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