Final Grades

For all my classes final grades were completed yesterday afternoon and they should have rolled over - that is become permanent - at midnight. That means any changes I make will have to be done via the paper chase through the various deans - and will have to wait until they have all returned from the holiday break. If you receive a grade you did not expect please email me and I will explain why the grade entered was what it was. For the most part, those with less than an A received the grade because I was missing work. I understand that some had problems with email and resending your work until I get it - checking to figure out why it is not going through - should do the trick. But it will be after next semester starts before things can be changed. If the various assignments were not finished before the due dates there is no obligation on my part to change the grade but I would much rather everyone get an A if possible. That is just so much nicer for everyone. I did have several students say they did not turn in a term paper. Notice that is worth 25 percent of the grade, so unless there are reasons, without a term paper the grade would be C or lower. Some sent in extra work that might have ameliorated that somewhat. At least one person said they sent everything but all I received were a few quizzes. In such a case a grade of D is my way of avoiding the issues associated with an F and is actually easier to fix if we figure out what happened to all the emails that ended up in the Cloud - which is a real thing now. In any case, I hope everyone has a great holiday break, uses any free time to read more great books, and prepare for next semester. Regarding that, my syllabi are not updated yet but should be available through Blackboard.

Finals week

It has been an exciting week here in Lake Woebegone! We have had a week of finals with only one day left for me - maybe some of you have a Saturday class? In any case, it has been wonderful reading all of the papers as they come in. As usual I am only following the papers that come in. I do not notice the papers that are missing until the last few days when I have to turn in grades and I start going through everything while plugging in the grades on line based on what papers I have. Keep note of any papers you have sent me that I have not responded to since that might mean I didn't get them. You can always resend them. Duplicates are not a problem for me since they can only be saved in one place each and it will be clear that I already have one if I do. My deadline (I hate that word) is Wednesday night. So anything I do not have by Tuesday may not get counted toward your grade and once they are plugged in on line and they "roll over" they are fixed unless we go through a deliberately miserable paper process to change them.

Thursday classes

These are the last meetings prior to finals week when we are on a different schedule. Check the syllabus. The syllabus is right. The quiz question for Introduction to Philosophy today was what movie would you like to see on the final session (if you are coming)? For History of Philosophy the question was, regarding Machiavelli's advice to the Prince, how would youtube videos impact the validity of his advice?

Tuesday classes

For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question was have you ever felt you and your mother did not understand one another? (This is a play on the hypothesis by Quine called the Indeterminacy of Translation.) For History of Philosophy the question was which movie would you like to watch on the final session?

Tuesday classes before Thanksgiving Holiday

For History of Philosophy on the last lecture discussing Aquinas the question I posed was how does seeing what Aquinas achieved make you feel towards his treatment of dogma? It seems to make it possible for science to be reconciled with scripture through inventive interpretation. What do you think about that? (Or do you disagree with my interpretation of Aquinas?) For Introduction to Philosophy today I asked what everyone plans on doing for Thanksgiving?

Friday Logic

The quiz question today was with regard to a long argument - what are the five major points that Jared Diamond describes as central to whether a civilization survives or fails in his presentation and book Collapse?

Thursday classes

Quiz question for Introduction to Philosophy today was what do you think of Emanuel Swedenborg's claim that he was the Second Coming of Jesus? Quiz question for History of Philosophy - not a very good one I admit - what are your plans for Thanksgiving? (I suppose this is mostly an advertisement to encourage those who can to go to the UAA Thanksgiving Feast from 11 to 1 on Thursday next week at the Gorsuch Commons.

Tuesday Classes

The quiz question for History of Philosophy today was "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question was with regard to Nietzsche and the presumption that you are an ubermensch: Now what are you going to do to create a meaningful world?

Friday Logic

The quiz question today (only one) was to comment on your views regarding the video we watched of the woman walking in NYC. I also need to remind myself to update the test for the final.

Thursday classes

For Introduction to Philosophy doing Marx the question posed was do you think Communism is going to stage a comeback? For History of Philosophy the question concerned this video: woman walking especially in light of this video satire - with Princess Leia. How would linguistic context be used to explain the various opinions on these?

Tuesday (Veterans Day) Classes

For Introduction to Philosophy talking about Kierkegaard my quiz question was what is the difference between depression and despair? For History of Philosophy the question was not are you ready for Aquinas - but instead something a bit more off the wall: why did Kellogg invent Corn Flakes?

Some links

Ahkenaten At the museum and also the code of H stella or Islamic designs. I especially remember seeing this exhibit as a kid. Here is more from the same room of Mummies. This is Greek.

Friday Logic

Only one quiz question today and that was take from the exercises on page 495 question 3.

Thursday Classes

For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question was a fill in the blank: "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a ____ satisfied". For History of Philosophy today I asked that you listen to Tariq Ramadan for a bit - there are lots of interviews with him and even a TEDx talk, and let me know what you think of him.

Tuesday classes

For Introduction to Philosophy today the quiz question challenges you to describe a dialog you have with yourself over something - a decision, or whatever, where you have two sides of yourself trying to figure out what you should do. In History of Philosophy the question today was a request to listen to some samples of Gregorian Chant and pick one you found you liked best.

Not to forget

This was not too long ago but we already discussed Berkeley in class and I forgot to mention it. The tree fell without making a sound.

Thursday classes

The quiz question for Introduction to Philosophy is a scenario with two parts: you are driving home from work in Detroit in the evening when movement is totally stopped in three lane traffic. In the car next to you there is a woman. She is beset by three guys. The moral obligation you have is what - to interfere or not? Part two of this scenario is what you think you would actually do in this situation? For History of Philosophy the quiz question was how persuasive you think the Ontological Argument is?

Tuesday Class quiz

For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question is do you have a persistent self? In History of Philosophy the quiz question was have you ever been saved (in the religious sense)?

Quiz #12 Question 2 on pg 408

This problem was the quiz question for last week Quiz #12 Question 2 on pg 408. Thanks Lorenzo for reminding me. I didn't bring the book with me to my Mom's funeral. (I brought Henry Kissinger's new book instead.) But don't tell that to my brother Chris. Sorry I will miss class today but we don't fly from Philadelphia until this evening. Please have everyone do problems from chapter 8 and help one another get ready for the test next week. Does anyone feel comfortable working on chapter 9?

This week while I am away

For Introduction to Philosophy this week I love arguing about both Berkeley and Hume. They are really significant. And I take a strange tack with Berkeley since I interpret what he means by spirit as energy. I believe he and Leibniz were way ahead of their time and people thought they were crazy. Today we know Berkeley was right and material substance as Locke thought of it does not exist. If you notice this point in my blog before the discussion you might bring up what it would mean about his philosophy if what they meant by spirit is what we mean today by energy. Hume on the other hand persuades everyone to become a skeptic by taking empiricism to its extreme conclusion - the only thing I can know is what I am experiencing at this very moment. In History of Philosophy we start Augustine so this is where Christian dogma gets its structure. What great material. Sorry I will miss the discussions.

Thursday Classes

For History of Philosophy the quiz question today was what music of the period is your favorite? Here is the link to an online copy of the album I mentioned: Music or this one a whole album and notice tracts 15 and 16 are Christian. For Introduction to Philosophy the question was (and you may have already heard this question!) If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it does it make a sound?

Tuesday Classes

For History of Philosophy the question today was - have you ever meditated? For Introduction to Philosophy the question was - do you think Spinoza is persuasive?

Logic - Friday

There was only one problem for the quiz question today. Problem 28 on page 383.

