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Kafka - Before the Law

Kafka’s Before the Law

In the “Before the Law”, Kafka tells a parable about a man who tries to pass the doors to reach the “Law”. Since he believes that law should be accessible by everyone, he patiently waits to enter even the first doorkeeper continuously disallow him while the doorkeeper gives hope that in the future he may enter. So, he spends his whole life and everything he has to his aim without knowing that the door is there only for him, after his dead the door will be closed. He learns this fact right before his dead.

 My first interpretation is law is something that should be same for everybody, that is why he thinks that he can reach the “Law”. The man has this notion however some people who are described as doorkeepers by frightening him try to bring him under the control and prevent him to reach the law or justice. Since these doors and doorkeepers are there only for the man, I thought that they maybe the rulers who are there only because we vote. So basically we create the doorkeepers by expecting that they will apply the law. On the contrary, like in this case, selection of wrong doorkeepers cause giving bribery which causes corruption, and spending a life by waiting that doorkeepers do their jobs and apply the law.

My second interpretation is quite different than the first one. I thought that it can be also about setting goals and creating obstacles in the mind. In the parable the man sets a goal which is reaching the “Law”. He makes an attempt to fulfill his goal but first obstacle he encounters intimidate him. He does everything except taking an action to pass the door. He feeds his own obstacle by giving “bribery”. Until he gives up, he cannot realize that these obstacles are not real.

Kafka's Parable

"An Imperial Message" is one Kafka's parables and in this parable there is an emperor who lies on his bed and who is about to die. Before he dies, he wants the messenger to kneel down near his bed, so he can whisper a message to his ear. In the end of this parable, the emperor dies.

  Although it is really understand Kafka's parables and there is descriptive narration, I tried to interpret this parable in several ways.

  First, I interpreted that the parable is about the life itself. We come to this world and we stay for a short time. Everyone leaves this place and goes to the same unknown world whether they are emperors, queens, normal citizens or slaves. So, it is meaningless to give value to power and prestidge so much because in the end everyone is equal. Once you own lots of things and gain power, it does not mean that you are going to stay as the same and you are going to be respected forever. As it is stated in the parable, "nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man." When the time came, you are alone with your own destiny and noone can respond your command and fight against for you. In addition to that, it seemed to me that the messenger, who has low prestidge and power than the emperor, became superior while he was standing next to the emperor who is about to die. As if the emperor wanted him to kneel down, and wanted to have the same position with him in order to weaken his superiority.

  Another interpretation can be made about dreaming and illusion. The parable made me question the reality which is also a subject of philosophy. Throughout the parable, it seems that we live in an illusion and dream ourselves in different positions. In our dreams we are independent, we are the most powerful, most charismatic and we are self- centered. Although our dreams are real and creates illusions we can be everything in our dreams. In Kafka's parable there is a sentence like that: "But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself." It seems to me that we are creating our own realities. In addition to that, the symbol of the sun in the parable, which is on the emperor's breast, reminded me of the solar system. Like he made himself the centre of the universe just like the sun and he didn't do it just by his commodities or wealth, but also by dreaming himself as the centre of the universe. His imagination made him to assume him more, so it can be said that being an emperor is not just about wealth, it is also a state of mind and dreaming (imagination). In the end, it can be said that life is just an illusion and the reality comes after death. The emperor thought that his power would last forever but in reality, he is weak and he is nothing anymore.

  If I need to come up with a third interpretation, the parable may be also about ambition. In the parable, although the emperor is about to die, he tries to go for his throne and doesn't want to leave his position. He wants to keep/ save his strength and tries to be brave and powerful as he was before.

Walter Benjamin and His Angel

According to Benjamin in his first interpretations as described by Scholem, Angelus Novus strives after “true actuality”; comparing it to the throng of angels created every moment to sing God’s praise and then disappear into nothing. The heavenly part of every human sings God’s praise, and Benjamin saw Angelus Novus as the depiction of his angel. The Angel of History is Benjamin’s final comment on Klee’s Angel is a culmination of his life experience and philosophies.  He refers to the Angel in his essay on historical materialism. Even though the Angel is reflective of Benjamin’s personal view, it makes the switch from being his Angel to the Angel of all of History.  The Angel is now representative of all historical progress.  The essay was written in 1940, the last year of his life, after he had lived in exile and experienced the numbing terror that was Nazi Germany.   The Angel has made the switch from being a patient lover to a storm from paradise.  The Angel of History does not posses the previous hope of the other angels.  The angel is not even capable of looking toward the present; the catastrophe of the Holocaust requires its full gaze.  The Angel of History is one of melancholy, but at the same time it ties in the theological aspect of Benjamin’s work.

