Confidentiality law lecture

There are three main areas of concern with confidentiality; these are stare secrets, commercial secrets and privacy. State secrets are covered by the official secrets act, commercial secrets are protected by common law confidentiality and privacy really accounts for secrets within family life. This also brings section 8 of the human rights act into play; this act entitles privacy of normal family life. An example of where Section 8 has been used is with Princess Caroline. Usually the royal family have no right to privacy, but in this reasoning behind this became fairly complicated. The paparazzi had obtained many photographs of Princess Caroline, who took the paper to court over it saying that they were a breach of her privacy. The paper went with the defence that the royal family had no right to privacy; the judge however ruled that they were in fact breaching section 8 because, in the photos it was clear that the Princess didn’t want her photo being taken. Since she wasn’t on official royal business it was a breach of her right to a normal family life. The official secrets act is mainly to protect the country/government/military/whatever from spying. This encompasses everything from government employees having to sign the official secrets act, which if they break will land them in prison, to the prohibition of taking photos outside military bases. This, along with common law confidentiality, works on the assumption that the government have the right to keep secrets as long as it’s not in the public’s interest not knows them.

                Confidentiality partly depends on the type of secret information at stake, and partly on the expectations of the person imparting the information, that it will be kept secret. A person is in breach of confidence if they pass on information which:
A) Has the necessary quality of confidence
AND
B) Was provided in “circumstances imposing and obligation”
AND
C) There was no permission to pass on the information
AND
D) Detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave the information.

In order to break confidentiality all of these things must be accounted for, whereas in libel cases you must only tend to defame someone.

WINOL review

There is the overall feel of professionalism which is good, but there are certain aspects that let it down. It feels bad to try and pick negative things out because I know that I’ll be doing the same next year most likely at the same level. The faults I can pick out are just the small things which you would expect from a student-made project, like clunky changes and small editing issues. The main body of WINOL is good though, the material that they are reporting on is interesting and factual. The pieces to camera obviously lack the fluidity of say a BBC report, but it was still good. I especially like the little professional touches that are included, such as in the piece about the rugby club, the displaying of the quote onscreen rather than just reading it out.

                In any case, the general feel and approach was good. I hope that when it’s our turn to do this it’ll be just as good. Since everything is a learning experience I like to think I’ve picked up on some key details which will help with my own reporting to camera, but I guess only time will tell.

radio thing

So after thinking for a while on what should be the subject of my talk/speech/whatever this, I came to the idea of dogs. Probably partly influenced by the fact that I saw many dogs in and around town today and I kinda miss my own dog. In any case, as speaking about dogs as a species would probably be a big subject I’ll limit it to my dog, and her particular breed which is a Staffordshire bull terrier or Staffie. I’ll also probably talk about how Staffie’s have had a lot of bad press recently, mostly undeserved.

                Now I’ll admit that getting Maisie is what changed my mind about the breed. I had the same opinion that they were fighting dogs and were all fairly vicious and scary. This changed however when we visited Birmingham Dog pound looking for a rescue dog. When we set off we didn’t have a breed in mind, we were just looking for some scrappy little mongrel with leg on each corner and a wagging tail, but as soon as we walked through the doors our concept of our future pet became very fluid. The dog pound is huge and honestly what I can most liken it to is a prison. There are three floors and on each floor are many blocks of “cells” so that all in all there are about 300 dogs there… and out of these 300 about 250 of them are Staffie’s. I distinctly remember walking down aisle after aisle of these little cages and thinking “oh a Staffie… oh a Staffie… oh a Staffie…” and so on. Before we got one I remember I thought that Staffordshire bull terriers did indeed look scary, they are immensely powerful dogs with crazy amounts of muscle. The bite strength of a Staffie is 235 pounds of force per square inch, that’s about half as strong as a lion, and when you consider that Maisie is about a foot and a half tall it’s pretty damn impressive. It’s also fairly intimidating, especially when they throw you their delightfully ugly grin which exposes both their numerous and fairly large teeth, and the power-packs of muscle in their cheeks; now, I only see it as endearing. But yes, back to the dog pound. We’d gone through two floors of dogs and the sheer number of animals desperate to be loved is almost completely overwhelming. I noticed that my dad had wandered off so I went looking for him and found him kneeling on the floor on the third floor, in front of literally the last cage in the pound. Inside was a little brindle Staffie, who was so thin that her head looked half comically, half tragically too big for her body. The striking thing however was that she was silent. In a dog pound full of dogs barking their heads off, where they have to have radios on at full volume on each floor so that the dogs aren’t driven insane by the sound of each other, she was completely silent. Of course, as soon as my mum saw her it was inevitable that she was coming home with us and there’s the story of how we got Maisie. As soon as you have one all criticisms that you have of the breed go out of the window, they’re the most loving, loyal and just generally happy type of dog I’ve come across.

