I mistaken?

[Virgil]

OK, I understand. I think we've distorted the original intent of the thread. Sorry Anastasja.

[hellsapoppin]

I recommend a paper and speech on Graham Greene's Monsignor Quixote because it deals with modern day philosophical conflicts and encompasses religious and Marxist issues.

It features many interesting quotes and is a thorough delight.

[Midas]

There are two main issues involved in the subject of this thread.

(1) Is approaching the exercise looking at philosophy from a personal point of view, and by that I mean idealistically, mainly because it is a human tendency to see points of view to which we align ourselves as idealistic - otherwise why would we accept them with such fervour.

(2) As this is an academic exercise, then what has to be considered is that it is approached from what is the one most likely not to hit discord in the small select, highly critical, readership.

My advice is to 'bury' the first option, at least until the second one has been given prime consideration to narrow down the choice. I would further recommend that little if no emphasis is placed on political, or religious inferences.

I stress the latter because they can be very emotive to someone with strong beliefs in this area which may be at variance with the slant of your presentation, which has come across, however unintended.

Few, and I mean very few, really understand politics, or even particular religious beliefs for that matter.

In fact, I leave this with a quote from someone very much on the 'inside' and holding a very high position of the time.

D'Israeli was the British prime minister at the height of that nation's power, and where she ruled the largest Empire the world had ever seen. Her navy roamed the high sees unchallenged to protect that empire - not for the British people, but for its merchants.

He said

'This world is run by far different personages than is generally believed by those on the outside'.

Now read that quote again and take it in, because there is the key.

You may, or may not understand what he was saying, you may not see it as important. But, if you did you would leave your, or any political reformer's
ideas, no matter how elevated or accepted is that reformer, well alone.

Better to get the individual right first, before trying to change the world, or even a nation. And the place to start is with self.

This is my honest opinion for what it is worth.

Once again - good luck

[jon1jt]

I attend the last year of classical lycée (after which I am off to university, cannot wait! ), and it is tradition here that students in their last year write their first lenghty formal paper, in the subject they desire and of topic they desire. Though in many schools it is mere formality, in mine it is not and it is rather serious, a lot of stuff depends on how well you do it, and I really wish to avoid having to defend the thesis in front of comission, which means I must get an A from it.
I am new in school too, which is another obstacle (so professor cannot offer any topic to me since he does not know me well, and I must decide until the end of next week), and in country, which is one more obstacle. How cool.

So, yes, the subject is Philosophy. Some of you might argue - and be right - that it was somewhat silly of me to choose such a subject to write my first formal paper in, in a language I am still not academically fluent in, but it is irreversible, and, after all, I wanted that challenge.
What I am worried about is the choice of topic. In all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what to write about.

I can choose anything from the field of philosophy, as long as the theme is not too broad (a "Commentary on Hegel's opus" would be an example of such mistake ), and it is generally preferred that we do not take one philosopher or one work and write a paper on it, but do something with some continuity, perhaps even inter-disciplinary thing; I basically need some interesting problem to discuss in some 30-50 pages (I am not sure of the definite range we can write in, but it should circle around this, from my own estimate).

Even though I do not know what I want to write about, I am pretty sure about things I do not want to write about. They would be the following:
1.) The philosophy of classical antiquity
This is my 8th year of classical education, have mercy on me, I shiver at thought of dealing with something Roman or ancient Greek for a project I have full freedom of choosing topic. So, no Plato and the rest of the crew, I have been hearing enough about them in the past years;
2.) Marxism and political philosophy of it
Not interested in it, plus I come from post-socialist country and the last thing I would want over here is the choice of my theme to be viewed as sort of provocation;
3.) Hegel
His lofty blabbering is really too much for me, I need to be drugged if I wish to concentrate on anything more than excerpts of him;
4.) Existentialism
We are studying it intensely right now, it would be seen as taking an easy way out, I suppose, if I choose to do it for my thesis; plus I am not that interesting in it.

Other than these four, pretty much everything else is an option.
I am really desperate, I have gone through all my histories of philosophy, chrestomathiae and other stuff I have been using over years, and I cannot seem to find an interesting theme, or philosopher, or work, I would want my first formal paper to deal with.

If you have any suggestions, anything; particularly any cool topics, I will be grateful to you a lot.
Thank you in advance.

interesting assignment, anastasija. iyou mentioned Hegel so it raised a thought where i had left off in my own research days---
there's some incredible potential for a great thesis or dissertation on Martin Heidegger's notion of "Care" through contemporary philosophical writings (non-continental). see works of Kant (books on moral imperative), Hegel, Schliermacher, Levinas, Sri Aurobindo. a topic very ripe for analysis, but i don't know what your intention is as far as time and length.

as far as inter-disciplinary work goes, i highly recommend that you start with Edward O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, which may trigger some interesting research questions.

good luck to you in your studies.

[tomtefader]

Anastasija,

Perhaps you could write a treatise on semantics, which is a really interesting part of philosophy; or choose an influential modern philosopher, Wittgenstein, for example?

I think that the best thing for you to do, however, is to choose a general direction for your study, and to advance from this point.

And really, Wittgenstein and semantics are very interesting indeed.

/K.

[Jeroun]

In the philosophy of music there has been and maybe still is a debate concerning the problem of calling music a fine art. Kant among others have written about this. They believed that for something to be a fine art it had to reflect the human condition, humanity, etc. Literature does that: it emulates human speech through words, dialogue, etc. Music however is a far more difficult thing to call a fine art: it does not emulate a observable aspect of humanity. (When music philosophers talk about music, they generally mean absolute music as in music without vocals.) ( A Introduction on A Philosophy of Music by Peter Kivy contains a chapter in which this is explained very well. A good place to start your research if you choose this topic.)