Benjamin's angel of history, his 'face ... turned towards the past', can only watch helplessly while the 'storm' that we call 'progress' blows him 'irresistibly into the future to which his back is turned'. The angel's gaze sees one 'single catastrophe', the 'smashed' past that he cannot redeem and make whole, a history that consists of 'wreckage upon wreckage ... [hurled] at his feet'. By contrast, the implied we of the text see history as a 'chain of events [that] appear before us', as a series of distinct but interconnected moments, Benjamin here critiquing a linear progress narrative, which he later characterizes as reading history 'like the beads of a rosary'. The historicist sees his own moment as one in which time has 'come to a standstill', a vantage point from which he can look back and see each historical event, as if it were a rosary bead. Each self-contained event has its place in the causal chain. Here, the continuum of progress is neatly broken into a series of individual 'beads', which are then available to the critic to be read. These historical moments, then, gain a belated clarity from the position of knowledge of the future, the critic analyzing the past through the lens of the present. By contrast, the angel cannot stand still, but is driven forward blind, by progress. Watching history 'hurled at his feet', he sees events as having no specific place along a causal chain, but as a cumulative ruin of fragmented moments that become one 'pile of debris'. The task, then, is to make 'whole' this ruin. The direction in which history must be read is reversed; instead of reading the past to predict a revolutionary future to come, the past is what must be redeemed, made 'citable in all its moments'. The angel looks back, seeing moments that must be salvaged, but is unable to do so, stuck between a catastrophic past he cannot save, and a future he cannot see.

Interpreting Parables of Franz Kafka

The parables of Franz Kafka are composed of basic stories and experiences of people. Therefore, it is possible to give meaning to his parables from different point of views. As the stories are easily understood and read by the reader and they include general experience and behaviors of people, the interpretations of each person can be different. The stories are easy to read, easy to understand but interpreting different ideas from a single parable is not so easy as it is based on different point of views of the reader.

  

Likewise, “Before the Law” can be interpreted in many ways. One of my interpretations can be about the theme of law. The idea is that man waits for the law to come to him. However, he should not just sit down and hopes that one day he will get his rights. The several government levels can be seen as gatekeepers. As everyone has a right for justice, a person should desire to stand up for his rights (to the gatekeeper) and do the things which are necessary to get legal system. Justice should be available to everyone regardless of the status of class so each person should fight for their rights rather than waiting for law to come them. Thus, this idea can be seen a way of interpretation.   Another way of interpreting is about the how a person should behave through the way of reaching goals so it is about future goal and human behaviour. The gatekeepers can be seen as future goals that a person desires to reach. However, if a person waits for his goals to reach them at the end, it is not possible to get what they want. If a person is so deeply focused on his goals that he could wait for it until the time of his death, he should also be able to fight so as to pass the gatekeepers. It is kind of ironic that a man has indispensable goal which could cause wasting his lifetime but he only waits for it to come. Therefore, in this interpretation, it could be said that if a man really desires for a result from his goal, he should act and behave based on his future goal instead of waiting for his dreams to come to him.

From the interpretations given above, I think there are other interpretations that could be found by other readers.  Specifically about my interpretations, it could be easily understood that their themes are totally different. One of them is about the theme of law, fighting for rights and social status and other is about the future goal, human behaviour and actions. It demonstrates the fact that there could be different interpretations according to different point of views of the reader. 

Philosophy of Descartes

Descartes is generally considered the father of modern philosophy. He was the first major figure in the philosophical movement known as rationalism, a method of understanding the world based on the use of reason as the means to attain knowledge. Also, rationalism was one of the main currents of Enlightenment so it has got lots of connection what we have learned in this semester. If you want to learn more about Descartes and his philosophy in enjoyable way, you should check my blog post out!!
Philosophy of Descartes

Communism vs Capitalism

Karl Marx and Adam Smith both developed theories on economics. While Smith was focused on capitalism, Marx improved his ideas on communism. Here is a picture which shows the distinctions between them:

http://images.slideplayer.com/25/8128404/slides/slide_80.jpg

Marx Influence

Hi everyone,
As we studied in our last class session Karl Marx and his idea about economy has been effected people life in the past and even now. Also, worldwide public realizes there is something deeply wrong with today's world economic system and because of this I think that doing some reading about Marx influence on today's economy can be beneficial for us in order to make some connection with past to present.
 Marx Influence

Comparing the ideas of Adam Smith and Karl Marx

As we've discussed in the class, it is important to compare the ideas of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Therefore, the link below is a nice explanation and comparison of their ideas. Also, you can check the image below for a good summary of their ideas.