Thursday Classes

For Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question today concerned Social Contract Theory: what rights do you think are important for our social contract? For History of Philosophy we were reading Epicurus and the question is: what do you think of his argument concerning death?

Tuesday Classes

For History of Philosophy the question concerned Aristotle's view that males are naturally superior to females. "Silence is a woman's glory" For Introduction to Philosophy the question regards the issue of dreams and how we know we are living in the real world and not in a dream. How do you know you are not in a dream?

Thursday Classes

For Introduction to Philosophy I asked how Gregorian Chant makes you feel. Listen to some and see. For History of Philosophy we discussed the Soul and Eudaimonia. What do you consider your personal Eudaimonia? What is the kind of life that you think would make you happy? So, what happiness are you pursuing?

Tuesday Classes

For Introduction to Philosophy today the quiz question was in two parts: Who is the fool Anselm mentions? And two, how convincing do you think the Ontological argument is? In History of Philosophy the question concerns how reading Aristotle strikes you? Is this your first experience reading a text of this nature? (Probably not) but do you find it difficult? Boring? Easy to follow?

Thursday's classes

Have you ever been saved? That is the quiz question for my Introduction to Philosophy class. Keep in mind by "saved" I mean the religious sense. And you might describe what being saved means as part of your answer. By the way, my favorite explanation of that is in The Sources of Religious Inspiration by Josiah Royce EIO-3 is a syllogism Is it valid or invalid? That is the quiz question for my History of Philosophy class today.

Tuesday's classes

The question for History of Philosophy is "What is your favorite paradox?" For Introduction to Philosophy my question concerns your opinion of who Jesus was.

Friday's Logic class

I gave two syllogisms to evaluate by first writing them out, then diagramming them using Venn diagrams to see if they were valid or not, and then if they were invalid (and as I recall I selected two that would be invalid) describing what rules they break. I don't remember which ones I selected so I will have to wait and see what everyone starts sending in! If you find this a difficult task, even following the book as you work on them, realize we still have half of next class to go over these some more before the test. The test will be the last 40 minutes of next Friday's class. Things have settled down and as I count I have a total of 110 students in my four classes this semester. As usual this means I will have a hard time getting to know everyone on a name basis but I will try. Those who ask the most questions are usually the ones I get to know so please feel free to ask questions.

Thursday's classes

For Introduction to Philosophy today the quiz question was scenario based: you are a platoon leader and have been ordered to shoot anyone approaching the platoon while on patrol, even children. Do you follow your orders or do you refuse to shoot the children? In History of Philosophy the question was what would you do with your wealth if you had all you needed = how would you use it to live a life of happiness?

Tuesday's classes

For Introduction to Philosophy today I asked who Nicomachus was. In History of Philosophy I asked if there is such a thing as a good lie. I have already been receiving good responses to both. What do you think of my method of asking quiz questions in class?

Snappy

Interesting pictorial dictionary

Logic on Friday

Since this was a double session there were two quiz questions. The first session I asked does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun? I tried to explain the model interpretation of these theories. If you are curious see Stephen Hawking for how he explains that in The Grand Design. The second half the quiz question was send me a link to a youtube skit of your favorite comic and explain why you think it is funny.

Thursday classes

For the Introduction to Philosophy classes the quiz question is: give a true statement. Keep the Traditional Square of Opposition in mind when doing this and indicate which type of statement your true statement is. For History of Philosophy I the quiz question is: Are some people better than others? For class discussions we seem to be following along with the syllabi fairly well. Keep in mind that the more you read of the selections the more the discussions will interest you and bring up aspects to talk about.

Tuesday classes

Today for Introduction to Philosophy we moved into the Republic and started looking at the implications of Plato's theory of knowledge as it applies to Justice and the State. The quiz question is: do you think some people are better than others? For History of Philosophy I we discussed the Apology, the Oracle, interpretation theory applied to Greek Philosophy including interpretations of the Gospels (briefly). See Hyam Maccoby for an interpretation of Jesus as a revolutionary. I didn't mention this in class but HM also wrote Paul and the Invention of Christianity which also in a way came up. The question was poorly constructed but basically was name something the government does that is against your will. Do you resist - civil disobedience - or cooperate for the best interest of the community?

Thursday and Friday class notes

As usual the pace we set in class is slower than the syllabus, but we do have to keep up, so please keep reading the text according to the syllabus directions. If the pages do not match the edition of the text you have, you can go by the titles of the articles as well. For Introduction to Philosophy on Thursday the quiz question was Do you have a Soul, and how would you describe what you mean by Soul? For History of Philosophy I we went over the Euthyphro and the question I pose is a hypothetical where you imagine Jesus comes to your door, asks that you sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and then follow Him. Would you go or would you argue or ask questions? Is the pious pious because the Gods love it or do the Gods love the pious because it is so pious? For Friday in Logic I asked two questions from the same set of exercises: on page 102 question 6 and on page 104 question 14. Remember for quiz questions email me your responses. By the way, feel free to email me regarding other things, questions about your readings, or whatever.

Thursday and Friday classes

My Introduction to Philosophy classes on Thursday continued with the ancient Greeks and began looking at Plato. I always start with the Euthyphro as a lead in to the Apology and so can ask the quiz question: If Jesus came to your door and you recognized Him both as Jesus and God and He asked you to sell all that you have, give the money to the poor, and go follow Him, would you go with Him or would you argue with Him? Imagine this scenario as a hypothetical case where you know it is really God - no doubt. What would you imagine yourself doing? The movie I showed a bit of in regard to this was Brother Sun Sister Moon. For my History of Philosophy I class on Thursday we went into more detail on the pre-Socratics since we have twice as much time to cover them. Thales and the others were seeking the Arche. We continue to do that today and it seems Quarks are what we consider to be the basic building blocks of everything. For the quiz question I asked what you thought would be the best quiz question for the day? (I love this question. It often gives me better results than when I ask a specific question.) Today, Friday my Logic class met for the first time and we followed the syllabus pretty closely - as a result there were two quiz questions. The first was, what are the ten commandments. The second was why do comics use so many curse words (many of them see to) when they can be just as funny without doing that?

First day of classes

Today both of my Introduction to Philosophy classes met for the first time as well as my History of Philosophy I, and the semester is off to a start. All three classes spent most of the time reviewing the syllabi and the test and term paper requirements. The quiz question for all three classes was also the same - a memory test: What are the ten commandments? Notice I have my own notes from years when I compiled the results of the quiz here but I stopped adding to the statistics once it was clear that class after class was consistent. Today's results fit these averages as well. We will talk briefly about this next class. I think it makes an interesting point about the nature of our memory, and our ability to recall things. Two of the classes had to suffer through a rendition of Conan the Barbarian the Musical. Try to forget it if you can! But it makes an interesting point displaying what we might consider the primal nature of virtue - the heroes were those who could crush their enemies. What changed that led to moral progress? I also discussed the difficulties in language, meaning, and even the alphabet.(See my previous blog post for some links I used for that.) All of this is too brief for as interesting a topic as it is.

Comparing alphabets

There is no short way to describe ancient alphabets. I was going to put maybe four up on the board to make an interesting comparison but they link into one another forever. Still, here are a few alphabets of interest. One to be familiar with is Greek Another is Hebrew And Arabic But what about Babylonian? Or Hittite? Which might be Phoenician. Akkadian

End of Session

The end of the summer sessions is this Saturday. My last Logic class was today but I plan on being on campus around 9 on Monday for those still trying to add points to their grade. But my official office hours are over until classes start for Fall Semester. My syllabi are updated and posted. The main effort from now until the deadline for grades to be turned in will be grading the remaining term papers and last essays sets from my on line courses. Please get those in as soon as you can. Thirty term papers to grade in one day is - not really possible.

