As a society we have divided into Red and Blue ghettoes. Liberals and conservatives talk only to each other and look with contempt on those in the opposite camp. The complaints that each side makes about the other offer a curious parallel. Conservatives claim that liberals are too individualistic when it comes to sex. There need to be public standards of sexual behavior, conservatives think. Liberals tend to think that homosexuals should be allowed to marry, that adults should not discourage teenagers from having sex so long as they use condoms, that women can raise children just fine without fathers, that high divorce rates are nothing to worry about and that couples living together for short or long periods of time without marriage is fine and healthy. Conservatives tend to disagree with all of the above. They would usually encapsulate their views on sex as “supporting marriage” and they would describe this collection of liberal attitudes as “attacking marriage.” In short, conservatives think that sex is not a purely private matter and that society as a whole should exercise some measure of control over the sexual behavior of individuals. Hard line conservatives want standards of sexual conduct enforced with legal sanctions. Liberal individualism about sex is seen as promotion of selfishness that is destructive to a healthy social order. Conservatives see a social order breaking down with harmful effects on everyone. Leaving individuals completely “free” to pursue their own sexual happiness leads to the destruction of the familial relations which are the essential to the health of society and ultimately to the happiness of individuals themselves. The search for sexual gratification unrestricted by social sanctions of any kind paradoxically leads to individual misery.
When it comes to money conservatives think that liberals are not individualistic enough. Here the key word is not “marriage” but “socialism.” Liberals want the government to be active in solving some of society’s problems. Government should place restrictions of business to protect the environment from degradation, to protect workers from discrimination based on sex or race, to protect consumers from dangerous and defective products. They want society to support healthcare, education, and public transportation. Liberals recognize that all this costs money and see nothing wrong with taxing the rich to pay for it. When it comes to money, conservatives think, individuals should do whatever they want and the public needs to back off. Taxes should be low and rates should not be higher for the wealthy. People should pay for their own medical care and for the educational needs of their own children. If they feel their employer is discriminating against them, they should quit and find a new job. Consumers should protect themselves by researching products before they buy them. And finally, the threat that unrestricted business activity poses to the environment is wildly exaggerated.
Looking at society from the liberal point of view reverses all this as if looking into a mirror. Conservative resistance to “socialism” is a sign of selfish individualism which blinds itself to public good. Economic activity is too important to be left to unrestricted free markets. Laissez faire capitalism would naturally destroy our natural environment, reduce the middle class to poverty, and ultimately destroy itself by collecting more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands. Common sense demands a measure of public control of economic activity because completely “free” economic activity leads to moral disaster. On the sexual side of things, conservatives lack respect for individuals and their power to make choices unconstrained by society. The conservative sneer at “socialism” in economic matters is paralleled here by the liberal sneer at the “Puritanism” of conservatives.
The Red/Blue divide thus takes the shape of a disagreement about where to draw the line between public and private. Liberals want sexual relations to be purely private but think there should be a larger measure of public control of economic relations. Conservatives believe that society must support marriage and exert some measure of control over personal sexual behavior but that society should never interfere with “capitalistic acts between consenting adults.” Both sides see themselves as being unbending defenders of freedom where they think such freedom is appropriate and as being sensible opponents of due restraint where they think that such “freedom” is actually selfish irresponsibility.
In 1982 MacIntyre described our modern situation as a desolate one in which people could not reason with each other about what was right and what was wrong and instead could only express their anger and engage in ruthless political maneuvering to achieve their own favored ends. Now that we are in the second decade of the 21st century the modern situation looks even more like this than it did in 1982. Few, very few, liberals will actually make a serious attempt to argue that unrestricted sexual behavior will actually promote the well-being of society. Generally this is simply assumed and those who disagree are sneered at. Few, very few, conservatives will actually make a serious attempt to argue that the invisible hand of the marketplace solves all problems in the long run. Generally the mere use of the label “socialism” is considered enough of an argument.
Pity the poor moderate who seeks compromise and gets sneered at by both sides.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Teaching to students with disabilities
What has been your experience teaching to deaf and hard-of-hearing students?
A little background:
I will be teaching at RIT starting next week, and a significant part of the RIT culture is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. 9 out of the 75 students currently signed up for my courses are in the NTID; in orientation we've already been given some preliminary tips on how to integrate these students into the class, and of course there are many other resources available at RIT.
That said, in my decade plus of teaching, I've only had one deaf student, and it was a mixed experience for me. I got used to having a translator in the classroom, and had positive interactions with the student in and out of class. However, her written work seemed limited by the grammar of ASL, and I worried that my lectures never quite made it through translation (admittedly, she should have been able to keep up through the required reading).
Do you have any positive (or negative) experiences you'd be willing to share?
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Avatar and Philosophy
The idea of modern European/American people “going native” is not new. At first it was overwhelmingly viewed as a very bad thing. As far back as the 17th century the Pope worried that the missionaries he had sent to covert the Chinese were becoming Chinese instead. After James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans Americans devoured horror stories about white women being forced to go native. In the 19th century the British worried about officers and men stationed too long in India losing their British identity and this is a theme in some of Kipling’s tales. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) depicts going native in Africa as a horrifying descent into madness and evil. At some point in the 20th century the tide shifted and “going native” started to seem appealing rather than appalling. Dancing with Wolves depicts a white American shifting loyalty from American culture to the Lakota as something positive. In 2010 Avatar takes the going native theme and transports it into a beautiful science fiction setting and becomes the most popular movie of all times. Is this merely due to the stunning visual effects or did the movie make the idea of going native hypnotically appealing?
