The article treats the place of the body in thecultural criticism of Viktor Rydberg, not only as a central theme but also as an image with the potential to figuratively describe societal and even cosmic relationships. Rydberg’s idealof the symmetrical and athletic body is seen inthe perspective of his dependence on German neo-humanism and the gymnastic movement.The ideal of bodily symmetry figures as an image of universal man who defies the division of labor, while the deformed body inversely figures as an image of the lack of wholeness in a stratified bourgeois society. This is further elucidated by an analysis of Rydberg’s view of Darwinism and his fear of degeneration .In the final section, special attention is given to Rydberg’s broodings on the “Future of theWhite Race”. In this text, the body is a figure of the collectivity (the body politic) and its diseases signify political and moral crisis, while the remedy for this state of affairs lies in recognizing the unity of the living, the deadand the unborn in the body of Christ.

This paper delves into the realm of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, seeking to unravel its profound philosophical implications. Traditionally, Lovecraft’s works have been analyzed within the framework of gothic literature, primarily drawing upon Edmund Burke’s concept of the sublime. However, this study argues that to fully grasp the essence of cosmic horror, an alternative theoretical lens is required. By integrating Martin Heidegger’s existential philosophy, particularly his notions of Angst and Unheimlich, this paper offers a fresh perspective on Lovecraft’s cosmic horror. Lovecraft’s essays Supernatural Horror in Literature and Notes on Writing Weird Fiction provides comprehensive insights into the nature of cosmic horror. By interpreting Lovecraft’s essays through the lens of Heidegger’s concept of Unheimlich and Angst, this paper illuminates new dimensions and latent meanings within Lovecraft’s literary works and mythos. This paper argues that Lovecraft’s tales and mythology are imbued with existential philosophy, mirroring the parallel development of Heidegger’s ideas during the same period. This philosophical interpretation of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror not only enriches the reading experience but also underscores its significance as a literary genre intertwined with profound philosophical concepts and the existential questions that lie at the heart of cosmic horror. 

KARLSTADS UNIVERSITET

Termin: VT20

Ämne: Idéhistoria II

Nivå: B-nivå (G1F)Kurskod: KVGH20

ABSTRACT

Sindi Axelsson

Har ”prestationssamhället” testats positivt för covid-19?

En idéhistorisk analys av Coronakrisen i Sverige i ljuset av teorin om ”prestationssamhället”.

Has the “achievement society” been tested positively for covid-19?

An analysis of the history of ideas of the Corona crisis in Sweden in the light of the theory of the “achievement society”.

Antal sidor: 36

My purpose is to mirror how the Corona-virus pandemic inflicted a social crisis in Sweden, through the achievement society theory formed in the book The Burnout society by Byung-Chul Han. The methods used are hermeneutics and socio-economic contextualisation. Swedish society did not shut down completely due to the assumption of maintaining ”business as usual”, yet with a controlled rate of infection. Corona generated debates about the future society. The debate is wide but can be narrowed down to two perspectives; those who prefer to stay with the neo-liberal plan and those in favour of forming a more sustainable society. The Corona pandemic has shown us that we live in achievement society, but has also made us question it. The population have also been forced to think in new ways to cope with the crisis and other questions about the human responsibility and mere existence has surfaced.

Nyckelord: Covid-19, Pandemic, Burnout society, Achievement society, Social crisis, Human responsibility, Swedish Corona strategy, Media debate

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This is a study of the memoir of Tage Carlsson, a man from the margin who lived between1908-2002 in the small town of Sillerud, Värmland. The purpose of this study is to show howmodernization affected him during the 20th century; what he valued, which ideals he tried touphold and the way he narrated his life. His narrative and character are studied through the lensof the Life Writing field. Previous research on the Swedish phenomenon “skötsamhet” (wellbehaved-ness) and “folkbildning” (education of the people) lays the foundation of this study aspart of the modernization process. The content of the memoir is analyzed thematically and isdiscussed in three parts: the well-behaved person, the educated person, and the modern person.Tage fits well into all the above, and this study encourages research on the margin as it showsthat it mirrors the ideas of the center, and vice versa.

Abstract

This paper is about the philosophies created by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). The purpose is to show the high degree of similarities between Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s philosphy.

At first glance, it seems far-fetched to suggest an affinity between them; the differences in style and choice of subjects, have most certainly contributed to the fact that very few comparisons so far have been made. There is no evidence that one experienced any influence over the other, neither writer seems to have been aware of the other. Also their different areas of use during the 20th century, may have influenced the almost total lack of search for affinity. Thoreau’s philosphy has often been used by environmentalist movements, while Nietzsche has been connected to a wide range of various strivings, such as totalitarian regimes, individualistic artists and post-modern thinkers.