                However, other people’s opinions are harder to change, especially other dog owners. I have had people cross over the road so they wouldn’t have to walk their dog past Maisie, a friend of the family has even had someone threaten to stab their Staffie if it does anything to their dog. As this is the case I’m going to take this opportunity to get my soap box out and preach for the smallest of moments. I honestly believe that no dog is inherently vicious, unless it has rabies or something. It is all to do with what the owners make the dogs do. With the case of Staffordshire bull terriers, they’re made to fight by morons who think watching two dogs fight to the death is entertaining. The dogs are not to blame. The dogs are wonderful pets, which desperately need homes. Out of the 250+ Staffies in the dog pound, over half will have had to be put down because there simply isn’t room for them. And I guarantee that most of the empty cells will have been filled up with more Staffordshire bull terriers.

Law lecture 4 - qualified privilege

This lecture started well, what with several electrical bugs and Chris ripping the phone off the wall. This combined with learning that everything on the front page of the sun, with the exception of the voucher for Tesco, was an example of libel, made for the start of a good lecture. This is apparently why the Sun is so popular, because it is crammed full of libel, people apparently read it to see what they can get away with printing. The most prominent of this was a picture of Adele with the caption “I’m common as much says Adele”, this is obviously libellous and potentially cruel to Adele but the Sun has all bases covered on the libel front. This is because the statement is comment, and as we learned in the last blog post comment, i.e. rudeness, is good! However, one thing that should be pointed out is that malice is transferrable; you cannot print a malicious, libellous quote and then go for the defence that since it’s a quote you didn’t say it and are therefore not guilty. By printing the quote, you own it and all the ramifications that come from printing it.

                You can print anything however, if it is protected by qualified privilege, in order to be under qualified privilege something must be either a) said in court, under oath b) a sworn statement such as an affidavit c) said in parliament and d) local government meetings and meetings of pressure groups.  You also have qualified privilege if a subject has gone into any process of judgement, even if it’s only a hearing, however you MUST include a report of the person denying the matter (if indeed they do). By not reporting this you will lose your qualified privilege. Apparently an affidavit is also a good way of finding out if someone is lying to you, by asking if they’d be willing to sign a sworn statement; that if they have lied would land them in prison; you’ll be surprised by how quickly they’ll change their story. With Common Law Qualified Privilege, the key is whether the information gathered would be in the public interest. Statutory qualified privilege is the privilege that applies to the courtroom; the judge wants immediate publication with this because it should be as if the public are sitting in the gallery watching the case unfold. This leads to the whole FAST, FAIR AND ACCURATE!!

History and context lecture 3

History and context lecture 3

The crito

A lot of what Plato writes may be slightly suspect. This is because he took to using Socrates to make his own points appear more valid, and later in his life just used Socrates as a way of delivering his points. None the less there is an important piece by Plato which documents (though it may be entirely fictitious) a conversation between Plato and one of his followers/students/disciples, Crito. This conversation is supposed to take place when Socrates is imprisoned awaiting his execution and Crito comes to him to beg him to try and escape. This is the first example where we see mention, or the idea of a social contract between a person and the state. Socrates introduces the idea by saying that he has lived in, grown up in and been educated in the city [Athens] and the city provided for him. When he came of age he had the option to go but by staying he entered into a contract to obey the rules of the society. By your very existence it means that you have to follow the laws. He even went as far as saying that if he breaks the law he is attempting to destroy the whole city on the basis that if he does refuse to accept his punishment people will follow him and the whole basis for law and order within Athens would collapse.

The social contract

Thomas Hobbes built on the idea put forward by Plato. He brought up the idea of a state of nature that came before the establishment of rules and government. This state of nature wasn’t necessarily an established time in history but it’s easy enough to imagine. Think along the lines of the laws of the jungle, the strong ruling over the weak and primal thoughts ruling. How a philosopher thinks the state of nature would be shows a lot about that philosopher’s opinion on human nature. It certainly reveals that Hobbes had a very negative view of human nature, and believed life in the state of nature as "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.". This opinion was put forward in his book “The Leviathan”, in which he also says that the power of the leviathan is limitless, the people agree to be represented by a sovereign. They agree to hand over their power and the sovereign is then obligated to protect them, both from rebellious subjects and other states. The leviathan that he talks about is the government or ruling body of a state, the people essentially hand over some of their freedom and in return gain protection and purpose. However, the ruling body will ultimately have total power over you. Hobbes does make it clear though, that the sovereign owes his power to the people whom he rules over.

