Friday, 27 May 2011

My opinion on Slavoj Zizek and Sciences that support Capitalism (a very short brief)




Today, I'm going to talk about a philosophers who I didn't know Slavoj Zizek. He is a slovenian psychoanalist and philosopher, He is famous today beacuse He mixes psychoanalisis with marxism. He investigates the concept ideology, it is a concept which means in a classical which comes from Karl Marx, "illusionary, wrong way of thinking and percibing reality"(Zizek, 2009) ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv1xtoU ) . He tries to deal with reality from the things that are in our subconscious that's where his psychoanalitic studies get in and he mixes with concepts from Marx's theories about Kapital. He talks about how capitalism creates the society we are living in, so his psychoanalitic view is very enriching cause mind is a very complex thing. Today, There aren't many points of view about the problematic of mind, neurosciences which are focused on mind from a biological is taking the leading role in investigations about this topic, which is leaving outside the concepts of psiquis or mind. So at least for me this means that positivist or neopositivist positions are taking leading place in scientific society.


Slavoj Zizek looks for understand society not to explain it, that's what I appreciate the most his approaches to the reality problem. I do not like the explaining role that takes some sciences in our society, i think mostly it works for the support of society of capitalism. There is a youtube video which talks about this which specifically talks about ecology and how it works to support the role of capitalism in our society through ideology which means that we distract our attention from the very important troubles.


I think too, One of his most important contributions is that he explains what he is saying with examples from movies, of course His work is not only about criticizing capitalism but it's his most important topic.

Friday, 6 May 2011

Religion and Me

History of Religion
The history of religion is a very interestin subjet in academic world, not in Chile but in Europe or in Afrika it is widely developed. The historry of religion propuses a big trouble in the very beginning what is religion?, this is the point of start of the book “A short history of religions” of the author Francisco Diez de Velasco, a social anthropologist from Spain. First, religion is not something natural it is essentially a social event it is built in community, in a group who shares origins, or languages or even lands. Religion is a practice, if we start from here we can understand the next classification. Religions according to the level we can named it National, Imperial, Ethnic, Modern and Universalists. The most famous are this named Universalists, catholicism and protestantism. Chile it’s characterized as a very catholic country so we can say Chile is under a Universalists Religion. What means that a Religion be universalist? Because this kind of religion, gives a origin for Humankind so the humans share our fate. And it creates rules to follow that form an order in world, but this is normally in all religions the matter of the order or disorder. So We can say religions in our world are in many kinds, the religion can involve a country or a few persons, as almost a continent in different ages like Catholic dominated in Europe in the medieval Age, to me Religion are essentially in the social world not just because I study in kind of a secular university i won’t study it or Because Socialistic thoughts which are commonly shared in my faculty denies existence for religion. I would like to create a subject of sociology of religion in this faculty when i finish my degree.

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Gabriel Salazar, Teacher and Writer of Social History


Gabriel is a chilean Social Historian. He was born in 1936 so He already have 75 years old and He teach us Social History of Chile. He is kind of famous now beacuse of his books but this situation don't change him, He is nice and extremely intelligent. He is in my opinion a great teacher in the matter. He studied history, sociology and philosophy in our University so He's someone with a tremendous knowledge about the history of chile from the early conquest to present, He rigorously analize the history of the popular subject he is not like others Historians who talk about Chilean people as if we were one descendent of one people, the true he says is that chile is a myth like a sociologist says too (Tomás Moulian). That Chile that is in the scholar texts in the popular books is not the chile which really was. Chile like he talks about it was a true disgrace, because those who got the power in their hands don't share with the common people like a republican society they transformed into a oligarchy and controlled the political institutions as Economics and Social institutions leaving the mostly of chilean people outside the power of the state. He wrote and still write many books about chilean history, like "Contemporanean Chilean History (5 volumes)", "The history: from down and from the inside", "Merchants, Entrepeneurships and Capitalists", and many others which relate mainly the history of the popular subject. He is kind of a inspiration for me, to worry about those who were called "those without voice" who don't have the same opportunities as i had.


*The picture is from him as student.

My Philosophy of sciences

If there is something that i like after sociology it is philosophy and especially of sciences and political. i like to read about how the sciences creates its own legitimation from philosophy. The science in the beginning it was only philosophy, sciences don't exist like we know it today, it was only dialogic, conversations between people who has many time to do anything they wanted which means commonly walks around the city and think, I mean somebody who had to work like a carpenter could not be a philosopher, beacuse he had to dedicate his life to do things with wood. The philosopher don't have common occupations they are mainly teachers, how did born the philosophers? I don't know the only sure thing is that philosophers came from laziness, from being hours looking at the water and says: the water is the very beginning of things, like said Tales from Mileto. Philosophy of sciences is ask to ourself and the other who came before us, what do we understand of science?, what is science, essentially?, the answers are very different it is connected with a subjet called Epistemology which tries to explain how is that we know. I say that there are different answers to the question of what is science. FIrst we have to ask to epistemologists, how do we know, what is that thing that we know? They says that the world is something that we built that means that reality is a paradox because the world would not be real if we don't exist if we don't build it so if humans don't exist then nothing exist but there are some others epistemologists who says that the world is real by itself so if we don't exist the world continues existing. By keeping this mind we can ask about science, what is science, is the knowledge of the world which exist when we build it accordingly to first case but the second case means that sciences are the knowledge of the world that exists by itself it's not our construction. So I can say i believe or i think the world is what i build as world.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Sociological Interests

Hi, I'm Pablo. I'm actually a student of sociology in the Universidad de Chile, especifically in the Faculty of Social Sciences. I'm in 2nd year in sociology but 4th in university cause I studied a Bachelor's degree in Humanities and Social Sciences. I met sociology cause a teacher from the course of the same name, introducing me in the social sciences and He showed me the study of society and human relations in a level that I didn't know existed. The sociology is actually a new science since the founders wrote wich are considered the founding books in this discipline, have passed only hundred years, so it's sort of a young science