But if one disregard these facts, look beyond the differences, and break down their texts in search for their most fundamental opinions, one will see that Nietzsche and Thoreau shared a number of concerns. They were both ciritical to many aspects of the modern civilisation, espacially the way of life it encouraged. It was a life style, deep rooted in an obstructive tradition, that did not take the very essential conditions of life into consideration. This was both Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s opinion, and their philosophies represent a willingness to re-establish a way of life that ignores all traditions hostile to life.

Both of them criticize the religion and its moral of work, the modern science, and many institutions of the modern society – the schools and the prisons for example. But they also praise things, things they claim to have a value in contrast to the modern way of life – the simple things. Both Thoreau and Nietzsche praise the solitude life style, the silent walking in the wilderness, the simple but healthy food, as well as some intellectual stimulus, especially good litterature and music. All these simple things contribute to Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s opinion of life; it should be looked upon with the eyes of a child. Life should be like a play.

The title of this paper is Philosphers of the Rooster and the Morning. The title suggests the similarities I have found between Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies. They both announce an awakening. For them, a new morning has broken, and this paper shows the similar circumstances they give credit for their awakening.

In this chapter, we focus on how sustainable customer value is a driver of business success. Our role model is the retail company IKEA, the world’s largest furniture industry business. IKEA is a successful and growing business, with long-term profitability.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to put the question of the change of the female dress in relation to the predominant view of the women by the end of the 19^th century. The paper analyses the fixing of the boundaries for possible forms of expression within the range of female gender identity from aspects such as aesthetics, freedom and health. Through a close reading of articles published in 1896 and 1897 in Swedish daily papers and magazines, with focus on the lectures held in Sweden by the Norwegian dress-reformer Kristine Dahl and the meetings arranged by Svenska Dräktreformföreningen regarding a shorter length of the skirt, this paper investigates the issues and divergence that arose when changing the female dress. The paper runs the hypothesis that the issues and divergence that arose have something to say about where the boundaries were fixed concerning how far the meaning of the female gender identity could be expanded. The analysis uses the theory about the performativity of gender by Judith Butler. The theory gives the opportunity to investigate the fixing of the boundaries regarding how gender should be expressed to achieve comprehensibility: how far can you go when challenging contemporary norms of gender expression and how can you explain the difficulties that arise when you try to expand the meaning of the female gender identity?

To some extent the analysis confirms the starting point of this paper: the difficulties that arose may have something to do with the extension of the female gender identity. For example there was evidence that the question of desire in Butler´s theory was playing a part when interpreting the reform ideas as being ambiguous in its gender expression. Prevailing ideals of fashion along with the ideal female silhouette also turned out to be an obstructing factor.

This investigation has found a rather benevolent attitude in the articles towards the change of the outer dress and the proposal concerning a shorter length of the skirt. This separates this study from what has generally been found in other countries when dress reformers tried to change the outer dress. Changing the outer dress in England and the US drew upon a harsh resistance and strong reactions in the public opinion and the daily papers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate modernity as a phenomenon in the history of ideas, and specifically to problematize its strict delimitation between the categories of philosophy and poetry. The foundation of the study consists of a comparative analysis of the fragments of pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus and of the Swedish poet Lars Norén, functioning as examples of these respective categories. This is achieved with the help of the theoretical abutments offered by Plato, Sven-Eric Liedman and Iain McGilchrist. The conclusion of the study is that there has been a cultural shift in the Western world since antiquity pertaining to a certain form of philosophizing activity, and that 'the old way' of exploring physics in many ways is the same as 'the new way' of creating poetry. 

Det politiska livet är rörligt, flyktigt och svårdefinierat. Därför behövs en historisk förståelse av de termer och idéer som försöker fånga och gestalta det, en förståelse som kan begripliggöra både det politiska livets föränderlighet och dess relativa beständighet. 

I den här antologin ger femton forskare sina perspektiv på vad studiet av politisk idéhistoria kan vara och hur det kan bedrivas. 

Resultatet är en polyfon diskussion om politisk idéhistoria som kunskapsfält, som demonstrerar potentialen i historiska perspektiv på politiska idéer och praktiker. Antologins yttersta syfte är att öppna upp fältet för fortsatta diskussioner och fördjupade undersökningar om politikens idédimensioner och deras ofrånkomliga historicitet.

The profile the individual creates on social media can be likened to a digital panopticon. How this profilicity has developed is examined by reviewing seven texts concerning the creation of identity. After this, five paradigms emerge that map how profilicity has developed through history and how the profile has become a digital panopticon in a post-political society. The profile thus becomes a tool for strengthening the hegemony that prevails in society.