Start of the new session

While it amounted to only one class on Thursday so far, we have entered the second five week session for the summer classes. My two ten week on line courses continue as they have for the last five weeks but in addition I now have two hours of logic Monday through Thursday on main campus. This should still enable me to make my office hours in Eagle River from 1 to 2:30 PM if you stop by.

Maleficent

We saw the movie Maleficent today on the advice of some good friends. It will be difficult to avoid spoilers in talking about it, but I was very interested in how this movie took a different - can you think Postmodern?- view of this story. It reminds me of Wicked (the musical) and how it did the same thing with that story. Key moral of the narrative is the nature of true love. It is persuasive especially with the cultural climate regarding love today. This version of the story is convincing, that by comparison, the nature of true love is exemplified in a much different way than what the old version depicts. Boy does that have a lot to say about how our culture has changed! It is loaded with fairly typical black and white contrasts that do no damage to the tried and true (though arguable ethnic) conceptions of good and evil. But the sex roles have certainly taken a serious hit, and this is what feels right. There is also an element of Avatar here in the juxtaposition of two cultures. One is natural - magical even of course - and colorful. I half wonder how many of the same CG crew that worked with Cameron worked on this. James Howard did the music. I note especially the appropriate difference in the last song One Upon a Dream. So everything beautifully fits the opposite interpretation of this classic and does so because our culture is ripe for it.

Summer

We had an amazing start, weather wise, to this "summer" with much warmer weather than usual. But it has cooled down quite a bit and is even lower than average in temperatures at the moment. But as a result, we are very green and the air is full of sweet perfume from an abundance of flowers. Really quite perfect I think. Classes, meanwhile, have started as usual though it seems there are fewer students this summer. But either way, this is a time when I can catch up on my reading and try to get books read before they are due at the library. It is important, I think, to keep up my fluency in the vocabulary of various aspects of philosophy as well as keep up to date on the newest and most exciting things developing. At time it seems impossible to keep up.

On education

This has been an impressive year for me with regard to education. I have been impressed with the accomplishment of my students and this is especially obvious when their awards and scholarships are taken into account. (I am of course not the reason for their accomplishments - that belongs to the whole school, their parents, their community, and their connections to the media they use, and the weather, the food they eat - you get the idea.) But the end result for me is very positive. From what I see, young people are amazing and learning and maturing faster than ever. Granted, the students (for the most part) that I am associated with come from intact families that are connected to the community, are honest, and industrious. (In short, they meet the criteria Charles Murray describes in Coming Apart as the kinds of families that are not falling apart.) They also are in education for the right kind of education (Again following Murray in Real Education.) The school here (Alaska Middle College School) has avoided the pitfalls that are apparently impacting education in many other communities according to Diane Ravitch. So in my case, the students I work with are among the elite and receiving an elite education and we are protected from many of the statistics that give many schools, even in the same local area, a lower success rate. Our students are already literate, healthy, engaged, motivated to learn, and in touch with modern media. What certainly does still impact what they do is their immersion in modern media and what seems to go hand in hand with that, a decreased attachment to difficult texts (of the paper sort). The Flynn effect is certainly part of the picture here. So their IQ's are rising - as far as I can tell. But their familiarity with details in history, science, religion, and literature - the sorts of things that come from books mostly, has been apparently decreasing. They have fast processors in their brains but little data to process! If a problem they are dealing with can be solved using computer apps and Google they are on it. I suspect as I have heard that most of the news they get comes from the Daily Show. The moral narrative they follow seems to be best explained by Peter Watson. Though there are exceptions of course. (I have to say that the churches they attend are what Charles Taylor calls "thin". All of this makes me feel like I am nicely placed. I am encouraged.

Welcome to Philosophy!

This was sent via Blackboard to the students taking Introduction to Philosophy via the web starting Monday. Some email addresses bounced the message back: Welcome to Introduction to Philosophy! 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 503 and 591. Everything can be accomplished using the Internet and the text books. Thank you in advance for sending an email message to me verifying your enrolment and making sure we are “connected”. 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 May 27. If it takes a bit longer for you to get started because you haven’t received the book or you have been lying out in the sun too long and your arms are sunburned just let me know. Lots of folks take a bit to get started. But as we go further in to the course 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 – August 2 - 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 or Tools – for me it is under Tools. 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 (or five!) 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.

End of the semester

I turned the grades in on time though some students still had not sent me everything. As a result, some received less of a grade than I like to give out. But that happens every year and each student has their own reasons. Today I updated my syllabi for summer and fall. They are mostly done but I am sure there are mistakes to fix. The summer sessions start on May 19th so that is not too far off. We still have graduation on the 13th for the seniors who are students in the Alaska Middle College School. Meanwhile, it is time to feed my home grown mosquitoes, work on the lawn - you can tell mine from the others since they already all have green grass and mine looks like ... well, it looks sort of wild and untamed. A nice thing I am looking forward to is Mother's Day! Also, Saturday we have Rossini's opera playing in HD live from the Met. Kat and I are going to that.

Leading up to final grade turn in time

I sent this out to each class: Remember that I have to turn in grades for the UAA classes no later than the early evening of Wednesday. Please make sure all your work is sent to me by then or the points for it won't be counted toward your grade. At the moment some students have a few things still outstanding. If you have not received comments from me on any of the work you sent please resend it. I comment on everything I get so you should know your grades for everything. If you have not gotten word back I may not have gotten it. I have no problems with you sending me multiple copies if you are worried. Make sure you have my email address correctly too! Many of course are finished already. But as usual, there are a lot of papers still missing which means lower grades for some people. I hope they send them before Wednesday!

Introduction to Logic last class

We had our last session this evening. Since attendance was not mandatory and people were sending in their finals there were only a few people there but we watched A Beautiful Mind together. Since it was such a good movie there was not much critique! I hope everyone has a great summer break and thanks for taking the course with me.

History of Philosophy II

Today was our final session whether you were there for the first period from 1 to 2:15 or planned on being there for both sessions according to the UAA Final schedule. Attendance was not mandatory for anyone except me though we had a good showing! Everyone voted on the movie they wanted to critique from those I brought with me and chose The Meaning of Life by the Monty Python. We watched up until The Middle of the Film. Since many students are still attending other classes through May I offered to be present next Monday for those who wanted to watch The Second Half of the film. There was no quiz question, though certainly you may have been wondering about the Meaning of Life: this is a serious question as you can see in the review of Owen Flanagan's book The Really Hard Problem.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today was our final session for the course. We do not have class on Thursday. There was no quiz question since attendance was not mandatory today. We watched and critiqued a film by George Lucas named THX-1138. There is no culture or humanity in this dystopian vision. Along the way we see elements that Lucas will use in Star Wars. But the question for the class watching this movie is, is this the future that will result if theory drives us away from all the things we enjoy as humans? I hope everyone has a good break and enjoy your summer!

History of Philosophy II

Today we went over my notes for my presentation here.

Introduction to Philosophy

Today we followed the syllabus and covered Nietzsche, Sartre and some other Continental European Philosophers - Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Peter Sloterdjk. I also discussed Quine and his Two Dogmas of Empiricism and tied that work in with the work of Alain Badiou in his book Being and Event.