Locke’s treatise of government

Locke almost directly contradicts what Hobbes says, fundamentally with his view of human nature. Whereas Hobbes thought that the state of nature would be terrible Locke had a far more positive view. He thought that it was innate in human beings to come to an understanding of what was morally right and wrong, and once this was decided then people would work together. He contradicted what Hobbes had said about the divine right of kings, and also believed that he went far too far with the amount of power which he gave to the leviathan, saying “you have a problem with foxes so you create a lion”. When Locke thought there would be conflict he believed that the area that would have the most potential for conflict would be property. This potential for conflict brought about the realisation that there would be the need for a higher power. As soon as he admits this he admits that a government is necessary, however, Locke proposed a concept of laws which would limit the power of government. For example, he insisted that taxes could not be levied without the peoples (parliament) consent, and that citizens had the right to rebel if their government ceased to respect the law. By doing this he was essentially writing a manual for the American revolutionaries.

Rousseau

Rousseau was all about conflict between obedience to the state and your freedom. He thought that our freedom is to be guided by our own will – he wants civil freedom, if everyone is involved in the making of law they will only be following their own will, which in turn will be the general will. He believed that the general will would become law because, if we all think and come up with a common agreement over a moral issue, such as theft, whatever is decided by consensus will be morally right and will therefore become law. What is shown by this is that Rousseau believes that the people have to be part of the legislature. This shows, again, how different Rousseau’s belief in human nature was. Hobbes believed that there would be a collapse of society, Locke believed there would be a collaborative state and Rousseau believed there would be a state of freedom.

Plato

Plato had a very interesting take which is known as Plato’s forms. He believed that there are two realities, the one that we are in and the ideal reality, where everything is the same, except that in the ideal reality everything there would be the ultimately perfect version of what is in this reality. He justified this by saying that if you try and think of something perfect in this reality, if you look at it hard enough you will find some small imperfection, this would be the imperfect form but in another reality the perfect form of it will exist. He reasoned that, since we can think of a perfect ideal version of something, we must have some prior knowledge of this, therefore have memories of the perfect version of reality. He went on to say that the human soul should be thought of like a chariot. The rational soul is the charioteer, the spirit soul is one of the horses and the desire soul is the other. The rational soul is constantly trying to dominate the other parts. In a philosopher the charioteer will be in charge of the other parts of his soul, people dominated by spirit will be courageous but they will be focused on fighting, and people dominated by the desirous soul will be like ‘rudderless boats’ drifting between desires. Since there are two states he reasons that in the state we’re in it is ruled by people obedient to their spirit and desire souls. In the perfect reality, it would be ruled over by the philosophers, whose rational soul is in charge.

Machiavelli

Machiavelli talks more about the here and now rather than the future and past; he was concentrated on the present and the trials you may face within your lifetime. He was remarkable because he was a massive humanist, he said “man is the measure of all things”. He wrote the book The Prince which was pretty much a how to guide to stay in power. Within The Prince he is extremely rational, saying things that may be thought, but it would be almost taboo to say them. For example, he says “it is better to be feared than loved, because love is fickle but fear is constant’. This gives a measure of the man because it shows his absolute rationality.

Tried to think of justification for posting this, ruled it too early. Appreciate a world class take down. Though i suppose it constitutes some form of libel.

Defamation, Libel and Slander - Law lecture three.

It's official, the quote of the week "Dont rely on a prostitute as a main witness" - Chris Horrie. Though this sounds amusing... and indeed is amusing, the reasoning behind it is pretty sound, though potentially unfair to prostitutes. In anycase I'll explain later.
Defamation is a civil dispute, it is an argument or disagreement between two people or parties, and the way that it's seen is that damaging reputation is somewhat like damaging property. This is because though there will be no physical damage, as there would be with property, if you damage someones reputation then it may have an affect on their earning ability, which will cost them money just like damaging property would. Earning ability is key here, if you say something which insults someone personally but doesnt affect their ability to earn money then it's fine. This is known as comment. Essentially, rudeness is encouraged, hence why Jeremy Clarkson is so well off. It is almost impossible to libel a dead person, because they are dead and therefore the worst has already happened to them. The only possible exception to this that I can think of is if the family of the deceased sue for besmirching their relatives memory or something similar, but then this may not come under the libel umbrella so to speak.
In order for something to be considered defamatory then it must be 3 things. First, it must identify the person who is to be de-famed. This must be a direct identification, not a generalised account. For example, were you to say something about an entire football team, a player on the team couldnt sue claiming that they were personally de-famed, but if you were to pick that player out specifically then they could.
Secondly, and quite obviously, the defamatory statement must be published. If it's said in private then at the very worse it's a case of innocuous slander. As soon as it's actually put down as written word, or even said in a radio broadcast, it becomes libel. The definition of publication is "Publication - set down in a permanent form and shown to a third party." the permanant form is important because it shows why radio is considered libel, since it's all recorded a permanent form is created. Apparently facebook counts as publication, so be carefull what you say in your statuses... though admittedly a full blown libel case would be an heroic (if expensive) frape.
Thirdly and finally, the statement must be defamatory, attacking a persons's ability to earn money and not just their personality. To be considered defamatory a statement must expose them to any of the following four things.
1) Expose them to hatred, ridicule or contempt
2) Causes them to be shunned or avoided
3) Discredits them in their trade, buisness or profession
4) Generally lowers them in the eyes of right-thinking members of society.
In order to be guilty of libel, a statement must only tend to prove that one of these is true. Tend is the key word here, there is no beyond reasonable doubt like there is in criminal courts.