Comparison of ideas: Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx

Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx

Before we move on to Karl Marx, I think this will be useful. This video summerize their thoughts visually. Enjoy it; http://ed.ted.com/on/iZG1NyOj#digdeeper

Government and Economy

As we discussed in the class, welath is a dynamic process which is not only about production but also distribution and consumption. Today, in order to understand the distribution of wealth throughout the society, we consider GDP which is called Gross Domestic Product. Apart from the countries' average incomes, we also see their ability to buy satisfying things and the consumer choice.

  This semester I take Econ class and as far as I know there are 4 types of market economy which are perfect competition, monopolisitc competition, monopoly and oligopoly. So, Adam Smith's arguments about economy enabled me to make connections between these ideas.

  Here is a video about Market Economy. It is about the relation between economy and the government which gives a general but effective information in order to understand this dynamic process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yLY06tTQ1A

The Father of Economics and World's First Self-Help Guru

After talking about Adam Smith in the class, I've found a short essay about the misunderstandings about Adam Smith. It is interesting that the essay calls Adam Smith as the world's first self-help guru and the essay mentions his understanding of technology, ambition and friendship which are also applicable today and some real-life examples. Check out the link below for the short essay:

Adam Smith as The Father of Economics and World's First Self-Help Guru

Descartes vs. Pascal

After Descartes realizes that everybody has different interpretations of the knowledge, he rejects this knowledge which he gained from his education and travelling. So he decides to make internal search for reaching the true knowledge. He doubts and re-evaluates everything with his reasoning. To achieve this, he needs to find basis which he can built all knowledge on it. Thus he reaches conclusions that he should be there to doubt so he asserted that “I am thinking, therefore I am”, then he doubts so he is not perfect and finally reaches the conclusion that there should be something perfect he can depend on. In that way he proofs that there should be god. To him these all mean that existence of god makes his reasoning dependable means to reach true knowledge. He can rely on the fact that god is perfect and does not lead us to have wrong perceptions when we use our reason, not when just rely on our senses.  

Since his whole claim relies on existence of god in a way Pascal is right, Descartes uses god to support his idea. However, I do not agree that Descartes’ whole ideas are useless and uncertain. In that time, they only had god as an explanation but nowadays we have other explanations which can be support the fact that we can rely on our reasoning to find true knowledge. Most salient one is evolutionary theory. Since our brains have certain mechanisms that produces solutions to the problems that our ancestors recurrently faced with, we all naturally have spices typical reasoning that help us to solve problems and we can rely on it. Our reasoning which only thing we can rely on according to Descartes may not be god’s favor but may result of the evolutionary process. So, even using god to build a theory is not the best idea this does not mean that his ideas are useless and uncertain. 

Mind,Knowledge and Enlightenment

Ernst Cassirer is one of the philosophers having ideas and interpretations about Descartes. I’ve found his interpretation accurate as he summarizes the thoughts of Descartes about knowledge, his goals and how he reaches his aim of reaching knowledge. Consequently, it is possible to make a connection between the enlightenment idea and knowledge by using “mind”.

Firstly, the aim of Descartes is becoming self-sufficient to reach the knowledge. In order to reach that aim, after having education, Descartes realizes that what education brings is not sufficient to bring knowledge. Thus, he rejects any traditional, inherited knowledge, external sources and institutions so as to get rid of uncertain knowledge and test his senses and mind for finding a new certain basis for new knowledge. A person desires to reach the knowledge Descartes talks about needs to know the limitations of mind and how it works first as an instrument or tool to gain knowledge. It is also understood from the sentence in the text “credits Descartes with developing an instrumental view of knowledge and the mind, and inaugurating the modern philosophical project of defining the limits of the mind”which shows the importance of mind for knowledge. According to Descartes, knowledge is subjective so a person cannot tell about knowledge without someone knowing it which is opposite to the idea of objective having the meaning of existence without knowing or not. It seems to me that knowledge can be seen as a construction, so it is needed to have a certain basis which enables a person to build knowledge on it through senses, mathematical principles etc. The significance of mind as the corner stone of knowledge also mentioned by Descartes in Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by saying that “all of the things that can be known by human mind, these latter are most certain and most evident” which is required for the basis of knowledge.”(p.56,l.21-22)Therefore, based on ideas of Descartes, knowledge does not just passively pass from hand to hand. The real knowledge requires questioning, analysing and using the mind effectively.