Introduction to Logic

This evening we discussed J. S. Mill and his inductive methods. We then used them to analyse different contemporary issues. One issue was academic freedom and its interconnection to scientific freedom. The quiz question was what is the reason for academic freedom and do we have it at UAA?

Introduction to Humanities II

Today was our last class except for our final session which is next Tuesday and is a double session. We will watch a movie and critique it. Along with this we will have our last discussions which hopefully will fit in well with the movie. You may bring food if you like. The final session is relaxed and attendance is not mandatory. Today we covered the topic of diversity following the last chapter of the Arts and Culture text. I also posed the question about academic freedom and asked if you thought we have such a freedom at UAA and what you thought the purpose of academic freedom was for. In regards to this I brought up two articles. One was in The Crimson and a response to this in The Federalist.

History of Philosophy II

Today we spent the whole session with Daniel Dennett. There were two quiz questions: the first was does religion incapacitate a person from being moral? (Did I get that right Daniel?) The second was what do you think of his argument that all children have to be introduced to a scientific and historical education - including histories of the various major religions - how would that be enforced world wide?

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we read the article posted on the syllabus by Stanley Fish and discussed its relationship to the course. As a result there were two questions - one: what is your epistemology? And two: Is there a text in this course?

History of Philosophy II

Today we followed my presentation posted here: there will be a follow up when we look at Dennett next class. My quiz question as I recall was to ask what you thought of my argument.

Introduction to Philosophy

Today we started looking at the pragmatists and I used the online video American Philosophy. My notes were not adequately linked from the syllabus but they are here. We continued into Wittgenstein but only did the first half of my presentation on him. We did look at the film on line Wittgenstein. Two questions today: one was describe a truth table for a conjunction. The second is, do you consider yourself a pragmatist?

Introduction to Logic

Today we started with Sam Harris' TED talk on The Moral Landscape. The first quiz question was which picture would you rather be in - the one on the left or the one on the right - and what did you think of his using this dichotomy as an indication of how easily science could solve moral dilemmas? Was it fair? This started us discussing the nature of various ethical positions in the text and I used my cognitive map to present this. You may be interested in Robert Putnam or Peter Berger with regard to the way I arranged my map. The second quiz question concerned Utilitarianism and was a fill in the blank: Better to be a dissatisfied human than a happy pig, better to be a dissatisfied Socrates than a -------? We also watched a debate between John Cleese and Malcolm Muggeridge after watching a segment that especially irritated the Bishop in the debate.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we started with Sam Harris' TED talk on The Moral Landscape. This is a great way to initiate discussion on the text selected for today's topic that I posted in Blackboard and everyone read by Hilary Putnam "The Collapse of the Fact / Value Dichotomy. Putnam seems right that since Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism the dichotomy between the analytic and synthetic types of knowledge has collapsed and that precipitated the collapse between fact and value as well. Today we consider all facts to be embedded in a complex system or language game shared by speakers who agree on what they consider to be true - and their agreement is what makes those statements facts. (Their agreement would certainly also be likely only if there was environmental support for their beliefs.) So how does this tie in to Sam Harris' presentation? There is a movement to claim certain values are not subjective but scientific and this ignores the subjectivity inherent in what are considered facts. The fact / value distinction has collapsed but that is because we know so called facts are dependent on a set of values that are no more objective than those of other cultural groups. Notice also the critique by Ross Douthat that is concerned with this same mistake. The quiz question today was which picture would you rather find yourself in, of the two shown by Sam Harris. The one on the left, or the one on the right?

History of Philosophy II

Looking ahead towards next class when we cover Rorty notice the focus on Quine today continues in Rorty's work: Pointing to the commonalities between Quine’s critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction and Sellars’s attack on the “myth of the given,” Rorty concluded that there is no position outside historically situated language games from which to distinguish mind from world.

History of Philosophy II

Today we did a close reading of Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism. We discussed this with respect to Quine and the Analytic Tradition. We also discussed his theory of the indeterminacy of translation. Since some members of the class missed today because of pizza the quiz question was which is more important: the class on Quine, or pizza?

Introduction to Philosophy

Quiz question: What stage on life's way seems to describe your own stage? Or do you feel like Kierkegaard's stages are not similar to your own experience? Question two was what do you think of Slavoj Zizek? Today we went over Mill, Marx and Kierkegaard (though next week we should still cover more regarding Kierkegaard. Help me remember this!) When discussing Marx and then Marxism-Leninism I also showed a portion of video of an interview of Isaiah Berlin by Michael Ignatieff.

Introduction to Logic

This evening I passed out everyone's test 2. Most everyone aced it - yeah! So we did not go over it afterwards, that would have been pointless. So we went on to explore the more complex aspects of the symbol system all the way up to relational predicates. The quiz question was how does the definite description "The round square cupola on Berkeley College" succeed in referring to the object in question? We also tried to watch this. I forget why.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we went over the text posted in Blackboard even though it wasn't there. (I plan on finding it and posting it after posting this blog item.) But the text was (supposed to be) Truth and Tolerance The proposition is that Christianity is the true religion from an inclusive point of view. That is, other religions have some characteristics of Christianity but only Christianity totally fulfills man's spiritual life. Since religion is integral to culture, that means that spreading Christianity to other cultures is good for them. The quiz question I posed was does this philosophy relieve the guilt posed in the last quiz?

History of Philosophy II

Today we briefly went over Quine, MacIntyre, and Rawls (though we have to pick up on Rawls on Monday). The theme was how complexity has grown in our understanding of language and truth, ethics and law. I mentioned the book The Web of Belief which is on the web and a really good summary of the book here. What adds to these developments is the increase in understanding we have in the brain sciences and human psychology and sociology. For example, when trying to study ethics and ethical theory, we now know that human beings are naturally altruistic. Mirror neurons enable us to know how another person feels. This has an impact not only on ethics but also on law. The quiz question today was interesting and followed on the content of the lecture. But I don't remember what it was. Little help here? Someone?

Introduction to Humanities II

Following the syllabus we looked as some African Art and Latin American Art - all courtesy of Google. I stressed Sudan because I have had many students from the Nuer tribe and some from the Dinka tribe. I also mentioned museums in DC regarding these. A main point in the presentation was a look at the fantastic use Venezuela has made of music education for their children and the contrast of that and its impact on Islamic civilizations where music is not allowed. What a difference. The quiz question concerned the guilt associated with Globalization - aka Americanization - which has been described as Imperialism. We live in the best country the world has ever seen (do you agree?) but it seems we do so at the expense of others who are not so fortunate. How do we deal with this guilt?

If you can please participate in this survey for Megan

Hello Everyone, For my technical writing class, I am working on a feasibility report to assess the possibility of creating a Student Teaching Abroad program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. If you could please send this survey link to your students and have them answer my survey that would be greatly beneficial to my research. Thank you. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2XQ2Y78 Sincerely, Megan Marquis

History of Philosophy II

Today we briefly discussed Isaiah Berlin, Charles Taylor, Michael Ignatieff, and Frances Fukuyama. This much was on the syllabus. We had a few minutes to look ahead at next class and I mentioned Martha Nussbaum with regard to her filling in gaps in the political philosophy of John Rawls in her work - Political Emotions. The quiz question was do you find a detailed examination of history as exemplified by the work of all of these authors an interesting study? Do you agree that the better the detail of historical analysis the better the predictability we will have for future events?

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we discussed the value of the texts used in class. The quiz question is what books would you suggest the next instructor use for this course? Make sure your suggestions fit into the requirements in the Course Content Guide.

