Use business knowledge, data analytics method, and data visualization skills to analyze the sales data from a music store.

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Use business knowledge, data analytics method, and data visualization skills to analyze the sales data from a music store. You can use any statistical tools you like, e.g. Excel, Python, R.

Dataset
The dataset records the sales revenue of a music store from January 1997 to June 1998. The dataset has two tables: Transactions and Demographics.

Transactions Table
Explanation of columns:
Customer ID: the unique ID of each customer.
Date of Transaction: the date that the customer purchased the album.
# of Albums: the number of albums that the customer purchased.
$ Sales Revenue: the revenue of each transaction.

Demographics Table
Explanation of columns:
Customer ID: the unique ID of each customer.
Gender: gender information of each customer.
Total Visits: the total number of visits of each customer to the music store.

Requirements:

Please be creative and provide any writeups with graphs, dashboards, mathematical analysis as you see necessary to provide as many interesting insights as you can discover.

Here’s a list of things you may consider when composing your writeup:

1. Covert the ‘Date of Transaction’ column in the Transaction table to the standard datetime format.

2. Merge two tables into one spreadsheet. (hint: v-lookup function in excel)

3. Check the distributions of each column. Clean the dataset if there is a wrong record or outlier.

4. What is the revenue trend over the months of the music store?

5. Is the music store getting enough visitors?

6. How many of the visitors are buying?

7. Are men and women different in terms of total revenue, total visits, total transactions, or the number of albums purchased?

8. Are men and women different in terms of average revenue, visits, or transactions per customer?

9. Are men and women different in terms of revenue and transactions each month?

10. The ultimate goal of the music store is to increase sales. Do you have any marketing strategy for the music store?

11. Provide the finished dataset with your analytic results as the attachment in addition to the written assignment.

Submitting requirement:

The cover page and reference page/s are not included in the above-stated page requirement. These should be in addition to page requirements.

Format in proper APA 7th Edition style.

A minimum of three outside peer-reviewed sources for your references

Examination Period Faculty of Business and Economics EXAM CODES:

