Quote :

"Student Author(s): Goad, Jake A. Department(s): Philosophy Research Mentor(s): Marina F. Bykova/Philosophy Title of Presentation: Dialectic in Plato and Hegel According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, dialectic is “any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict.” The process for this project is researching dialectic in Plato and Hegel and attempting to find connections and resolution between their opposed understandings of dialectic. Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, was a student of Socrates and was greatly influenced by the Pythagoreans, who believed in life before birth and reincarnation; this influence is evident in his concept of anamnesis, that learning is recollection from a pre-birth state. Hegel, a 19th-century German philosopher, was greatly influenced by Kantian philosophy and Christian theology. In light of such distinct philosophies and such philosophical tools as elenchus, a Socratic questioning method designed to break down arguments, there is need for a tool to create positive doctrine and bring together opposing philosophies. Plato employs what he calls hê methodos tôn logôn “a method of dialectical dialogue,” to find positive doctrine—such as his ideas on the forms—whereas Hegel uses logical, self-reflective dialectic and Er-innerung, or “re-collection,” to make positive progress with opposing philosophies such as rationalism and empiricism and to move towards the Absolute. This project explores the etymological and philosophical connections between the ancient Greek word logos, the dialogue form of dialectic preferred by Plato, and the logical self-reflective dialectic preferred by Hegel. We trace western civilization—as well as western philosophy—all the way back to the ancient Greeks. To make such claims, it is important to find significant connections between such distinct philosophers. My research question is: are there such connections? A “yes” answer would lead to the conclusion that dialectic works to bring together opposing sometimes hostile ideas without destruction, and that we are not bound to the relativism of scattered, disjointed philosophies."

http://www.ncsu.edu/ugrs/Spring_2006/abs.htm


Here’s my abstract... if anyone else is participating in the undergraduate research grant thing to present at the symposium then please feel free to post your abstract. I’ve never really done one of these things before so anyone’s comments on what the undergraduate research symposium is like would be appreciated. If you are doing this one, what is your project on? If you’ve done one before, what was it like and what project did you do then?

As a freshman I did some engineering presentation thing, but my group handled most of the presenting because I was sick at the time, and I had to leave early. Other than that the closest thing I can think of to compare this to is science fairs from way back when.

I’ve noticed that biology by far exceeds all other groups for research, followed by the physical science/math group. I was the only humanities posted on the site for a while, but another was recently added. It seems like humanities will probably be in the minority at this thing, but I’m looking forward to it.

So what are peoples experiences or comments on this topic?

4/3/2006 5:04:43 PM

i'm making a poster

i'm going to stand in front of it

also i think i will have handouts.

4/3/2006 5:13:05 PM

My fiancee did gene expression (botany). Her roommate did something with atmospheric plasma (nuclear engineering). I think its good exposure and a good chance to make a formal poster.

Topic sounds interesting ... dunno what you are going to do for visuals for the "casual observer" walking around. I like it because its something not math/science related

4/3/2006 5:31:52 PM

i've gotta do this one since i got that grant too, but i've previously presented at a sectional ACS conference and Pittcon (analytical chem conference) in orlando a couple weeks ago.

pretty much just have a brief summary of your research in mind to tell people that stop at your poster (most people don't really want to read an entire poster so when they stop they generally expect you to say something like "would you like a brief summary of my research?")

also, if you've never done a poster before, don't put a huge amount of text on it--nobody will ever want to read all of that. mainly include a summary, diagrams/graphs with captions that include any experimental conditions, etc, and any very salient hard numbers.

oh, and i'm doing my presentation on a quantitative analysis of a surface-based DNA detection technique.

4/3/2006 6:01:23 PM

I'm doing a poster. Its harder to fit philosophy into the terms that one would find as section labels for something using the scientific method, but I think I got it into a reasonable format.

I'm printing my poster tomorrow. I Don’t really have any charts on it. I could put a Venn-diagram on there. It wouldn’t really help things out or hurt them, just be an alternative to describing it in a non-chart format. I wonder though if they would prefer more charts and stuff. I have a 15 page research paper to along with this project. Whittling it down to short descriptions and bullet points was pain staking.

