In this paper I extend Jürgen Habermas’s Culture-Debating to Culture-Consuming process to the looming horizon of social media, along with Baudrillard’s account of information and meaning. I do this by further studying Habermas’s theory of the transition between those two phases, and relate the current state of affairs to Carlo Ginzburg’s theory of the iconic circuit and my research on virality. I finally explain the benefits and drawbacks of this state of affairs in the context of Baurdrillard’s account of meaning in the era of mass media, as it implicates the share-holders and rule-makers of social media in deciding its consequences as a technology.

This paper discusses virality in the context of social media, a feature characteristic of some of the ways it departs from earlier mass media institutions like television. I begin by explaining why chaos alone is an insufficient concept for wrangling this state of affairs then proceed with a more systematic and detailed view of how viral phenomena occur as manifestations of the rapidly adapting architecture of social media platforms. Then I discuss why this state of affairs can also not be equated with democracy, and conclude with a brief summary of the paper. While I refer to concepts hailing from philosophy’s ivory tower, nothing in this paper should prove inaccessible to a lay reader and I hope that anyone interested in this phenomenon will read on, regardless of their background.

My academic relationship with visual art began in my freshman year with Derrida’s ‘Of Grammatology’, when I considered the notion that what I think of writing, inscribing letters and characters in books and articles, is only a small amount of writing, and not the earliest form. Derrida argued that ‘the concept of writing exceeds and comprehends that of language’, and I was convinced. Considering that philosophy written in books was only one, and not necessarily the most well qualified, way of communicating ideas opened my mind to the possibility that by only pursuing my interests through ‘philosophy’, a certain kind of book and curriculum, I was not remaining focused on the cream of the crop, but completely neglecting a vast body of material relevant to my ‘philosophical’ interests.

Introduction This paper is intended as a critique and development of morality in literature, seeking to prove that literature can have deep effects on a reader’s moral character. The stakes for such research are rather high: especially during the pandemic, our culture is heavily informed by social and mass media, and it is hard to imagine a good future for the world if these mediums cannot shake the status quo. Though this paper takes a narrower scope of investigation than moral progress itself, the reader should keep in mind that all of our practices of communication can and should be informed by literary tradition, among other practices.

In ‘Comedy and Finitude’, chapter 10 of Ethics— Politics— Subjectivity, Simon Critchley explains that, in the context of post-Kantian philosophy, art has taken the place that religion and metaphysics once had, of providing models and tools for grappling with existential concerns. In ‘Comedy and Finitude’, Critchley specifically discusses tragedy, and explains how it has represented an influence on the problem of death, of the possibility of our own impossibility, in many modern thinkers. Critchley criticizes tragedy as a model for resolving this tension, and instead presents comedy as a preferable solution. In this paper, I will try to expand Critchley’s by analogizing dramatic tragedy with Francis Bacon’s portraiture, and Pop art with Harpo Marx’s comedic performance.

A (final draft) render of my Phil. of Law final paper. Abstract In this essay, I will present a criminal sentencing framework that goes beyond our current system where the judge only decides the duration of imprisonment. I will argue that sentences should specify access to counseling services, family visits, and reentry programs as well as the duration of imprisonment. I will first explain the way sentencing works right now from a historical and systematic perspective, then explain the important aspects that it leaves ambiguous. I will argue why these conditions are important according to some relevant theories of punishment, and also consider some alternative solutions.