History of Philosophy II

Today we reviewed Dewey, Russell, and Wittgenstein. The quiz question was to give a truth table for a conjunction and for a disjunction. Which means you have to look them up. (On this web page the disjunct is referred to as the wedge.) The movie I played some of is here: Wittgenstein.

Introduction to Humanities II

We started off the discussion reviewing the Course Content Guide to suggest how the course seems best organized showing that we are to cover both art and theory. Next class we will be discussing the texts to see if you think they were adequate to the task. (The previous post on this blog is the link to the courses for the university.) We then went on examining some other art in our local community. We looked at the way stores are set up to be attractive for the customers. We also looked at a video of the Municipal Green House and discussed that as art and what comfort it is to experience it especially on cold dark days. We also talked about other exhibits in the Art Museum The quiz question for today was what is your favorite building from an architectural point of view in the local area?

Link to course content guides

http://www.curric.uaa.alaska.edu/curric/courses/ Course content guides

History of Philosophy II

The quiz question today was what is Phenomenology? Today what becomes more and more obvious is that each philosopher is actively engaged in discourse with others who are immediate predecessors as well as contemporaries, and those from the past are still part of the engagement. We discussed Romanticism some today referring to Isaiah Berlin's work (one of my favorites) The Roots of Romanticism. What is Romanticism? A tip of the hat to Beethoven who incorporated Schiller's Ode to Joy in his 9th Symphony is in order here. Was this musically the first Romantic piece? That is certainly an impossible answer to get right since it is viewed differently by different critics. But what was Romanticism? An attachment to emotion? But for our main topic Edmund Husserl was the philosopher in the syllabus for today and that introduces phenomenology. Back to the things themselves! My favorite author that used the phenomenological method was Van Der Leeuw

Introduction to Philosophy

Today we finished up with Hume - so to speak - and then moved on to Kant and attempted to see if Kant answered Hume. We conclude that yes, he did. Metaphysics marches on banners waving and flags flying! So we look at Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in thought and come to realize that phenomena appears the way it does to us because of the nature of our minds. (I always think it is funny that this "revolution" is called Copernican since it is actually just the opposite and best expressed I think by the Einstein Cone. Since he views things categorically including morality - we have the categorical imperative - which leads to the first quiz question: what would be your moral imperative in this case? To intervene or not to intervene? Second part of this question: what do you imagine you would actually do? The second quiz question was to respond with what you think about Sam Harris' argument in this TED talk.

Introduction to Logic

We spent the evening doing proofs from the same exercise that the test next class will come from. It was funner than anything! The quiz question was to do problem 2 on page 412.

History of Philosophy II

Today we continued on discussing Sartre and a little of Camus. The video that was playing at the start of class of the interview with Sartre is here. There is also an interesting video about Camus here. My cognitive map is posted here. (though the dang image is messed up and overlays the paragraph). The index for my Quest pages is here. I argued that Existentialism essentially pushes people to the bottom left portion of my map and this explains the general sense of depression associated with the Western European (though not British or American) frame of mind. The pragmatists were very different and we started going over Peirce and James and the quiz question for the day was: Do you think of yourself as a pragmatist? Since I do not have my notes linked to the syllabus I thought it good to remind everyone that I do have notes posted under class notes from my main web page.

Introduction to Humanities II

First a reminder to everyone that can come to some or all of the events for the 9th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference here is the web site for the events. Next I briefly mentioned a new (2012) biography of Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk. Apart from some very interesting aspects of it (I am only up to around page 80 so far) what surprised me was how short the chapter of this big book was dedicated to his college days. A short chapter really. Yet his life was so much more - and took up so much more book. So I thought I would use that to remind everyone that is in the middle of slogging through their undergraduate years that while this time might seem long to you now, but in the big picture of your whole life it will be short. It certainly seems that way to me too. And it was so long ago! Impressionism was our theory to think about today and it was the second time we looked at this, so many of the points I would make seemed already made. But we used it to explore some other things including Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Iphigenia. The quiz question today was if the community required you to sacrifice one of your children for the good of the state would you do it?

History of Philosophy II

Picking up where we left off with Nietzsche we reviewed the concept of the Ubermensch, the phrase God is Dead, Eternal Return - some of this brought up artists who try to impose their will to power on others - here I mentioned Madonna and Oppenheim. Notice the art work on the UAA campus Image Intervention We moved on to look at Heidegger. Notice also this famous film: Der Triumph des Willens To set this up I reminded the class of Hegel's juxtaposition of Being and Nothingness in his Logic. Heidegger writes his response to this in his main book: Sein und Zeit. Sartre writes his book Being and Nothingness in response to Being and Time. The quiz question was a reaction to the laughter of Sartre's conclusion in No Exit that Hell is other people. Is hell other people in your view?

9th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference this week!

Please check the schedule of events and attend as many as you can: http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/philosophy/undergraduate_philosophy_conference/index.cfm

Introduction to Philosophy

Quiz question one was: if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it does it make a sound? Quiz question two was: how do you know you have a persistent self? The first question is a great and famous question that arises from a study of Berkeley's philosophy - he was both an empiricist in agreement with John Locke on how we know things, but also an idealist believing that esse is percipi - or to be is to be perceived. All of reality was spirit in the mind of God (but as I interpret it in light of how the vocabulary changed - all is energy in complex relationships - though the mind of God must then also be considered the complete collection of energy in the universe. But that may very well be what he was thinking. It certainly ties in with Leibniz and his conception of the Monad. The second question comes from Hume's analysis of knowledge as an empiricist and pointing out that we can never observe the self - since the self is the observer. Good luck with that.

Making Learning Visible

I attended what will be the last session of Making Learning Visible for this semester this morning and updated my Blackboard folders for those participating. My next step is gathering the data I need to show how my selected course progressed this semester and then I can post my data and reflections. All of this will eventually be collected into a presentation - a poster - which will be finished after Fall Semester next year.

Introduction to Logic

We continued working on symbolic logic this evening going over the eight valid argument forms and then doing the first half of the equivalence rules.We did example along the way. As we went further I sped up a bit and some folks got lost. The best thing for this is doing exercises over the week so you can see how they work. The more you do the better you will get - just like exercise. The quiz question was a problem from the text - page 408 problem 2. Have a good week!

Introduction to Humanities II

Today the quiz question was: what is the difference between depression and despair? Our theory to explore today was Romanticism. After discussing it a bit using Isaiah Berlin as my text - (see the link for writing assignment five) we looked at quite a few examples of it in musical drama. Verdi, Puccini, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Mahler (is Mahler an example?) we listened to diva after diva dying either alone or with her beau.

Pragmatic Encroachment

Just to keep this in mind: pragmatic encroachment.