Maybe I'll take a vote, should it be more short description oriented, or more chart oriented?
The benefits of short descriptions is that is preserves the philosophy feel and is more descriptive, whereas a chart might be better for the casual observer.

Pinkpanther could you post your abstract... I’d be interested in reading someone else’s, since I’ve never done this before, who I could ask why the laid it out the way they did to make sure mine is properly.

"I like it because its something not math/science related"
I find it interesting b/c I'm into philosophy. But something else that I might be more interested in researching is how philosophical insights affect political decisions. Maybe take a look a Socrates, who taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the great and see how philosophy influenced his political and military decision if they did at all. And juxtapose that with how the French philosophers influenced the French revolution. And how modern philosophy is affecting modern judicial and political decision here and abroad, and see if any and see what insights can be found. That’s all very broad scope... too broad for a research project, but it’s a starting idea. It’s interesting to see how philosophy precedes and interacts with super powers like the empires of Alexander the Great or Napoleon, or modern America. My current project was more influenced by stuff I was studying in class at the time. Dialectic isn't as sexy as philosophy and war so atleast my research won’t be as potentially over done as the idea I just described.

[Edited on April 3, 2006 at 6:26 PM. Reason : .]

4/3/2006 6:25:08 PM

Where do we turn in our research at if we got the undergraduate research grant? I suppose I can look it up somewhere if no one knows off hand. I know there is this presentation thing to give brief descriptions for show. But I have a 15 page research paper that I don't really know or remember what to do with. I got the undergraduate research grant last semester in the hectic chaos that is applying to graduate schools and I just wasn't able to keep all that information in my head.

4/3/2006 6:32:01 PM

i'd say put in at least a couple diagrams to break it up some. i'd also like to know about turning in the research as i don't recall anything about that.

also, if anyone doesn't know--use the large format printer in dh hill. kinko's literally rapes you if you print your poster there. also save it as a pdf (otherwise the background is yellowish or the text pixelated)

[Edited on April 3, 2006 at 7:16 PM. Reason : .]

4/3/2006 7:15:29 PM

The UGRS site had a link to places to set up printing appointments. I don't know if it requires print quota, or if they provide the service free to ppl who got the UGR grants, or if you can pay on site. But I have an appointment for printing tomorrow morning in 1400 Williams hall wherever that is. So I need to make my finishing touches tonight. They said for printing there you need to have PDF or powerpoint formats... so I did my poster in power point.

I think I read somewhere on the site about how they judge projects? I didn’t know anything about judging. Are you competing with everyone or just the people in your field? What happens if you win?

[Edited on April 3, 2006 at 7:27 PM. Reason : .]

4/3/2006 7:26:53 PM

I'll be there...this is my third undergrad research symposium. My abstract's already up and the poster is ready to print.

About posters - put some pictures on them! Use a variety of ways to convey information. Pictures and diagrams are good things. People are just wandering around and they will linger at your poster if it catches their eyes. I generally start by looking at the pictures and reading any legends then move on to reading the abstract, etc if things look like they are well-presented and could be interesting. You made your poster in ppt - good! Did you change the size of the slide, etc, to what they asked for? Make sure you do that. Before you go in to the appointment, make sure you "group" everything on the slide (even if you just select all then go to "group". I've always been told to do this, I don't know what it does, but if the poster print people say so, I do it. Beware that the color in the rough draft is usually far different from that in the final draft. With that said, make sure you put some color as the background of the slide (I had a co-worker who thought they had different colored papers...total last minute color disaster resulted). If you have one, take a tube to take your poster home in. If you don't, when you roll it up put the draft on the outside, roll it, then rubber band it. Your fingers will take the color off the slick final copy (learned the hard way)!