This topic isn't too broad but you can still write something about it.

[aabbcc]

Thank you everybody for your suggestions.

About marxism - I won't get into discussion of it here since I doubt I know enough about it to discuss it properly; being 17, I was born in the time when communism was falling apart so I de facto did not live in communist country, what I lived in were countries in transformation from one system to another. Practically all I know about communism in practice is second-hand, by older people; and as far as marxism and theory is concerned, I studied very snippets of it at school in four different subjects (History, Sociology, Politics and Economy, Philosophy), all of which shed a different light on it and focused on different aspects of marxism.

The problem with writing about marxism is also somewhat of practical nature, though. It is virtually impossible to write about marxism without bringing up Hegel first (and that is mainly what I try to avoid ). Furthermore, the sole "marxism" is a topic too broad. It is greatly preferred that we take one aspect, or one problem, and then discuss it, as "marxism" itself covers a whole lot of things. As I write my thesis under "Philosophy" class, I am - even though I can go little interdisciplinatory - limited by the subject; therefore, what I would have to focus on would be marxism as historical materialism, and where it came from (thus a whole lot of Hegel before introducing Marx), and not on economic or historical implications of the word "marxism" today (if I wrote about that, I would have to shift the field of writing - and that is irreversible, since it is too late for it now and my thesis must go under "philosophy").

Similar problems exist with some other potentially cool stuff.
I cannot write about Shakespeare, for example, for that would get me into having to do art/philosophy distinction first (and that itself would take half of the thesis ); and Shakespeare itself would fit much nicer into the English or Literature. I can go interdisciplinatory, but my main theme must belong to philosophy, I cannot choose something which is technically mainly another thing. Another problem would be literature and references - this is a formal paper, I cannot really write an impressionist essay off the top of my head, and as far as I'm aware, there isn't much literature seriously linking Shakespeare with some philosophical streams (at least not available here).

I basically need something I have a lot of literature on, something I could write 30-50 pages on, and something I could write well, because unless my thesis is marked with highest grade, I must defend it in front of comission. And I am newbie at school, in foreign country, with foreign language, and that is not quite what I would look forward to. Not that I do not speak the language, but there is great difference between being fully functional in language in terms of everyday life issues, reading books and attending school; and being academically fluent in terms of being able to write and defend a dissertation using academic 'slang' () and doing it all quite formally.
That is the main reason why I refrain from authors such as Hegel, because even though their topics are insanely interesting, their language is just too much of an obstacle for me even in Russian/Croatian, save other languages. Certainly, I could read it in one language and write in the another, but it would be even more of the trouble. That is why I need something legible.

Professor gave me more time for thinking when we spoke (), plus he is on some conference now, which means I have time by the next Friday.
I am really considering this Wittgenstein thing, though. There is a lot of logic in it, I think I might nicely go in that direction (language/semantics).

Thank you everybody for your suggestions, they mean a lot to me.

[aabbcc]

In the philosophy of music there has been and maybe still is a debate concerning the problem of calling music a fine art. Kant among others have written about this. They believed that for something to be a fine art it had to reflect the human condition, humanity, etc. Literature does that: it emulates human speech through words, dialogue, etc. Music however is a far more difficult thing to call a fine art: it does not emulate a observable aspect of humanity. (When music philosophers talk about music, they generally mean absolute music as in music without vocals.) ( A Introduction on A Philosophy of Music by Peter Kivy contains a chapter in which this is explained very well. A good place to start your research if you choose this topic.)

This topic isn't too broad but you can still write something about it.

I was writing my previous response so I did not notice yours, but... you know how things sometimes just 'click'?
I am so getting to research this, it sounds amazing.

[Midas]

Anastasija, If I read correctly, you are just 17 years old, and you are from Eastern Europe so your native language is not English. Therefore may I compliment you on your English.

I feel you will have little problem in presenting a very acceptable paper on whichever topic you choose (assuming, as you say, you keep away from politics and religion in this particular situation).

It is not because I doubt you could produce a well researched, and enlightening, paper on these topics, but it just might send a discord that would shift the emphasis, and attention, in the minds of the examiners from where it should be. It is a risk to be avoided when there are other options.

" Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. "
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Bon Chance, Midas

[Ludmila607]

I would pick Hegel.Centering my thesis on his perspective of the teleological and dialectical movement of the History according to the reason and probably analizing the rol of the individual on this human spirit development.

[Remarkable]

Why is it that anyone who has lived in a communist country knows that Marx is a bunch of crap, but the so called intellectuals of the west still think that Marx is relevant? Marx is a bunch of garbage.

I am sorry to divert again from the main topic,but I have to answer this.Virgil,why does communism hurt you so much?First of all,communism is not Marxism,it is Stalinism,Maoism etc,etc.The communist leaders of the erea interpreted Marx their own way just as some(and I repeat,only some)Muslims interpreat Mohammed nowdays.And then,it is more than certain that Marxism influenced the western world.Why do you think women today have the right to vote?Why do you think capitalism accepted the 8 hours day?Why do you think child labour is banned?Just answer this questions to yourself...

And,as about your thesis,Anastasja,I think you could use this topic:"I think,therefore I am".It doesn't neccecarily have to be related to Decart,you could write about many other aspects of philosophy.