In Avatar Jake, a paraplegic ex-Marine is feeling useless and abandoned in an ugly world. The world of 2154 in which Jake lives is much like ours but darker, dirtier and nastier. Nature has been all but completely destroyed and human relationships are coarse, violent and exploitive. Medical science has the ability to heal Jake and let him walk again but society won’t pay for the operation. Jake has been left by society to fend for himself and he’s not doing very well. Jake shows no trace of anger or rebelliousness at his treatment by society. His whole attitude and demeanor is that of hopelessness. Jake is offered a chance to pay for the operation and get his legs back by taking his brother’s place in an expedition to an alien world. The organization that hires Jake has tremendous resources at its disposal and pursues its economic ends with unblinking ruthlessness. His mission is to infiltrate the alien culture and get them to sell their natural resources in exchange for modern consumer goods. But the Na’vi do not like the deal. They prefer to live simple lives in harmony with each other and with the animals and plants that make up their natural environment. They do not want to be like us. They don’t want to trade their forest homes for Ipods. Jake is stranded among the natives. They don’t like Jake but they take him in. They live in harmony with nature and with each other. Jake comes to feel that that this simple natural life is better than the world he left behind. A moment of crisis arrives and Jake finds his loyalties have firmly switched to his new people. There is a climactic battle in which the Na’vi win and a conclusion in which Jake abandons his human body and permanently becomes an alien.
The movie appeals to so many because so many feel like Jake does at the beginning of the story. He feels as though he’s been used and abandoned by a grimy, violent, uncaring society. Jake sees no reason to hope that things will get better for himself or for society as a whole. Life is hard and business is business. Nothing, not nature or the feelings of sensitive people, is going to interfere with the juggernaut of modern civilization. Mother Nature and poor little Jake are powerless. Resistance, shall we say, is futile. In the movie Jake escapes from the bleakness of modern life and finds love, harmony and right order among the Na’vi. The feel-good victory of Mother Nature depicted in the film is exposed as fantasy by the time the moviegoer gets to the parking lot to drive home. You are not on Pandora and there’s no way back. We told you that resistance was futile. Little wonder that some moviegoers felt depressed in the weeks following the movie.
Why is any of this of interest to a philosopher? Because it is evidence that many people feel something is deeply wrong with modern society and the lives it encourages us to live. Things are not in right order. If there is a deep dissatisfaction with the way things are then this is a call to philosophers to think deeply about how things should be.
In Avatar Jake, a paraplegic ex-Marine is feeling useless and abandoned in an ugly world. The world of 2154 in which Jake lives is much like ours but darker, dirtier and nastier. Nature has been all but completely destroyed and human relationships are coarse, violent and exploitive. Medical science has the ability to heal Jake and let him walk again but society won’t pay for the operation. Jake has been left by society to fend for himself and he’s not doing very well. Jake shows no trace of anger or rebelliousness at his treatment by society. His whole attitude and demeanor is that of hopelessness. Jake is offered a chance to pay for the operation and get his legs back by taking his brother’s place in an expedition to an alien world. The organization that hires Jake has tremendous resources at its disposal and pursues its economic ends with unblinking ruthlessness. His mission is to infiltrate the alien culture and get them to sell their natural resources in exchange for modern consumer goods. But the Na’vi do not like the deal. They prefer to live simple lives in harmony with each other and with the animals and plants that make up their natural environment. They do not want to be like us. They don’t want to trade their forest homes for Ipods. Jake is stranded among the natives. They don’t like Jake but they take him in. They live in harmony with nature and with each other. Jake comes to feel that that this simple natural life is better than the world he left behind. A moment of crisis arrives and Jake finds his loyalties have firmly switched to his new people. There is a climactic battle in which the Na’vi win and a conclusion in which Jake abandons his human body and permanently becomes an alien.
The movie appeals to so many because so many feel like Jake does at the beginning of the story. He feels as though he’s been used and abandoned by a grimy, violent, uncaring society. Jake sees no reason to hope that things will get better for himself or for society as a whole. Life is hard and business is business. Nothing, not nature or the feelings of sensitive people, is going to interfere with the juggernaut of modern civilization. Mother Nature and poor little Jake are powerless. Resistance, shall we say, is futile. In the movie Jake escapes from the bleakness of modern life and finds love, harmony and right order among the Na’vi. The feel-good victory of Mother Nature depicted in the film is exposed as fantasy by the time the moviegoer gets to the parking lot to drive home. You are not on Pandora and there’s no way back. We told you that resistance was futile. Little wonder that some moviegoers felt depressed in the weeks following the movie.
Why is any of this of interest to a philosopher? Because it is evidence that many people feel something is deeply wrong with modern society and the lives it encourages us to live. Things are not in right order. If there is a deep dissatisfaction with the way things are then this is a call to philosophers to think deeply about how things should be.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Summing Up
The course is over. It's been an exhausting five and a half weeks. I won't post any more on this since there seems to be no interest in discussing how to teach basic intro. This disappoints me since I think it is in some ways the most important course any of us teach.
I think that my efforts to tie the core areas of epistemology and metaphysics to ethics was a success. My students, at least the better ones, saw the connection and it made epistemology seem meaningful and not farfetched. The key was building the whole course around Glaucon's question to Socrates in the Republic: "how then, shall we live?" Only the most unthinking person fails to understand and appreciate the force of this question. It is the question that fired my interest over forty years ago when I first stumbled upon philosophy and I find that returning to it and making it the center of my intro course is the most honest and direct way of making the case for why students should devote at least a little serious thought to abstract and difficult ideas.
