Browsing by Author "Bitiniece, Laura"

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    Cilvēks un tehnoloģiskā domāšana: Heidegera skatījums
    (Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte, 2024) Bitiniece, Laura
    Laura Bitiniece explores “Human Beings and Technological Thinking: Heidegger’s Perspective”. In the course of this article, she focuses on two themes: existence and interrogation of the self, looking at the way humans are (analysing what Heidegger calls existentials, i.e., authenticity, inauthenticity and being-toward-death), and the opposition between freedom and control, or what Heidegger calls technique. The notion of technique is linked to the human need to exploit and subjugate nature, while simultaneously subjugating one’s own freedom. The article concludes with Heidegger’s ideas on how to overcome technical thinking. Heidegger distinguishes between two types of definitions: technique is a means to an end (instrumental definition) and technique is a human activity (anthropological definition). Heidegger proposes to view the nature of technology not only through instrumental and anthropological prisms, but to recognise that technology today is becoming the only environment for man, the environment of the unfolding of being, when everything – self, nature, the world – is seen only through technological perception, technological (un)thinking. Modern technology demands that we reduce everything to resources, which are just waiting to be incorporated into a technological system. What can we do? Is it possible to free ourselves from the technical setting in order, as Heidegger says, to access more original ways of discovery, more original truth? This question is in line with his question about authentic existence in the “Being and Time” stage. Heidegger generally places his hope in art, which can change us, as an alternative way of discovering the world; a way that is more original and closer to human existence. Art is to be thought as the opposite of the tendency to “technologise”, produce and use. Art shows that the world is not just a petrol station. Heidegger stresses that liberation from technique is to be found in the discovery that technique is a mode of discovery. It is as if he were urging us to stop, to suspend our technical, exploitative and applied thinking; to be silent in relation to nature. Not to try and be intrusive. First the silence of thinking, and then to think and be free, in philosophy and art. Just like taking a step back in humanity’s race towards absolute technologisation. Not everything can be done forwards.
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    Dzīvesmāksla
    (Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte, 2018) Bitiniece, Laura
    In Laura Bitiniece’s paper “Art of Living”, two modern-day stories set the tone for continuous and fundamental human questions: what constitutes a good human life and what the ways of reaching it are. The answer is searched upon in the teachings of the so-called Ancient Greek schools of philosophy – cynics, stoics, epicureans and skeptics.
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    Pirmās grāmatas loma taisnīguma jautājuma risinājumā Platona darbā “Valsts”
    (2023-12) Bitiniece, Laura; Rīga Stradiņš University
    “Yesterday I went down to Piraeus with Glaucon, son of Ariston [...]” starts the first book of “The Republic”. Investigating this going down or katabasis makes the going up or anabasis present in “The Republic’s” discussion clearer. What is the role of beginnings? It is the most important part of everything (Rep. 377d). This article shows how Socrates’ conversations with three interlocutors – Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Trasymachus – introduce the main big themes of the remaining nine books, namely, the role of a character in ethics, the distinction between knowledge and seeming, the terms technē and eudaimonia with implications for the concept of virtue, as well as jump-starts the question about the importance of unreflected cultural influence in one’s life. It might be paradoxical for some readers to find the first book seemingly contradicting the rest of the work concerning Plato’s attitude towards culture and arts. Firstly, the article addresses the question of the origin of the first book, namely, if it is an artificial addition or an intended beginning to the discussion of “The Republic,” supporting the latter claim. Secondly, the article touches upon the subject of Plato’s use of metaphors, choice of settings, and interlocutors, especially in the case of the first book. Katabasis and anabasis, as mentioned earlier, are metaphors that will also prepare the reader for the allegory of Cave, while the allegory of Cave sheds light on the meaning of the metaphors in the first book. At the end of the same conversation, the interlocutors will also have made anabasis, making their way upwards. Thirdly, a concise overview of the first book is offered, intending to elucidate the Republic’s main themes as they are revealed. The first book announces itself as an introduction to further discussion. It serves as a reason for gaining a deeper understanding of justice because it prepares the ground for considering justice as the most crucial practical concern: the question of what constitutes a good life. Already in the dialogue Gorgias, Socrates has said that “the most beautiful of all studies [is] [...] what a real man should be and what he should do[...]” (Grg. 487e-488a). In the fourth book of the Republic, he will clarify the role of justice in human character: justice is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible, or virtue as such (Rep. 433b-c), and he will provide an apologia for justice from a cosmic perspective (book ten of the Republic). The first book gains its importance precisely because it introduces the reader to an everyday, unreflected understanding of justice while simultaneously revealing the importance of justice for any person’s reflection on their own life and that of society. Fourthly, the author starts to reflect on the philosophical and artistic meaning of Plato’s choices. The article concludes by pointing out an apparent controversy between the first book and the rest regarding cultural influences and Plato’s widely known views on the censure of arts, which he seems to disregard himself by portraying Trasymachus. Another controversy might be concerning the figure of Cephalus, Plato’s ambivalently interpreted attitude towards him, and what he represents (unreflected yet virtuous enough character). In the end, it is suggested that readers might benefit by distancing from oversimplified ideas such as “Plato’s political program,” etc., and reveal for themselves deeper levels of The Republic that Plato engines at the very beginning of the book.