I have been reading "Less than Nothing" by Zizek - hopefully will finish around the first hundred pages by bed time. Meanwhile I noticed he has a new lecture/ video on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87dLxMLqs6Y&feature=g-hist In between reading and listening to him I did spend some time picking up sticks and laying them straight today. Then the rain came.

What interests me concerns the nature of the political polarization that is going on. Our book group read "Winner Take All Politics" which amazed me. Since I have been reading Paul Krugman's "End this Depression Now" while also reading Byrne Edsall's "The Age of Austerity". I was hoping Edsall would explain the reason for the Austerity but so far he has described it as a result of the Conservative's hand being strengthened by austerity which they have used to hurt the Democrat's constituents - mostly the have-nots and those who love them. Which actually increases the austerity for those groups. But Edsall seems to assume the austerity is there as an initial given that everyone understands. But Krugman disagrees and considers it primarily political. Which is correct? How much of our point of view colors our ability to understand both sides?

This paper is from 1993 but still strikes me as very pertinent especially as it contrasts Rawls and Nozick on Justice. It also has a wonderful description of liberals and conservatives - pro and con - that seems to really describe the psychological profiles very well. http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/tetlock/Vita/Philip%20Tetlock/Phil%20Tetlock/1992-1993/1993%20Liberal%20and%20Conservative%20Approaches%20to%20Justice.pdf

Welcome to Philosophy

Welcome to Introduction to Philosophy! As of May 21, 2012 we start a new summer session. I have things on various places - Blackboard, here on my blog, and sent directly via email. I have no idea which you might find the easiest way to communicate, so I am trying all of them. Please have a look at the syllabus posted here: http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/201501.htm and let me know if you have any questions. This is the correct link for both sections 501 and 591. Everything can be accomplished using the Internet and the text books. Thank you for sending an email message to me verifying your enrolment. If you do not have your email address updated on Blackboard please do that since I use the email function in Blackboard to email the whole class at least occasionally. You should send in materials on a regular basis following the schedule posted in the syllabus with the first set due June 2. Late work will lose points. I will send replies with comments and the comments are only helpful if you get them before you go on to do more work, so please do not send in everything all at once! You can send work in early if you like but please remember that I have to read everything and think about my replies to you. If your initial efforts are wonderful I will say so, if not I will say so and you have the opportunity to add to your work in response to my comments. All work must be complete by the end of the session – July 30th - to count towards the course grade. Incompletes will not be given except under circumstances that meet UAA policy. Some of the questions you may have for me: If the link from Blackboard does not work you can go directly to the syllabus from my web page at http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu How to answer the short essay papers? I suppose the best way to answer this is to say: These are not meant to be difficult research papers! I am looking for your own views on the topics covered by the readings as well as an indication that you read the materials and understood them. All in all I should be getting 26 separate 150 word papers sent in, as sets of two, over the course for this requirement. Please title each essay with the number of the assignment, for example set 1 is 101 and 102. I would expect that your views would reflect thoughts you had from reading the materials. The topics blend into one another and each includes a lot of ideas on the topic. I am sure you may feel overwhelmed with the possibilities of things you could say. Do not worry! Say what you think is most interesting about the topics. Just go for it. Try not to think too hard about what I might be looking for as the right answer, but instead say what you are really thinking about the topics. Dialogue: To participate in the dialogue: log in to Blackboard and go to the course 201 section 501 or 591 as your case might be and then go to the discussion board that should be under Communications. This way everyone can respond when they have a chance and you can even start a new threaded conversation. The main reason for this dialogue is so everyone in the class may interact with the other students. Since this is a distance course and there is no time set aside anyplace for us to meet, if you would like to get to know the other students and hear some of their views about the topics this seems to be the most productive way. Because there are two sections this summer and you will only see the dialog in your section I am suggesting in addition you might want to log into my blog and also engage everyone with your thoughts there. But remember that is a freebee and I will basically have no way of keeping track of who is who there (unless you use your real names) so the Blackboard dialog is what I can use for grading purposes. But it should be interesting to see what opportunity this might provide. The blog is a public forum and not just for those registered in classes as is Blackboard. The dialogue questions are posted at http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/dia.htm and there are links to the topics there that you should check out before typing your response on Blackboard and my blog. To begin with everyone may want to give a brief description of who they are. If you are interested in my BRIEF description of myself I have it posted at http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/myhist.htm but if everyone is so brief no one will be able to read all of them! You should also begin thinking about your term paper since ten weeks is not very much time to do a term paper along with everything else you must be doing during a summer in Alaska! Don’t forget the term paper is worth 25% of the grade! You can also go to this page for frequently asked questions: http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/faq2.htm.