Ways to avoid libel:


This is handy to know for obvious reasons, and I'm honestly not trying to make it sound like a "How to guide for getting out of libel lawsuits" but here it is. Spelling is everything, if you spell a name wrong then the person whose name you've actually written is free to sue for libel. Having said that there are bound to be people who have the same name, spelt in the same way, as the person whom the article is about. Since this is the case, there are ways to avoid them suing you aswell. This is called positive identification, so it helps to have a photo of the person that you're actually writing about. A description also helps, such as age, occupation, where they live and so on, but apparently if you do this in any old article you sound like an idiot... food for thought. If you've gone to these lengths and someone still claims libel action, you can rightly claim that it's accidental libel, since you've stated the name, age, adress (not specifically obviously) of the intended subject.


The Big Three Defence:


1) Justification - It's true and we can prove it!! This is a complete defence, if the statement that you're publishing is true then you've got nothing to worry about, as long as you can prove that it's true. The standard in a libel case is the balance of probability rather than beyond reasonable doubt, therefore if you can prove it's true you will not lose.
2) Fair Comment (based on fact) - Because of freedom of speech journalists have a lot of scope to say hurtful or controversial things about people, so long as they make it absolutely clear that this is comment and not fact. It must be your honest opinion and it must be said without malice. If it can be proved that you are saying something that you know isnt true then it completely COMPLETELY destroys any defence that you may have had against it being libelous.
3) Absolute Privilege and qualified privilege - privilege in general is the right to disobey the law, soldiers have privilege because they can shoot and kill people and not be punished by the law (unless it's classified as a war crime, or they just shoot someone in the street). Lawyers and Judges have privilege because they can defame people and not face any consequences. Journalists have qualified privilege, this means that they have privilege but it is bound by rules. As a trial continues a lawyer will say massively defamatory things to make the defendant seem guilty, a court reporting journalist may print these defamatory things as long as they follow the three rules binding what they write. These rules restricting journalists privilege are that what they report must be fast, accurate and fair. Fast insofar as it must be in the first possible issue of whatever medium they're reporting in. Accurate means that there must be no spelling mistakes or misprints. Finally it must be made fair by reporting the not guilty plea (if made) and must include a summary of their defense.




Examples of Libel cases:


Russell Slade, the ex manager of Yeovil Town won a libel case against the club after it published defamatory statements about him after he had left the club in early 2009. He was payed substantial damages and had his legal costs covered by the club.


Warren Furman, who may be better known as Ace from the TV series Gladiators, was involved in a libel case when, on an internet forum, there were allegations that he raped Katie Price. The case was settled in the form of a published apology, significant payout and covered legal costs.

Law lecture 2, massive delay due to thinking I'd already posted it. (Also I'm trying out a different method of blogging, rather than just listing my notes)

