Philosophical Analysis of a Non-Philosophical Stimulus

The non-philosophical stimulus chosen is the somewhat infamous picture of The Falling Man. Taken on the morning of September 11th, 2001 following the terrorist attacks on the United States, The Falling Man captures the headlong fall of one of the individuals trapped at the top of the World Trade Centre after he chose to, rather than await being burnt alive by the flames, take his own life by jumping from the top of one of the towers. Similar actions were taken by as many as two hundred other people. Upon seeing the photograph, nothing else to date has so sharply recalled the concept which Jean-Paul Sartre calls ‘Radical Freedom’ to my mind. The action captured is the epitome of man’s ability to exercise his free will and calls into†¦show more content†¦In ‘The Ethics of Authenticity’, Charles Taylor violently criticises the explaining away of human practices and institutions with ‘social science explanations’. Thus it would seem fair to argue both that radical freedom is a powerful concept of itself and is strongly displayed through the falling man’s choice depicted in the stimulus. A key factor of radical freedom is the notion that along with this infinite freedom to act comes the accountability and responsibility for one’s own actions. â€Å"It is in anguish that we become conscious of our freedom. ...My being provokes anguish to the extent that I distrust myself and my own reactions in that situation.† It was no doubt in anguish that the falling man became conscious of his plight: trapped by facticity. It was also in anguish that the falling man would first have conceived as a possibility jumping from the top of the building. The quotation exemplifies how in some situations, for example the feeling of vertigo when staring into the abyss, we are so conscious of our radical freedom to throw ourselves off the edge that we experience anguish to the point where we do not trust ourselves not to throw ourselves off (thus we feel uneasy- anguish). The falling man however, under different circumstances of facticity to our normal experiences of vertigo, h asShow MoreRelatedWilliam James And John Dewey930 Words   |  4 Pagesby a bodily act (James, 1998, p. 142). Cognition is designated for adjustments in the body. James established that intelligent non-conscious acts may also be performed for adjustments. After consciously practicing an act, the conscious may develop to perform automatically; thus creating unconscious acts (James, 1998, p. 142). James interpreted the nature of intelligent non-conscious acts as having direction towards an end. He explained iron fillings being attracted to a magnet as an example. 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