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Art / The Arts

ART

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  This ice cream is handmade in small batches by our master
ice cream chef. All the ingredients are 100% natural, organic, and completely free of any
artificial additives or colorings of any kind whatsoever. The cream comes from cows raised in
luxury dairy farms where they are treated like movie stars. Nowhere in the entire world will
you find ice cream even half as good as Waldorf-Ritz Gourmet Ice Cream!”
“I know that your ice cream is the best in the world,” I sighed. “But I don’t like pistachio ice
cream!

The author just won a free best ice cream in the world, which accquired all the good properties: best ingredients without any artificial additives, the cow raised in luxury dairy farms and being treat well…  but he still don’t want it, because he doesn’t like pistachio flavour ice cream which led to a significant problem, how do we determine whether a piece of art works are good or not?

Like many of the half-truths adults tell us, this one contradicts other things they tell
us. After dinning into you that taste is merely a matter of personal preference, they
take you to the museum and tell you that you should pay attention because
Leonardo is a great artist.

I think that the taste of food are not the same case, when it comes to the “taste of art”, in this example, the adult told also that the taste of food are merely a personal preference, of course it can be very subjective,because it’s a physical sensation so you can make the decisions rightaway, just like that ice cream cases above .

But the “taste” of art could be hard to define, because it does not have any acutual feeling or sensation, you have to manipulate that abstract art works in your mind and come out with an idea, which might not be very convinsable, if I’m trying to introduce a flavour to someone, he/she can understand that taste very well even they dont, they still can try that taste, and get the direct physical feedbacks. But if your trying to tell someone about the judgement toward a piece of art works, they would probably confused and have nothing to do with the abstact concept. That’s why people would creat some sort of “art expert”(authority) in order to solve the problem.

In conclusion we can’t determine whether a piece of art works are good or not.

History

history

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I believe that history is the most important way of knowing, and telling history are just another way of telling story just with more FACTS and OBJECTIVE, because it helps to shape the personality of the next generation and it also gives them a better view of what is happening on this planet.

In the excerpts published by Jezebel, the Texas textbooks employ all the principles of good, strong, clear writing when talking about the “upside” of slavery. But when writing about the brutality of slavery, the writers use all the tricks of obfuscation.

despite the importance of telling the truth about history, some people are still trying to conceal them by using misleading expression in the text book, which I personally don’t agree with, because history is what people faith in.

 

Language & Storytelling

storytelling

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most people think that story are created to amuse people, and I used to think the same way, until I saw an article called “Storytelling: Our Most Important Way of Knowing” written by Mr.Macknight.
If someone asked you about how do we gain knowledge most of the time, you will probably say “by learning ,of course!” though there are many different forms of learning, most people learned stuff from their teacher, parents, or even from a stranger, but they have one in common, you’ve gain knowledge from someone else, and think about how do someone try to explain a things to you that you don’t know and haven’t seen before, by giving examples of course! it is the most effective and simplest way, and according to

We cannot think without using metaphors, and the moment we use a metaphor we have begun to tell a story

this sentence metaphor is merely a short story which correspond to the terms examples： “a thing characteristic of its kind or illustrating a general rule ”(google） noticed the phrase “illustrating a general rule”, isn’t that how metaphors all about?
In conclusion I do think that storytelling is the most important way of knowing and it also helped to shaped our personality and personal values throughout our life.

