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The relationship between Pathological Buying and Materialism in paramedical staff: correlation survey
Pousková, Eliška ; Vacek, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Vondráčková, Petra (referee)
Resources: The topic of this Master's thesis is oniomania, or in other words, pathologic shopping and how it is affected by an individual's materialistic value orientation. Pathologic shopping refers to an unmanageable urge to buy something, to order, to own a thing. For the needs of this thesis, materialism is understanded as the conviction that gaining material goods is the ultimate life goal, main index of success and key to happiness. Based on the research, materialism is considered to be a significant predictor of oniomania. Aims and methodology: The main aim of this thesis was to describe the relationship between pathologic shopping and materialism. Then prevalence of pathologic shopping was further detected in the focus group which consisted solely of non-medical health care staff as well as the prevalence of age and income. The research also focused on circumstances and consequences of pathological shopping. 853 respondents participated in this correlation research based on data gained from the survey. Main results: With use of correlation analysis it was found that rising rate of materialism leads to higher tendency to shopping compulsively. 55 impulsive shoppers were identified in the research sample which makes it 6,45 % of the total number of respondents. The results showed that neither...
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Political Thought of Judith Butler
Sůsa, Jan ; Hauser, Michael (advisor) ; Fulka, Josef (referee) ; Kobová, Lubica (referee)
My thesis is focused on critical analysis of political thought of American philosopher Judith Butler. Butler is concerned with the relationship between individual identity and collective subjectivity, and her works - which caused many critical reactions - represent one of the most interesting discussion in the field of feminist political philosophy. Butler is mainly concerned with the question, how various political strategies (eg. feminism) could be based on common interests of various agents, and not on their supposedly stable identity (eg. sex and gender). Her criticism of unproblematized "natural" identities is important not only to the constitution of any individual identity, but also for the notion of the political dimension of a collective subject. The introductory chapters of my thesis are concerned with early thought of Butler, mainly with her critical relationship to the "second wave" feminism, and with her notion of the performative constitution of gender identity. Next chapters explore the shift in her thinking from analysis of gender and sex towards more general themes of political thought: nation, race, class, universalism, state censorship, possibility of resistance or emergence of a collective subject without stable unifying principle. I also try to analyze selected critical...
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Contribution of Frankfurt School to Critical Marketing Studies
Plíhalová, Eliška ; Rosenfeldová, Jana (advisor) ; Schneiderová, Soňa (referee)
The objective of this thesis is to uncover the basics of the contribution of Frankfurt School to critical marketing scholarship. Three questions were set down to meet this objective: Do the critical marketing scholars refer to the work of Frankfurt School? How do they view their theory, do they take it as a basis for their work or do they contest it instead? And are they exploring similar topics? The method of this thesis is a literature review, employed not only as a mere data gathering tool detecting articles that have elaborated Frankfurt School's ideas, but also applied to provide the reader with meaning-making, analysing understanding, interpretation and comparison. Therefore, a convenience sampling was used. While the descriptive part concerns Frankfurt School and presents selected writings, the analytical part juxtaposes these ideas with articles of critical marketing scholars. The analytical portion was sorted into following thematic areas, based on keywords derived from Tadajewski (2010): adopting critical view, materialism, consumer culture, consumer sovereignty, hegemonic role of the market and research assumptions. Clear analogies between approaches, topics and overall ethos have been detected between both disciplines and are emphasised throughout the paper.