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Office Use Only Semester One 2019 Examination Period Faculty of Business and Economics EXAM CODES: ETC2410-ETW2410-BEX2410 TITLE OF PAPER: Introductory Econometrics – PAPER 1 EXAM DURATION: 2 hours writing time READING TIME: 10 minutes THIS PAPER IS FOR STUDENTS STUDYING AT: (tick where applicable)  Caulfield  Clayton  Parkville  Peninsula  Monash Extension  Off Campus Learning  Malaysia  Sth Africa  Other (specify) During an exam, you must not have in your possession any item/material that has not been authorised for your exam. This includes books, notes, paper, electronic device/s, mobile phone, smart watch/device, calculator, pencil case, or writing on any part of your body. Any authorised items are listed below. Items/materials on your desk, chair, in your clothing or otherwise on your person will be deemed to be in your possession. No examination materials are to be removed from the room. This includes retaining, copying, memorising or noting down content of exam material for personal use or to share with any other person by any means following your exam. Failure to comply with the above instructions, or attempting to cheat or cheating in an exam is a discipline offence under Part 7 of the Monash University (Council) Regulations, or a breach of instructions under Part 3 of the Monash University (Academic Board) Regulations. AUTHORISED MATERIALS OPEN BOOK  YES  NO CALCULATORS  YES  NO Only HP 10bII+ or Casio FX82 (any suffix) calculator permitted SPECIFICALLY PERMITTED ITEMS  YES  NO if yes, items permitted are: one A4 sheet of paper with hand written notes on both sides Candidates must complete this section if required to write answers within this paper STUDENT ID: __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ DESK NUMBER: __ __ __ __ __ INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS • Answer all FOUR questions. All questions are of equal value (15 marks). This paper is worth 60 marks in total and constitutes 60% of the final assessment. • For multiple choice questions write the question number and only one letter (a), (b), (c), (d) or (e) for each question in your answer book (not on the question sheet). • When testing a hypothesis, to obtain full marks you need to specify the null and the alternative hypotheses, the test statistic and its distribution under the null, and then perform the test and state your conclusion. • If a question does not specify the level of significance of a hypothesis test explicitly, use 5%. • Statistical tables are provided after Question 4. Question 1 (15 marks) This question has 15 multiple choice questions. Make sure that you clearly specify the question number and only one letter for each multiple choice question in your answer book (not on the question sheet). 1. Consider two datasets. In dataset A, we have data on consumption expenditure, income and hours of work for every year from 2000 to 2017 for a group of individuals who were randomly selected in the year 2000. In data set B, we have data on consumption per capita, income per capita and unemployment rate for Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam for every year from 2000 to 2017. (a) Both datasets are examples of time series data. (b) Both datasets are examples of cross-sectional data. (c) Both datasets are examples of panel data. (d) Dataset A is an example of panel data, dataset B is an example of time series data. (e) Dataset A is an example of cross-sectional data, dataset B is an example of time-series data. (1 mark) 2. Which of the following statements is NOT true? (a) Randomised controlled trials are the best means for measuring causal relationships. (b) In predictive modelling, the variables that are used as predictors need not cause the variable that they try to predict. (c) Correlation is not causation. (d) Time series observations are always i.i.d. (e) Time series data are ordered whereas cross section data are not. (1 mark) Page 2 of 15 3. Let  denote the weight of a newborn baby immediately after birth.  is a random variable with mean , i.e. () =  and variance 2 i.e.  (−)2 = 2. We denote weights of 5 newborn babies selected at random by 12 3 4 and 5, and their sample average by ̄ Which of the following statements is NOT true (a) P5 =1( − ̄) = 0 (b) P5 =1  = 5̄ (c) (̄) =  (d) ̄ =  (e) ̄ is a linear combination of 12 3 4 and 5 (1 mark) 4. Let  and  denote returns to two risky assets. We are told that  () =  () =  and  () =   () = 2 If we invest half of our savings in one of these assets and the other half in the other asset, then the variance of the return to our investment will be (a)  2 4 if  and  are uncorrelated (b)  2 2 if  and  are uncorrelated (c)  2 2 always (d) 2 always (e) (−)2+(−)2 4 if  and  are uncorrelated (1 mark) Questions 5 and 6 refer to the following p.d.f.: According to an expert, the annual growth rate of the real GDP and the inflation rate for Malaysia in 2019 are governed by the following joint probability density function: Inflation rate ↓ , GDP growth rate → 4% 5% 6% 1% 0.1 0.1 0.0 2% 0.1 0.2 0.0 3% 0.1 0.1 0.1 4% 0.0 0.1 0.1 5. The expected growth rate of real GDP in Malaysia in 2019 according to this expert is: (a) a random variable (b) 500% because 4+5+6 3 = 5 (c) 490% because 4×03+5×05+6×02 = 49 (d) 250% because 1×02+2×03+3×03+4×02 = 25 (e) 492% because 1 4 ×{(4× 01 01+01 +5× 01 01+01 )+(4× 01 01+02 +5× 02 01+02 )+ (4× 01 01+01+01 +5× 01 01+01+01 +6× 01 01+01+01 )+ (5× 01 01+01 +6× 01 01+01 )} = 492 (1 mark) Page 3 of 15 6. Conditional on 5% GDP growth rate, the expected inflation rate in Malaysia in 2019 according to this expert is: (a) a random variable (b) 250% because 1+2+3+4 4 = 25 (c) 250% because 1×02+2×03+3×03+4×02 = 25 (d) 120% because 1×01+2×02+3×01+4×01 = 12 (e) 240% because 1× 01 05 +2× 02 05 +3× 01 05 +4× 01 05 = 24 (1 mark) Questions 7, 8 and 9 refer to the multiple regression model  = 0 + 11 + 22 + · · ·+  +   = 12      (1) which in matrix notation is y ×1 = X ×(+1) β (+1)×1 + u ×1 7.  (u | X) = 0 implies that (a) (X0u) = 0 (b) X0bu = 0 where bu is the vector of OLS residuals of regression of y on X (c)  (u | X) = 2I where I is the identity matrix of order  (d) X0X is invertible (e) Columns of X are linearly independent (1 mark) 8. Which one of the following statements is correct? (a) Xy is an  ×1 vector (b) X0X is an  ×  matrix (c) X0u = 0 (d) X0u is a ( +1)×1 vector (e) X0β is a ( +1)×1 vector (1 mark) 9. Assuming that this model satisfies all assumptions of the Classical Linear Model (CLM) and denoting the OLS estimator of β by bβ, which of the following statements is NOT correct? (a) bβ is an unbiased estimator of β (b) bβ is a consistent estimator of β (c) Conditional on X bβ is normally distributed (d) bβ is the best linear unbiased estimator of β (e) bβ is equal to β (1 mark) Page 4 of 15 10. We have chosen a random sample of 100 publicly listed companies and recorded their average share price, profits, revenues and total costs in 2017-2018 financial year. Note that profits = revenue – total cost. In a regression model with the share price as the dependent variable and a constant, profit, revenue and total cost as independent variables, the OLS estimator (a) cannot be computed because X0X matrix is not invertible (b) will be biased because share price is not normally distributed (c) will be unbiased (d) will be BLUE (e) will be unbiased but not BLUE (1 mark) Questions 11 to 13 refer to the following problem: We would like to model the relationship between the price of an apartment with its area and its number of bedrooms. We postulate the following population regression model  = 0 + 1 + 2 +  Suppose all assumptions of the Classical Linear Model applies to this model. We have collected data on price (in 1000 dollars), area (in square metres) and number of bedrooms for 120 randomly selected apartments and estimated the parameters of this models using OLS. This resulted in 31899 135 and 6237 for estimates of 0, 1 and 2 respectively. 11. Which of the following equations reports the results appropriately? (a) d = 31899+135  +6237  (b) d = 31899+135  +6237  + ̂ (c) d = 31899+135  +6237  +  (d)  = 31899+135  +6237  +  (e)  ( |  ) = 31899+135  +6237  (1 mark) 12. Which of the following statements is correct? (a)  ( |  ) = 31899+135  +6237  (b)  ( |  ) = 31899+135  +6237  +  (c)  ( |  ) = 31899+135  +6237  + ̂ (d)  ( |  ) = 0 + 1 + 2 (e)  ( |  ) = 0 + 1 + 2 +  (1 mark) 13. The null hypothesis for testing that given the area of an apartment, its number of bedrooms is not a significant predictor of its price, is: (a) 0 :  = 0 (b) 0 : ( | ) = 0 (c) 0 : b2 = 0 (d) 0 : 2 = 0 (e) 0 : b2 6= 0 (1 mark) Page 5 of 15 Questions 14 and 15 relate to the following econometric model: Some economists believe that the relationship between greenhouse gas emission and income is nonlinear. Denote a country’s emission of CO2 per capita by 2 and its GDP per capita by  and consider the following model: 2 = 0 + 1 + 2 2 +  (2) 14. The hypothesis that the relationship between 2 and  is linear versus the al- ternative that it is an inverted U shape relationship can be written as: (a) 0 : 2 = 0 against 1 : 2  0 (b) 0 : 2 = 0 against 1 : 2  0 (c) 0 : 1 = 0 against 1 : 1  0 (d) 0 : 1 = 0 against 1 : 1  0 (e) 0 : 1 = 2 = 0 against 1 : at least one of 1 or 2 not equal to zero (1 mark) 15. If we know that in the model shown in equation (2)   ( | ) = 2, but all other assumptions of the Classical Linear Model are satisfied, then (a) we can still use the OLS estimator because it is unbiased, and we can use the usual OLS standard errors to perform  tests (b) we can still use the OLS estimator because it is unbiased, but we need to use heteroskedas- ticity robust standard errors to perform  tests (c) we cannot use the OLS estimator because the OLS estimator is biased in this case (d) we can still use the OLS estimator because it is the best linear unbiased estimator in this case (e) we can still use the OLS estimator because the OLS estimator is the same as the “weighted least squares” estimator in this case (1 mark) Question 2 (15 marks) 2.a. Suppose we have a sample of  observations on a variable . Show that if we run a regression of  on a constant only, the OLS estimate of the constant will be the sample average of  (3 marks) 2.b. From the World Development Indicators database, we have extracted data on the following variables for 121 countries in 2015: Variable Definition Range UNDER5 Mortality rate in children under 5 (per 1000 live births) 2.4 – 130.9 GDPPC GDP per capita in PPP adjusted dollars (as defined in assignment 1) 626 – 80892 SANITATION People using basic sanitation services (% of population) 7 – 100 WATER People using basic drinking water services (% of population) 0 – 100 The “Range” column provides the range of these variable in our sample. Page 6 of 15 From these 121 countries, 35 are in sub-Saharan Africa. We have created a dummy variable called SUBSAHARA which is equal to 1 if the country is a sub-Saharan country and 0 otherwise. Using this data set, we have estimated the following regressions using OLS (standard errors are provided in parentheses below parameter estimates) d5 = 172 (21) +596 (38)  (3) d5 = 1590 (145) − 72 (22) log()− 06 (01)  − 02 (01)  (4) i. From the information provided, compute the average under-5 mortality rate (a) for the 35 sub-Saharan countries, (b) for the remaining 86 countries, and (c) for all 121 countries in this sample. (3 marks) ii. Explain the estimated coefficients of log() in equation (4) in a way that a person with no econometric training would understand. (2 marks) iii. Suppose we want to test the hypothesis that after controlling for log(), a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of population with access to basic sanitation has the same effect on under-5 mortality as a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of population with access to drinking water, against the alternative that these effects are not equal, at the 5% level of significance. Explain how we could do that. For full marks, you need to state the null, the alternative, the test statistic and its distribution under the null, any additional regressions that we may have to estimate to calculate the test statistic, and how to come up with a conclusion using this procedure. All of these need to be explained in the context of this question where appropriate. (4 marks) iv. We have added  to equation (4) and re-estimated it and obtained the following equation: d5 = 1354 (145) − 74 (22) log()− 04 (01)  − 01 (01)  +182 (58)  (5) Use this information to test the hypothesis that after controlling for GDP per capita and access to sanitation and water services, there is no difference between the mean of under-5 mortality in sub-Saharan countries and the rest of the world, against the alternative that sub-Saharan countries have a higher mean, at the 5% level of significance. Remember that you need to state all steps of hypothesis testing to obtain full marks. (3 marks) Page 7 of 15 Question 3 (15 marks) 3.a. In predictive modelling, when we want to find the best subset of  explanatory variables {1 2     } to predict a target variable  we do not use 2 to compare models. Explain why, and provide the formula of an alternative statistic (only one) that we can use for selecting the best predictive model, highlighting specifically how this statistic overcomes the deficiency of 2 for model selection. (3 marks) 3.b. We have randomly selected a sample of 249 employed men and collected the following infor- mation: Variable Definition Range Median WAGE hourly wage in dollars 7.5 – 125 30 EDUC years of education 2 – 18 12 EXPER years of experience 0 – 38 13 The “Range” and “Median” columns show the range and the median of each variable within our sample, and zero years of experience means people who have less than 6 months experience. Consider the following population regression model for the logarithm of wage given education and experience: log() = 0 + 1 ( −12)+ 2  + 3 2 +  (6) We have estimated the following regression using OLS: dlog() = 2837 (0066) + 0095 (0010) ( −12)+ 0055 (0009) − 0001 (00003) 2 (7) 2 = 0394 standard error of the regression = 0420  = 249 Note that we have subtracted 12 from years of education in order to make the results more readily interpretable. i. Interpret the estimated coefficients in this regression, including its intercept. (4 marks) ii. Can we interpret the coefficient of ( −12) as the estimate of the “return to education”, i.e. proportional increase in wage caused by an extra year of education? Explain. (2 marks) iii. In order to test the hypothesis that the errors of this model are homoskedastic against a specific alternative, we have estimated the following auxiliary regression: ̂2 = 0096 (0031) + 0004 (0006) ( −12)+ 0005 (0002)  2 = 0039 standard error of the regression = 0262  = 249 where ̂ is the estimated residual of equation (7). Use this information to perform the test at the 5% level of significance. Remember that you need to write down the null and the alternative and all steps of hypothesis testing to obtain full marks. (4 marks) iv. Suppose we are told that the conditional variance of the error in model (6) is proportional to experience, i.e.  ( | ) = 2 × . Explain how we can use this information to transform model (6) in such a way that the transformed model will have the same parameters but no heteroskedasticity. (2 marks) Page 8 of 15

