Unlike Hermeneutics that is concerned with the methodological application of interpreting text, discourse and art, Semiotics captures the complex relationship between our interpretation of a sign and the meaning and significance this interpretation has to the structure of our representations. A sign is the medium that enables us to attach significance as we interpret certain features and mediate an effect that vehicles our understanding. Immanuel … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Semiotics

With the continuous discourse on ideology that is often accompanied by words such as terrorism, globalisation or imperialism, the definition is not only ambiguous but has an unsavoury association to other terms that are themselves vague. Indeed, there certainly exists an adverse meaning to ‘ideology’ as being a belief system that legitimises a doctrine for violence and subordination. But what exactly is ideology? An ideology is said to … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Ideology

 Love exercises an effective authority, a decisive sovereignty over the soul!  Its commands cannot be opposed, its ordinances may not be flouted, its rule is not to be transgressed. It demands unwavering obedience, and against its dominion there is no appeal. Love untwists the firmest plaits, and looses the tightest strands. It dissolves that which is most solid, undoes that which is most firm. It penetrates the … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Ibn Hazm

Phenomenology attempts to understand consciousness and takes perceptions seriously and whilst historical insofar as its approach is descriptive, the person or individual is something concrete in a world where everything is interconnected through time and space. The mind is not isolated; every mental act is directed outwardly to the world and toward something or what is referred to as intentionality[1], and the first person experience … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Heidegger

It is no secret that I find cowardice repulsive and it can manifest in many ways; bystanders who watch others being abused and do nothing, liars who deceitfully apologise or simply excuse their bad behaviour by pretending there is some justification for it. They see existence as merely convincing people of what they are rather than being what they really are, a power-struggle where some … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Cowardice

Is the sadness you feel real when no one is there to comfort you, when you are alone and lying in bed thinking about how those that have hurt you are completely oblivious to such an experience, perhaps on the contrary where they believe that no wrongdoing exists at all? What happens when you speak of the wrongdoing and they deny you, perhaps reverse this … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Dante

The phenomena revealed by inner perception are also subject to laws. The laws of coexistence and succession of mental phenomena remain the object of investigation even for those who deny psychology any knowledge of the soul. According to Franz Brentano, history is a cyclic succession of renewal and decline, that the relation between mental phenomena and an object or intentionality is a psychological act. This immanent … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Brentano

“Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation.” ~ Broken Wings Sometimes, very briefly, I wish I could empty my identity, to dissolve any sophistication of thought and be mentally frozen like most of society around me who seem content … Continue reading 5 Minutes of Khalil Gibran

Martha Nussbaum discusses emotions, or in particular emotional-thoughts, as contributing toward a better understanding of the subjective human qualities that reconstruct a conception of moral virtue. One aspect of her work that I appreciated was her ability to reflect on her own personal experiences as part of her seminal study of human emotions of which I will attempt to replicate, in doing so knowing that this … Continue reading 5 Minutes on Nussbaum