Abstract

The ideas of adulthood, adolescence and childhood in Swedish law have a tendency to not be expressed or discussed. This thesis has focused on the preparatory work of the sexual offence-law to see whether it defines adulthood. This has been achieved by analyzing the documents related to this preparatory work. The thesis focused on two central questions: 1) Was the idea of adulthood an integral part of the discussions in the preparatory work 2) If so, then how was it defined and are there any contradictions in the definition. In addition, this work also evaluated the impact of this law and investigated whether the absolute protection intended by the government and the committee of sexual crime seek actually exists.

The study shows that the concept of adulthood was not defined specifically in the preparatory work. However, through the attempts of defining childhood, an inference of adulthood can be made indirectly. The different documents could not create a tenable definition which resulted in this process confusing rather than clarifying the definitions. These ambiguous definitions affect not only the victim of a sexual crime, but also the perpetrator and the judges’ interpretation of the law. The absolute protection also does not exist and instead of making the law stronger and firmer, the revision of the law made it weaker and reduced the judicial security.

At the turn of the century 18/1900 Swedish law looked upon young people as being adults at about the age of 15. At 15, the young person had left school, had his first employment and provided for himself and also had been confirmed to full membership of the Swedish State Church. Thus he was to be considered an adult and responsible for his actions. Parents, society/school and Church had done what was expected of them and now it was up to the 15-years old to live according to the laws and to be punished if the laws were broken. Over the following hundred years, at the time of the millennium, Swedish society changed a lot. So the laws did not and still a young person of 15 is considered an adult in the eye of the Swedish law. This paper looks upon the ideas that the law was based on at the turn of the century 18/1900 and the ideas that are put forward by Swedish courts today. The law has not changed, but today Swedish young people leave school between the ages of 19-25, and find their first employment even later. The paper gives the historical background and looks at the underlying ideas of adulthood. How people think and what is considered being important in defining aduldthood has not changed much over those hundred years. In deciding if a person could pass as an adult, the Swedish law still use the same premisses today as it did a hundred years ago. As these premissies and ideas are the same, though society has changed, you can’t today be considered an adult until in your twenties.

In this investigation I will go to the bottom of the idea of progressivism by using one of the symbols of its consequences: The Titanic disaster.

The purpose is to analyze the claims of Walter Lord, comparing his story with the historical development of the 1900’s and Thomas S. Kuhns theory of paradigm shifts. According to Lord the Titanic disaster changed humans’ view on the world and their place in it, leading to a paradigm shift. By using the method of hermeneutics and critical discourse analysis I will show that Lords claims, depending on the perspective, are somewhat exaggerated. Instead Titanic would become a powerful symbol for the critics of the current paradigm, which is that of progressivism.

Even if the Titanic disaster led to some changes, the idea of progressivism has been able to modify and adapt itself, reproducing the current societal paradigm of progressivism.

This is a conceptual historical study of Karl Marx’s worker. The purpose of this study is to examine Karl Marx’s usage of the worker concept, and compare the picture, or pictures, of (the) worker as it is portrayed by Marx with the corresponding usage of the worker concept by the First International. Using the method of conceptual history, I have in texts written by Karl Marx and the First International sought the synchronic as well as the diachronic connotative meaning of the worker concept. In my study, I find that Karl Marx discusses two types of workers; in his earlier, more existential writings the worker is portrayed as an alienated victim, whereas in his later, more political writings the worker possesses an emancipatory potential. I also note how it appears to be Marx’s political worker concept that came to be used by the early workers’ movement, and through that has imprinted our modern, implicitly marxist, understanding of the the worker concept.

Democracy has been a part of the Swedish society for a long period of time and it is also a part of the Swedish elementary school curriculum, in which you can find a number of statements that expresses that the Swedish elementary school should socialize the children into becoming role model citizens. This also conjures with the available research that describes schools in general as socializing. This led me to a question that hasn’t been answered: How much of the curriculums reasons for socialization the pupils are based on democratic values and how much of it can be dated back to events prior to the curriculum?

The methodological approach is an analysis of ideologies as described by Sven-Eric Liedman and Ingemar Nilsson in Ideologi och ideologianalys. The text is focusing on the fact that a text has two layers; one is the manifest which is roughly the same as explicit or present in the text. The other layer is the latent, which is a part of the texts meaning that is indeed present but it doesn’t show until you analyse the text in the company of a valid context, in my case the context is going to a text about political socialization and a brief review of curriculums different contexts. The essay, then, is consisting of 6 different cases consisting of a brief context and an analysis of a curriculum. The chosen curriculums are from 1919, 1955, 1962, 1969, 1980 and 1994.

The study showed that a part of the curriculums reasons for socializing the pupils are based on democratic values which can be found in every curriculum that I’ve studied. The study also showed that the curriculums that I’ve studied are also partly consisting of opinions that can be dated back to events that occurred years prior to the curriculum.