 

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What is the firm’s profits at the monopoly price determined in part a

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Monopoly pricing (50 points)

Milwaukee Utilities has a complete monopoly over the generation and transmission of energy.  The following information on this company is given as follows:

Demand = 500 – 6Q

Average cost = 250 – Q

Where Q is measured in megawatts and prices and costs are measured in dollars.

How much energy would be sold and at what price if

a.) The firm sets price as a profit-maximizing monopolist? Note: The marginal cost curve is twice as steep as the average cost curve.

b.) What is the firm’s profits at the monopoly price determined in part a?

c.) Now, suppose the firm adopts a two-part tariff pricing scheme for its customers such that the access fee is equal to the profit-maximizing marginal cost and the user fee is the difference between the profit maximizing monopoly price and marginal cost. Please calculate the user and access fees based on this information.

d.) Now suppose the firm practices 3rd degree price discrimination and charges the profit-maximizing price to the high reservation price customers and charges a 10 percent discount on the monopoly price to low reservation price customers. Note, low reservation price customers are those who would never pay the monopoly price. What is the price charged to the low reservation price customers? What is the profit generated by charging these profits? Are the profits greater than the profits in part ‘b’? Please explain.

e.) Now suppose the state public utility commission requires this firm to charge the competitive price, how much energy would be sold and at what price? What is the firm’s profits?

f.) Based on the profits obtained when forcing this monopoly to charge a competitive price, the regulator now requires this monopoly to set price equal to average cost (this is called second-best pricing). What is the firm’s profits when charging second-best prices?

Please show all work to receive full credit.

Section II: Game theoretic approach toward analyzing output behavior of rivals (50 points)

Firms X and Y are duopolists facing the same two strategy choices. They can either tacitly collude or they can compete in a Cournot fashion. The market demand for their product, as well as their respective cost curves are as follows:

C(qx) = C(qy) =50qi (firm X and Y’s total cost curves), where i=x or y

MC(qy) =MC(qy) = 50 (firm X and Y’s marginal cost curves)

P=500-5Q, (market demand), where Q = qx + qy .

C(q) and have the same cost structure: marginal cost and average cost both=50

a.) Calculate the respective output levels of each firm if they collude to set monopoly prices.

b.) Calculate the respective output levels of each firm if they adhere to the Cournot model.

c.) What four possible output combinations are available in this game?

d.) Derive the for possible profit outcomes for each firm that arise from producing the four possible output combinations available in this game.

e.) Use these profit outcomes to construct a 2×2 normal representative matrix for this game.

f.) Does either firm have a dominant strategy? If so, what is it?

g.) Is there a Nash equilibrium for this game? If so, what is it?

h.) Is the outcome of this game a prisoner’s dilemma? Please Explain?

Please show all work to receive full credit.

 

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quantitative questions

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Show your work for quantitative questions. You can create diagrams with any means you like (with Excel, by hand, etc.), as long as they are clear and contain the required material.

Show your work for quantitative questions. You can create diagrams with any means you like (with Excel, by hand, etc.), as long as they are clear and contain the required material. Full credit is given for answers that use correct economic terminology, where appropriate.

Full credit is given for answers that use correct economic terminology, where appropriate. For the following questions, show your work for all answers.

 

1

You work for a graphics design company and have the opportunity to submit a design proposal for a news outlet’s logo re-design effort. You have a competitive advantage in designing logos using serif fonts, which are trending right now. The incumbent design company, who is your major competitor for this contract, has a competitive advantage in designing logos with sans serif fonts. The news outlet is accepting proposals and may decide the winner based on those submissions. You and your competitor know the following facts:

· If you submit a logo using a serif font and they also use a serif font, you will be offered the design contract and expect a profit of $10k from redesigning the logo (and submitting the bid). Your competitor will receive a net benefit from its team gaining more design experience, worth $1k.

 

· If you submit a logo using sans serif font and they also use a sans serif font, they will win the contract and expect a profit of $15k. You will take home a net benefit of $1k from the design experience.

· If you submit a logo using sans serif font and your competitor uses a serif font, your equally poor designs will result in neither firm being offered a contract. You both will experience a net cost from reputational impacts. Your cost will be $3k, and your competitor’s will be $5k.

· If you submit a logo using a serif font and your competitor uses a sans serif font, your equally good submissions will result in a tie. You both come out of the competition empty-handed with a net benefit of participating of $0, waiting for how the news outlet will proceed with any future evaluation of your work.

 

A. Represent this competition visually using the correct tool(s) from economic game theory.

 

B. What is the Nash Equilibrium/Equilibria set(s) of best responses in this “game”? Show how you arrived at this answer by highlighting or circling each firm’s payouts from its best responses and providing a brief explanation.

 

C. Will a Nash Equilibrium be realized if you and your competitor do not communicate before submitting your proposals? Why or why not?

 

D. Will a Nash Equilibrium be realized if you and your competitor communicate before submitting your proposals? Why or why not?

 

2

You work for a biotech company that is considering new R&D for a substance that would simultaneously consume ocean plastic, absorb greenhouse gases, and increase ocean albedo. You’re confident in your ability to develop a reasonably successful product, but you are not sure how well you can safeguard your intellectual property (IP) from rival biotech firms. You are risk-neutral. You face three alternative choices:

· Invest in the R&D and apply for a patent. In this case, you expect to spend $10m on R&D and $5m on patent expenses but obtain $60m in revenue. (Note that you will have to commit to patent application when deciding on R&D.)

· Invest in R&D and not apply for a patent. In this case, you expect to spend $10m on R&D and receive $60m in revenue. However, there is a 70% chance that some aspects of your IP will “spill over” to rival biotech companies, and you will not be able to maintain a monopoly position as the sole producer of this wonder substance. Other firms may enter, and you will lose market share resulting in a revenue loss given by L.

· Don’t invest in R&D. Incur no research costs and receive no revenue from such an endeavor.

A. Represent the key aspects of the decision you face with an appropriate decision tree.

B. If L = $5m, what alternative will you chose?

C. If L = $10m, what alternative will you chose?

D. Under what values of L would you prefer to patent your technology than operate without a patent? (Round to two decimal places.)

E. Now assume that conducting R&D reveals whether your IP will spill over to other firms. Your R&D cost is still $10m. Your understanding of the probability of an IP spill-over as of now is the same (there is a 70% chance of spill-over occurring), but R&D will reveal whether or not it will occur with certainty.

· If, after R&D, your IP is safe, you can expect the same $60m in revenue as before.

· If, after R&D, you expect your IP to spill over to other firms and you do not patent your technology, you expect to lose $10m in revenue compared to the case of your IP being safe. If you patent your tech, your patent cost will be $5m and your revenue will be $60m.

i. Represent the key aspects of the decision you face with an appropriate decision tree.

ii. Will you invest in R&D and patent right away, invest in R&D and consider patenting after conducting research, or chose not to invest in R&D? What calculations led you to this decision?

iii. Discuss how this scenario relates to the “Real Options” framework for investing under uncertainty by identifying (1) the option in this scenario and (2) how your choice of whether and when to exercise that option allows you to make the best decision.