What's wrong with professional philosophy in general and analytic philosophy in particular is that most professional philosophers now look down their noses at such a "juvenile" and "unprofessional" way of looking at philosophy. I cannot disagree more with this kind of elitism. Philosophy that strays too far from this root is merely self-indulgent sophistry.
I think that my efforts to tie the core areas of epistemology and metaphysics to ethics was a success. My students, at least the better ones, saw the connection and it made epistemology seem meaningful and not farfetched. The key was building the whole course around Glaucon's question to Socrates in the Republic: "how then, shall we live?" Only the most unthinking person fails to understand and appreciate the force of this question. It is the question that fired my interest over forty years ago when I first stumbled upon philosophy and I find that returning to it and making it the center of my intro course is the most honest and direct way of making the case for why students should devote at least a little serious thought to abstract and difficult ideas.
What's wrong with professional philosophy in general and analytic philosophy in particular is that most professional philosophers now look down their noses at such a "juvenile" and "unprofessional" way of looking at philosophy. I cannot disagree more with this kind of elitism. Philosophy that strays too far from this root is merely self-indulgent sophistry.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Midpoint in the course
We have reached the midpoint of summer school. It's too soon to say whether my experiment of trying to emphasize the connection of metaphysics to ethics will spark more interest latter on because I haven't hit Descartes yet. When discussing Aristotle I stressed that his view of happiness is directly tied to his view of human nature and that what human nature really is does not seem to be merely a matter of opinion but rather some kind of objective fact. I think I was successful in getting them to see Aristotle's view of ethics as a live option for them. I don't think they see him as just another "dead white guy."
I introduce Epicureanism by comparing it with Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism represents a theory about human life that is both more radical and more negative than Epicureanism but extremely similar in its motivations.
A couple of highlights: "A stomach can be full but a bank account is never full." worked well as an illustration of the Epicurean doctrine about the difference between natural and socially conditioned desires. My comparison of Epicureans to potheads drew some smiles of recognition in my students.
I tried to show that these ideas are not locked into the past by briefly discussing Mill's attempts to answer the standard objections to Epicureanism a thousand years later. I also spoke about the paradox of hedonism and its possible connection with Mill's depression. "Since pleasure is the by-product of pursuing other goods when you desire pleasure itself you cut the ground from under your own feet. Pleasure become impossible."
I can say that I have at least a few students who seem intensely interested in the course thus far. Naturally there are also those who are obviously just taking the course to pick up a humanities credit and want nothing more than that. I'll have a better sense of how much this is sinking into their minds when I grade the midterm tomorrow.
I introduce Epicureanism by comparing it with Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism represents a theory about human life that is both more radical and more negative than Epicureanism but extremely similar in its motivations.
A couple of highlights: "A stomach can be full but a bank account is never full." worked well as an illustration of the Epicurean doctrine about the difference between natural and socially conditioned desires. My comparison of Epicureans to potheads drew some smiles of recognition in my students.
I tried to show that these ideas are not locked into the past by briefly discussing Mill's attempts to answer the standard objections to Epicureanism a thousand years later. I also spoke about the paradox of hedonism and its possible connection with Mill's depression. "Since pleasure is the by-product of pursuing other goods when you desire pleasure itself you cut the ground from under your own feet. Pleasure become impossible."
I can say that I have at least a few students who seem intensely interested in the course thus far. Naturally there are also those who are obviously just taking the course to pick up a humanities credit and want nothing more than that. I'll have a better sense of how much this is sinking into their minds when I grade the midterm tomorrow.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Revising Intro
I start summer school next week and one of the two courses I'm doing is Intro again. I want to change the structure slightly in order to maximize what went well and minimize what didn't.
What went well was the first half of the course where I concentrated on value issues as they arise in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans. The students saw the point of thinking about the nature of the good life and could understand and mostly appreciate the different perspectives offered. But when I switched away from ethics to metaphysics and epistemology with Descartes and Berkeley, they lost most of their interest.
I'm going to try to correct this by tieing the metaphysics and epistemology to the ethics. Ethics will continue to be the foundation but then I plan to point out that what kind of universe we inhabit makes a difference to what kind of life it is sensible to live. The epicureans are materialists and their hedonism makes sense from that perspective. The Stoics take a more spiritual view of reality and their insistence that virtue is necessary and sufficient for happiness makes sense from that perspective. So, making a rational choice between Epicureanism and Stoicism would require figuring out if the world was fundamentally spiritual or material. Now when we ask: how do the Stoics know that the world is fundamentally spiritual skepticism takes on a more practical aspect.
Concretely I plan to bounce around from one philosopher to another much more than I did in the Spring. I want to show the students how all the particular topics covered in philosophy are interrelated and form part of one BIG conversation.
This is a somewhat risky strategy. Bouncing around too much may look more chaotic and less unified if I don't do it well. But if I do it right, it should produce a greater sense of unity.
I plan to post a few comments to report how this is going and if there seems to be any interest I will continue posting comments.
What went well was the first half of the course where I concentrated on value issues as they arise in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans. The students saw the point of thinking about the nature of the good life and could understand and mostly appreciate the different perspectives offered. But when I switched away from ethics to metaphysics and epistemology with Descartes and Berkeley, they lost most of their interest.