The symposium - there will be lots of easels set up with posterboard on them. When you go in, go ahead and take the cardboard off the easel and lay it on the ground to position your poster evenly and tack it down (again, learned that the hard way). Be prepared to just smile big and look confident as people walk by. I imagine you'll have the same problem most molecular biology types have...people stop, glance at the poster, eyes glaze over, keep walking. Don't let that bother you. If someone pauses more than a couple seconds (oh, and you'll get bored fast and definately want them to stop), ask them, "Would you like me to walk you through my poster?" Make some small talk to figure out their background, if you think that would help. I definately pitch it differently depending on if someone's in a related area or not. Have a quick (2-3 minute) version of what you did. Make sure you hit the highlights - what problem were you looking at, what did you do to solve the problem, what did you conclude, what are future directions for the work.

Have a lot of fun with it. There is judging and there is a financial incentive to winning. A friend of mine won in the life sciences a few years ago and she got ~$200.

4/3/2006 8:20:47 PM

It’s hard to break philosophy down to charts. The more I think about it, the more unworkable even the Venn diagram would be. Managing some stuff in bullet point format was as much as I can really seem to do. Complex arguments over the span of thousands of years just don’t lend themselves to quick eye catchy stuff. I’m sure I’ll lose if they have any judging standardized list based off what they typically see out of the science/math groups. Will I be competing with everyone, or just the other humanities people?

I’ve got as a partial background the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It was built around the same time Hegel was born and is in the city that Hegel worked, died, and was buried in. It is based of the Propylaea gate in Athens that Plato would have seen and has the same architecture style. Its only peripherally a draw into my point about building philosophical bridges between these to philosophers rather than anything more substantive, but I can’t really think of anything more eye catching. There’s plenty of subtly in the lay out that is not important to my research but fits the theme… like Plato’s picture being overlapping a metope between two triglyph’s (one of the places where ancient greeks often put sculpted pictures on their temples). It’s a picture of Raphael’s where Plato is supposed to be point up to the “realm of the forms.” I have him pointing up at a higher section of the gate in an area with the greek gods so in my layout he actually is point out that heavenly realm (which would help serve a connection between his realm of the forms in a polytheistic society and Hegel’s absolute idealism & Christian theology… even though seeing that bit of subtle layout is not needed at all to understand my points). Another of my points is about how both the philosophers thought dialectic and philosophy should be used. I point out how similar their positions are by quoting like metaphors they had about the sun and the stars… and in the Brandenburg gate backdrop at sun set where the sun is in the pic I have an illustration of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which is where is Sun metaphor thing comes from. And there are some Hegel pics around the columns of the gate to serve metaphorically as pillars holding up our modern philosophical traditions. My point being there is a lot of thought that went into the specific layout and color scheme. But it wasn’t lets make this flashy, eye catching, and simplified down so that passers by will easily understand so I don’t think I’ll win any awards.

Despite everything I whittled down, the comparison between their fundamental philosophical positions and some of the etymological word connections is still kind of a bulky mass of words that has technical terminology and foreign words. But I think if they look at the pictures, then read the abstract, and then listen to me talk without getting overwhelmed by the mass of words they see, that I’ll do alright.

Knitchic do you know where do you turn in all the research at for the undergraduate research grant?

4/3/2006 9:08:25 PM

So how formal is the symposium? Who will be there? I was recommended to do this with the research I've been doing thru a professor on campus but the only research I have with actual data is a contract with the military, would this actually make a good poster/presentation? since its mainly contract work/failure analysis and not necessarily "research"?

4/3/2006 10:23:10 PM

"the only research I have with actual data is a contract with the military"

If I can make philosophy into a fairly presentable research presentation with concept comparison and etymological analysis but no data or numbers, I think you can make something interesting data related to a military contract. It does seem largely to be math/science people as what they are used to, but they've made it clear that they are open to everyone. I know I'd like to see a broader array of research subjects represented there.

4/3/2006 10:43:52 PM

i'm working on illuminant estimation in hyperspectral imaging but will not be presenting BEACUSE WE DON'T HAVE ANY GOD DAMN RESULTS YET.

grrrtgrgrrrr.

4/3/2006 11:34:10 PM

Quote :

"Knitchic do you know where do you turn in all the research at for the undergraduate research grant? "

Sure don't. I'm not on one of these.