History of Philosophy II

In response to the question concerning the legality of the Communist Party I had quite a lot of interesting responses. My own experience here in Anchorage convinces me that while it is not illegal, no one wants to openly admit to being Communist. We have instead a national organization that seems to be the most active part of the party today in the US that I have seen The National Labor Federation. Here in Anchorage the member organization is called the Alaska Workers Association. The leadership of that organization has asked me several times if they could do presentations in my philosophy classes. I have always said no since their presentation would not fit into the syllabus and would be inappropriate for other reasons as well. But it strikes me that they no longer refer to themselves as communists. There must be a reason. Today we spent most of the time talking about Kierkegaard. The movie I mentioned as drawing an interesting parallel in my mind at least was Fanny and Alexander. Was Soren's life a series of such contrasts? Looking at the text we had fun discussing the first stage on life's way - the aesthetic life. For the second stage I talked about Agamemnon and mentioned this movie: Iphigenia. For the third stage Soren used the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son. The quiz question today was what is the difference between depression and despair? We then began talking about Nietzsche but did not get very far.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we greeted everyone that survived Spring Break! We had already covered Marxism before which was the theory we were to discuss and apply to Eighteenth Century Art, so we started by asking what everyone thinks of in regards to Communism. I talked about my experiences in Communist East Berlin while I was stationed in West Berlin from 1980-1982. It was clear from my experiences there that Communism does not work. We talked a little about Frances Fukuyama and this led to a discussion about whether Free Market Capitalistic Representative Democracies are the best human civilization can reach. Then we looked at Rococo Art in the Eighteenth Century and noted the extravagance reflected in the art associated with the wealthy class. Is that sort of contrast going on now? When we look at the way the so called 1% spend their money do we see a new "Rococo" period in art? If so, it makes you wonder if a new "French Revolution" is on its way. The quiz question today was why do the wealthy not seem to have a moral sense of discipline regarding the extravagant use of their wealth in a society with increasingly disenfranchised people?

Die Winterreise

Die Winterreise turned out to be quite interesting. I am not sure what to think about the visual effects. Dress in white and stand against a mostly white video sequence so you seem to become part of the scenery? That works actually. I picture myself in a white suit standing in front of a screen of ballet dancers so it looks like my head is on one doing physically almost impossible things. Or racing down a steep ski slope? More food for the imagination. But what about Schubert? I just happened to be reading Martha Nussbaum in the auditorium prior to Kevin's lecture and read that most Americans do not have compassion for the poor because they feel that the poor have brought their difficulties on themselves because of their laziness. If that is so, it would be hard to feel compassion for the main "character" in the song cycle since he is infatuated with a woman that does not feel the same for him. In which case, there being many fish in the sea, he ought to get over her and move on. But he never does. Carving her name in the ice. On a tree. Shedding tears in the snow that will melt and flow by her house. Hoping for a letter! Expressing her change of heart? Jeesh. The Romantics. What can I say? Getting there and enjoying the show - was it opera? - was only part of the fun last night. It was snowing when we left, and when we got there, and it was a full blizzard when we left. So much so that visibility was gone on the drive home and it was a pretty harrowing experience. We are still amazed we made it. Die Winterreise!

Start of Spring Break

I know there are still some who have classes today but this is my first day of spring break so I have lots of things to do. Already did some of them! But my reading list is awesome and I can't wait to get to it. But first a trip to the Anchorage Museum to see all the art from the Anchorage School District on display! I will take videos and post them on my Youtube page.

Introduction to Philosophy

Today we talked a little about Hobbes conception of the state of nature and the social contract. Then we followed my notes on Spinoza who is an absolutely stunning philosopher for lots of reasons. We then moved on to Locke and Jefferson, again following my posted notes. Last we went over my notes for Leibniz. We also reviewed the test questions for the essays due the week after next. (Next week is Spring Break).

Introduction to Humanities II

Today the theory we briefly discussed was the Semiotic. The art assigned was the Baroque. We followed the notes I have posted and talked about C.S. Pierce, who I briefly contrasted with George Lakoff who we have previously discussed. The Baroque art was Handel's Messiah - the Hallelujah Chorus. Of interest is the way the music emphasizes the message of the music - King of Kings for ever and ever. Contrast this with living in a democracy! To envision how music might be used to transform the political passions of people I read some of Martha Nussbaum's book Political Emotions where she begins with the argument that Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro espoused the principles of equality and fraternity that would within a few years be the main ideas behind the French Revolution. Could music really have this kind of impact? To think about this I asked what kind of meaningful moments in contemporary art are most significant for you? I thought of when Anakin becomes Darth Vader.

History of Philosophy II

Today we briefly talked about some of Richard Wagner's work thinking about how Schopenhauer influenced him. We focused on the Ring and his introduction of (or heavy use of) leitmotifs. Next we looked briefly at Auguste Comte founder of Sociology and Positivism. He was a great influence on John Stewart Mill as was Jeremy Bentham. There were two quiz questions today. The first was regarding a quote by Mill: Better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than ....what? What was interesting was there seemed to be a split between those who would rather be a happy pig than a dissatisfied human and those who would not! Amazing. The second quiz question was what is your favorite leitmotif? Have a great Spring Break everyone!

Snow

I have just realized the psychological impact having all these windows in my office has on me when it is snowing out. It makes me tired! Imagine watching a little (comparatively) screen and trying to type when behind it there are three and one half huge windows looking out over Eagle River and the whole view is full of snow falling falling falling.

Introduction to Humanities II

Have you slain your Jabberwock? Today the theory we discussed was Feminism and I used my lecture notes from a presentation I did in 2000. But things have changed and Feminism is even more out of vogue today than it was in 2000 when I said Feminism is Dead. The art to investigate through the eyes of the feminist was Northern Renaissance. This felt like a dull thud in class since there seems to be little to critique. There ought to be but what? So instead we talked about the Tim Burton movie Coraline, Alice in Wonderland, and even a bit on the movie Brave, all of which demonstrate that female characters are taught to control their own lives. But I did discuss Jane Austen also, and it is intriguing that she recommends women act stupid around men if they want to control the situation. How does that work?

History of Philosophy II

More on Hegel - it is hard to move on past Hegel since he is still so significant almost everything can be viewed as a reaction to Hegel one way or the other. Kierkegaard to the one direction, Marx to the other, both rebelling against a view of Hegel they received by studying with Frederick Schelling - who has quite a history of friendship and enmity with Hegel. Soren Kierkegaard stresses the individual, Marx stresses the social. But we especially see Hegelianism in our own contemporary arguments over what a person is. But then we moved a bit into an analysis of Schopenhauer who was a student of Hegel - and another rebel against Hegel himself. In this case, it seems his work is somewhat pre-Kantian since he argues that the Will is the thing in itself. This is essentially something like fate and a great way to view the impact of his ideas here on culture is to see the work of Wagner. The quiz question was to review the story of the Ring of the Niebelungen and describe what you think of the story.

Introduction to Philosophy

Today we finished up a few things with regard to Aquinas before mentioning William of Occam and John Duns Scotus. The end result was Scholasticism which was criticized by D'Israeli as arguing over such things as "How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?" Which question I made the first quiz question. I also mentioned Frances Bacon who was Thomas Hobbes' teacher. We started reading Descartes' Meditations remembering the reference to Augustine's reply to the skeptics in our texts. (Was this the model Descartes used for the Meditations?) We discussed the answer to his Cartesian doubt - Cogito ergo sum. Which, apart from the problem of the nature of the res cogitans moved on to a version of the Ontological Argument that then led to concluding that what is clear and distinct must be true. That is, mathematics is the new model for scientific knowledge. With this the modern period begins and intellectuals cast off the faith in the Church authorities. Which brings up the issue of the Reformation(s). We briefly discussed Martin Luther and his 95 theses, the impact on this through John Knox on the Scottish Enlightenment and eventually the Whig political ideas that resulted in the Revolution against Britain and the founding of the United States. Also note the Gutenberg press which made the Bible more affordable, and the translations into the languages of the people added to that, with the emphasis in Protestantism that everyone should be a good Christian, not just the clergy. Descartes also was a friend of Galileo who famously gives us the conflict over the Cosmological models - solar centered model instead of the earth centered. (I argue a contemporary position called Modeling that views each model as a tool and useful as long as it works for the purpose intended. So the only mistake is thinking that since one model is true the others must be false. They are not! We can accept multiple models realizing the apparent conflicts are not an issue. With regard to the earth centered model, I also mentioned solar centered, Einstein Light Cone, Brian Greene Fabric of the Cosmos, and the galactic model which views the solar system as moving around the galactic center. The second quiz question was does the earth go around the sun or does the sun go around the earth? Hobbes was next and we read some of the text to emphasize how amazing he was for his day.