I'm going to try to correct this by tieing the metaphysics and epistemology to the ethics. Ethics will continue to be the foundation but then I plan to point out that what kind of universe we inhabit makes a difference to what kind of life it is sensible to live. The epicureans are materialists and their hedonism makes sense from that perspective. The Stoics take a more spiritual view of reality and their insistence that virtue is necessary and sufficient for happiness makes sense from that perspective. So, making a rational choice between Epicureanism and Stoicism would require figuring out if the world was fundamentally spiritual or material. Now when we ask: how do the Stoics know that the world is fundamentally spiritual skepticism takes on a more practical aspect.
Concretely I plan to bounce around from one philosopher to another much more than I did in the Spring. I want to show the students how all the particular topics covered in philosophy are interrelated and form part of one BIG conversation.
This is a somewhat risky strategy. Bouncing around too much may look more chaotic and less unified if I don't do it well. But if I do it right, it should produce a greater sense of unity.
I plan to post a few comments to report how this is going and if there seems to be any interest I will continue posting comments.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
MLK National Memorial
I've been asked to post some links about the effort to build a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is the sort of project that Quakers tend to support, and several members of my meeting (Roanoke Monthly Meeting) have been talking about Dr. King this month, the 42nd anniversary of his death and 43rd anniversary of his declaration of opposition to the war in Viet Nam. However, I don't have much to add beyond providing a couple links with resources both about Dr. King and the proposed memorial.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The fault, dear Brutus, ...
The course has not gone as well since I left classical philosophy and started on the modern period. I continued to relate the issues to contemporary times, but this didn't seem to have much effect. I think the main thing is the switch from a focus on ethics and the good life to epistemology and metaphysics. It just doesn't grab them in the same way. Is the external world composed of material objects having primary qualities that affect our senses with color and sound? Or is the external world composed of sensible objects that consist of patterns of ideas caused by God? My students don't care.
When we find something interesting it is hard to understand why someone else would not find it so. The temptation is to assume that the person is disinterested because they just don't understand it. Many philosophers give in to the temptation of thinking this but it seems self-serving and false to me. As a side note did you see the piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed by a philosopher bemoaning the fact that philosophy has become marginalized. The possibility that we are doing something wrong is not considered. It is assumed that people are just too lazy to make the effort to read what we write. I don't buy this explanation.
Ethics, at least ancient ethics, still engages the interest of contemporary Americans when it is well-presented. But equally well-presented discussions of modern epistemology and metaphysics do not.
At the moment I don't have an answer to the question that interests me in all of this: what kind of epistemology and metaphysics would interest people now? Any suggestions?
When we find something interesting it is hard to understand why someone else would not find it so. The temptation is to assume that the person is disinterested because they just don't understand it. Many philosophers give in to the temptation of thinking this but it seems self-serving and false to me. As a side note did you see the piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed by a philosopher bemoaning the fact that philosophy has become marginalized. The possibility that we are doing something wrong is not considered. It is assumed that people are just too lazy to make the effort to read what we write. I don't buy this explanation.
Ethics, at least ancient ethics, still engages the interest of contemporary Americans when it is well-presented. But equally well-presented discussions of modern epistemology and metaphysics do not.
At the moment I don't have an answer to the question that interests me in all of this: what kind of epistemology and metaphysics would interest people now? Any suggestions?
Thursday, March 18, 2010
update on Intro class
I haven't posted about the Intro class in a couple of weeks because I have been distracted by working on the truth paper. But now that the paper is practically done, I will resume updates.
Today's class didn't go well. The reason seems pretty clear to me. I got news last night that a friend of mine has cancer and the news doesn't look good. This has been on my mind and I'm sure it affected my mood and classroom demeanor. I just couldn't be as energetic and upbeat as I normally am. It really seems to me that it affected the students. They tried to engage in discussion but it seemed flat. Nothing felt right.
Unfortunately I can't just choose to feel upbeat and optimistic under the circumstances. And knowing that I hadn't done a good job teaching today just made me feel worse. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have just told my students what had happened and how it was affecting me. I would hesitate to get that personal with my students. I fear it would almost sound like I was asking for their sympathy. So I don't know what I should have done. I think I just have to accept that sometimes class isn't going to go well for reasons beyond my control.
Today's class didn't go well. The reason seems pretty clear to me. I got news last night that a friend of mine has cancer and the news doesn't look good. This has been on my mind and I'm sure it affected my mood and classroom demeanor. I just couldn't be as energetic and upbeat as I normally am. It really seems to me that it affected the students. They tried to engage in discussion but it seemed flat. Nothing felt right.
Unfortunately I can't just choose to feel upbeat and optimistic under the circumstances. And knowing that I hadn't done a good job teaching today just made me feel worse. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have just told my students what had happened and how it was affecting me. I would hesitate to get that personal with my students. I fear it would almost sound like I was asking for their sympathy. So I don't know what I should have done. I think I just have to accept that sometimes class isn't going to go well for reasons beyond my control.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Paper on Truth
I finished my paper on truth this afternoon (thanks to Spring Break). I plan to let it sit awhile before rereading it to see what I'm missing or messing up. At the moment it doesn't contain any notes or references, I suppose it will take me another day of work to insert them, but I did want to keep it rather informal so that it could be read by a wider audience than just professional philosophers.
I'd like to share it with any interested Quaker philosophers. I'll email it to you if you want it.
I'd like to share it with any interested Quaker philosophers. I'll email it to you if you want it.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
More on Truth
OK, here's a new paragraph. Does this sound fair and reasonable?
