Reflection of Theme 2

The second week’s theme was Critical media studies. I read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity and two chapters in Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, the chapters were The Concept of Enlightenment and The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. I thought these texts about critical theory was a bit challenging. As I mentioned last week I did appreciate the lecture and seminar because it clarified parts of the texts and gave me different perspective and understanding of the theme. The lecture basically explained the main ideas in a philosophical context and put them in a historical view, the lecturer also talked about the authors lives. The main ideas and terms where explained and giving in a context or explained by examples which helped me to understand the texts better. So I did learn a lot from the lecture and I thought the model in the end of the lecture was interesting. It showed how myth, enlightenment, observable regularity, rationalism/empiricism, realism/nominalism, deduction/induction were related to each other. After the lecture I read the texts again and I did understand them better. For me, the historically view and the fact that we got to know the authors and their life during the lecture somehow made me read the text with a different view after the lecture, which was interesting. The texts then became easier to understand.

During the first part of the seminar we discussed the theme and had an opportunity to ask questions that we still had, which I thought clarified some question mark and thoughts that had risen during the week. The second part of the seminar were we divided into smaller groups where we discussed some giving questions. Later the whole seminar group discussed what each group came up with. I will bring along from the seminar group our discussion on realism and nominalism and Kant’s cave. Kant’s cave shows how the world of ideas are linked with the world of reasons. I learned a lot this week, as I mentioned in my reflection above. I also think it is fun and a learning process itself too read and understand the texts from a philosophical view. I feel like I did improve my way of thinking in a philosophical context from last week.