Again, my bad about the lateness but the title explains it, also this blog post would probably be better had it been posted when everything was fresh in my mind but still.
Court reporting:
The second law lecture was all about court reporting, including the do's and don'ts in essence. For example, stressing the presumption of innocence. Everyone must be believed to be innocent until the prosecution service can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they're guilty. An example of when this was not done is with Christopher Jefferies in the Jo Yeates murder investigation. Jefferies was her landlord who was brought in for questioning as a suspect. Even though he hadnt been charged with anything he was basically crucified by the papers, as this photo shows. This would've had seriously biased any jury against him had it gone to trial. This links into the whole courts process. In order for justice to be seen to be done trials must be held in the public realm, this isnt as in the trials of ye olde times where you'd be at the mercy of a baying croud, more that the public have easy access to information on how the trial is proceeding. This is of course unless there's a strong reason why not to have the trial in public, but this is only usually if there's a national security risk, such as in a terrorism case. The publics access to the trial information is governed over (not to sound too sinister) by the press, which leads to the press being the "eyes and ears of the public".
Any crime which carries a sentence of 5 years or more must be tried in criminal court infront of a jury. This is evidence based justice, where the evidence is tested by a jury of peers. This is a right enshrined in the Magna Carta and, in Chris's opinion, the only evidence that will ultimately prove guilt is a witness, forensic evidence or a confession (or a combination of the above). Once the jury has been shown all the evidence and the respective arguments for guilt have been made, they will consider the evidence and then report their verdict to the judge. Importantly, it is the judge and not the jury who ultimately decides the verdict, who will make his/her choice on the admissibilty of evidence and advice from the jury.

Crown Court:

The key functions of crown court are to try indictable offences, sent for trial by magistrates; to deal with cases sent for sentence and to hear appeals. Though you cannot ask for a trial by jury for a minor offence, there are a series of offences which you can go to trial by jury and to the crown court, for example the possession of class B drugs.Though you can request a trial by jury and go through the vastness of the British legal system, it's hardly a good idea, as apparently is pleading not guilty. The more time you put into a case, especially a trivial offence, the less favour and sympathy you will win for yourself, the judge may even be harder on you for wasting the courts time, and hold you in.....
Contempt of Court:

Contempt of court is a strict liability offence, this means that there is no defence for it, so saying you didnt mean to do it wont help you. The punishment for contempt of court ranges from a fine to a possible jail sentence of 5 years. This is because it can completely collapse a court case, as happened with the trial of Leeds United footballers Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate. The then editor of the Sunday Mirror, Colin Myler, ran an article that included interviews from the family of the victim of the alleged grievous bodily harm with intent. These interviews were not taken under oath, as they would be in court, and were published while the trial was still underway. Since this had the potential to corrupt the jury the judge had no choice but to throw the case out of court. Myler however, escaped jail but instead was fined £30,000. Again, to quote Chris, prejudice is Red Kryptonite to both court cases and journalists.



Aristotle

And finally, here's Aristotle, I kept my word!

·         At 18 Aristotle came to Athens and became a pupil of Plato, this was until Plato’s death.

·         He thought that no state would have as many as one hundred thousand citizens and preached the golden mean, which shall be explained later.

·         At the death of Alexander, the Athenians rebelled and turned on his friends, which included Aristotle who was charged with impiety, just as Socrates had been before him. Unlike Socrates however, Aristotle fled to avoid punishment.

·         Aristotle was the first philosopher to write like a professor and he comes across as a teacher rather than a prophet.

Metaphysics

·         Aristotle’s metaphysics may be described as Plato diluted by common sense.

·         He believed there should be names for certain things but these must be the proper names. Everything is made up of universal substance, he said that a universal couldn’t exist by itself but only in particular things. For example, there could be no such thing as parenthood if there were no such things as parents. Here however there is almost the problem of over-simplification and over generalisation. Though parenthood couldn’t exist without parents, the rule cannot be applied to everything.

·         He believed there must be different classes of word/description. For example, “John is wise, James is foolish, John is taller than James”

·         Here John and James are proper names, foolish and taller are universals. This in turn can be applied to his theory of naming substances.

·         The next most important term in Aristotle’s metaphysics is essence. Your essence is what you are by your very nature, something that you cannot loose without losing yourself.

·         Next is the distinction between form and matter, if a man makes a bronze sphere then bronze is the matter and the sphere is the form. He goes onto say that the form makes it one definite thing, for example a marble statue is definitely a statue because it has been shaped so, were it not shaped it’d simply be marble.

·         Aristotle links this to the argument of potentiality and actuality. Any marble has the potential to be a statue, form distinguishes potentiality and actuality.

·         According to Aristotle there are three kinds of substance, the sensible perishable, those that are sensible but not perishable and those that are neither sensible nor perishable. The first includes plants and animals, the second includes the heavenly bodies and the third includes the rational soul in man and also god.

Ethics

·         Aristotle’s views on ethics represent the majority of the opinions of the educated and experienced men of his day.

·         The good is happiness which is an activity of the soul. He says there are two kinds of virtues, intellectual and moral. Intellectual virtues come from teaching, moral from habit. We become just by performing just acts.

·         The doctrine of the Golden Mean

·         Every virtue is a mean between to extremes/vices. For example, courage is a mean between cowardice and rashness.