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Ethics in the Chinese Debate of Science and Life Philosophies: Wu Zhihui
Typl, Lukáš ; Hudeček, Jiří (advisor) ; Lomová, Olga (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to eleborate a detailed analysis of Wu Zhihui`s essay: New faith and its view of the universe and of man and attempts to fill the still large gap in secondary literature. The method focuses on basic interpretations of Wu Zhihui's ideas and putting them into the context of Western philosophy. It emphasizes direct quotations and translations of key texts to Czech language. Through the analysis of his view of faith, knowledge, metaphysics, cosmology, ontology and human life attempts to uncover the grounds of Wu Zhihui`s ethics and basic philosophical theses of this significant thinker of atheism, humanism and modern ethics. Key words Ethics, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy of man, China, Wu Zhihui, atheism, materialism, faith
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The Solution to the Mind-Body Problem in Searle's Philosophy of Mind
Popelář, Jan ; Kranát, Jan (advisor) ; Moural, Josef (referee)
This paper studies the mind-body problem in Searle's philosophy of mind. It thoroughly evaluates his criticism of the philosophical tradition and the scientifc methodology. As he argues, the former has been misleading us with its dualistic distinctions and the latter has been pushing us into various forms of reductionism. Most importantly, though, it examines his proposed solution to the mind-body problem, his defnition of consciousness, intentionality, subjectivity, and in addition, his famous "Chinese room" argument disputing claims of strong AI proponents. Although this paper does deal with many of the problems his claims and theories inherently contain, it is primarily meant to outline Searle's view on consciousness and its implications in the context of the mind-body problem tradition, rather than to be an extensive elaboration of his one specifc thesis. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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The Comic in Henry James' Fiction
Kudrna, David ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the study and interpretation of the interlacement of the world of comedy in several works of Henry James and the reflection in these fictions of certain specified problems and challenges of modern society which assist to bring forth the social ambience therein. In the author's opinion, the comedy in the said works of James, on the fundamental level, criticises and pokes fun at the evils of modern society and the characters who pay homage to them. The thesis argues that the comedy in the analysed works of Henry James satirizes several challenging, problematic socio-cultural and economic developments of contemporary modern times through the ridicule and stigmatization of the mostly despicable characters who, under the sway of these developments, perpetrate their negative influence on the lives of other characters in the selected works. To substantiate this argument the thesis looks at the following works of James: The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Beast in the Jungle." At the outset, the thesis outlines briefly several critical approaches to the comedy in James's works, comments on their validity, reveals the author's views, and points in the direction of the critical opinions and approaches...
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Trendy things in adolescence - prestige and its materialization
Maierová, Martina ; Bittnerová, Dana (advisor) ; Levínská, Markéta (referee)
The purpose of my thesis is to present possible influence of trendy things to prestige, in the ninth grade of city primary school. The goal of this thesis is to identify the social structure of the students' group, to map the value orientation of the students, to identify their trendy things, and to connect all these findings. The thesis tries to answer the question of the influence of trendy things to the prestige in this students' group, and find out whether in this group of students exists the materialization of prestige. The text is divided into two parts. The theoretical part focuses on pointing out the main aspects of the topic of trendy things, adolescence, materialism and prestige. These topics are analysed in the context of psychology and partly sociology, antropology and education as well. Empirical part, in addition to the description of objectives, methods, research sample and environment, pays particular attention to analysis of its own data of quality-oriented research with the support of several quantitative methods. First, it describes the social hierarchy of students in terms of their degree of influence, popularity and prestige, and identifies their sub-groups. Next I try to find out the prevailing students' value orientation. Then I subscribe the possible negotiation strategies...
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Three critical voices of post-war American literature
Malá, Kateřina ; Hanuš, Jiří (advisor) ; Calda, Miloš (referee)
The thesis deals with critical views of the post-war American society as found in three literary works: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The thesis's aim is to introduce briefly the post-war society and then, on basis of text analysis, to provide criticism expressed by each book mentioned above. Divided into four main parts, it describes the post-war situation in the United States (political, social and cultural) and thereafter it focuses on the books itself. It provides a short biographical summary of each author's life but it mainly targets the criticism the book contains. The post-war period was significant because of the change it brought. The society of the 1950s was characterized by many "booms" that contributed to its development. The main features of this period were consumerism and materialism; these were also the principal things subjected to criticism. The question the thesis wants to answer is whether this criticism was justified or not. This objective is realized in the conclusion. Based on all facts provided by the thesis, the answer is that the criticism was justified; however, it is not so easy and it is necessary to read the whole thesis to understand all reasons that led to this conclusion and to think over...
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Transformations of the Gothic in Victorian Ghost Stories
Bambušková, Tereza ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
Thesis abstract This thesis will focus on the ways in which the transformations in nineteenth-century Gothic stories mirror the gradual changes in the Victorian society's notions about perception and about the metaphysical. The nineteenth century marks a time when advances in science made it clear that not seeing something does not mean that it does not exist, and when psychologists made it clear that seeing something does not necessarily mean it does exist. Moreover, the nineteenth century was a time when religious notions that were previously accepted without question started to be doubted. When people lost their faith in the unseen and at the same time became aware that their eyes are not sufficient to see everything and that their mind may play tricks on them, the notion of reality was increasingly problematized, which is made especially clear in the genre of the Gothic. It could be argued that while the basic tropes of the Gothic remain more or less the same; however, the way they are used, the reactions of the protagonists as well as the general outlook of the story are problematized by newly introduced ideas about vision and human mind. It could be said that in many cases there is no longer a clear boundary between the protagonist and the 'other' of the story, which can often be interpreted as an...
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