3

You produce children’s toys and are shopping for product liability insurance. You have conducted very thorough engineering and lab tests of your toys and have calculated hazard rates from toy breakage, incidents from how children interact with them, etc. You have determined that there is a 0.02% chance of a “major” incident occurring with one of your toys in the next year, defined as an incident resulting in $1m in damages.

A. Based on these facts, what is the premium you expect to pay for actuarily fair insurance?

 

B. After shopping around, you are offered a few premiums that are higher than you expect. Insurers define “major” events the same way but disagree on the probability of one of your toys causing a major event in the next year. (They claim this probability is higher.)

 

i. Why might prospective insurers assume a higher probability of a major event?

ii. What can you do to try to resolve the difference in understanding of this probability? List and describe two.

C. If instead prospective insurers cite the same definition of a “major” event and the probability of it occurring in the next year, why might they be asking for premiums higher than the actuarily fair rate (aside from market power)? What is a solution to this issue?

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 Introduction to Humanities

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 Introduction to Humanities (2215) – HUMN 100 6981 Introduction to Humanities (2215)

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Week 8: Conclusion

HUMN 100 6981 Introduction to Humanities (2215) OO

Conclusion

Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore, I

am. —René Descartes

Pure Existence Pierces an Opening to Express Itself in the Phenomenal World by James

Welling

Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access “The Met Collection”

—

Overview Eight weeks ago, we started on a journey into the depth and breadth of the humanities.

As you now know, the disciplines of the humanities—literature, performance arts, visual

arts, philosophy, and religion—contain multiple expressions of what it means to be human.

Such expressions allow us to see, hear and experience how human beings anywhere in the

world use their creativity to share with us what they see, hear and experience.

Let us celebrate how in the past few weeks you’ve obtained a deeper and broader

understanding of the importance of the humanities. Your responses and written

documents attest to the fact that you have taken the time to explore and critically analyze

 

 

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what you’ve been presented with. This celebration is important because when we are able

to appreciate an artistic expression, we are indeed forging a bond, a community of sorts,

with the artist or artists that created it. The more we appreciate the arts, the stronger—

and more enchanting—our global community will be. That’s how a theatrical production, a

song, a dance, a painting, a poem, or a book in our midst allows us to connect—in richer

and fuller ways—to similar yet distinct artistic expressions anywhere in the world.

Take a moment now to think about how your knowledge and skills have grown over the

last eight weeks. Hopefully, you’ve done more than just “staring at yourself.”

Can you see where you are now versus where you started?

Delving into the rich expressions of writers, poets, sculptors, actors, musicians, and

philosophers from all over the world, have you gained new insights into our shared

humanity (or shared human condition)?

Have you learned to appreciate arts in all forms, regardless of whether you like the

form or not?

Can you describe to others the value of understanding more of the world because

of the humanities?

Given the choice, would you stick with the familiar and usual, or would you be

willing to continue taking risks to explore the diverse, the remote, even the

unknown?

Needless to say, the course was simply a starting point, the opening of a door leading to

increased explorations of your own creativity and the creativity of anyone, anywhere,

anytime. Yet, what you’ve seen, heard, felt and experienced are major accomplishments

that need to be celebrated, even shared.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

—Lao Tzu

Learning Outcomes

Following is a list of the Week 8 outcomes, mapped to the corresponding course

outcome. The course outcomes give “the big picture,” and the weekly outcomes provide

more detailed information that will help you achieve the course outcomes.

Week 8 Outcomes

Reflect upon what you have learned over the past seven weeks (1, 4).

Reflect upon what new insights you have gained about the human condition

through the study of various writers, poets, sculptors, actors, musicians, and

philosophers (3, 4).

 

 

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Week 8 Checklist Checklist

Week 8 Study Guide Web Page

WEEK 8 DISCUSSION: Reflecting Discussion Topic

Reflect upon the variety of ways humans express themselves culturally (1, 3, 4).

Reflect upon the value of the humanities to the world and to contemporary

American society (1, 3).

Reflect upon the ways this course has possibly changed your perspective upon the

world and upon your place within the world (1, 4).

Course Outcomes Met in Week 8

Describe and analyze the way human culture is expressed through works of

literature, performing and visual arts, philosophy, and religion in order to appreciate

the depth and breadth of the humanities disciplines.

Use basic vocabulary, concepts, methods, and theories of the humanities disciplines

in order to describe and analyze cultural and artistic expressions.

Identify and apply criteria in order to evaluate individual and collective cultural

accomplishments.

Examine individual and cultural perspectives in the field of humanities in order to

recognize and assess cultural diversity and the individual’s place in the world.

0 % 0 of 4 topics complete

Read the Weekly Overview & Learning Goals

Participate in our Discussions

Compose your Final Project Part 3

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful

and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course

materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling,

and typos; cite your sources.

 

 

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Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose TWO of the following questions, and

give a substantive response to at least two other students.

ANSWER TWO.

1. REFLECT ON YOUR OWN LEARNING. Please identify and share one of the most

meaningful insights you obtained from the course. This insight must be strictly about you.

2. REFLECT ON THE ARTISTIC EXPRESSIONS OF OTHERS. From the many artistic

expressions provided in the course (paintings, photographs, videos, links, etc.), choose one

that identifies a meaningful experience in the course. Explain why you chose that object

and why it is meaningful. If possible, paste a copy or the link. Imagine that your choice

will become a part of a Course Album of Meaningful Objects and your choice will be your

contribution to the album.

3. REFLECT ON YOUR LEARNING ACCOMPLISHMENTS WITH YOUR FELLOW

STUDENTS. What would you tell them about your experience together? What would

you say to encourage them to continue their exploration of the humanities? How might

you use the tools for interpretation that you have learned about in your life or at your

job?

4. PERSONAL GROWTH. Paraphrasing Einstein, a person cannot grow remaining static—

it takes new ideas, fresh thoughts and inspiration to bring about transformation. This is

why the humanities are important. Where do you see the humanities helping you grow as

a person?

5. “DEAR JOHN…” Write a letter to a friend about the course. In 150-300 words, tell

your friend why you think the course would be valuable and personally enriching.

Describe what you think they would learn from taking the course, and evaluate any

aspect of the course that you think would be most relevant to your friend.

6. REFLECT ON THE VALUE OF THE HUMANITIES. There is a big focus on STEM fields

of studies today, science, technology, engineering and math. However, there are those

who argue for STEAM, which includes the arts. What do you think the value of the

humanities are to other fields? How might you convince someone in a STEM field of this

value. This article from the Atlantic may be of use in thinking about your response.

7. REFLECT ON YOUR POSITION IN THE CAVE. We began this semester talking about

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. How can you use this allegory to discuss your experience of

going through this class and your understanding of the Humanities? For instance, are you

still chained in the cave watching shadows on the wall? Have you moved outside of the

cave? Do you exist in both places now with regards to the Humanities? Do you prefer one

place over another? Explain.

 

 

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Final Project, Part 3. Paper Assignment

Due August 10 at 11:59 PM

You will not see any other postings until you post your own.

Initial posts are due by Saturday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow

classmates are expected by the end of the academic week on Tuesday by 11:30PM ET.

Click here to view the full Final Project description.

Final Project, Part 3: Paper.

This part of the final project is the paper that presents your description and analysis of

your selected works.

In a 750-1200 word essay:

Explain the subject you chose and why it’s worth exploring in the Humanities

Describe each of your selected examples, including 1) information about its

creator; 2) its historical or cultural context (how it fits into a historical period’s or a

specific culture’s attitudes, events etc. Think about what else was going on in the

culture and history when the piece was created); and 3) link to the example or an

embedded image with a citation in the paper where you write about each example.

Use at least one specific interpretative tool, concept or method from the course to

explain each of your selected examples. You should use a different tool, concept or

method for each example, so you should use at least three different tools in your

paper.