Emotion

emotion

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Interestingly, the theory also suggests that if you mimic the appropriate physical symptoms you can generate the corresponding emotion. For example, if you smile you will feel happy, and if you scowl you will feel angry. You might like to test this idea out on yourself!
I don’t quite agree with this,imagine you just had a bad day and you still have to go to class tomorrow, you don’t want to mess with others
mood with your sad face, so you pretend to looked happy and fake smiled but it doesn’t help me feel any better or worse.
This story suggests that if we have a particular emotional attitude about something we may manufacture bad reasons in order to justify it. According to psychologists, this kind of behaviour is quite common. We tend to rationalise when there is a conflict between two or more of our beliefs
It seems like people are more tend to be objective when talking about some irrelevant things, but being subjective when the thing is related to himself. It’s kind of like double-standard, being critical to others but not himself.
Paul’s problem is that he shows too much emotion, Judy’s that she shows too little. If a friend arrives two minutes late for an appointment, you might reasonably show mild annoyance, but it is inappropriate to lose your temper. On the other hand, if you only show mild annoyance on learning that a loved one has been assaulted, then there is surely something wrong with your emotional responses; in this situation, you surely ought to feel shock, concern and anger. This suggests that showing too little emotion is as irrational as showing too much emotion. We need to find a balance between the two.
some may say that showing too much emotion is irrational, but this paragraph showed that it’s as irrational to show too much emotion as too little depend on the situation.

I cant quote, bc it   automatically select the whole article.

Logic

Logic

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I want to talk about a interesting concept in logiacal fallacies, here is the defination of it:”The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the argument itself.” This happened a lot in our life, when people are arguing to eachothers one of them tend to attack their opponents directly,which is unfair since one of them already deny the person himself so whatever he said will become pointless.

Assessment

meno part 5

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In part 5 sarcrates claimed that since virtue cannot be taught  instead of knowledges ,it will make more sense in terms of ture opinion.

And if not by knowledge, it must have been by right opinion. This is the means which statesmen employ for their direction of states. Like poets or fortune-tellers, they utter many a true thing when inspired, but they have no knowledge of anything they say.

I somehow don’t agree with him, if u have a true opinion to something then it must be right or correct which is the basic defination of knowledge, and for poet they must write a poem with their own thought and knowledges,and their own thought is based on common sense which is knowledge.

 

Assessment

meno part 3-4

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In part 3, sacrates and meno was trying to get back to their main purpose argument which is inquiry the nature of virtue.And sacrates has pointing out that virtue can be harm to the people in some case.

Now tell me; such of these as you think are not knowledge, but different from knowledge—do they not sometimes harm us, and sometimes profit us? For example, courage, if it iscourage apart from prudence, and only a sort of boldness: when a man is bold without sense, he is harmed; but when he has sense at the same time, he is profited, is he not?

I do agree sacrates ideas that good thing could be harm in some particular cases,he also gave a example in order to demonstrate the harm of courage in different circumstances,when having courge without prudence it became reckless and could be harmed.so when inquiry the nature of virture,we have to considered the two side of the things,nothing is absolutely good when it’s out of the range.

 

Assessment
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In part 2 Socrates was trying to convince Meno that people gain knowledge by “recollecting” instead of “study”,so he proved his idea on a illiterate boy by asking him series of questions,and he considered that his question did benefit the small boy.

And we have certainly given him some assistance, it would seem, towards finding out the truth of the matter: for now he will push on in the search gladly, as lacking knowledge;whereas then he would have been only too ready to suppose he was right in saying,before any number of people any number of times, that the double space must have a line of double the length for its side.

I strongly support Socrates ideas,  that rather than tell him the answer directly Socrates demonstrate a very good way to gained knowledge which, is asking him question and let him searched the answer by himself.This helped to form a good habit of thinking, and in the future when other people are struggling with the questions that they haven’t learned before, he will be able to tell the answer through his thinking.

 

Assessment

meno

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I seem to be in a most lucky way, Meno; for in seeking one virtue I have discovered a
whole swarm of virtues there in your keeping. Now, Meno, to follow this figure of a swarm,
suppose I should ask you what is the real nature of the bee, and you replied that there are
many different kinds of bees, and I rejoined: Do you say it is by being bees that they are of
many and various kinds and differ from each other, or does their difference lie not in that,
but in something else—for example, in their beauty or size or some other quality

from this paragraph, I felt that Socrates was just try to tease meno. Socrates asked Meno what is the virtue at first, so Meno gave him some example of the virtue in order to let him understand the norm of the virtue,but he kept asking Meno the real nature of the virtue which is pointless,and I think that giving example were the best way to define the things itself.

furthermore he didn’t answer Meno’s question instead he asked another question which made him more confusing, so I don’t agree with socrates’s idea.