Moreover, when concerned people looked at inequality it seemed to be no temporary or accidental phenomenon. Inequality seemed to be deliberately maintained by those who profited from it. The powerful kept control of society in part by the use of crude physical violence but also, and more importantly, by control of information. John Stuart Mill had argued that the free flow of information and the interplay of rational argument would ensure that in the long-run the truth would emerge victorious over falsehood and superstition. On the contrary, in the 20th century people began to argue that what emerged as victorious in the marketplace of ideas were the ideas that had the backing of the moneyed classes. Wealth and not the objective worth of arguments determined what books were published and how many copies; what movies were produced and where they were distributed; etc. The world-picture painted by mass education, mass entertainment and mass communications seemed deliberately designed and controlled to justify existing inequalities. Wealth is the natural result of hard work. So the explanation of poverty is laziness. Thus, the rich deserve to be rich and poor deserve to be poor. This is the picture that the rich ensure is overwhelmingly reinforced in popular culture as being the truth. If the Enlightenment represented a new cosmopolitan faith, then the history of the 20th century represented a crisis of faith. Recognizing that the powerful manipulate ideas to protect their interests is enough to give truth a bad name. Thus, the most radical postmodern response is to reject the most central notion of the Enlightenment: truth itself.
Moreover, when concerned people looked at inequality it seemed to be no temporary or accidental phenomenon. Inequality seemed to be deliberately maintained by those who profited from it. The powerful kept control of society in part by the use of crude physical violence but also, and more importantly, by control of information. John Stuart Mill had argued that the free flow of information and the interplay of rational argument would ensure that in the long-run the truth would emerge victorious over falsehood and superstition. On the contrary, in the 20th century people began to argue that what emerged as victorious in the marketplace of ideas were the ideas that had the backing of the moneyed classes. Wealth and not the objective worth of arguments determined what books were published and how many copies; what movies were produced and where they were distributed; etc. The world-picture painted by mass education, mass entertainment and mass communications seemed deliberately designed and controlled to justify existing inequalities. Wealth is the natural result of hard work. So the explanation of poverty is laziness. Thus, the rich deserve to be rich and poor deserve to be poor. This is the picture that the rich ensure is overwhelmingly reinforced in popular culture as being the truth. If the Enlightenment represented a new cosmopolitan faith, then the history of the 20th century represented a crisis of faith. Recognizing that the powerful manipulate ideas to protect their interests is enough to give truth a bad name. Thus, the most radical postmodern response is to reject the most central notion of the Enlightenment: truth itself.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Postmodernism
I would really appreciate some reaction to these four sentences on postmodernism. As you know I'm an Analytic guy so I'm struggling to understand postmodernism. If these four sentences aren't on the right track then I may just have to give up.
We live in a postmodern age and what this means is that there is a consensus that the intellectual synthesis that was the Enlightenment is no longer acceptable and must be replaced. But the consensus does not go much farther than that. The Enlightenment is a complex phenomenon and the debate does not become substantive and interesting until we have identified which elements of the complex we intend to reject and what we intend to offer in their place. The Enlightenment variously stood for many things: laissez faire capitalism, democracy, human rights, the scientific method, individualism, mass education, free speech, cosmopolitanism and progress.
We live in a postmodern age and what this means is that there is a consensus that the intellectual synthesis that was the Enlightenment is no longer acceptable and must be replaced. But the consensus does not go much farther than that. The Enlightenment is a complex phenomenon and the debate does not become substantive and interesting until we have identified which elements of the complex we intend to reject and what we intend to offer in their place. The Enlightenment variously stood for many things: laissez faire capitalism, democracy, human rights, the scientific method, individualism, mass education, free speech, cosmopolitanism and progress.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Stoics, Epicureans and Buddhists
I haven't been keeping up with reports on Intro lately so here's a quick update.
The essay exams took me approximately nine hours to grade. It got pretty tedious towards the end. They did pretty well though and that's encouraging.
Since then I have been talking about late classical philosophy. I introduced it will a quick synopsis of the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism. The similarity as I see it is that original Buddhism is rather like Stoicism and Epicureanism in that 1) the goal is ataraxia and 2) there is an analysis of human psychology that leads to conclusions about how we should pursue it.
I do the Epicureans first and central to my account of them is the distinction between moving pleasure and static pleasure. A cat sitting contentedly on a sunny windowsill while I go to work embodies static pleasure. I summarize the Epicurean preference for static pleasure as the advice to "be the cat." Then I ask them to imagine trying to follow this philosophy today. They would drop out of school, get a job at Starbucks, and find a cheap apartment to live in with a couple close friends.
Next lecture I introduce the Stoics. They seem to like the idea of holding themselves to high moral standards while simultaneously not blaming other people for their behavior. I can see that a few of them really come to appreciate the Stoic philosophy.
The essay exams took me approximately nine hours to grade. It got pretty tedious towards the end. They did pretty well though and that's encouraging.
Since then I have been talking about late classical philosophy. I introduced it will a quick synopsis of the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism. The similarity as I see it is that original Buddhism is rather like Stoicism and Epicureanism in that 1) the goal is ataraxia and 2) there is an analysis of human psychology that leads to conclusions about how we should pursue it.
I do the Epicureans first and central to my account of them is the distinction between moving pleasure and static pleasure. A cat sitting contentedly on a sunny windowsill while I go to work embodies static pleasure. I summarize the Epicurean preference for static pleasure as the advice to "be the cat." Then I ask them to imagine trying to follow this philosophy today. They would drop out of school, get a job at Starbucks, and find a cheap apartment to live in with a couple close friends.
