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The Missing Part

As you know, Kafka’s parables sometimes makes no sense. When you read them you sometimes react like “What was that?”, “Why did he do that?”. I think Kafka tries to include the reader into the parable by leaving some parts of the story to imagination of the reader. By this way, he makes people think about the untold part, let them to think whatever they want. I think it gives a different taste of literature.

In parables of Kafka there are missing parts in them. Some does not have development part, some does not have conclusion. These missing parts in the parables lets people to create their own parable. In my opinion these spaces in parables is the thing what makes Kafka’s parables interesting. In An Imperial Message, parable starts normal, an emperor gives a messenger a message to deliver. He goes on his way, nothing can stop him... and the story ends, Kafka says “But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.”. How am I related the messenger? Does Kafka trying to give a message like “You are sitting at your window but there are people who are trying to do their task, they are so ambitious that they can even fight against a dead man.” As I said, you do not know what Kafka is trying to say. He lets the reader think, fill in the blanks. Also, in Give it Up! you do not know why the policeman says “Give it up! Give it up!”. Like the other parable, I think, Kafka wants to include the reader into the story and he wants us to think why would a person answer such a question like that. It might be a cliché like “Who you gonna call?”. We cannot know. There are infinite possibilities which Kafka wants us to think about.

In conclusion , Kafka wants to include reader into his parables. He wants people to think about blank spaces in stories; wants people to fill them, create infinite stories. These stories does not only gives pleasure to the reader also gives chance to think about non-existing parts, create an “own” story. This is the thing makes his parables so interesting and successful.

THE STORY OF HUNGER

The Hunger Artist is maybe the most popular parable written by Franz Kafka. In the story, Kafka introduces us an artist who wears black leotard and loves to hang out in a cage, starving himself to death for 40 days in order to make a show. At first, he had a very big audience who actually likes him to watch in the cage. He was not happy with his life, but at least he had the attention on him. However then, people started not to be interested in him. After he lost his all audience, he signs on a circus as an actor. Although he managed to be hungry more than 40 days, just because he has no one to display his performance, he is forgotten.

In this parable, Kafka made a lot of philosophical analysis about our nature, cultural norms and how changeable they are. In the story, the artist devoted himself to the ‘’act of starvation’’ which is not very ‘’common’’ among the other artists. He was hungry to the attention of his audience and actually the ‘’attention’’ was the was the thing which keeps him alive. After he lost his audience, he just couldn’t accept the fact that society is changed and no one actually cares about his performance and act, or in other words, he could no longer entertain people by starving himself to death in a cage like an animal. So, I think ‘’acceptance of changes in society’’ is the first motive of the story.

Moreover, I believe the artist’s disappointment and sadness was caused by his pride. He just couldn’t get over the reality, that people don’t care about his work anymore, which he is actually good at. He wasn’t aware of the fact that just because he is good at something doesn’t mean that he can influence the society and get the public validation from it. He wasn’t doing the whole starvation thing for his own fulfillment, he just wanted other people to recognize his ‘’success’’  which I believe is the second and maybe the most important motive we can get from the parable.

Real Treasure (own parable)

Jacob was looking for buried treasure and digging almost each part of the area at nights. He is a weird guy that everyone hesitates to talk with him. After a long time of trial he couldn’t find anything precious. He tried to develop devices to find exact place where treasure is hidden. He is a wealthy guy from Jewish family but he is ignored by them because of his mentally unbalanced situation. They just gave tons of dollars to him to live by himself. Therefore he is not shy of spending money for smart devices. One day, a guy named Brian who is working in government and has been following Jacob’s work like a sneaker. He offered Jacob a deal that gives him 500,000$ and wants a promise to leave his research to hide their secrets. Jacob surprisingly rejected the deal and this showed up in public news. They came up with another offer which is working together and sharing the prize with almost no effort needed by Jacob. After a long discussion Jacob decided to withdraw from whole treasure thing and left it to governmental company. He was asked by Brian “why didn’t you accept almost the same amount you’d get from treasure?” Jacob answered “I loved the feeling of trying, developing, putting effort to it and even failing” Then, he dedicated himself on developing smart devices that makes life easier with a little difference: he put small treasures hidden in devices that make users develop something else from it. He says “I felt popular after rejecting big deals” because people say either “you are an idiot!” or “what a man!” Also, Brian and other administrative names are happy with people following “Jacob trend” but meantime they keep offering bribe. They say “we need dedicated citizens love working”. Everyone is happy but hey, how? Who is idiot then...

A Hunger Artist

Kafka tells a parable about an artist who does not eat and making a show. In fact the artist does not want to make a show but the people around him makes him show off and they want to manipulate him. As a result of manipulations, artist has to change what he is doing and at the end he finds himself in a different position where he never wants to be in.