·         Aristotle thinks that justice involves not equality, but right proportion, which is only sometimes equality. This reflects the views of the aristocracy at the time.

·         It is possible to see slight communist leanings within this because it is all focused on the good of the community over the good of the one.

·         Aristotle had three views on pleasure.
1) That it is never good.
2) That some pleasure is good, but most is bad.
3) That pleasure is good, but not the best.

·         He however rejects the first view under the assumption that since pain is bad, pleasure must therefore be good.

Politics

·         Aristotle’s politics is both interesting and important, interesting because it shows the common prejudices of the day and important because they are the source of many principles which remained influential until the end of the Middle Ages.

·         He points out that importance of the state because it is the highest form of community. He believed that slavery was bad but only if the slaves were Greek, as he viewed non-Greeks as inferior. This is similar to his views on warfare, believing it to be just if it was waged against man who, by nature, were intended to be governed.

·         Plato’s utopia is criticised by Aristotle in many ways, a few examples are him saying that it gives too much unity to the state and makes it into an individual rather than a community.

·         He also criticises the communist ideals in Plato’s work insofar as he views Plato’s condemnation of private property as ridiculous because private property inspires virtues such as benevolence and generosity.

·         He believed that the aim of the state is to produce cultured gentlemen who combine the aristocratic mentality with the love of learning and the arts.

Logic

·         Most important work in logic is the doctrine of the syllogism, an argument consisting of three parts, a major premise, a secondary premise and a conclusion.

·         There are a number of different kinds of syllogism, ‘Barbara’ ‘Celarent’ ‘Darii’ and ‘Ferio’

·         The system is however open to three kinds of criticism,
1) Formal defects within the system itself.
2) Over-estimation of the syllogism, as compared to other forms of deductive argument.
3) Over-estimation of deduction as a form of argument.

Plato

As promised, here's Plato.

·         The most important features of Plato’s are his utopia, his theory of ideas, arguments in favour of immortality, his cosmogony and finally his conception of knowledge as reminiscence rather than perception.

·         Due to many reasons he disliked democracy, the fall of Athens and the death of his teacher and mentor Socrates being two of them.

·         This anti-democratic feeling leads us to find other belief structures in Plato’s thought. He believed that education was the key to knowledge and enlightenment, especially knowledge of mathematics, which leads us to think he had some oligarchic leanings. He also believed that “enlightenment” was achieved through leisure, therefore the man who has to work for his existence will not be able to reach the level of knowledge or enlightenment where he will be able to usefully contribute ideas to society.

·         Therefore in order to be a philosopher, and contribute, you have to be either rich enough to fund yourself and your existence or be released from work obligations and sustained by the state. This shows a leaning towards aristocratic thoughts.

·         Plato’s most important dialogue is The Republic, in it he describes his Utopia.

·         He starts by deciding that the people should be divided into three classes, the common people, the soldiers and the guardians, and of the three only the guardians are to have political power. The guardians are to be chosen by the legislator and the title will be passed from father to son. This links into the ‘one royal lie’ that Plato decided was to be part of his Utopia. This was that there was to be a dogma that God has created men of three kinds, those made of gold, silver and brass. Those made of gold were fit to be guardians, of silver were fit to be soldiers and the brass were the working class manual labourers.

·         The main problem that Plato discerned was insuring that the guardians carried out the intentions of the legislator that picked them.

·         Though concerned with all the classes Plato concentrates on the guardians, most likely because he is entrusting them with society.

·         He believed education to be key and separated it into music and gymnastics. Here music was used to describe anything which needed musing over, so basically everything. Gymnastics, as today, was everything concerned with fitness and strength. When it comes to economics Plato is surprisingly communist, believing that the guardians should have small houses, no unnecessary private property and simple food eaten together in companies.

·         He was concerned with making sure that the young believed that nothing bad came from the gods, he made sure of this by preventing the teaching of the stories by Homer and Hesiod to children.

·         He believed that women were to have complete equality with men, even with the education of girls and boys. The guardians would be made up of both men and women.

·         Plato’s definition of justice is far different from our modern definition, which is mainly concerned with equality and property rights. For Plato justice consisted of paying debts.

·         This definition makes it possible to have inequalities of power and privilege without justice.

·         Plato’s theory of immortality is highly based upon his opinion and what he saw of Socrates before he died. Socrates drank the hemlock but remained cool, collected and unafraid of death. This is, if we are to believe Plato, because he genuinely was unafraid. There is the great example of Socrates sending his weeping wife away so that he could continue to discuss things with his students and associates.

·         One of the main irritants to Plato, in his theory of immortality, is the slavery to your body. This takes the form of the need to eat, drink, sleep and so on.