Assess the effectiveness or impact of each representation. In other words, how

well did the representation present the subject? How effective was it? What

impact did this representation have? What specific elements of the representation

lead you to your conclusions?

Provide a correctly formatted paper, complete and proper citations for any

references you consult, using MLA format

Documentation Style: The paper is to be formatted and documented in the MLA format.

For general assistance, see the links below to the UMGC Library.

MLA Citation: http://sites.umgc.edu/library/libhow/mla_tutorial.cfm

MLA Citation Examples: http://sites.umgc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm

 

 

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STOP: Before you hand in your assignment, make sure to ask yourself the following

questions:

1. Have I included a paragraph that provides one to two logical, concrete, well-stated

reasons that this subject is worth exploring within the Humanities?

2. Have I included least two to three sentences for each example that clearly and

concretely provide information about its creator, cultural/historical context, and

where I found it-an image or link?

3. Have I included at least one to three sentences that explains and applies a specific

interpretative tool, concept or method that is from the course’s Learning Resources

each example?

4. Have I included at least one to three sentences that contains an assessment of the

effectiveness of each example in representing the chosen subject?

5. Have I provided a list of resources and do all of my citations conform to MLA 8th

edition guidelines?

6. Have I proofread this assignment for grammatical, structural, and spelling errors that might impede someone from understanding what I am trying to say?

 

Due Date for Part 3: This submission is due during Week 8, with the final day of

submission being the Tuesday of the eighth week (11:30pm ET). Please see the Course

Schedule for the exact final due date for this submission. The submission should be

carefully edited and proofed for standard use of English.

 

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Sensations and Brain Processes

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Sensations and Brain Processes Author(s): J. J. C. Smart Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Apr., 1959), pp. 141-156 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182164 Accessed: 25/08/2008 18:06

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SENSATIONS AND BRAIN PROCESSES

SUPPOSE that I report that I have at this moment a roundish, blurry-edged after-image which is yellowish towards its

edge and is orange towards its centre. What is it that I am reporting?’ One answer to this question might be that I am not reporting anything, that when I say that it looks to me as though there is a roundish yellowy orange patch of light on the wall I am expressing some sort of temptation, the temptation to say that there is a roundish yellowy orange patch on the wall (though I may know that there is not such a patch on the wall). This is perhaps Wittgenstein’s view in the Philosophical Investigations (see paragraphs 367, 370). Similarly, when I “report” a pain, I am not really reporting anything (or, if you like, I am reporting in a queer sense of “reporting”), but am doing a sophisticated sort of wince. (See paragraph 244: “The verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.” Nor does it describe anything else?) 2 I prefer most of the time to discuss an after- image rather than a pain, because the word “pain” brings in something which is irrelevant to my purpose: the notion of “distress.” I think that “he is in pain” entails “he is in distress,” that is, that he is in a certain agitation-condition.3 Similarly, to say “I am in pain” may be to do more than “replace pain behavior”: it may be partly to report something, though this

1 This paper takes its departure from arguments to be found in U. T. Place’s “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?” (British Journal of Psychology, XLVII, 1956, 44-50). I have had the benefit of discussing Place’s thesis in a good many universities in the United States and Australia, and I hope that the present paper answers objections to his thesis which Place has not considered, and presents his thesis in a more nearly unobjectionable form. This paper is meant also to supplement “The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’,” by H. Feigl (in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, II, 370-497), which argues for much the same thesis as Place’s.

2 Some philosophers of my acquaintance, who have the advantage over me in having known Wittgenstein, would say that this interpretation of him is too behavioristic. However, it seems to me a very natural interpretation of his printed words, and whether or not it is Wittgenstein’s real view it is certainly an interesting and important one. I wish to consider it here as a possible rival both to the “brain-process” thesis and to straight-out old-fashioned dualism.

3 See Ryle, Concept of Mind (New York, 1949), p. 93.

‘4’

I

 

 

J. J. C. SMART

something is quite nonmysterious, being an agitation-condition, and so susceptible of behavioristic analysis. The suggestion I wish if possible to avoid is a different one, namely that “I am in pain” is a genuine report, and that what it reports is an irre- ducibly psychical something. And similarly the suggestion I wish to resist is also that to say “I have a yellowish orange after-image” is to report something irreducibly psychical.

Why do I wish to resist this suggestion? Mainly because of Occam’s razor. It seems to me that science is increasingly giving us a viewpoint whereby organisms are able to be seen as physico- chemical mechanisms:4 it seems that even the behavior of man himself will one day be explicable in mechanistic terms. There does seem to be, so far as science is concerned, nothing in the world but increasingly complex arrangements of physical con- stituents. All except for one place: in consciousness. That is, for a full description of what is going on in a man you would have to mention not only the physical processes in his tissue, glands, nervous system, and so forth, but also his states of consciousness: his visual, auditory, and tactual sensations, his aches and pains. That these should be correlated with brain processes does not help, for to say that they are correlated is to say that they are something “over and above.” You cannot correlate something with itself. You correlate footprints with burglars, but not Bill Sikes the burglar with Bill Sikes the burglar. So sensations, states of con- sciousness, do seem to be the one sort of thing left outside the physicalist picture, and for various reasons I just cannot believe that this can be so. That everything should be explicable in terms of physics (together of course with descriptions of the ways in which the parts are put together-roughly, biology is to physics as radio-engineering is to electromagnetism) except the occurrence of sensations seems to me to be frankly unbelievable. Such sensations would be “nomological danglers,” to use Feigl’s expression.5 It is not often realized how odd would be the laws

4On this point see Paul Oppenheim and Hilary Putnam, “Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis,” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, II, 3-36; also my note “Plausible Reasoning in Philosophy,” Mind, LXVI

(I957), 75-78. 6 Feigl, op. cit., p. 428.

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SENSATIONS AND BRAIN PROCESSES

whereby these nomological danglers would dangle. It is sometimes asked, “Why can’t there be psycho-physical laws which are of a novel sort, just as the laws of electricity and magnetism were novelties from the standpoint of Newtonian mechanics?” Cer- tainly we are pretty sure in the future to come across new ultimate laws of a novel type, but I expect them to relate simple constit- uents: for example, whatever ultimate particles are then in vogue. I cannot believe that ultimate laws of nature could relate simple constituents to configurations consisting of perhaps billions of neurons (and goodness knows how many billion billions of ultimate particles) all put together for all the world as though their main purpose in life was to be a negative feedback mecha- nism of a complicated sort. Such ultimate laws would be like nothing so far known in science. They have a queer “smell” to them. I am just unable to believe in the nomological danglers themselves, or in the laws whereby they would dangle. If any philosophical arguments seemed to compel us to believe in such things, I would suspect a catch in the argument. In any case it is the object of this paper to show that there are no philosophical arguments which compel us to be dualists.

The above is largely a confession of faith, but it explains why I find Wittgenstein’s position (as I construe it) so congenial. For on this view there are, in a sense, no sensations. A man is a vast arrangement of physical particles, but there are not, over and above this, sensations or states of consciousness. There are just behavioral facts about this vast mechanism, such as that it expresses a temptation (behavior disposition)- to say “there is a yellowish-red patch on the wall” or that it goes through a sophisticated sort of wince, that is, says “I am in pain.” Admit- tedly Wittgenstein says that though the sensation “is not a something,” it is nevertheless “not a nothing either” (paragraph 304), but this need only mean that the word “ache” has a use. An ache is a thing, but only in the innocuous sense in which the plain man, in the first paragraph of Frege’s Foundations of Arith- metic, answers the question “what is the number one?” by “a thing.” It should be noted that when I assert that to say “I have a yellowish-orange after-image” is to express a temptation to assert the physical-object statement “there is a yellowish-orange patch

I43

 

 

J. J. C. SMART

on the wall,” I mean that saying “I have a yellowish-orange after-image” is (partly) the exercise of the disposition6 which is the temptation. It is not to report that I have the temptation, any more than is “I love you” normally a report that I love someone. Saying “I love you” is just part of the behavior which is the exercise of the disposition of loving someone.