We can see that from this parable, if a person want to do something adventurous, even if people get affected from it, they want to be a part of it and maybe want to block him to doing that. But in fact, the person is able to know what he is doing and what he can do more. Even if, he can be more successful and he can reach the point that he wants to reach because of the other effects he cannot be satisfied. People generally says that they do not pay attention what other people say but in fact what other people say become our lives main blocks and at the end people find themselves a point where they never wanted to be, others wanted them to be there.

The realization of this moment is suffering than what you are about to achieve that others see more suffering. Because this person feels himself nothing. Even if he achieves very important things that other people cannot achieve, he cannot feel himself happy and satisfied because in fact he cannot reach his dream level.

What I understand about this parable, in life there will be people who want to block you doing what you are doing even if they are not malicious, and what we should do is just concentrating what we are doing and from a point never listen what others saying. Because fleeting life is not others lives, it is our own lives and we should be fighting for it.

The Hairdresser (Assignment: Creative Option)

The Hairdresser

One day, two pigeons are strolling on the sidewalk.  One asks another: “Hey pigeon, what do you think about the way we’re living our lives? Don’t you think us pigeons are cut for something far more sophisticated”?  The pigeon gazes to the other, exited.  He suggests: “Why yes, I agree.  We should do something far more interesting, break out of the food chain, stop flying, get rid of our beaks and things like that”!  Two pigeons, pumped up, talk about this matter for hours.  They finally decide that they should start living their lives differently, so they decide to get rid of something the most bird-like, their beaks.  They go to a hairdresser, and talk about their ambitions.  The hair dresser says: “Oh my! That’s a great idea!  But unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise.  You see, I’m a male hairdresser.  You should visit a female hair dresser for such matters”.  Two pigeons head to a female hairdresser.  The female hairdresser says: “Oh my!  That’s a great idea!  But unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise.  You should visit a female hairdresser for this matter”.  Two pigeons, confused, ask: “But ma’m, you ARE a female hairdresser”.  Female hairdresser responds: “How would YOU know, you are pigeons”!  Two pigeons, with their faith broken, end up strolling on the sidewalk.

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-Just to get a head start, one of the things this parable is about is the absurdity of people being overly ambitious and setting a goal far off their knowledge on the topic.

Adam Smith and Karl Marx

This post is actually about the similarities between the ideologies of Marx and Smith. As far as I can find, there are a lot of information that indicate how big the gap is between the ideas of those two. 

From these videos, I believe you can create an advanced understanding about these philosopher's thoughts about economy.

Invisible Hand of Capitalism

I’ve found a comic about invisible hand on internet.
Since it is in Turkish here is the translation of bubbles respectively:
- : boss
+ : employee

Invisible Hand of Capitalism
- Did we charge for money?!
+ We do sir ?!.
- Don’t !..
+ But sir ...
- If I’m saying don’t charge, I’m not meaning do not charge !.. Show free, add to check...
- See the big picture, big picture !

It’s not a great translation but I think it is enough to understand the idea.

Marx Is Back

I’ve found a mini-series named "Marx Is Back" in youtube about Marx’s ideas based on “The Communist Manifesto”. Main topic is workers, blow of economic crisis, suspensions, classes of society etc. There are 4 episodes, 13-15 minutes each. It is in Spanish. If you are interested, here is the link of first episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eckwjxa0-w4 (English subtitled)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2pVEPnFCY (Turkish subtitled)

The Guy We've Been Reading

Sometimes it helps to not just to read someone but also visualize what he looks like to get to know him and understand him better.  Here's a little picture of our handsome guy Karl Marx.  But then again, it may also lead to  judging him by his looks.

Battle of Systems

Adam Smith and Karl Marx represent total opposition in terms of their ideology. If we look today's circumstances inequality and gap between people and the social classes is apparently a big problem. So Marx was right to critisize this inhumane capitalist system. Marx said capitalist system will destroy itself but I think there won't be a change like switching a total communist system, instead people especially wealthy ones will be looking for some adjustments by using their power. However Marxist utopia is still a hope for me and many others since we want to live in a "just" world. Today it's applicable in smaller areas and it could be popular again in different forms because whole system actually depends on lower class, workers.

Here is a video compares ideas of two superficially. I don't agree with some points, one is at the end saying gap is not growing. To me it's just an illusion because we have "modern slaves" more than yesterday and gap is growing geometrically.

Smith, Marx and Today

It is from a TedX speech and summarizes economy ideas of Smith's, Marx's and today's.

Essay About Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is one of the most impressive major characters. When we first see her at the Duncan's murder scene she was very strong, powerful and strong minded. She was aware of what she is doing and she also knew that she has strong pressure and authorization on her husband. She is like man, she wishes to be a man and murder Duncan instead of her husband. They see the ambition and being not sensitive person as a feature of being man. 