·         COSMOLOGY

·         Plato’s god did not create the world out of nothing, but created it out of pre-existing matter, he apparently “put intelligence in the soul and the soul in the body”

·         He believed that the 4 elements were in constant balance, though they were not the basis of what everything was made out of, so much as a state that the pre-existing matter was in. for example, fire was not a main element so much as a reaction of the main element constituting fire.

·         He believed that there were four kinds of animals; gods, birds, fish and land animals. The creator told the gods that he could destroy them but then left them to their own future. There were also apparently two different souls in a body, the mortal soul and the immortal soul. The mortal soul was subject to terrible and irresistible affections or urges, such as pleasure, pain, rashness, fear and so on. The mortal soul was located in the breast and the immortal in the head.

Socrates

Here are the notes on Socrates, expect Plato and Aristotle soon.

Socrates

·         Most of what is known about Socrates comes from what is said by his students, mainly from Plato and Xenophon.

·         He was focused on “getting competent men into positions of power” and by doing so pointed out the foibles of society. By doing this it earned him many enemies and, according to Xenophon, led to his death.

·         This is taken from Xenophon’s account, because the information that we can gather from Plato’s account cannot always be trusted.

·         This is because we cannot be sure whether the ideas that Plato puts forward under the name of Socrates were really from him, or merely Plato attaching Socrates’ prestige to his own ideas.

·         Socrates was charged with being an “evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven; and making the worse appear the better cause, and teaching all this to others.’ (taken from the apology, a speech apparently made by Socrates in his own defence at his trial)

·         Socrates was found guilty, and by Athenian law had to suggest a punishment for himself. As he was sentenced to death it would’ve been sensible to suggest a harsh punishment so that the judges would view this as an equal, or at least more fitting, punishment. Socrates however, proposed a small fine, which enraged the court that therefore condemned him to death.

·         This suggests that Socrates didn’t fear death significantly enough to admit guilt insofar as he would suggest that what he did was befitting punishment.

·         He made a very convincing and succinct defence of himself, for example he pointed out that there were many of his past students present, yet none of them had been called upon to testify that he’d corrupted them. All of this despite the fact that he had never been under the threat of law before or even in a courtroom, but ultimately he was unapologetic of his philosophic life, saying “Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy…”

·         He showed no fear of death, saying that it would either be like a dreamless sleep, or the soul would transcend the body and go to a different place, which Socrates liked, because he wished to converse with the philosophers that came before him.

·         The image that we’re presented with of Socrates, by Plato, is almost superhuman. He tells stories of Socrates being able to withstand long periods of cold and hunger without complaint; of him seldom drinking but when he does he can drink everyone under the table. It seems to be a case of severe rose tinted spectacles or just the ultimate in hero-worship. This is also reflected in Socrates’ reported modesty, claiming that by asking questions he isn’t showing his own knowledge so much as showing the knowledge of the man to whom he is asking.

Up to socrates

Realising and apologising about the length of time since last blog post, here are some notes from a History of Western Philosophy up to the section on Socrates. The book is a goldmine of information, a truly interesting read. Having said that, I cant help but say something about the way it's written. I'm undecided on my opinion on it, it isnt written like your standard textbook (which it isnt...) but written in the style of a lengthy conversation or lecture. Though this gives it an awesomely personal feel, and helps you connect to the feeling that Russell is putting across, it makes it that bit harder to assimilate the information. Either way, throwing my tiny issues against the might of Bertrum Russell's History of Western Philosophy, which was called "A precious book ... a work that is in the highest degree pedagogical which stands above the conflicts of parties and opinions." by Albert Einstein, makes me feel suitably petty. Anyway, here are some notes.

The rise of Greek civilisation

·         Greece set the standard for civilisation growth.

·         They invented mathematics and science and philosophy

·         Philosophy began with Thales who can be dated to the year 585 B.C.

·         The links between the early religions are clear through the presence of an overbearing female motif, this is because many started as early fertility cults.

·         Since the mainland of Greece was mainly infertile, the maritime tradition flourished, both with trade and piracy. Piracy was only a temporary solution though so trade was preferable.

·         There were vast differences between the social systems within Greece. Some, such as Sparta, were based upon war and slavery, whereas others, such as Athens were all about gaining knowledge.

·         The first notable product of the Hellenic world was Homer, there is some argument about whether Homer was a single man or a congregation of poets. Homer’s poems prove that it was a civilised world.

·         Though the Greeks had largely banished fear of unknown, it was still present through legend and myth. This fear was kept at bay by their knowledge, but kind of crept in in moments of doubt.