I'm pretty sure they judge within the categories for the judging. I know both of my judges last year were from my department (it felt very silly)

How formal is it? Not horribly formal, but formal enough (I felt out of place last year in open toed shoes...of course, I'm the sort of girl who notices I'm the only one in the room with open toed shoes). Generally, professors, administrators, and students are around.

I think failure analysis could be a valid poster presentation - problem (what do I need to analyze and why), methods (how to conduct your analysis, why you chose to do it that way, etc), and then overall conclusions. If you have to be more general because of the militiary thing, I'm sure that's understandable.

Virga - amen.

4/3/2006 11:49:31 PM

Heres the way it looks now. I had the original size from older info on one of the links they gave... maybe from the same place that said abstracts are to be 250 words each even though they are supposed to be 300 words each.

It threw off some of the orientation and clarity I had going, but it still makes sense. I was still able to keep the section of Raphael’s painting of plato pointing at the forms in the metope section pointing up the the gods sculpted in a higher section, & keep the allegory of the cave illustration in a central position close-ish to the sunset. Being a philosophy project I expect its alot more wordy than anything else I see there... but thats how philosophy is done.



Do they print it as one large sheet? Do you pay then and there, or in advance through print quota, or is it provided free of ppl doing presentations? Does anyone see any obvious errors in how the small picture of my powerpoint version of the poster is laid out as compared to what they are looking for? Thanks for any constructive scrutiny!

I have the background info sections which I think ppl will find interesting, a semi-scientific method type category layout (as much as can be done with philosophy) that I think people can identity with), so I think if they've read the abstract I can explain the results and end up sucessfully fumbling my way through this new experience.

[Edited on April 4, 2006 at 12:01 AM. Reason : .]

4/3/2006 11:59:47 PM

Advice (if wanted): when you are standing there in front of your poster (or actually to the side) feel confident. you know the stuff, you have been working on this for a while I assume. the main thing to focus on is that this is a venue to to spread knowledge. researchers dont do work as we all know just to say we did and have it locked way in the office desk, we want to convey information to others. if you make this apparent in your poster it will be fine. remember, you are not only trying to cater to the needs of people in your field, but also to other scientists and the lay-person who is seeing your topic for the first time.

I will be there with my poster displaying some work that I started a long time ago. Its a good feeling to explain a topic that you have put so much effort into; and the receiver understanding what you are trying to convey.

4/4/2006 1:38:41 AM

"Advice (if wanted): "

All advice is wanted

Any idea with the printing at williams hall if and how you pay for the printing?

4/4/2006 11:31:41 AM

I know MrT was also wondering about the turning in the research paper stuff. I looked into it and I believe all you do is turn in your research paper to your mentor for the project for them read over so they can tell the UGR ppl that you did it. And... "You will be also asked to write a short report and fill out a brief survey; both should be submitted directly to the office of Undergraduate Research and are due by the end of the semester."

4/4/2006 12:52:40 PM

Yes, they print it as one large sheet. If you got an email about printing in Williams and signed up through that, it should be free.

Your poster print appt is today, right? I really don't know how printing a large picture like that for the background is going to work out, to be honest, but it may be too late to change that. The most important thing I notice is that your name and dept and your mentor's name and dept are not on there and they probably should be. Likewise if someone funded your research (Undergrad Research grant?) then you need to acknowledge them on your poster (traditionally on the lower right-hand corner). If you don't get this msg before printing, print those pieces of information on a sheet of paper and tack it on the cardboard as well.

If you have more time to fiddle with it - try making the background neutral and putting smaller pictures throughout. Maybe work on making the boxes of text not stretch wall-to-wall across the poster to make it less intimidating.

If it would help you, here's a link to the photo album of the North Carolina UGRS this past fall, with plenty o posters and etc.:

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/OPDWebSpace/sncurs/sym_album/index.htm

4/4/2006 1:58:20 PM

i'm at the lab now, the appointment is in just a couple of minutes, so I wont have time to make changes.

but in my handouts I can mention my mentor (who is already listed with the abstract thing), and I'll point out that the UGRGrant funded it. I didn't know much about this symposium before this thread, so I didn't really know that it wasn't all undergraduate research grant ppl, so I didn't know it was something I should point out. But with hand outs and abstracts and speeches I'll make sure everyone who should get acknowledged.