Though, for the reasons given above, I am very receptive to the above “expressive” account of sensation statements, I do not feel that it will quite do the trick. Maybe this is because I have not thought it out sufficiently, but it does seem to me as though, when a person says “I have an after-image,” he is making a genuine report, and that when he says “I have a pain,” he is doing more than “replace pain-behavior,” and that “this more” is not just to say that he is in distress. I am not so sure, however, that to admit this is to admit that there are nonphysical correlates of brain processes. Why should not sensations just be brain pro- cesses of a certain sort? There are, of course, well-known (as well as lesser-known) philosophical objections to the view that reports of sensations are reports of brain-processes, but I shall try to argue that these arguments are by no means as cogent as is commonly thought to be the case.

Let me first try to state more- accurately the thesis that sensa- tions are brain processes. It is not the thesis that, for example, “after-image” or “ache” means the same as “brain process of sort X” (where “X” is replaced by a description of a certain sort of brain process). It is that, in so far as “after-image” or “ache” is a report of a process, it is a report of a process that happens to be a brain process. It follows that the thesis does not claim that sensation statements can be translated into statements about brain processes.7 Nor does it claim that the logic of a sensation statement is the same as that of a brain-process state-

6 Wittgenstein did not like the word “disposition.” I am using it to put in a nutshell (and perhaps inaccurately) the view which I am attributing to Wittgenstein. I should like to repeat that I do not wish to claim that my interpretation of Wittgenstein is correct. Some of those who knew him do not interpret him in this way. It is merely a view which I find myself extracting from his printed words and which I think is important and worth discussing for its own sake.

7 See Place, op. cit., p. 45, near top, and Feigl, op. cit., p. 390, near top.

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SENSATIONS AND BRAIN PROCESSES

ment. All it claims is that in so far as a sensation statement is a report of something, that something is in fact a brain process. Sensations are nothing over and above brain processes. Nations are nothing “over and above” citizens, but this does not prevent the logic of nation statements being very different from the logic of citizen statements, nor does it insure the translatability of nation statements into citizen statements. (I do not, however, wish to assert that the relation of sensation statements to brain- process statements is very like that of nation statements to citizen statements. Nations do not just happen to be nothing over and above citizens, for example. I bring in the “nations” example merely to make a negative point: that the fact that the logic of A-state- ments is different from that of B-statements does not insure that A’s are anything over and above B’s.)

Remarks on identity. When I say that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an electric discharge, I am using “is” in the sense of strict identity. (Just as in the-in this case necessary-proposition “7 is identical with the smallest prime number greater than 5.”) When I say that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an electric discharge I do not mean just that the sensation is somehow spatially or temporally con- tinuous with the brain process or that the lightning is just spatially or temporally continuous with the discharge. When on the other hand I say that the successful general is the same person as the small boy who stole the apples I mean only that the successful general I see before me is a time slice8 of the same four-dimensional object of which the small boy stealing apples is an earlier time slice. However, the four-dimensional object which has the general-I-see-before-me for its late time slice is identical in the strict sense with the four-dimensional object which has the small- boy-stealing-apples for an early time slice. I distinguish these two senses of “is identical with” because I wish to make it clear that the brain-process doctrine asserts identity in the strict sense.

I shall now discuss various possible objections to the view that

8 See J. H. Woodger, Theory Construction (Chicago, I939), p. 38 (Internation- al Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 2, No. 5). I here permit myself to speak loosely. For warnings against possible ways of going wrong with this sort of talk, see my note “Spatialising Time,” Mind, LXIV (I955), 239-41.

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J. J. C. SMART

the processes reported in sensation statements are in fact processes in the brain. Most of us have met some of these objections in our first year as philosophy students. All the more reason to take a good look at them. Others of the objections will be more recondite and subtle.

Objection l. Any illiterate peasant can talk perfectly well about his after-images, or how things look or feel to him, or about his aches and pains, and yet he may know nothing whatever about neurophysiology. A man may, like Aristotle, believe that the brain is an organ for cooling the body without any impairment of his ability to make true statements about his sensations. Hence the things we are talking about when we describe our sensations cannot be processes in the brain.

Reply. You might as well say that a nation of slug-abeds, who never saw the morning star or knew of its existence, or who had never thought of the expression “the Morning Star,” but who used the expression “the Evening Star” perfectly well, could not use this expression to refer to the same entity as we refer to (and describe as) “the Morning Star.”9

You may object that the Morning Star is in a sense not the very same thing as the Evening Star, but only something spatio- temporally continuous with it. That is, you may say that the Morning Star is not the Evening Star in the strict sense of “identity” that I distinguished earlier. I can perhaps forestall this objection by considering the slug-abeds to be New Zealanders and the early risers to be Englishmen. Then the thing the New Zealanders describe as “the Morning Star” could be the very same thing (in the strict sense) as the Englishmen describe as “the Evening Star.” And yet they could be ignorant of this fact.

There is, however, a more plausible example. Consider lightning.10 Modern physical science tells us that lightning is a certain kind of electrical discharge due to ionization of clouds of water-vapor in the atmosphere. This, it is now believed, is what the true nature of lightning is. Note that there are not two things: a flash of lightning and an electrical discharge. There is one thing, a flash of lightning, which is described scientifically

9 Cf. Feigl, op. cit., p. 439. 10 See Place, op. cit., p. 47; also Feigl, op. cit., p. 438.

I46

 

 

SENSATIONS AND BRAIN PROCESSES

as an electrical discharge to the earth from a cloud of ionized water-molecules. The case is not at all like that of explaining a footprint by reference to a burglar. We say that what lightning really is, what its true nature as revealed by science is, is an electric discharge. (It is not the true nature of a footprint to be a burglar.)

To forestall irrelevant objections, I should like to make it clear that by “lightning” I mean the publicly observable physical object, lightning, not a visual sense-datum of lightning. I say that the publicly observable physical object lightning is in fact the electric discharge, not just a correlate of it. The sense-datum, or at least the having of the sense-datum, the “look” of lightning, may well in my view be a correlate of the electric discharge. For in my view it is a brain state caused by the lightning. But we should no more confuse sensations of lightning with lightning than we confuse sensations of a table with the table.

In short, the reply to Objection i is that there can be contingent statements of the form “A is identical with B,” and a person may well know that something is an A without knowing that it is a B. An illiterate peasant might well be able to talk about his sensations without knowing about his brain processes, just as he can talk about lightning though he knows nothing of electricity.

Objection 2. It is only a contingent fact (if it is a fact) that when we have a certain kind of sensation there is a certain kind of process in our brain. Indeed it is possible, though perhaps in the highest degree unlikely, that our present physiological theories will be as out of date as the ancient theory connecting mental processes with goings on in the heart. It follows that when we report a sensation we are not reporting a brain-process.

Reply. The objection certainly proves that when we say “I have an after-image” we cannot mean something of the form “I have such and such a brain-process.” But this does not show that whatwe report (having an after-image) is not infant a brain process. “I see lightning” does not mean “I see an electric discharge.” Indeed, it is logically possible (though highly unlikely) that the electrical discharge account of lightning might one day be given up. Again, “I see the Evening Star” does not mean the same as “I see the Morning Star,” and yet “the Evening Star and the Morning Star are one and the same thing” is a contingent

I47

 

 

J. J. C. SMART

proposition. Possibly Objection 2 derives some of its apparent strength from a “Fido”-Fido theory of meaning. If the meaning of an expression were what the expression named, then of course it would follow from the fact that “sensation” and “brain-process” have different meanings that they cannot name one and the same thing.

