Thursday classes

For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question was what is your favorite joke? (For fun you might look up logical fallacies and try to figure out which fallacy is the form your joke takes.) For History of Philosophy the quiz question today was a scenario question. Do you think the young man was guilty?

Wednesday Logic

Quiz question for today had to do with the difference between what we might call the emotional versus rational - give a statement you think represents a rational thought, and then give a statement that you think expresses an emotional feeling or thought. How would you describe the difference between them?

Tuesday classes

In History of Philosophy the quiz question today concerned Spinoza and the question was if you were a pantheist how would that change your morality? (Hint, this is essentially the basis for separation of church and state.) For Introduction to Philosophy the question was what would you consider Eudaimonia?

Logic Monday

The quiz question today was what is your favorite music? Please send me a link along with your explanation.

Thursday Classes

Today in History of Philosophy the quiz question was what rights do you think should be considered inalienable? In Introduction to Philosophy the question today was what was the name of Aristotle's father (and son)? So who do you think the Ethics book was named in honor of?

Wednesday Logic

The quiz question today is meant to highlight the difference between arguments that logic can help and those disagreements that are more verbal disagreements - do you think abortion is murder?

Tuesday classes

UAA had no classes for Monday because of the holiday. Today my History of Philosophy class we discussed Descartes and the mechanistic view of the world. Thursday we will continue this with a look at Hobbes. So my question for the quiz today was if we are mechanical bodies what motivates us to do things? That is, if we are machines, what drives us to behave the way we do? In Introduction to Philosophy we talked about Socrates and Plato and the quiz question was Do you have a soul? And if so, what is it? Easy questions!

Copernicus meets Sophie

In Sophie's World at 1:44:12 Sophie is briefly introduced to Copernicus.

Thursday classes

In History of Philosophy today the quiz question was do you have a soul? If you discussed this in History of Philosophy I, notice now in History of Philosophy II we are looking at things following Galileo and are seeing the beginnings of the mechanistic view of the universe. How is Descartes going to explain the interaction of the mind and body? For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question for today was the scenario where Jesus comes to your door, tells you to sell all you have and give the money to the poor, then follow Him. Do you go? Or do you argue with Jesus? (Hypothetically, you know this is really Jesus and you know He is God.) If you are interested in Sophie's World here is an apparently free on line link to it with English subtitles

Logic quiz

The quiz question for today was another one of my favorites: Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? To see an interesting explanation of why both can be considered true visit this page

Philosophers for term paper assignments

Living Philosophers Charles Murray Thomas Metzinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Metzinger Owen Flanagan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Flanagan Joseph Margolis http://www.cla.temple.edu/philosophy/faculty/joseph-margolis/ Peter Sloterdijk http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113387/peter-sloterdijks-philosophy-gives-reasons-living Jurgen Habermas http://www.egs.edu/library/juergen-habermas/biography/ Sam Harris http://www.samharris.org/ Charles Taylor http://www.thenation.com/article/162667/sentimentality-or-honesty-charles-taylor# Alister McGrath http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mcgrath/ Daniel Dennett http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/index.html Martha Nussbaum http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/nussbaum/ Hilary Putnam http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~phildept/putnam.html Slavoj Zizek http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/ Alain Badiou http://www.egs.edu/faculty/alain-badiou/biography/ Peter Singer https://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/ David Chalmers http://consc.net/chalmers/ Judith Butler http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/biography/ Fredric Jameson http://literature.duke.edu/people?Gurl=&Uil=812&subpage=profile A.C. Grayling http://www.acgrayling.com/ Anthony Kenny http://www.europaeum.org/europaeum/?q=node/1239 Philip Kitcher http://philosophy.columbia.edu/directories/faculty/philip-kitcher Frances Fukuyama http://fukuyama.stanford.edu/ Steven Pinker http://stevenpinker.com/ Mary Warnock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Warnock,_Baroness_Warnock Cornel West http://www.cornelwest.com/ Douglas Hofstadter http://www.soic.indiana.edu/people/profiles/hofstadter-douglas.shtml Susan Haack Tariq Ramadan Reza Aslan Bernard-Henri Levy Umberto Eco Patricia Churchland Paul Churchland Richard Dawkins Mostly dead but not completely dead philosophers Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Alvin Carl Plantinga Hans Kung Alasdair MacIntyre Completely Dead but still relatively recent philosophers Michel Foucault Edward Said Vine Deloria Jr. C. S. Lewis Richard Rorty John Rawls Robert Nozick Ronald Dworkin Hans-Georg Gadamer

Spring 2015 start

I have now met all my classes for the first time and things look great for a wonderful semester! I said I would post quiz questions here. The first question in two classes is my favorite: what are the ten commandments? (How many can you remember?) For my History of Philosophy class the question was another one of my favorites: Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? I think both are fun questions. Usually, in previous semesters since I have started using the blog to post thins, others have not used it to respond. I am not sure if it is difficult to do or if it just doesn't seem an interesting place to add comments. But remember if you wish, it should be set up for you to click comment and type your thoughts if you like.