4/4/2006 3:09:26 PM

Quote :

"The most important thing I notice is that your name and dept and your mentor's name and dept are not on there and they probably should be. Likewise if someone funded your research (Undergrad Research grant?) then you need to acknowledge them on your poster (traditionally on the lower right-hand corner)."

The printing was free, and there was some time between the rough draft print they do and the final print out that gave me a chance to make the changes so that everyone got acknowledged & everything turned out nice (my blue text is purple, but thats no big deal)

4/4/2006 5:01:36 PM

^Yay for getting your poster printed out!

Anyone still thinking about how to do a poster...the How to Make an Effective Poster Presentation workshop has passed for this semester, but there are some online resources through NCSU on how to do it:

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/index.html

4/4/2006 7:04:29 PM

Yay it over! The judges came by my project in the first 5 minutes and were the first people I presented to. I wasn’t fully prepared and hadn’t given the presentation in front of any strangers at that point so it was all over the place & I did really poorly… especially with the quest of what real world application this could have.

By the end I had a more solid answer to that question saying that if I could find a non-relativistic reconciliation between these two philosophers who lived thousands of years apart that would be a big step towards any philosophical or ethical foundation… something you need to be non relativistic to deal with even modern moral questions like war & abortion etc. As in my abstract in the first post I pointed out methods for breaking down arguments, and the sheer number of vastly different ideas of philosophers throughout time, lead to a need for a tool to bring things together in a non-relativistic way, & I think with all the connections in the comparitive analysis of their terminology that they are reconcilable.

It was fun to talk about some of the more interest stuff like Plato’s dialogues (as his form of dialectic), Hegel’s self reflective & internal kind of dialectic which ordered the mind, the soul, lead one to God, and ultimately reflected God’s plan for the world, & to mention Marx who used dialectic with the Bourgeoisie as the thesis, the Proletariat as the anti-thesis, & communism as the synthesis.

It was also nice to show that some firm ideas could come out of humanities even though people usually think of them more as artsy & more relativistic as with Hamlet saying something to the effect of “nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Several people towards the end were coming around just thanking me for putting up a philosophy poster in an engineer’s world.

I wish the humanities judges could have come at the end when I had gotten more into the flow of things, or that I could point them to this post, or e-mail them a description of the way I had ordered my presentation by the end of the day.

[Edited on April 18, 2006 at 12:54 PM. Reason : .]

4/18/2006 12:40:18 PM

I'm about to head over for my session. I think I'm going to glare at everyone that walks by.

4/18/2006 12:58:41 PM

The judges came by in the first couple of minutes... & things picked up again at the end just before lunch, but there was a two hour break there where most of the presenters could've just left without negative consequences. Lots of people seemed tied down to their posters, but in all the down time it was fun to go exploring through the other interesting projects. Some girls project said smoking makes you a little smarter, another chick I met said that positive feed back doesn't really helps kids academic performance etc. Whenever the project results were something that goes against social norms people tended to say that "even though my numbers went one way, I think with a bigger sample size they would have gone the other way and agreed with my hypothesis." And maybe thats true, I didn't really look at the numbers, it was just interesting to see that common thread. The guy beside me, I only over heard parts, but it seemed like his results were "the atlantic ocean is as old as we currently think it is" rather than finding anything new that he thought he'd find. It seemed like the majority of the research I saw said "we looked for new or interesting facts or behavior patterns, but didn't find them."

4/18/2006 1:22:09 PM

we only had 2 judges come by our poster and they were together
so we didn't get to warm up with one and do better with the second one (they were the first people to come by at around 9:30)
i thought that was kind of lame, for some reason i assumed we would be judged by more than 2 people

i don't know if they were just trying to see how well we answered the questions or what but our judges acted like they didn't understand a lot of our project and the project is pretty simple. everyone else that came by understood and was like "thats cool" but the judges were like "meh"

also i think they should have more judges from different departments to judge the engineering projects because so many different types of engineering were represented at the symposium

it was cool to see some of the other projects though, although some on some of the posters i had questions on the presenters were no where to be seen. it was also funny to see how much stuff people tried to cram on their posters... i don't think anybody hardly even read ours so i really doubt people read the posters with 16 pt font.

