Metanarratives and a House as Machine for Living in - Assignment Example

Course name: Professor’s name: University name: City, State Date of submission: 1. Metanarratives AMetanarrative in postmodernism is an idea seen as a detailed explanation ofhistorical events, cultural phenomena and social knowledge based on the appeal of universal truth. The term was created and developed by Jean-Francois Lyotard. Some examples of metanarrative include religion where the book Genesis explains how God created the universe and His plan for mankind. Another example is science that tries to explain a large number of disparate phenomena that are physical throughaset of ideas that are unified. Lastly, there is Marxism, which gives an explanation of forces that rule the human society and historical changes. Lyotard criticizes reductionism and teleological metanarratives. He says that this metanarrative have not and unattainable by technological progress in the fields of communication, mass media, and computer science. According to him, artificial intelligence and machine translation is a shift from linguistic and symbolic production. 2. A house as machine for living in Le Corbusier in his manifesto for modern architecture, he said that a house is a machine for living. He explained this by saying that most homes you find baths either warm or cold. This helps humans to keep their bodies clean without having to get out of the house. In a house, people conserve they're their food so they can access food without getting out of the house to seek it. He says that an armchair is a machine for sitting in. Inmachinery, factors of theeconomy are available which is the case in a house therefor a house is a machine. Today houses we design houses in a way that can enable a person stay in them for a period without the need to go out. Everything that one needs to live comfortably can be installed in the house thus making it a machine for living in them. 3. Daniel Bell on social Forecasting According to Daniel Bell, post- industrialism will focus on information rather than services. He also tries to formalize social forecasting to rules of prediction that associate with a particular social behavior. Post-industrial society will focus on three components. Firstly, there will be a shift from manufacturing to service provision. Secondly, there will be an emergency of new science-based industries. Lastly, there will be a rise in new technical elites and advent of new principal stratification. Bell says that post-industrial society would come withthespread of a knowledge class and role of women in this new society. This would rely on the increase in service delivery intheeconomic sector and on the increasing reliance on science in innovation and organizing technological change. He conceptualizes statistical analysis astheuse of information to makeajudgment in organizing data. 4. The revenge effect These are unintended consequences that arise from the introduction of new technology or a change in social behavior. Revenge effect come in different ways. The increase in technology that makes work easier has led to increasing the number of people who are obese. Moreover, the fight against cigarettes is making people fatter since smoking even though it is harmful tothehuman body make people eat less. Antibiotics that are made to heal illnesses make it is easier for more and new virulent bacteria to breed.Also, according to Tenner there is a rearranging effect when people usetheair conditioner in their buildings during summer. These air conditioners are made to decrease temperatures in the buildings, but they also result in increasing the temperatures in the buildings around them. All these are revenge effects that are not intended but bite back as a consequence ofthechange. 5. The naturalist tradition of the western art Western art began with Gothic art in 13th century. During this time artist’s creativity was limited by the presence of formal artistic traditions and rigorous religious conventions. Moreover, quality was measured by the richness of material used. Early Renaissance, which began in Italy,come after and brought a new approach to drawing. It made it more natural by organizing figures within a landscape. In the 14th, 15th and beginning of 16th centuries artists of high renaissance artworks showed unprecedented skill. These work raised the status of artists from being artisans to the same intellectual level as writers. Mannerism shows personal and idealized response to beauty over which is in contrast with the classical ideal of truth to nature. All these changes in the western art still hold the traditions of painting. All artists use their creativity to come up with a spectacular art. 6. Marx’s social prediction Marx predicted that socialism would eradicate contradictions by eliminating private appropriation. He predicted the division of society into two classes that are the rich and the poor. This would lead to revolutions in the world to bring a perfect socialist society. He alsopredicted the great recession due to the chaotic and crisis-prone nature of capitalism. He said that the increased need of profits by companies would make them mechanize their workplace. This would allow them to produce large quantities of goods while squeezing employees’ income that would prevent them from affording the products the companies make. His idea of overproduction made him predict what we know as globalization. He predicted the spread of capitalism across the globe in search of new markets. Thishas happened as people are moving all over the world in search of new markets, cheap labor, and natural resources. 7. Science plays its own game; it is incapable of legitimating the other language games According to Wittgenstein these means science is a language on its own and cannot make other languages legit and it lacks game of prescription. According to Lyotard, grand narrative and positive science should be taken as a speculative game. This game has some set of rule any player wishing to play it must accept. Science is revealed as a language game that has its own set of rules. This shows that it does not have the capability of controlling other language game since it plays its own game. This shows that there is no one major narrative or a met language. It also shows that linguistic is not made by one language but an intersection of at least two language game that have their own in depended set of rules. From these science is just one language game with its own rules to play in the game. 8. Reality or realities? We can define reality in the way that it is used by people to describe the way they view things that seem real in their world. It is viewed as the concept that make allthings, structures or phenomena’s whether one can observer them or not appear total. There are theories from disciplines such as physics, sociology, literacy criticism and others that try to explain reality. An example such theories is that there is reality beyond the perceptions that each one of us has about reality.In philosophy, reality is addressed in two concepts. Firstly, in the nature of reality itself. Secondly, reality is described in the way it relates with a person’s mind. Ontology describes reality in its general categories and how the relate with each other.Today most philosophers tend to draw a boundary between reality and existence. 9. The progress of science Science has come a long way from ancient time to get where it is now. Progress of science is viewed as discontinuous by some scholars where old ideas are dropped and new ones adopted. An example of these is the disagreement between the Newtonian mechanics and the relativistic mechanics. According to Newtonian mechanics, there is always a conservation of mass and energy. On the other hand, mass and energy are always interchangeable in relavistic study. Some scientists support Newtonian mechanics while others support relativic mechanics. In this, there is disparity between the two sets of scientist and will not agree. Science has shown notable progress over the years. Theories in science have been developed and improved of the years and some put into practice. Examples are the progress in the field of medicine the way doctors have come up with new effective forms of treatment. Another example is how technology has advanced over the years and it is still advancing. 10. Control of science by non-scientists In day to day life, most people use scientific methods to solve their problems unconsciously. One good example is a trial and error method. Let’s say car stops operating properly while the owner is driven, he or she will use trial and error method to try and fix the problem. In this case, he will be using a scientific method unknowingly. Most scientists use trial and error before coming up with a legitimate scientific procedure of doing things. Another example is cocking from a recipe. Chefs prepare delicious dishes by following the recipes to the latter. These recipes are prepared by mixing ingredients, cooking and testing them over and over again until they produce a delicious meal. Scientists use the same concept in the lab. They follow a particular procedure of performing an activity to the latter. The preparation of these procedures is the same to that of a chef preparing a recipe. Read More