Introduction to Philosophy lecture 4

Today we talked about the nature of consciousness using the text by Thomas Nagel - What is it like to be a bat? I did video the class though I started a few minutes late. The video is posted here. The quiz question for today was with regard to model dependent reality. I mentioned Stephen Hawking's relatively new book The Great Design. I asked does the earth go around the sun or does the sun go around the earth?

Introduction to Philosophy lecture 3

Today we discussed Susan Wolf's article The Meaning of Lives which led to a discussion of Jesus' request from the previous quiz question and various interpretations of what makes a life full of meaning or not. I did start a video recording of the class but the batteries died after 13 minutes so I will try again Friday night when I repeat the lecture for my other section. But for the first 13 minutes the video is here. But heck, it ends even before we got into the main point of the discussion...

Why Roger Scruton?

When asked which contemporary philosopher I most thought thought along the same lines that I do, the first philosopher that occurred to me was Sir Roger Scruton. This little video of a discussion with him regarding his book How to be a Conservative strikes me as answering my own question why I do think this way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD9RDTl6tM In short, I think he is a rebel. He naturally rebelled as a youth (and so did I) but what we rebelled against was the wave of rebellion in our youth against the status quo. But we learned what the values are that we thought important and identified with the status quo as a result. So to rebel we had to rebel against those who where rebelling against what made our civilization so great. Well, heck, that is me right there.

Introduction to Philosophy lecture 1 and 2 Friday evening

This evening we covered lecture 1 and lecture 2 which I have posted on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. Please see those two earlier posts for the quiz questions for part 1 and part 2 and notice I have links to the videos I made in each of those classes as well in case you missed class this evening. I tried to stick pretty close to the same things in those two classes as the two halves this evening.

Introduction to Philosophy lecture 2

Today we met for our second class and discussed Socrates trial and the beginning's of the critical thinking tradition. The quiz question, a variation of the main question in Plato's Euthyphro, was a hypothetical. Assume Jesus comes to your door. You know it is Him and you know He is God. No doubt. He asks that you sell everything you have. give the money to the poor, and then come follow Him. Do you go with Him or not? Do you ask questions or argue with Him about it? The lecture video is posted here.

Intro to Philosophy lecture 1

Today Introduction to Philosophy Phil A201 section 791 met for our first meeting at 10:10. I did make a video for your viewing pleasure and posted it on my Youtube page here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjbnRxsDKaI&feature=em-upload_owner#action=share There was also a last minute quiz question: what are the ten commandments? Email me your response.

Social media's impact on events

Apart from the horrific events that resulted from the clash of people and their theoretical attachments what seems most different today is the instantaneous interaction of people worldwide as the events unfolded. Yes, people died, others were injured, and the sensibilities of people all over were raised to a passion. This seems to be the human predicament. We could argue over cultural clashes between meme saturated individuals that group themselves around others who speak the same memes fluently and maybe even think one another in their group understand the others – though this seems doubtful in the nature of how language works. Even individuals in the crowd retreated in horror on recognizing the reactions of people and back pedaled regarding their own espousal of the memes that were associated with the most radical – though really traditional - vocabularies. Nazi and so forth. While others embraced those very radicalities. Being in the same mob clearly does not imply understanding and cohesion. But what strikes me as radically different is the simultaneity of international response in the media. Everyone has something to say about it – myself included. We are all living those moments together in a way so universal it is astounding to me. The speed of light brings us through the virtual reality of the web into the conflict as it happens – even because of digitization a multiple review of the same view until what we see and experience is totally unlike what was experienced in those few moments by the people on the ground. What we of course belabor and rightfully so, is morality, behavior, radicality, evil. But being immersed in the universal living moment of this event – as well as others such as President Trump’s tweets – is the momentous change that restructures our social interaction.