Until she goes desperate and having psychological problems, she manipulated Macbeth in the way that she wants to achieve. However, at the end of the play she reaches the bottom line and she comes the point that she could loose her mind. She felt regretful and she could not carry the weigh of murders. She could not take herself out of this ideas and at the end she killed herself.
As a result, if a human has even a little humanity in herself, she will have some questions and she will not want to see and put herself in such bad positions even if it is late. Sometimes people cannot see their future or they cannot understand really what they are living at that moment, but when the time comes the regret and the shame will definitely come to top and they will face to them like Lady Macbeth.

Late Post on Shakespeare

I think about this quotation is  from one of the most important parts of the play. This sentence is very simple and in fact it is a daily speech sentence. Somehow, we usually use sentences similar to this quotation. In the play we could understand that Macbeth has changed and he is now a different person from who he is at very beginning. He was accepted that he has done very bad things for himself and for other people by murder but it is too late for change it. So, he knows that he is now this kind of person who does not care about other people and just pay attention to his own success. In life we use this kind of sentences when we break up to trying to change something in our lives and that point is also an life changing points for us.  

Division of Labor

In “Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith talks about division of labor and importance of it. If we were living alone, not in a society, we would do everything by ourselves. Since we are living in a society we should divide labor instead of everybody doing everything. There is a saying which suggests the same idea: “Instead of knowing half of everything, know something completely.” We cannot be professional on many things so we should divide labor, do a specific task.

Understanding the Invisible Hand

Just an interesting thing I found trying to understand the "invisible hand" concept of Adam Smith.  You can clearly tell I'm not studying business management or economics...

Conflict to Improve

Blaise Pascal in his essay Pensees where he expresses his thoughts on maths, god, certainty he criticized Descartes' philosophy on his use of "God" concept to create certainty. In contrast Pascal believes God's existence as a whole, not as a "convincing" tool. Descartes suggests using mind and physics while Pascal says mind can not perceive everything so soul and feelings  are necessary. Even if they seem complete opposites and Pascal sounds right to criticize Descartes' placement of God, it's still eye-opening in terms of using science and judgment.

In quote Pascal mainly attacks Descartes on his use of God's "flick to put world in motion". When we read Descartes' Discourse on Method he looked for Foundation for basis and only accepted %100 truths. So he rejected deceiving senses and relied on thoughts saying "except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power." However, at end of his meditation he turned into describing God like a trigger of everything, also given us body that survives in nature hence one can trust his feelings mostly. His belief is abstract because he only mentions God to complete his way of thinking. In comparison Pascal says God can not be perceived or put in place with mind and can only be understood by heart. He also approached question of belief with pragmatist point of view, when you believe in God you won't lose anything if he doesn't exist but if he exists you'd be suffering deeply.  Pascal didn't try to find a place for God, instead he believed him as better option and being skeptical isn't worth it because human needs God to feed their souls.

To sum up, Descartes' thoughts are more than effective in today's Western world since most people agreed on God's certain existence and because it's abstract, belief has not much to do in daily life. Thus, we might argue his view has opened a path to approach world and God skeptically and made it easier to develop methods of science which Descartes and also Pascal did better than defining God. Therefore Descartes shouldn't be offended because of his thoughts on God as Pascal did, we should consider his way of thinking (skepticism, analyzing, discovering, constructing) as gainings.

What I Don't Agree with Cassirer

I think Ernst Cassirer’s thoughts on Descartes’ arguments is only partially accurate. Cassirer mostly sees Descartes as a man introducing a new ground to the way we think. He makes accurate points like “Thought cannot turn toward the world of external objects without at the same time reverting to itself”.  What he means here is that all objects are as real as our perception lets them be, which is really what Descartes believes in.  We need to filter everything we’ve ever known through a philosophical filter to know for sure they are true and existent.  I also agree that Descartes and his followers need to deal with the problem of “epistemological skepticism” since the world at the time is running on the scholastic Aristotelian train of thought.

Although he points out something I disagree with, which is his thoughts on the equality of a mind’s power to apply this philosophical filter.

Descartes, as we learned from his book’s Part one, developed his thoughts as a reaction to the scholastic Aristotelian education.  He said that himself and other colleagues of his weren’t happy how knowledge was addressed in the schools at the time.  He especially points out how was asked to look at the books and if he really seeks the true knowledge, how knowledge is true if it was acknowledged by previous generations.  But during his academic life, he has only found more doubts, less certainty by referring to this kind of knowledge.  There isn’t a single way to learn the truth, according to him.  He wanted to change the scholastic belief believing in that.  So, Descartes rebuilt his belief system and started from the very ground.  “I think, therefore, I am — was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skepties were incapable of shaking it” proves this (Descartes, pg. 18).  There is no certain knowledge from this point on, so basically, this is the only truth of knowledge there is to him at this point, the absolute.  And Descartes proves this base knowledge right. Therefore, there can’t be any more truth in anything.  