Next lecture I introduce the Stoics. They seem to like the idea of holding themselves to high moral standards while simultaneously not blaming other people for their behavior. I can see that a few of them really come to appreciate the Stoic philosophy.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Plain-speaking vs. Oversimplification
What is the line between between being clear and simple (the Quakerly virtue of plain-speaking), and oversimplifying or being simplistic?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Incident Report
Below is a copy of an email exchange with student names deleted. To get the full flavor of this start reading from the bottom up. Do things like this happen where you teach?
From: McCarty, Richard
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 6:20 PM
To: Collins, John
Cc: Miller, Richard
Subject: RE: Student
John;
I'm taking care of this student--nothing administrative is required. In essence, the student has been absent from my 1175 for four weeks and I've agreed to meet with her and help her catch up. She could not be transferred to Richard's 1110--which she had been attending--because she had already taken 1110.
Yes, for four or five weeks she had been attending a class she had already passed, without realizing it. She even had bought the books for my class. So she obviously never attempted any reading assignments in Richard's class. She attended my class for the first time on Thursday, and sat on the back row with her laptop open. After I told her laptops were not allowed in my class she proceeded to read the newspaper. It became clear to me then how she could have attended for so long a class that she had already taken.
.RMc
From: Collins, JohnSent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 2:53 PMTo: Bailey, GeorgeCc: McCarty, Richard; Miller, RichardSubject: RE:
George,
I don’t know who the other confused student is. Richard, Rick: if there’s a second student, besides XXXXXXXX, who enrolled in Rick’s but attended Richard’s and who needs to have this fixed, please send the info to George so he can have the registrar fix both problems at once.
-John
From: Bailey, George Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 9:10 PMTo: Collins, JohnSubject: Re:
The second time? You mean we have to do another student as well? No problem, I hope, but if so, have someone get me the relevant info – better to do both at once if there are two.
And thanks.
George
From: "Collins, John" Subject: RE: Her name is XXXXXXX. She is enrolled in McCarty’s 1500 section 001 and has been attending Miller’s 1180 section 001 (both courses have just the one section). Same initials, same time, and the rooms were right next to each other. Richard tells me this is the second time this has happened this week. From: Bailey, George Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 5:32 PMTo: Collins, JohnSubject: Re: It would be better coming from me – what is the student name and banner id and what sections of those courses are involved?
Thanks,
George
From: "Collins, John"
George,
Yesterday I mentioned to you the philosophy student who was mistakenly enrolled in a different class than she was attending. Rick and Richard have both agreed to letting her into 1180 and out of 1500 (without a late drop). I’ll go ahead and explain it to the registrar and ask for what we want, unless you think it would be better coming from you. What do you think? (And should the email go to the registrar or to the special attention of any particular person there?)-
John
From: McCarty, Richard
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 6:20 PM
To: Collins, John
Cc: Miller, Richard
Subject: RE: Student
John;
I'm taking care of this student--nothing administrative is required. In essence, the student has been absent from my 1175 for four weeks and I've agreed to meet with her and help her catch up. She could not be transferred to Richard's 1110--which she had been attending--because she had already taken 1110.
Yes, for four or five weeks she had been attending a class she had already passed, without realizing it. She even had bought the books for my class. So she obviously never attempted any reading assignments in Richard's class. She attended my class for the first time on Thursday, and sat on the back row with her laptop open. After I told her laptops were not allowed in my class she proceeded to read the newspaper. It became clear to me then how she could have attended for so long a class that she had already taken.
.RMc
From: Collins, JohnSent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 2:53 PMTo: Bailey, GeorgeCc: McCarty, Richard; Miller, RichardSubject: RE:
George,
I don’t know who the other confused student is. Richard, Rick: if there’s a second student, besides XXXXXXXX, who enrolled in Rick’s but attended Richard’s and who needs to have this fixed, please send the info to George so he can have the registrar fix both problems at once.
-John
From: Bailey, George Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 9:10 PMTo: Collins, JohnSubject: Re:
The second time? You mean we have to do another student as well? No problem, I hope, but if so, have someone get me the relevant info – better to do both at once if there are two.
And thanks.
George
From: "Collins, John" Subject: RE: Her name is XXXXXXX. She is enrolled in McCarty’s 1500 section 001 and has been attending Miller’s 1180 section 001 (both courses have just the one section). Same initials, same time, and the rooms were right next to each other. Richard tells me this is the second time this has happened this week. From: Bailey, George Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 5:32 PMTo: Collins, JohnSubject: Re: It would be better coming from me – what is the student name and banner id and what sections of those courses are involved?
Thanks,
George
From: "Collins, John"
George,
Yesterday I mentioned to you the philosophy student who was mistakenly enrolled in a different class than she was attending. Rick and Richard have both agreed to letting her into 1180 and out of 1500 (without a late drop). I’ll go ahead and explain it to the registrar and ask for what we want, unless you think it would be better coming from you. What do you think? (And should the email go to the registrar or to the special attention of any particular person there?)-
John
Monday, February 8, 2010
Working on Truth Again
I'm working on my contribution to the anthology on truth that several of us are contributing too. I've read through what I wrote early on and through all the abstracts that Jafe sent to us. Now I am rereading the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu) on truth. This article is firmly in the Analytic tradition and it makes a lot of sense to me but what bothers me is that there is nothing in it about the postmodern views on truth.