This essay compares three contemporary interpretations of Stoic philosophy with an academic account of Stoicism provided by Pierre Hadot. The comparison is made by performing a discourse analytical reading of three books about contemporary Stoicism, focusing on the presentation of Stoicism from two perspectives: Stoicism as a philosophy of life, and the metaphysical constituents of Stoic practices and principles. This is then compared with Pierre Hadot’s theory, Philosophy as a Way of Life, and his account of Stoic practices and principles underlying metaphysical constituents. This study is situated within an area of research that links philosophy and the study of religion. The study discovered that the contemporary interpretations of Stoicism differ in their relationship to Pierre Hadot's academic account of Stoicism. One book does not relate to Hadot's account of Stoic metaphysics at all, nor to his theory Philosophy as a Way of life, due to a lack of general discussion of Stoic theory. The other two books relate to Hadot’s academic account, but to varying degrees. This study's structure includes a summary of the current field of research, followed by a theoretical discussion of Stoic philosophy, metaphysics, and Pierre Hadot's theory. Thereafter follows a description of the method used in the study and the following analysis demonstrates how the interpretation of the texts was conducted. The study concludes with the results of the analysis and a discussion of the findings' implications for this area of research. 

The purpose of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of our contemporary description of digital literacy using the perspective on knowledge from the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. I have chosen to deal with the problem using a hermeneutic approach. The method of inquiry is based on close reading of the selected literature. The selection itself has been made after a strategic selection regarding perspective on knowledge and digital literacy. It appears in the thesis that there are substantial differences but also similarities between our contemporary description of digital literacy from Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning and the perspective on knowledge from the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.Still, the result has been possible to use for the purpose of the thesis since the problem has an answer and a deepened impression of the understandings of digital literacy.

This thesis highlights starting points underlying the notions of two feminist utopians, Christine de Pizan and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In approaching their texts, it focuses on the notions central to understand their writings. These would be historical, social, and cultural contexts. Defining concepts as utopian in its varying forms and feminism has been of significance. A feministic approach grounded in Simone de Beauvoirs philosophical phenomenology in the study of feministic utopia's visibility, has contributed to the understanding of the power structures to which women are tethered. In order to understand the way women are presented, it has become obvious that The Book of the City of Ladies and Herland are literary works that are related not only by their authors’ background and personality but by the society in which they lived. Through their engagement in the contemporary intellectual debate on all social planes, both authors contributed to shifting the focus of their own contemporary notions of a woman to the notion of a woman equal to men. Woman, in Christine de Pizans utopia, is given specific properties and through themes of issues given meaning. She is not free in the sense that Simone de Beauvoir says.  She has a broader repertoire than was historically assigned, but her freedom is not arbitrary, contingent, and temporary and judged by her actions. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's woman is in her novel subordinated by biology in contrast to her real society where she is a result of economic and social oppression in history and society. By being united, women can drive social change and thereby change their living conditions. In Herland, the author shows what this superior human togetherness can lead to in a socialist society. By focusing on issues related to motherhood, community and work, she challenges the reader to question the universal starting point for their understanding of masculinity and femininity

This is a study of the psychiatrist and popular science author Anders Hansen’s television series Din personlighet. This paper argues that the series portrays an alienated view of humans through a thematic study of the concepts of medicalization, biological determinism, and one-dimensional language. This paper also argues that the series can be seen as an expression of our wish as a society to transform medicine and natural sciences into something resembling a religion, a religion which shapes how we perceive ourselves and the world, no matter how alienating the consequences. 

Since the Enlightenment, the definition of terms such as humanity, citizenship and rights has fluctuated and these ideas continue to haverelevance for contemporary discussions of globalization from a «cosmopolitan» perspective. This volume goes back to the conception ofcosmopolitanism in Greek antiquity in order to trace it through history, resulting in an unmasking of its many myths. The concept is reconstructedwith reference not only to well-known (and some lesser known) historical thinkers of cosmopolitanism, but also to noted «anti-cosmopolitans».The first aim of the book is to display historical perspectives on a discourse which has been dominated by ahistorical presumptions. Thesecond is to critically explore alternative paths beyond the Western imagination, redefining the Enlightenment legacy and the centre-peripherydichotomy. Most notably, Eastern Europe and the Arab world are integrated within the analysis of cosmopolitanism. Within a framework ofconceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), cosmopolitan reason is criticized from the viewpoints of comparative literature, psychoanalysis,phenomenology, postcolonialism and moral philosophy.The book’s critical approach is an attempt to come to terms with the anachronism, essentialism, ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism thatsometimes underlie contemporary theoretical and methodological uses of the term «cosmopolitanism». By adding historical and contextualdepth to the problem of cosmopolitanism, a reflexive corrective is presented to enhance ongoing discussions of this topic within as well asoutside academia.