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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.