The Stanford article provides what seems to me a perfectly clear and adequate summary of what Analytic philosophers have said about truth. Is there anything that does the same for the postmodern/continental crowd? I would feel better about writing this if I could read a brief clear summary of what the other side thinks about truth. I want to know what I am missing before I try to put my thoughts in final form.
The Stanford article provides what seems to me a perfectly clear and adequate summary of what Analytic philosophers have said about truth. Is there anything that does the same for the postmodern/continental crowd? I would feel better about writing this if I could read a brief clear summary of what the other side thinks about truth. I want to know what I am missing before I try to put my thoughts in final form.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Distributive Justice
I've been wondering why this class has been going so well. I am doing a couple of things differently, or more accurately I've changed my emphasis slightly. Could such subtle changes really make a significant difference?
Three small differences stand out to me. 1) I am consciously trying to emphasize the relevance of Plato and Aristotle to our lives today. I want the students to see that we are not studying Plato and Aristotle. We are reading them to study the topics they were interested in. 2) I am not trying to control the pacing of the lectures but rather allowing it to flow with the student discussion. If I don't get to something that I have in my notes which I had planned to talk about I don't make an effort to squeeze it in. I just drop it or leave it until later. 3) I am putting myself into the discussion more. After going through what can be said for and against a position, I tell them what I think. I also reveal little facts about me as a person--that I'm married, have grown kids, two dogs, etc. I just drop these facts into the lecture. I think they help them to see me as a three-dimensional person and not just a teaching machine.
In discussing distributive justice I did a quick compare and contrast of Aristotle's view with Nozick's and Rawls' theories. I ran this by them earlier but I sensed that they didn't fully see its relevance. So today I went through distributive justice again and tied it specifically to the million dollar bonuses being paid to the investment gurus who brought the world economy to its knees and had to be bailed out by Joe Taxpayer. It turned out to be another very successful class. I haven't covered as much material as I normally do by this point in the semester but the quality of the classroom discussion is much better than it normally is.
I give the first test next week and that will tell me more objectively how I am doing. If the tests are good, then I will be positively ecstatic about how the class is going. But if they do awful, it will really disappoint me. If anyone out there is following this, I'll keep you posted.
Three small differences stand out to me. 1) I am consciously trying to emphasize the relevance of Plato and Aristotle to our lives today. I want the students to see that we are not studying Plato and Aristotle. We are reading them to study the topics they were interested in. 2) I am not trying to control the pacing of the lectures but rather allowing it to flow with the student discussion. If I don't get to something that I have in my notes which I had planned to talk about I don't make an effort to squeeze it in. I just drop it or leave it until later. 3) I am putting myself into the discussion more. After going through what can be said for and against a position, I tell them what I think. I also reveal little facts about me as a person--that I'm married, have grown kids, two dogs, etc. I just drop these facts into the lecture. I think they help them to see me as a three-dimensional person and not just a teaching machine.
In discussing distributive justice I did a quick compare and contrast of Aristotle's view with Nozick's and Rawls' theories. I ran this by them earlier but I sensed that they didn't fully see its relevance. So today I went through distributive justice again and tied it specifically to the million dollar bonuses being paid to the investment gurus who brought the world economy to its knees and had to be bailed out by Joe Taxpayer. It turned out to be another very successful class. I haven't covered as much material as I normally do by this point in the semester but the quality of the classroom discussion is much better than it normally is.
I give the first test next week and that will tell me more objectively how I am doing. If the tests are good, then I will be positively ecstatic about how the class is going. But if they do awful, it will really disappoint me. If anyone out there is following this, I'll keep you posted.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Aristotle
The first class on Aristotle's ethics didn't go well. He's a harder read than Plato and I wasn't at my best. So for Thursday I just started over. I went back to the first sentence of NE. It worked very well second time through. I could tell the students were starting to get a sense of who Aristotle was. Second time through gave me the opportunity to offer fresh examples.
Aristotle's point that happiness is an activity is hard for the modern mind to grasp. We are so strongly inclined to think that happiness is a state of mind that we have trouble hearing this. I eased into this by talking about happiness as a product. Suppose someone thought that winning the Superbowl was happiness. Would looking at that Superbowl ring next week, next month, next year, ... really be the same? Then I talked about how good it feels to do something really well. This could be playing music for those with that kind of talent, or skiing if you are good at that. Excellent activity feels good but Aristotle doesn't identify happiness with the feeling. He thinks that the feeling is merely a by-product of the activity. So what we want is an excellent activity that we can sustain for a very long time.
At this point I felt my students really got what Aristotle was saying.
Aristotle's point that happiness is an activity is hard for the modern mind to grasp. We are so strongly inclined to think that happiness is a state of mind that we have trouble hearing this. I eased into this by talking about happiness as a product. Suppose someone thought that winning the Superbowl was happiness. Would looking at that Superbowl ring next week, next month, next year, ... really be the same? Then I talked about how good it feels to do something really well. This could be playing music for those with that kind of talent, or skiing if you are good at that. Excellent activity feels good but Aristotle doesn't identify happiness with the feeling. He thinks that the feeling is merely a by-product of the activity. So what we want is an excellent activity that we can sustain for a very long time.