Logic

The first forty minutes of class was spent taking test 1. Syllogisms. Following the test we began looking at symbolic logic. This is where we will pick up again next Friday.

Introduction to Humanities II

Thursday we talked about Marxist theory and how it might analyse art. The art we were examining was Italian Renaissance and so I picked the Medici Palazzo but after going over the economic situation of Europe that seems to have precipitated into Marx's theory, Charles Dickens (Hardtimes - and look at Thomas Malthus, and Oliver Twist), John Stewart Mill and Utilitarianism, and the unions in Great Britain - see also the Great Exhibition England avoided the Communist threat. The Communist Revolution in Russia was not in accordance with Marxian theory since the country was Feudal and not industrial. Hence, the name Marxist-Leninism. Lenin basically argued that the capitalist period could be skipped. The end result was not communism but a corrupt totalitarian government that made everything worse than it was. But even today we see totalitarian corruption such as Viktor Yanukovych and his Villa in Ukraine.

Notes on my visit to Gruening Middle School today

It was wonderful visiting an eighth grade class at Gruening Middle School today that were each reading various philosophers. The questions showed that they were understanding what they were reading and very interested in the topics. I look forward to the day when, I expect four years or so from now, some of those young people will be taking Philosophy at UAA!

History of Philosophy II

From our recognition that values are not universal we move towards a cultural relativism. This brings us to Hegel's generation. They accepted Kant's philosophy except they rejected the apparently contradictory notion that we could know that the ego must exist, things in themselves must exist, and God must exist, without knowing them! Instead, as cultural artifacts - spirit - they exist in our minds much as our conceptions of all phenomena do. But what is the nature of spirit as cultural artifacts? Reading the excerpt in the text we see a new kind of philosophical literature. Instead of describing the way things are, Hegel describes a dialectical process between the in itself and the for itself. That is, the subject of experience reacts to the object of experience. This dialectical interplay of forces happens at multiple levels so describes what is going on in my mind as I decide what choices I will make, or between two people, or between a person and a group, or groups with other groups, and even the world all together - the Weltgeist. We also have the conception of the Zeitgeist - the spirit of the times. All of these concepts are made to show the dynamic interplay that occurs that is very real even though it is only social interaction. But this social interaction creates real things - from buildings and nations to egos and fiction. The quiz question today was, how would Hegel's view of self-consciousness explain individuals with multiple personalities?

Introduction to Humanities II

Today we first broke up into groups so everyone could exchange information and begin helping one another in teams for the term project. If you missed this please make sure you get into a group since that is one of the requirements for the Term Project for the course. Following this we discussed Psychoanalytic Theory and I played a bit of the movie When Nietzsche Wept but we concentrated on Freud and his talking cure. We also talked about his atheism and took a moment to review the upcoming writing assignment that includes Freud's point of view as one of the topics. We then looked at the video How to Read A Gothic Cathedral which beautifully explains the symbolism of the art on the facades of Gothic Cathedrals. Here we attempted to understand the Augustinian Theological perspective behind that art and contrast it with what might be the perspective of someone from Freud's point of view. The quiz question was have you ever been saved and what does being saved mean to you?

History of Philosophy II

Today I discussed a variety of responses to Kant's argument that there is a structure to the rational human mind that enables each person to perceive the world and all rational humans share in that structure. The question immediately asked is what is the nature of that structure and what causes it? I quickly mentioned Gestalt, Eric Kandel (an important contemporary), Freud, Yalom (an important contemporary), Jung, and Joseph Campbell, and Viktor Frankl. Each can be viewed as attempts to explain what structures rationality either biologically or culturally. As a quiz question I asked the classic: do you help the woman in the car being attacked by three guys? What is your moral duty? And, what do you think you would actually do. We then moved on to consider Mary Wollstonecraft in relation to others like Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, and George Elliot.

Introduction to Philosophy

The quiz question today was - what did you think of the Ontological Argument? Did you think it was persuasive? We went over Anselm's Ontological Argument. I take the position that it is a winning argument. See Kurt Godel for a more contemporary approach. I then did a quick review of some famous Medieval Philosophers or reformers: Abelard (and Heloise) - Stealing Heaven Saint Frances - Brother Sun Sister Moon Hildegaard von Bingen who we have in the text. William of Occam who we will discuss next week. I argued that Boethius - the last Roman - wasn't really the last Roman in criticism of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. We looked at Moses Maimonides who influenced Aquinas by aiding the introduction of Aristotle's thought into the west. And we began looking at Aquinas.

Logic

We continued working on syllogisms this evening in preparation for the test at the beginning of class next week. There will be nine syllogisms to do including writing out the syllogism, drawing the Venn diagram, determining if the argument is valid or not, and if it is invalid describing which rule or rules the syllogism breaks. The quiz question this evening was problem 15 on page 269.

Introduction to Humanities II

I started off today by talking about a few of my own prejudices and the guilt I associate with that - and how my own cultural background led to both my prejudices and my guilt! This ties in with the theory explored this lecture - Modernism. As I understand it, modernism is essentially the evolutionary narrative applied to art. I invited the class to explore from their own experience how art has evolved and we talked about music, sculpture, architecture, computer games and fashion. The quiz question for the day was what language is Karl Jenkins The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace written in? We also listened briefly to his Adiemus where I pointed out that it is written in no language at all.

History of Philosophy II

How do you know what is real? That ended up (as I recall) the quiz question for today. We started by reviewing Hume's argument concerning the persistent self. I tied this in to what my one colleague says makes him suspicious - and that is contemporary insights into quantum mechanical physics - I mentioned Stuart Hameroff earlier last week (isn't this worth exploring?) Remember too that Thomas Metzinger discusses this in Being No One and Doug Hoffstadter does a similar thing in his I am a Strange Loop - so Hume's puzzle is still very much with us. I also posed his question concerning metaphysics - is metaphysics possible? I used the analogy of arguing over whether Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter would beat the other in a fight. Essentially, Hume says Metaphysics is such a complete waste of time. Arguments between different metaphysical theories amount to the same sort of game. So, apart from the value of studying the history of metaphysics to understand historical behaviors of those influenced by them, including the art, literature, and so on, is there a value to doing metaphysics if those questions can never really be resolved? (Notice Cornel West's book The American Evasion of Philosophy) Notice even Hume's challenge does not make senses unless you are familiar with the history that led to it's being a philosophical position about philosophy! But then we explore the answer posed by Kant - Did Kant Answer Hume? My answer is yes. So I resorted to the board to place Phenomena in the center, the Ego to the left, and The Thing in Itself on the right, with God on top. The noumenal and phenomena - how does Kant use these to answer Hume? He agrees with Hume but attempts to Transcend the dilemma with a method - the Transcendental Method - which allows us to conclude that those things required for phenomena to be experienced must be there for the experience to occur at all. At this point we ran out of time - so the quiz question was left as the thoughtful issue until Monday.