Objection 3.11 Even if Objections i and 2 do not prove that sensations are something over and above brain-processes, they do prove that the qualities of sensations are something over and above the qualities of brain-processes. That is, it may be possible to get out of asserting the existence of irreducibly psychic processes, but not out of asserting the existence of irreducibly psychic properties. For suppose we identify the Morning Star with the Evening Star. Then there must be some properties which logically imply that of being the Morning Star, and quite distinct properties. which entail that of being the Evening Star. Again, there must be some properties (for example, that of being a yellow flash) which are logically distinct from those in the physicalist story.

Indeed, it might be thought that the objection succeeds at one jump. For consider the property of “being a yellow flash.” It might seem that this property lies inevitably outside the physicalist framework within which I am trying to work (either by “yellow” being an objective emergent property of physical objects, or else by being a power to produce yellow sense-data, where “yellow,” in this second instantiation of the word, refers to a purely phenom- enal or introspectible quality). I must therefore digress for a moment and indicate how I deal with secondary qualities. I shall concentrate on color.

First of all, let me introduce the concept of a normal percipient. One person is more a normal percipient than another if he can make color discriminations that the other cannot. For example, if A can pick a lettuce leaf out of a heap of cabbage leaves, whereas B cannot though he can pick a lettuce leaf out of a heap of beetroot leaves, then A is more normal than B. (I am assuming that A and B are not given time to distinguish the

Il I think this objection was first put to me by Professor Max Black. I think it is the most subtle of any of those I have considered, and the one which I am least confident of having satisfactorily met.

148

 

 

SENSATIONS AND JRAIN PROCESSES

leaves by their slight difference in shape, and so forth.) From the concept of “more normal than” it is easy to see how we can introduce the concept of “normal.” Of course, Eskimos may make the finest discriminations at the blue end of the spectrum, Hotten- tots at the red end. In this case the concept of a normal percipient is a slightly idealized one, rather like that of “the mean sun” in astronomical chronology. There is no need to go into such subtleties now. I say that “This is red” means something roughly like “A normal percipient would not easily pick this out of a clump of geranium petals though he would pick it out of a clump of lettuce leaves.” Of course it does not exactly mean this: a person might know the meaning of “red” without knowing anything about geraniums, or even about normal percipients. But the point is that a person can be trained to say “This is red” of objects which would not easily be picked out of geranium petals by a normal percipient, and so on. (Note that even a color-blind person can reasonably assert that something is red, though of course he needs to use another human being, not just himself, as his “color meter.”) This account of secondary qualities explains their unimportance in physics. For obviously the discriminations and lack of discriminations made by a very complex neurophysiological mechanism are hardly likely to correspond to simple and nonarbitrary distinctions in nature.

I therefore elucidate colors as powers, in Locke’s sense, to evoke certain sorts of discriminatory responses in human beings. They are also, of course, powers to cause sensations in human beings (an account still nearer Locke’s). But these sensations, I am arguing, are identifiable with brain processes.

Now how do I get over the objection that a sensation can be identified with a brain process only if it has some phenomenal property, not possessed by brain processes, whereby one-half of the identification may be, so to speak, pinned down?

My suggestion is as follows. When a person says, “I see a yel- lowish-orange after-image,” he is saying something like this: “There is something going on which is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me, that is, when I really see an orange.” (And there is no reason why a person should not say the same

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The Philosophy of Motion Pictures

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The Philosophy of Motion Pictures

 

 

Foundat ions o f t h e P h i l o s o p h y o f t h e Arts Series Editor: Philip Alperson, Temple University

The Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts series is designed to provide a comprehensive but flexible series of concise texts addressing both fundamental general questions about art as well as questions about the several arts (literature, film, music, painting, etc.) and the various kinds and dimensions of artistic practice.

A consistent approach across the series provides a crisp, contemporary introduction to the main topics in each area of the arts, written in a clear and accessible style that provides a responsible, comprehensive, and informative account of the relevant issues, reflecting classic and recent work in the field. Books in the series are writ ten by a truly distinguished roster of philosophers with international renown.

1. The Philosophy of Art, Stephen Davies 2. The Philosophy of Motion Pictures, Noel Carroll

Forthcoming: The Philosophy of Literature, Peter Lamarque The Philosophy of Music, Philip Alperson Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, Paul Taylor

 

 

The Philosophy of Motion Pictures

Noel Carroll

jfk Blackwell * C r Publishing

 

 

© 2008 by Noel Carroll

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1 2008

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To Loretta and Maureen for taking care of my brothers

 

 

 

Contents

Acknowledgments viii

Introduction: From Film Theory to the Philosophy

of the Moving Image 1

1 Film as Art 7

2 Medium Specificity 35

3 What Is Cinema? 53

4 The Moving Picture — the Shot 80

5 Moving Images — Cinematic Sequencing and Narration 116

6 Affect and the Moving Image 147

7 Evaluation 192

Select Bibliography 227 Index 233

 

 

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments, criticisms, and suggestions offered in the preparation of parts of this book by Philip Alperson, Susan Feagin, Margaret Moore, Jonathan Frome, Vitor Moura, Jinhee Choi, Murray Smith, Gregory Currie, Aaron Smuts, Tom Wartenberg, Cynthia Freeland, Annette Michelson, Jeff Dean/ George Wilson, Elisa Galgut, Ward Jones, Amy Coplan, Patrick Keating, and Deborah Knight. They helped make this a better book. I’m the one who made it worse.

 

 

Introduction

From Film Theory to the Philosophy of the

Moving Image

Though the philosophy of the motion picture — or, as I prefer to say, the moving image — began early in the twentieth century, perhaps arguably with the publication in 1916 of The Photoplay: A Psychological Study by Hugo Munsterberg (a Harvard professor of philosophy and psychology in the department of William James), the philosophy of motion pictures did not become a thriving sub-field of philosophy until quite recently. Although Ludwig Wittgenstein enjoyed movies and attended them often — he especially liked westerns — he did not philosophize about them. But as of late, the discussion of movies by philosophers has become quite literally volurninous.

Why? At least two factors may account for this, one demographic and the

other intellectual. The demographic consideration is this: for the philosophy of motion

pictures to take root in any serious way, a substantial cadre of philosophers steeped in motion pictures was necessary in order for a deep and informed philosophical conversation to be sustained. Historically speaking, that condition did not begin to be satisfied sufficiently until the late 1960s and 1970s. By then there was at least one generation of philosophers who had grown up going to the movies in their neighborhood playhouses, and also a second generation who had access, through television, to a wide selection of the history of their own national and/or regional cinema

See for example the bibliography assembled by Jinhee Choi in Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures, edited by Noel Carroll and Jinhee Choi (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).

 

 

2 FROM THEORY TO PHILOSOPHY

traditions. Thus, toward the end of the twentieth century there were — suddenly — enough philosophers with enough knowledge about motion pictures for rich and wide-ranging philosophical debates to begin and for positions to be refined dialectically.

The demographic situation that I’ve just described, of course, not only explains the emergence of the field of the philosophy of motion pictures. It also accounts for the evolution of cinema studies (or moving image studies, or just media studies) as a rapidly expanding academic enterprise. However, though cinema scholars initially followed in the footsteps of the major film theorists (such as Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovin, Andre Bazin, and Siegfried Kracauer, among others), by the 1980s cinema studies, like other branches of the humanities, took what has come to be called “the cultural or social turn.” That is, academics in cinema studies decided to reorient their field in the direction of what came to be known as “cultural studies.” And in doing so, they left in mid-air many of the discussions of a lot of the issues that had perplexed earlier film theorists.

Intellectually, a vacuum appeared. And as Richard Allen, a former chairperson of the New York University Department of Cinema Studies, has pointed out, philosophers stepped into that gap. In effect, the professors of cinema studies have ceded what was once a central part of their field to philosophers of the moving image.