At this point I felt my students really got what Aristotle was saying.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Socrates and Martin Luther King
Today we did the Crito, Plato's discussion of the just man's duty to respect the law. In the Apology Socrates makes a point of telling the jurors that he would never obey a law that ordered him to stop questioning and speaking his mind. Then when Crito asks him to accept help escaping from prison, he says that his respect for the law prevents this. How do you square the Socrates who must "obey the god rather than you" when it comes to unjust law with the law and order Socrates of the Crito? Since this lecture occurs on the heels of MLK Day this is a nice hook. Respect for the law in the Crito means "persuade or obey." The just man does not have an obligation simply to obey the law. His obligation is to respect the law. This means obey or "persuade". By engaging in what we have come to know as civil disobedience Socrates continues to persuade the Athenians. This kind of persuasion is different from the mere lawbreaking of the criminal. The civil disobedient 1) does this publicly and not in hiding, 2) nonviolently, and 3) willingly accepts the penalty for breaking the law.
This class has gone better than any class of mine in recent memory. Something I am doing differently is working.
This class has gone better than any class of mine in recent memory. Something I am doing differently is working.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Relativism
I taught the Apology today and discussed whether Socrates corrupted the youth. Socrates was connected in people's minds with the Sophists and many Athenians thought that the Sophists corrupted the youth. Why did they think so? One reason was that many of the Sophists taught some form of relativism. I explained that relativism itself is a very conservative philosophy. It says that right is whatever your society says is right. Making society's rules correct by definition is about as conservative as you can get. Nevertheless, relativism leads by a very natural train of thought to moral skepticism. If my society says that this is wrong and another society, with equal justification, says that it is right, then why should I take right and wrong seriously. I then took a quick pass through Macchiavelli and Neitzsche for some later examples of moral skepticism. Then I went bake to Socrates. There's no reason to actually think that
Socrates was a relativist.
Socrates is a critic of the moral standards of his society. He does not accept them as they stand. Does that make him a moral skeptic who rejects all moral standards or seeks to invert them as Nietzsche does? No, it is better to describe Socrates as one who thinks the moral standards of his society are too low. Socrates is a moral reformer; not a moral skeptic or nihilist.
So far things are going well. The students seem to get that what these old dead guys were talking about matters to us now.
Socrates was a relativist.
Socrates is a critic of the moral standards of his society. He does not accept them as they stand. Does that make him a moral skeptic who rejects all moral standards or seeks to invert them as Nietzsche does? No, it is better to describe Socrates as one who thinks the moral standards of his society are too low. Socrates is a moral reformer; not a moral skeptic or nihilist.
So far things are going well. The students seem to get that what these old dead guys were talking about matters to us now.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
new ideas for intro to philosophy
I am teaching intro to philosophy this semester and will be trying out some new-to-me ideas. If anyone seems interested I will post short reports on how the experiment is working.
I like to use classic texts. In the past I have lectured on each philosopher one by one. What I found I didn't like about this approach is that it fails to convey to the student that these texts are part of a dialogue that continues throughout history. So now I will be mixing it up more.
In the opening lecture I asked them what justice was and got a few attempted answers which I poked holes in. Then I presented them with William James' little example of the man chasing the squirrel around a tree. The squirrel always moves so that the tree trunk remains between him and the man. James says that the question: does the man go around the squirrel has a clear yes or no answer so long as you have a clear definition of "go around." I explained that much of what philosophers do is try to get clear definitions not of trivial stuff like "go around" but of important things like "justice." Then in the second lecture we began the Euthyphro and I showed them that Euthyphro was unclear about "piety" and that his problems were similar to some of the problems that arose in our discussion of "justice."
I explained the difficulty that people have with defining concepts this way. We learn most concepts my ostention. So we develop a bunch of examples in our heads. Most ordinary concepts seem to be nothing more than a montage of pictures in our heads. No wonder then that Euthyphro, when asked to define piety, just points to a couple of examples.
Students seemed to relate to the idea that ordinary concepts are a montage of pictures. Freedom is a flag waving, jets streaking overhead, a little kid saluting at a parade, etc. It is a good thing, I told them, that Thomas Jefferson had a clearer concept of freedom in his head when he sat down to write the Constitution. His clearer concept enabled him to thoughtfully design a form of government that would promote freedom.
So far the class seems to be going well.
I like to use classic texts. In the past I have lectured on each philosopher one by one. What I found I didn't like about this approach is that it fails to convey to the student that these texts are part of a dialogue that continues throughout history. So now I will be mixing it up more.
In the opening lecture I asked them what justice was and got a few attempted answers which I poked holes in. Then I presented them with William James' little example of the man chasing the squirrel around a tree. The squirrel always moves so that the tree trunk remains between him and the man. James says that the question: does the man go around the squirrel has a clear yes or no answer so long as you have a clear definition of "go around." I explained that much of what philosophers do is try to get clear definitions not of trivial stuff like "go around" but of important things like "justice." Then in the second lecture we began the Euthyphro and I showed them that Euthyphro was unclear about "piety" and that his problems were similar to some of the problems that arose in our discussion of "justice."
I explained the difficulty that people have with defining concepts this way. We learn most concepts my ostention. So we develop a bunch of examples in our heads. Most ordinary concepts seem to be nothing more than a montage of pictures in our heads. No wonder then that Euthyphro, when asked to define piety, just points to a couple of examples.
Students seemed to relate to the idea that ordinary concepts are a montage of pictures. Freedom is a flag waving, jets streaking overhead, a little kid saluting at a parade, etc. It is a good thing, I told them, that Thomas Jefferson had a clearer concept of freedom in his head when he sat down to write the Constitution. His clearer concept enabled him to thoughtfully design a form of government that would promote freedom.
So far the class seems to be going well.
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