Introduction to Humanities II

Continuing with Structuralism we applied both fractals and the golden ratio to art with an emphasis on some of the art in Africa. The links used are updated on the lecture notes page. The quiz today was a question concerning your opinion of this class so far. Is it boring you to death or are you enjoying it? What suggestions do you have to improve it?

History of Philosophy II

Today we started by finishing some things with David Hume, including the Distinguishable is Separable Principle which seems well explained here. (At least if that page works.) We also talked about the problem of the persistent self (and the quiz question for today was how do you know you have a persistent self?) I referred to Thomas Metzinger on this issue since it is a very current issue for those in neuroscience. We then moved on to talk about Rousseau - by talking first about Voltaire. (Note too that Rousseau spent about 18 months with Hume when Rousseau was having trouble in France.) In regard to the relationship Rousseau had with Voltaire I argue that they were not enemies from what I have seen so far but that their letters to one another show respect and mutual love of irony. I have also heard but can't figure out from where, that Voltaire gave the young Rousseau advice on how to become popular: write exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks. Which Rousseau then did to great effect. Emile basically argues that the best education is no education (student centeredness) The Social Contract argues that everyone should be free and good government is only possible when everyone agrees to what government does. (I mentioned here something probably rather odd and that is Nash Equilibrium as one possibility of something like Rousseau's idea that could work.) I also mentioned in response to Voltaire's critique of Leibniz Best of All Possible Worlds in his work Candide was based on a misunderstanding. Rather, I interpret Leibniz to be making basically the same point as Brian Greene here. I also pointed out a wonderful Americanized version of Candide by Bernstein. Last, in preparation for reading Kant I went over why the Prolegomena is usually what students read instead of the Critique of Pure Reason. Has Kant answered Hume? That will be where we pick up next class.

Behind in my email responses

The email system for the university was down for at least a day last week and I got behind in replying to essays and quizzes. I will try to catch up today. But even after the email system came back up I did not have extra time to spend catching up since I am also tasked at the moment with reading quite a large number of books for Amazon Vine. For some reason they really made a large number of books available for review this last month and at one point I had thirteen books to read in thirty days. Some of them are also quite large as was the Updike Biography and the one I am reading now John Quincy Adams. Both of those have been really good - I made it up to page 90 in the Adams book and it is a wonderful biography. It reminds me of both the Adams biography by McCullough and The Education of Henry Adams. That family was amazing. But today I will spend most of my time in the office trying to tackle the backlog of email. Sorry about the delay!

Introduction to Philosophy

Today the quiz question was have you ever been Saved? And what do you mean by that? We started the class off talking about Plotinus and how Neoplatonism was different than Platonism. I made references to meditation that enables a person to become one with the universe - including Dr Newberg and to the Golden Ratio and in general how his philosophy closed the gap between the material world and the ideal world by arguing that the material world has a direct connection to the ideal world. I then prefaced my discussion of Augustine by briefly pointing out highlights of the Jewish scripture and the Christian scripture. We discussed the Nicene Council and the one iota of difference, so to speak, in the Credo. Then looking at Augustine we read his conversion and his view of time from the text. I argued that his solution to merging a very violent anthropomorphic God in the Hebrew Scripture with a Platonic conception of the Good was resolved by his pointing out our finite secular limitations do not enable us to see God as God truly is but only through the historical interpretations we have moment by moment, while God must be beyond our understanding and still be eternal, all powerful, all good, etc. I also discussed the nature of Augustine's interpretation of the Fall and how the knowledge of good and evil always go together.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today the theory we explored was Structuralism and some of its variants up to Post Modernism. After the organic paradigm replaced the mechanistic one (a gradual process of course) the problem of relativity reared its ugly head. How could there be truth if everything was relative? But even Einsteinian Relativity holds that within systems there are structures - truths, the relativity comes into play between systems. This is a point I have emphasized earlier as well. But are the truths in systems explained? What are they based on? Structuralism attempts to answer this question in lots of fields especially linguistics. I mentioned the conflict between Noam Chomsky and Daniel Everett in this regard when discussing the Sapir-Worf hypothesis. So we looked at some examples of art to try to see how the over arching structure of a culture could be reflected in art work itself. As you see in the text there is an emphasis on the eyes, thin light figures, rich drappery, none of which looks realistic. Notice especially the baby Jesus looks like a 40 year old man. (Ugly baby). But contrast that art with still life paintings of fruit. Or even further, still life paintings of food including game. In the Byzantine Christian art the emphasis is on the abstract and the story is the narrative of Jesus. In the fruit we have an emphasis on the pleasures of life. I also pointed out the art on campus: Openheim Image Intervention and asked what that represents? Another I mentioned on campus in the Art Building is in the lobby. (And see the bottom of the page.) Clearly cultural changes effect the structure of the narrative and that affects the art. What about natural human characteristics? For example, differences between men and women? We are all people but we also notice differences between people as well. I argued referencing Daniel Dennett's concept of a super stimulus that art depicting women in Japanese Anime images are using a hyper stimulus set very much like Chocolate Cake (not a real food) to depict girls (not real!) but that demonstrably stimulate male viewers. So this much of physical structure must be accounted for. Nietzsche represents the advent of the post modern which in at least one interpretation is a rebellion against the structures imposed on us by metanarratives taught by authorities. To be truly free of those you must become an ubermensch. The quiz question today was what is an ubermensch and do you think you are one? By the way, Thus Spake Zarathustra was a book by Nietzsche but the tone poem was written by Richard Strauss

History of Philosophy II

Picking up with Berkeley we discussed the nature of mind (nous) and the mind of God. What worried Berkeley was that Locke's materialism would lead people to abandon belief in God and society would become selfish and materialistic. I can't help note that he was right about that especially with regard to western Europe. Hume in a matter of speaking makes things worse when he points out that the reason Berkeley's argument against Locke succeeds - belief in material substance we cannot sense is contradictory - also applies to Berkeley's own conclusion that the mind of God is what sustains the universe. (I am always about in the quad and that is why the tree continues to be.) Hume's skepticism (scepticism in British English) destroys our confidence in God, necessity, cause and effect, the thing in itself, the persistent self, and many other brilliant things. So Hume is the last of the great British Empiricists and perhaps the greatest philosopher to write in English so far. In preparation for the next class I looked at Hume's main argument against Metaphysics. The a priori, a posteriori, synthetic, and analytic types of information that we have. He argues we cannot have synthetic a priori information and so metaphysics is impossible. My quiz question is do you think metaphysics is possible? And next class we look to see if Kant answered Hume.

Introduction to Humanities II

Today I followed up on Kant's theory by discussing the attempts to make sense of his contention that all rational persons see things essentially the same way. I included Freud, Jung, Frankl, Gestalt theory, but focused on the move toward the organic paradigm of the universe as opposed to the modern static universe of Descartes and Newton. Hegel gives us the evolution of Spirit - or today we might say culture. Following this paradigm shift we see it applied to maturation, history, biological evolution, expansion of the universe, the dynamic evolution of languages, and even mathematics. I would argue that although most academics today are Kantian, that most of those are also Hegelian, assuming Hegel is a Kantian. So, especially in the US our culture as pragmatists is essentially Hegelian in that we accept science, evolution, history, progress, all as the paradigm elements in our view of the universe. Further, democracy and the increase in the amount of liberty - more people living more freely than ever before - is the goal of progress. So how does this theory apply to our appreciation and the development of art? We did not spend much time on that so far but the quiz question might be useful for the discussion to move further: what is your favorite Islamic art? Next class I would like to mention Tariq Ramadan and the connection between Islamic culture and Islam.