[Edited on April 18, 2006 at 2:50 PM. Reason : .]

4/18/2006 2:49:07 PM

I'm sure no body read mine fully, but the nature of philosophy is to be wordy. I think I made up for it with discussion of what was on there... I think it was good to have the analysis there to back up what I was saying, even if none of the academic there cared to read it. It really felt like a thread where someone posts alot of information, and the first several responses are just people saying "words" or "too wordy" or "i'm not going to read anything longer than a paragraph unless there are enough pictures." If the 3 judges had come 1/4 of the way into it or later I would have had a better presentation than all at once right at the start. I heard some judges talking before hand, how she works at an elementary school & judges science fairs or something to that effect. At that point I knew explaining a comparative analysis between Plato & Hegel would be difficult, especially if they didn't fully read. Although I had a different judge than the specific elementary school teacher I mentioned, and atleast 2 of the 3 judges acted interested.

The project beside me went unpresented even though the judges checked back in... the girl never came back after putting up her poster. Maybe she signed up for both session and was only presenting at one?

4/18/2006 4:20:58 PM

Quote :

"Student Author(s): Goad, Jake A. Department(s): Philosophy Research Mentor(s): Marina F. Bykova/Philosophy Title of Presentation: Dialectic in Plato and Hegel"

heh, you stood pretty much across from me this morning at the symposium, I recognize the title of your poster

4/18/2006 7:33:15 PM

^what project were you?

I remember native american bones on one side who was MIA everytime the judges came by & maybe for the whole session (I went project touring for a while during all the down time so maybe I missed her then), and smoking is good for you a little farther down. The other side of me was atlantic ocean guy with his family & mentor, and across in one direction was a guy with a pink shirt beside a girl with a bluish top I think both of whom seemed to have sciency posters.

4/19/2006 8:27:47 AM

the took pics at the event, will they be online or available anywhere?

4/19/2006 2:54:56 PM

They'll get them up on the same website you registered for the event at eventually. Ususally when they post some sort of "final report".

BTW, I just noticed, winners are up. I got an honorable mention...and considering my project is still in progress, I'm quite okay with that.

http://www.ncsu.edu/ugrs/Spring_2006/winners.htm

[Edited on April 19, 2006 at 10:00 PM. Reason : winners]

4/19/2006 9:57:36 PM

The symposium was a complete waste of my time... I stood around for hours bored out of my mind, though a few interested people did come by and I happily presented my poster/research to them. But by the time the judges got around to where I was, they were so short on time that they told me to 'make it quick' so I had to rush through everything, and didn't give a proper presentation. They didn't ask any questions, and they didn't seem to care... and I don't think it was b/c my poster/research was poorly put together or boring (b/c it wasn't... I spent a lot of time on it, and got input from a lot of people when putting it together).

4/19/2006 11:22:02 PM

Quote :

"The symposium was a complete waste of my time"

Surprise?

4/20/2006 12:48:14 PM

hahaha....i had 1 judge come up to talk to me. other than that i took all the free cookies i could and mingled in other sections for large portions of the 3 hrs.

4/20/2006 2:03:19 PM

There was a lot more standing around than in the past when it was on main campus. If it's going to be out at McKimmon, they need to make the poster sessions smaller and shorter and give the particpants from each session the opportunity to check out a couple of other sessions. I eventually just started wandering around talking to people about their posters.

4/20/2006 4:33:03 PM

More & shorter sessions set up on like the 2nd floor of talley might work. Judges were done with me in 5 minutes and I had nothing else to do but stand for hours. I looked around at other projects, but with more and shorter sessions I could still have come by and looked at other projects throughout the day if I had wanted to, and a place like talley would draw in more people.

If only the mentors, judges, and family members come then its not getting any of the research out there very much. I mean you can still get it out there by publishing it, but then there isn't much point in presenting it. Doing it at talley or caldwell lounge where students and falculty could wonder in and check it out might be more effective.

4/20/2006 4:51:06 PM