Similar to the ideas of knowledge, the enlightenment also requires the mind in order to reach enlightened state. I think it is because enlightenment requires freewill, using the mind effectively and being independent from external sources of knowledge. Thus, it could be possible for a person to reach the truth of his own and nature which leads to enlightened state. This could also be understood from the words “Thought cannot turn toward the world of external objects without at the same time reverting to itself; in the same act it attempts to ascertain the truth of nature and its own truth.”In“What is Enlightenment?” by Kant, it can be thought that mind is a tool to use the public and private reason equivalently which brings the order in the society and consciousness as a citizen. In Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes also supports the effect of mind in enlightenment by saying that “I think, therefore I am”(p.19,23) The reason why I think it is a statement for enlightenment is that the mind brings the basic action of thinking which is the only prerequisite for enlightenment. Anyone could be able to reach this state if he is able to think. It clearly shows that the connection between being and thinking could bring equally each person to that state. According to the text containing the ideas of Descartes, what people should learn is to dealing with the problems like “epistemological scepticism” so as to reveal the effect of mind. Therefore, the start point for enlightenment is actually the mind.

As it could be understood from the text of Ernst Cassirer, by using explanations of knowledge and expressions of Descartes, he is able to make a connection between the knowledge and enlightenment with the use of mind. Thus, in my opinion, the mind is an open door for the construction of knowledge and the goal of enlightenment with the expressions of Descartes.

Hegel's Point of View about Descartes

Descartes is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. His work which is called as Discourse on Method has his own knowledge, ideas and thoughts in terms of philosophy. His autobiographical and intellectual paths can be seen in his work. He shares his experiences and failure throughout the reading. At the same time, Descartes has an extreme radical skepticism and he doubts everything. Hegel (another significant philosopher of all times) states that "Descartes takes a step to modern philosophy and self - consciousness of philosophy due to he has critical reflections on its own conditions of possibility."

  According to Descartes, people don't find the truth, they construct/build the truth. Anything is not one hundred percent certain and nobody cannot be sure whether there are eternal, unchanging truths or not. By doing this, Descartes reveals the truth that people, even himself, do not havethe capacity to decide on what is completely true or not. I agree with Descartes in this subject and I also believe that are not able to see everything clearly. It is not possible to predict the next step and to reach a total objectivity. Similar to Hegel's expression of Descartes, Descartes has the self- conscioussness due to he knows his and humans' limitations and perceptions.

  Moreover, Descartes' own statements in his discourse supports Hegel's claim about him. "For myself, I have never presumed that my mind was in any respect more perfect than that of ordinary men." (Descartes, Discourse on Method, p.2) This quotation indicates that Descartes does not consider himself more capable or intelligent than any other men in the world. As well as he doubts about others' way of thinking and finding the truth, he equally doubts about himself. He accepts his own failures and thinks that he may also be mistaken in some ways.

  Consequently, Descartes' critical reflections and interrogations enable us to gain his self- consciousness of philosophy and understanding our minds' limitations.

Roman Polanski's film version of Macbeth

To make a film from a play, you have to make your own interpretation of what the play contains, similar to the kind of choices that any director must make if they wish to stage the play. However, what is interesting about the film of Macbeth as directed by Roman Polanski is the focus on death and violence from the first. The most remarkable thing is; Polanski depicts the darkness and violence perfectly for the audience. Especially for people who has never read the play, he extracts the theme of darkness properly with some sound effects. At the beginning of the play in act two scene two Lady Macbeth refers that she heard an ominous owl sound and it represents the Macbeth is going to kill the Duncan. In the film Polanski develops that key image with eerie music that dominates the descent of Macbeth into evil and there is a lot of blood.

Another key image in the play that is developed in the film is Macbeth's famous image from act five scene seven, when he compares himself to a bear being baited:

They have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly, 

But, bear-like, I must fight the course.

This image is developed by having an actual bear-baiting during the play, and then the grisly corpse of the bear being carried away, focusing on how Macbeth is, by the end of the play, pictured as a bear being baited, awaiting his death. Roman Polanski made a movie in 1971 after his wife and unborn children were murdered by Charles Manson and his cronies maybe it effects the film version of Macbeth's darkness and pessimism. 

The climax of the film refers to the siege that is forced upon Macbeth in his castle, resulting in his death and the crowing of Malcolm as King. The main element focused upon in this scene is the extensive amount of violence and brutality present. Such a theme represents not only the context in which the film is set, but in which Polanski’s interpretation was based. The film is set in medieval times, in approximately the fifteenth century. The violence and brutality displayed in the climax help to emphasise the uncivilised and dark period in which the film is set. The setting and the supernatural idea that relate to the climax similarly display such context.