Perhaps needless to say, the philosophical appropriation of many of the topics of the earlier film theorists is by no means a matter of an alien colonization. For traditional film theory was always mixed through and through with philosophy. For example, to take a position on whether film is or is not art presupposes a philosophy of art. Film theorists also helped themselves to theses from many other branches of philosophy as well. Philosophy was never far from the thinking of classical film theorists. So, in this respect, the philosophy of the moving image is a legitimate heir to film theory, and not a usurper.

Many of the topics in this book — especially in terms of the questions asked — reflect the legacy of traditional film theory for the contemporary philosophy of the moving image. The first chapter addresses the question of whether or not film can be art. This is undoubtedly the question that got film theory and the philosophy of the motion pictures rolling in the early decades of the twentieth century. As we shall see, the issue has been revived of late due to some recent, highly sophisticated theories about the nature of photography. As in the past, showing that film can be an art forces us to look at and think closely about the nature of our object of study. In this way, meeting the charge that film is somehow precluded from

 

 

FROM THEORY TO PHILOSOPHY 3

the order of art in fact becomes an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the moving image.

The second chapter concerns what can be called the “medium specificity thesis.” This is the view that the artistic exploration of cinematic possibi­ lities must follow the implicit directives of the medium in which those possibilities are realized. The precise medium that figures in debates like this is typically film — that is, photographically or celluloid based motion pictures. The claim is that the nature of this medium has normative consequences with regard to that which moviemakers should pursue and avoid in their artistic endeavors. Quite simply, it is argued, they should strive to be cinematic and shun being un-cinematic (a condition that is often also equated with being theatrical). Because this was an article of faith for so long in the history of film and because the position appeals so seductively to common sense, it is worth a chapter to scrutinize the medium specificity hypothesis in depth.

Chapter 3 focuses on the question, “What is cinema?” The title, of course, comes from the legendary collection of essays by Andre Bazin, one of the most renowned theorists in the history of the moving image. It probably goes without saying that nearly every major film theorist has organized his or her thinking about cinema around this question.

In this chapter, I defend the notion that cinema is best understood in terms of the category of the moving image. “The moving image?” you might ask: “In contrast to what?” The short answer is: in contrast to film — that is, to be more explicit, in contrast to celluloidTmounted, photographi­ cally based film. I will argue that our object of study here is more fruitfully conceptualized under the broader category of the moving image than it is under the rubric of film, narrowly construed.

Film, properly so called, was undoubtedly the most important early implementation of the moving image (a.k.a. movies), but the impression of movement — including moving pictures and moving stories — can be realized in many other media including kinetoscopes, video, broadcast TV, GGI, and technologies not yet even imagined. Of course, ordinary folks don’t haggle over whether a videocassette is a movie or not. And neither, I will argue, should philosophers.

This, of course, is a conceptual point. It is not my intention to initiate a crusade for linguistic reform. That would be quixotic. In everyday speech, many use the labelfilm to designate things that are really the product of other media. For example, they may refer to a high-definition video as a film.

This is rather like the use of the name “Coke” for any cola, or “Xerox” for any copying machine, or “Levi” for all jeans, or “zipper” for every slide

 

 

4 FROM THEORY TO PHILOSOPHY

fastener. In these cases, the names of the earliest, most popular entrants to a field get used — in an inaccurate way, strictly speaking — to refer to their successors and even their competitors. Because of this tendency, we under­ stand why sometimes digital cinematography will get called film, though it does not involve the use of film (i.e., the use of a filmstrip). There is little damage here in the daily course of events. Nevertheless, as we shall see, it can and does cause philosophical mischief.

Chapter 4 follows the discussion of the nature of cinema with an analysis of the nature of the cinematic image, construed as a single shot. Obviously, these two topics are related, if only because throughout the history of motion pictures, the temptation has endured to treat movies as if they were equivalent to photographs, where photographs, in turn, are conceived of as modeling single shots.* That is, many have attempted to extrapolate the nature of cinema tout court from the nature of the photographic shot. Thus, it is imperative for the philosopher of the moving image to get straight about the nature of the shot.

Of course, typical motion pictures, excluding experiments like Andy WarhoFs Empire, are usually more than one shot in length. Shots are characteristically strung together in cinematic sequences, usually by means of editing. Chapter 5 examines prevailing structures of cinematic sequencing from a functional point of view. In this regard, one might see the analysis here as returning to an exploration of the terrain that was of the greatest interest to the montage theorists of the Soviet period.

Moreover, in composing the image series in a motion picture, one not only standardly combines shots to construct sequences but then also joins sequences to build whole movies. Consequently, in the second part of chapter 5 we turn to the most common way of connecting sequences to make popular, mass-market movies — a process that we call erotetic narra­ tion, that is, a method of generating stories by means of questions the narrator implicitly promises to answer.

Just as chapter 5 revisits, with a difference, the concerns of the monta- gists, so chapter 6 also tackles a subject near and dear to the heart of Sergei Eisenstein — the way in which cinema addresses feeling. Unlike Eisenstein, however, in this chapter I will take advantage of recent refinements in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science in order to appreciate the wide gamut of ways in which movies can engage our affective reactions. I will try

For example, we call an afternoon photographing fashion models “a shoot” and a successful photo a “nice shot.”

 

 

FROM THEORY TO PHILOSOPHY 5

to be precise where Eisenstein was often impressionistic. Nevertheless, at the end of the chapter, I will attempt to argue that at least one of Eisenstein’s insights into the mechanics of influencing audience affect was spot-on. These audience responses are what we can call mirror reflexes; and Eisenstein was dead right about their significance.

The last chapter in the book focuses on the evaluation of motion pictures. Though many might be tempted to maintain that they are wholly a subjective affair, I will try to demonstrate that quite often movie evaluations can be shown to be rational and objective. Often, this relies upon determining the category in which the movie under discussion is to be correctly classified. Since more than one category comes into play when evaluating the range of available motion pictures, the position defended in our last chapter is called the pluralistic-category approach.

The pluralistic-category approach contrasts sharply with traditional approaches which attempt to identify a single category — often called the cinematic — into which all movies allegedly fall and in accordance with which all motion pictures can be evaluated. The pluralistic-category approach, instead, accepts that there are many categories of motion pictures — from comedies and splatter films to travelogues and onto instructional videos about install­ ing software or wearing condoms — and that, inasmuch as specimens of these different categories are designed to fulfill different functions, they call forth different criteria of evaluation.

In the past, the theory (or philosophy) of cinema was often pursued in a very top-down manner. One identified the essence of cinema — usually understood in terms of photographic film — and then attempted to deduce accounts of every other feature of film on the basis of that essence.

The conception of the moving image championed in this book is much looser. Although I attempt to define the moving image, I do so in a way that remains wide open not only to the media in which moving images may be realized, but also in terms of the purposes moving images may legitimately serve. Our characterizations of the elements of the moving image — the shot, the sequence, the erotetic narrative, and its modes of affective address — are not deduced from first principles. Rather, we proceed from topic to topic in a piecemeal fashion.

Thus, the end product is in nowise as unified as the philosophies of our very distinguished predecessors in film theory. Instead, our results are pluralistic. Nevertheless, that appears to be where the argument leads us.

Of course, whether or not that is really so is for you to decide. Therefore, read on.

 

 

b FROM THEORY TO PHILOSOPHY

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In a double-spaced, 750-word paper, explain:

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A philosophy of education is a statement regarding your beliefs and values about education.

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A philosophy of education is a statement regarding your beliefs and values about education. This statement is often required as part of the application process in gaining employment as a teacher.

Write a 500-750 word statement of your educational philosophy using the results of your “Professional Dispositions Self-Assessment Survey.” Your philosophy may be grounded in a theory or theories that you have studied in this course, or informed by your study of historical and sociological influences on education.

In your statement, include your beliefs and values in each of the following areas:

  • The purpose of education
  • Vision of a commitment to collaboration in promoting the growth and development of young children
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  • The process of self-reflecting on teaching practices and education policy in order to utilize research, ethical practice, and other resources to advance the profession

Include three scholarly references to support your philosophy of education.