Title: Giacometti s Hollow
1The of Scientific Determinism
2Umberto Boccioni Dynamism of a Soccer Player
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5Piet Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie
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8The Medieval Outlook
- The world and our lives are Teleological They
have a purpose, an aim) - The world is Absolutist in religious and
political thought - The earths design and purpose centers on Gods
plan for our Earthly existence - This earth is the center and centerpiece of Gods
creations - The old World View is dynamistic, not mechanical
9 The Rise of the Modern WorldChallenges to
the Old World View
- The Copernican Model of the Universe
- The Earth was no longer the center of Gods
universe it had become periphery - The new timetables for the Earths age suggested
that human existence on the earth was only a
minor appearance during the last brief moment of
geologic time humans were not the central actors
10The Rise of the Modern WorldChallenges to the
Old World View
- The Slow Shift from Religious tradition and
authority to the Scientific Method - The Rise of inductive methods of scholarship
- The Mechanistic view of Nature
- The Expansion of Secular Learning
11The Rise of the Modern WorldChallenges to the
Old World View
- The Rise of Humanism and democratic reform
- Greek and Roman Models of Government were
imitated over Judeo-Christian, authoritative
systems
12The Modern WorldThe Rise in the 19th Century of
Naturalism or Determinism
- Naturalism means Humans are creatures who have
no free will they are as controlled and
determined by natural forces (genetic and
environmental) as are the stones on the hill or
the water in a stream. - This mechanistic view also suggests moral
relativism or the irrelevance of moral
constraints
13The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Science and Philosophy have slowly built
arguments and evidences for UNIVERSAL CAUSATION,
the idea that humans have no free will. - Synonyms --- Universal causation determinism
naturalism materialism no free will no free
agency
14The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Descartes theorized that much of the universe was
purely mechanical and materialistic, including
all of a human being except the mind.
15The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Newton first worked out in detail the formulas
for physical determinism in the laws of motion
in the natural universe with his study of inertia
and gravity.
16The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Hegel developed a theory of historical
determinism in which we all play scripted parts
in the progress of the world.
17The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Charles Darwin developed a theory of biological
determinism, saying that the very development of
all species was determined by natural forces
playing upon the biological traits of species.
18The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Karl Marx developed the idea of economic
determinism, arguing that the social class and
economic conditions in which humans found
themselves are largely responsible for what they
are.
19The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Freud argued for psychological determinism,
saying that prenatal and early childhood
experiences determine much of our life. - The physical brain, with its ego, id and
super-ego, replace the concept of soul.
20The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- B. F. Skinner, a Harvard psychologist, has
developed a similar theory of psychological
determinism, arguing that we humans can be shaped
by stimulus-response conditioning in the same way
Pavlovs dogs could be. - Much of modern psychology is based on such
theories.
21The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- Emile Zola and other naturalistic writers have
produced literature in which humans seem to have
no ability to alter the course of their lives.
Genetics plus environment make the human, not
reason and will. - Zolas novel, The Experimental Novel, in 1880,
was the first naturalistic work
22Naturalism in Literature
- One viewed the existence of man then as a
marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these
lice which were caused to cling to a whirling,
fire-smitten, ice-locked, disease-stricken,
space-lost bulb. (Stephen Crane, The Blue Hotel)
23The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- It is a familiar idea to all of us that we are
conditioned and governed by past events in our
lives. It is part of our psycho-therapy, our
legal system, and our everyday conversation.
24The Modern WorldThe Rise of Naturalism
- With the rise of science, words like soul or
mind, as things separate from the physical
brain, have no place. The Mind is essentially a
damp computer. This led Nietzsche to conclude - God is dead.
- And Tennyson laments the decline of genuine
spirituality in the formal churches - But the churchmen fain would kill their church,
- As the churches have killed their Christ.
25The Modern World The Loss of Faith
- A conception of God which is incomprehensible
to all who are not highly trained logicians, is a
possible God for logicians alone . . . . This
God . . . does not satisfy the passions of the
believer. This God does not govern the world like
a king nor watch over his children like a father
. . . .He is no God at all his universe
remains stonily unaware of man. (Walter
Lippmann. A Preface to Morals)
26The Modern World The Loss of Faith
- In a Universe of blind forces and physical
replication, some people are going to get hurt,
others are going to get lucky, and you wont find
any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The
universe we observe has precisely the properties
we should expect if there is, at bottom, no
design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing
but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy
poet, A.E. Housman put it, For Nature,
heartless, witless nature / Will neither care no
know. DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is.
And we dance to its tune. (Richard Dawkins.
River out of Eden, p. 155)
27The Loss of Faith
- Alas, shut-out from Hope, in a deeper sense than
we yet dream of! For, as he wanders wearisomely
through this world, he has now lost all tidings
of another and higher. . . . Doubt had darkened
into Unbelief,. . . Is there no God, then but
at best an absentee God, sitting idle, at the
outside of his Universe, and seeing it go? . . .
It is all a grim Desert, this once-fair world of
his wherein is heard only the howling of
wild-beasts, or the shrieks of despairing,
hate-filled men and no Pillar of Cloud by day,
and no Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides
the Pilgrim. (Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus,
1833-34)
28Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the
moon lies fair Upon the straits--on the French
coast the light Gleams and is gone the cliffs of
England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the
tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the
night-air! Only, from the long line of
spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched
land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of
pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At
their return, up the high strand,
29Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With
tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal
note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it
on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the
turbid ebb and flow Of human misery we Find
also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this
distant northern sea, The Sea of Faith Was once,
too, at the full, and round earths shore Lay
like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now
I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing
roar,
30Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down
the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the
world. Pebbled beaches Ah, love, let
us be true To one another! for the world, which
seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So
various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really
neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude,
nor peace, nor help for pain And we are here as
on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of
struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash
by night. (1867)
31The Rise of Naturalism--Cubism
32The Rise of Naturalism--Cubism
33The Rise of Naturalism--Cubism
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36Giacomettis Hollow men in the modern world
37Giacomettis Hollow men
38Anti-war Themes
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40Rebers Graphic Depiction of the Modern World
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