On the other hand, Cassirer states that there is no justification of the “instruments” (minds) being used in this truth-seeking process.  “Knowledge is not merely applied as an instrument and employed unreservedly as such, but time and again with growing insistence the question of the justification of this use of knowledge and the quality of the instrument arises” are Cassirer’s exact words. But Descartes already stated that all humankind was born with this tool and that every person is equally capable of doing this.  When Descartes says “It is not likely that anyone is mistaken in this.  Rather, it provides evidence that the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false is naturally equal in all men, and that the diversity of our opinions does not arise from the fact that some people are more reasonable than the others…”  he addresses directly to this issue before he talks about anything else, foreseeing that his preceding claims may create a conflict (Part One, pg. 1).  In my opinion, this issue is directly addressed and Descartes is on solid ground.  

Efficiency of Cartesian Method for Voltaire

Cartesian Doubt or in other name Cartesian Skepticism is a form of methodological skepticism which was created by René Descartes in order to associate it with his ideology. As might be expected, Cartesian Skepticism caused a lot of controversy between the philosophers who live in this period. Plenty of them accepted the method and used it in their future observations. However, some of them thought that Descartes is wrong and Cartesian is not an efficient method and it has nothing to do with their ideologies.

Voltaire was one of the philosophers who thought Descartes was wrong. However, it can be said that Voltaire admired him which we can deduce from his words. As he said ‘“Descartes was born with a lively and strong imagination, which made of him a singular man in his private life, as well as in his manner of reasoning; this imagination could not be hidden in his philosophical works, where at every moment we see ingenious and brilliant comparisons; nature had almost made of him a poet...” However, eventhough he said Descartes had a pretty good imagination so that he could be a poet, Voltaire thought he is wrong about everything that he relates to philosophy and science. Moreover, as Voltaire said ‘’ But it is not too much to say that he was worthy of esteem even in his errors: he was wrong, but it was at least with method and a logical spirit.’’ So, eventhough Voltaire thought that Descartes is just wrong about everything that forms his ideology, he also thought that his mistakes are good and necessary for future successes. In general, I think their conflict is similar to the conflict between reality and imagination. For Voltaire, Descartes’ philosophy became nothing more than an ingenious romance after he chose imagination as he described as ‘’the system-making spirit’’ over the reality. Ironically, Descartes was the skeptical one that always in the search of the truth. As he mentioned in the Principles of Philosophy ‘’ If you would be a real seeker after truth,  it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.’’

To conclude, I believe eventhough Voltaire didn’t agree with the ideologies of Descartes, he, at the same time, respected him because he thought the mistakes of Descartes will lead the future philosophers in a good way. So, the Cartesian Method may not be accepted as an efficient way among philosophers, it surely was a decisive step for modern philosophy. 

Shame On You Voltaire!

“With Descartes the culture of modern times, the thought of modern philosophy begins to appear.” Hegel says. Whereas what Voltaire says about Descartes seems much more interesting, besides its unfair nature, one to me.

Voltaire starts by praising the imagination of these remarkable philosopher by saying that “Descartes was born with a lively and strong imagination, which made of him a singular man in his private life, as well as in his manner of reasoning; this imagination could not be hidden in his philosophical works, where at every moment we see ingenious and brilliant comparisons; nature had almost made of him a poet...”, and he adds that this situation led him to the wrong path in science and philosophy. Nevertheless, he also needed to note that these mistakes are rational, the results are false though. What Descartes did in his work, in short, was to follow a rational and methodological way and establish his own arguments on this basis. The mistakes he had done, however, does not possess any threat to philosophy itself. Philosophy, in fact, benefits from those faults of Descartes, as they demonstrate what a philosopher should refrain from in a philosophical progress. From Voltaire, we can conclude a commonsensical idea that human is the being who has the ability draw lessons from his or his ancestor’s mistakes.

Descartes considers himself as fortunate due to his chance to increase his knowledge and develop his own discourse. Descartes, thus, does not neglect the chance of its deficiency and he says “… my purpose here is not to teach the method that everyone ought to follow in order to conduct his reason well, but merely show how I tried to conduct my own.” (4) Therefore, the accusations made by Voltaire against Descartes seems a little unfair. The philosophy, from my perspective at least, is an individual activity. The methods may differ for each individual and this should not be any concern for anybody but the individual himself. Thus, the arguments held by Voltaire, regardless its validity, are harsh and unfair.