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.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
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.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Deflationary Theories of Truth
I want our discussion of truth to continue because I will profit from hearing other points of view. So I'm going to post again on a view of truth (or perhaps it's better to call it a bunch of related theories about truth) that is genuinely contemporary. In addition it spans the Analytic/Continental divide.
Deflationary theories of truth say that truth doesn't really mean anything at all. It is a word that has a function,but it's function is not to describe the statements or beliefs being called "true". Minimally a deflationary theory can claim that to say "What Mary said was true" is just to repeat what Mary said in fewer words. So "true" is just a kind of abbreviation, the way that I will use a pronoun. As in when I say a person's name in my first sentence and then use "he" or "she" instead of the name.
This simple deflationary view has its good points. "True" does seem to work like this to some extent at least. A related theory says that we use "true" to mean "warranted assertibility." So what I really when when I say "That's true" is "we have good reason to believe or say so." Again to some extent "true" seems to work like this.
However, this doesn't seem right to me. Having a good reason to believe p implies, it me at least, that p is probably true. Moreover, I sometimes use true in circumstances that seem to definitely not mean "warranted assertibility." For example, I would say it might be true that intelligent aliens are observing human civilization right now. I don't mean that I might have adequate evidence to say this. I think the correspondance notion is at the core of what I am saying here. I think those aliens might be out there doing this totally undetectable by me.
Similarly for the "ditto" version of truth. When I would repeat what Mary said I do so because I think what she said was true. The presumption that people normally use assertive sentences only when they believe that the propositional content of those sentence is true is what makes "true" work like "ditto."
On the continental side it appears that deflationary theories often take on a "speaking truth to power" tone. "True" is used by the powerful to silence the powerless. It is "true" that capitalism is good for society just means "shut up, we are not going to redistribute the wealth!"
I agree that the powerful bully the powerless. I agree that the powerful have a disproportionate amount of control over sources of information and what gets said and what views are taken seriously. I see that power is used unjustly. But I am not convinced that it's a good theory of truth to say that the function of "true" is to silence the voice of the poor.
My reason for not going along with this is similar to my reason for rejecting the Analytic deflationary theories--I don't think they would work this way if there were not a correspondance notion of truth at the core. Imagine this. Rush Limbaugh or
Bill O'Reilly is shouting down someone who says that the rich don't pay enough in taxes. Instead of saying "That's not true!" he says "That offends the rich!" It just wouldn't work. To have any plausibility Rush or Bill must at least be claiming that there are objective facts on their side. To just nakedly say "I dislike what you are saying" falls flat.
So I'm saying that the rich do oppress the poor and that they use the word "true" as part of this, but that these facts can't be the basis of the theory of what "true" means.
Deflationary theories of truth say that truth doesn't really mean anything at all. It is a word that has a function,but it's function is not to describe the statements or beliefs being called "true". Minimally a deflationary theory can claim that to say "What Mary said was true" is just to repeat what Mary said in fewer words. So "true" is just a kind of abbreviation, the way that I will use a pronoun. As in when I say a person's name in my first sentence and then use "he" or "she" instead of the name.
This simple deflationary view has its good points. "True" does seem to work like this to some extent at least. A related theory says that we use "true" to mean "warranted assertibility." So what I really when when I say "That's true" is "we have good reason to believe or say so." Again to some extent "true" seems to work like this.
However, this doesn't seem right to me. Having a good reason to believe p implies, it me at least, that p is probably true. Moreover, I sometimes use true in circumstances that seem to definitely not mean "warranted assertibility." For example, I would say it might be true that intelligent aliens are observing human civilization right now. I don't mean that I might have adequate evidence to say this. I think the correspondance notion is at the core of what I am saying here. I think those aliens might be out there doing this totally undetectable by me.
Similarly for the "ditto" version of truth. When I would repeat what Mary said I do so because I think what she said was true. The presumption that people normally use assertive sentences only when they believe that the propositional content of those sentence is true is what makes "true" work like "ditto."
On the continental side it appears that deflationary theories often take on a "speaking truth to power" tone. "True" is used by the powerful to silence the powerless. It is "true" that capitalism is good for society just means "shut up, we are not going to redistribute the wealth!"
I agree that the powerful bully the powerless. I agree that the powerful have a disproportionate amount of control over sources of information and what gets said and what views are taken seriously. I see that power is used unjustly. But I am not convinced that it's a good theory of truth to say that the function of "true" is to silence the voice of the poor.
My reason for not going along with this is similar to my reason for rejecting the Analytic deflationary theories--I don't think they would work this way if there were not a correspondance notion of truth at the core. Imagine this. Rush Limbaugh or
Bill O'Reilly is shouting down someone who says that the rich don't pay enough in taxes. Instead of saying "That's not true!" he says "That offends the rich!" It just wouldn't work. To have any plausibility Rush or Bill must at least be claiming that there are objective facts on their side. To just nakedly say "I dislike what you are saying" falls flat.
So I'm saying that the rich do oppress the poor and that they use the word "true" as part of this, but that these facts can't be the basis of the theory of what "true" means.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Theories of Truth
In my studies, I learned that there are three major philosophical theories of truth:
- The correspondence theory of truth = truth is what corresponds with reality.
- The coherence theory of truth = truth is what coheres with other well-established beliefs.
- The pragmatic theory of truth = truth is what "works."
- "Truth" is merely an invention of those in power, used to maintain their power. (They use claims to truth to bully others into submission.)
- Truth is a matter of individual determination. We each make beliefs true (for ourselves) by believing in them. (Relativism.)
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