·         Religion was based in tribes rather than individual belief. It was a group mentality. You wouldn’t follow a religion and do something for personal salvation rather for the good of the group/tribe. Here the gods are seen as animalistic, primal, and supernatural

·         In homers work however, the gods are portrayed as more human, working the soil with their hands and getting into fights with each other. The only difference between human and god is the immortality.

·         Greece was made up of many different states, which themselves consisted of a city surrounded by agricultural areas.

The Milesian school

·         Miletus was a growing city where there was a large slave population and a bitter class struggle between the rich and poor free population.

·         Thales, with whom philosophy is apparently born, came from Miletus. His travels to Egypt in the main meant that he brought geometry back with him. However, what little he knew was mainly from Egyptian guesswork.

·         Since he was an early philosopher, his science was crude, but nonetheless spawned much discussion.

·         Anaximander was the second philosopher of the Milesian school. He believed that all things came from one base substance (Thales thought this to be water) but didn’t believe this material to be anything that we would recognise.

·         The base substance would be transformed into every substance that we see in the world.

·         Anaximander’s argument for one undefinable substance was that air is cold, fire is hot and water is moist, if any of them were the fundamental substance then surely the ones which aren’t would’ve ceased to be.

Pythagoras

·         Intellectually one of the most important men to have lived.

·         It is debated whether Pythagoras was the son of an important businessman or of Apollo.

·         Like Thales he learned most of his knowledge while visiting Egypt. However, he set up his school of thought in Croton, where he had a following of disciples and was a founder of a school of mathematics.

·         He set a religion with a whole load of crazy rules.

·         Pythagoras’s greatest achievement was his theorem about right angled triangles. This however led to many failures in further mathematic advances.

Parmenides

·         Parmenides invented a form of metaphysical argument that, in one form or another, is to be found in more subsequent metaphysicians down to and including Hegel.

·         The only true being is ‘the One’, which is infinite and indivisible.

·         He insists that there is no such thing as change, because we can never truly know what is commonly regarded to have past, and therefore everything must be happening at the same time.

Empedocles

·         Basically a later Pythagoras.

·         He was a politician, and also claimed that he was a god. He was supposed to have worked miracles, and is famous for the discovery of air. He discovered this when he observed a small girl playing with a water clock. He observed that when the clock was pushed down upon the water’s surface, the water didn’t simply stream in but was forced down by what was in the clock. He then surmised this to be air.

·         he was the founder of the Italian school of medicine, knew that the moon shone due to reflected light and thought that the sun did also

·         he believed the material world to be a sphere and believed that everything was made up of two main elements, love and strife.

Athens in relation to culture

·         Athens went through a prolonged period of basic mediocrity, but then due to many coinciding events it became a more prominent Greek state. For example, it was sacked by the Persians and it’s reconstruction put it back on the map so to speak.

·         Philosophically, Athens produced two major names, Socrates and Plato. Athens flourished philosophically because it was a fairly open civilisation. It was open to thought and learning and therefore was seen as a haven to the great minds of the time.

Anaxagoras

·         The first to introduce philosophy to the Athenians.

·         Spent thirty years in Athens where he is thought (but not universally recognized to have) influenced Euripedes.

·         Anaxagoras believed that everything was infinitely divisible, that even the smallest portion of matter contains small bits of almost every element.

·         He helped to form Socrates.

The atomists

·         Leucippus and Democritus were the founders of atomism.

·         Leucippus was from Miletus and was much influenced by Parmenides. His existence however is debated.

·         Demicritus also travelled to gain knowledge, spending time in Egypt and Persia.

·         Their theories were remarkably like our modern ones, they believed that everything is constructed out of atoms, which are physically but not geometrically, indivisible.

·         That between the atoms is empty space, atoms are indestructible and that they are constantly in motion.

·         They tried to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause. The ‘final cause’ of an occurrence is an event in the future for the sake of which the occurrence takes place. The concept of purpose is only applicable within reality, not to reality as a whole, for example you can ask why someone does something and get an answer, but if you try and apply it to the natural world there is no clear answer.

Protagoras

·         Protagoras was a sophist, which was basically a teacher. Since there was no set schooling, sophists were employed by the rich families and therefore had a certain class distinction.

·         The danger associated with being a sophist is that you could be accused of impiousness and corrupting the young, as Protagoras himself is thought to have been.

·         He visited Athens twice and wrote a book called On the Gods.

·         He was an early exponent of pragmatism, insofar as the ideas that, according to Plato, he discussed have some clear parallels with pragmatism.

·         After the defeat to the Spartans and Socrates execution, Athens ceases to be politically important.