Up@dawn 2.0

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Saving the Lost Art of Conversation

The art of conversation is what CoPhi is all about.
The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.
"Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Sherry Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”
Occasional dullness, in other words, is to be not only expected, but celebrated... 
Saving the Lost Art of Conversation - Megan Garber - The Atlantic

And here's why I don't like the traditional classroom seating arrangement.
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Saturday, December 14, 2013

Death to the Syllabus!

Looking ahead to the next first day of class, and a new syllabus for 2014...
"It is time to declare war on the traditional course syllabus. If there is one single artifact that pinpoints the degradation of liberal education, it is the rule-infested, punitive, controlling syllabus that is handed out to students on the first day of class. 
I have seen long and highly detailed syllabi that carefully lay out rules for attendance, punctuality, extra credit, grades, and penalties for missing deadlines, as well as detailed writing assignment requirements that specify page and word length, spacing, margins, and even font style and size. The syllabi use boldface, underlining, italics, and exclamation points for added emphasis; the net effect is that of the teacher yelling at the student..."  Liberal Education | Fall 2007 | Death to the Syllabus!
Stay tuned.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

2 Page Paper in Lieu of Exam: Michael Anderson

Anderson, Michael T.
Honors Introduction to Philosophy
12/10/2013
Two Page Essay in Lieu of Third Exam
              "Peter Singer represents the very best tradition in philosophy. He is constantly challenging widely held assumptions. His philosophy affects how he lives, and when he disagrees with other people he is always prepared to challenge the opinions of those he finds around him, to engage in public discussion."
            This passage from A Little History of Philosophy gives praise to Peter Singer, whom the text labels as “…one of the best-known living philosophers.” Singer is also an outspoken advocate of charity and aid to impoverished countries, and a controversial figure due to his support of assisted suicide. This support has made him unpopular in some circles, with a few individuals going as far as to call him a Nazi. Singer first gained popularity in the seventies with Animal Liberation, in which he argues for the need to take animal suffering seriously. He shares this view with Jeremy Bentham, who was the first to argue for it in the nineteenth century.
            Like Bentham, Singer is a consequentialist; they believe “…that the best action is the one that produces the best result.” In order to work out the best result, consequentialists state that “…we need to take into account what is in the best interests of all concerned, including the interests of animals.” Singer argues that animals have the same capacity to feel pain as humans do.  He as even coined the term ‘speciesist’, and the text likens being a speciesist to being racist or sexist. Singer also advocates the vegetarian lifestyle, and has even printed a vegetarian recipe in one of his books.
            The text highlights Singer’s approach to moral questions and its overall consistency, i.e. treating similar cases in a similar way. It then points out the consistency in his stance on animal pain and his stance on human pain. The text likens Singer to Socrates, because of his risky public statements and standing behind his beliefs despite death threats. It highlights the support he gives to his reasoned arguments with well-researched facts and his sincerity as a philosopher. Finally, the text reminds us that philosophy thrives on debate, and calls Singer a modern-day gadfly that will carry on the spirit of Socrates in philosophy.
            I agree with the passage for the most part. It seems that Singer is a figure who’s not afraid to go against the grain and challenge preconceived notions. From what I can tell, he applies his philosophy to his life i.e. his vegetarian lifestyle. Singer seems like a person who is not afraid to disagree with other people and doesn’t seem like a person who shies away from debate. From what I have seen Singer has often taken place in public discussion and is an advocate of it.
            I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that Singer carries on Socrates’s philosophical spirit. His method of challenging widely held assumptions and asking questions for the purpose of sparking public debate is very similar to what Socrates did in his day. Singer in this sense is indeed a modern-day gadfly. He seems like a man who stands behind his beliefs, and who is well-prepared to defend them.   I agree with the text that philosophy thrives on debate; it would be a boring world if everyone agreed with each other.
            I think that if someone disagrees with Singer’s views or anyone else’s views for that matter, it can’t hurt to at least try and see where the opposite side is coming from.
Bibliography

Warburton, Nigel. A Little History of Philosophy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012. Print.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Peter Singer on the radio

Driving to Memphis yesterday to fetch Older Daughter home, I tuned in to 90.3 and caught Peter Singer on "On Point," talking about the same things we were at CoPhi's conclusion last week. A very interesting hour worth hearing, giving us all (as Singer says at the end) much to think about. And act on. 'Tis the season.
“Singer tells his students that though almost anyone would dive in to save a drowning child, Americans eschew giving to the world’s most desperately poor—including the 19,000 children dying every day of sheer poverty-related causes—even though it is well within our means to help. By failing to do so, Singer claims, we cannot consider ourselves to be living a ‘morally good life.’” The Atlantic: Giving 101: The Princeton Class That Teaches Students to Be Less Selfish
"The Life You Can Save" website... How much should you give?

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Free Oxford podcasts

As I said on the last day of class, I hope you don't consider it your last day of philosophizing. Here's one way to continue:
When someone develops an interest in philosophy, good luck trying to keep them away from it. They’ll find the stuff anywhere. These days, the internet makes possible such wide and instantaneous dissemination of philosophical materials that you literally can find it anywhere. (Take for example our list of 75 Free Philosophy Courses from Great Universities.) With developments in internet media, even the biggest institutional players in philosophy have joined in. The appearance of conveniently podcast lecture courses from the University of Oxford must count as an on-the-go philosophy fan’s dream realized. Writing this very post while traveling through western Japan, I plan to soundtrack my journey with the John Locke Lectures, which rank “among the world’s most distinguished lecture series in philosophy.” (Then again, I do have a strong sense of incongruity.) The archive includes David Cooper’s “Ancient Greek Philosophies as a Way of Life,” David Chalmers’ “Constructing the World,” and Thomas Scanlon’s “Being Realistic About Reason.”...
Take First-Class Philosophy Lectures Anywhere with Free Oxford Podcasts | Open Culture

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

10 Page Paper: Nietzsche, Hero of Disgruntled Teenagers

Kyle Jameson
PHIL-1030-H01
Dr. Phil Oliver
11/28/2013

Nietzsche, Hero of Disgruntled Teenagers

When someone says the name Nietzsche, what does one think? If you haven’t graduated high school, you most likely think that he is the greatest mind of any science, hard or soft. If you have, you most likely think he is a crazy misanthrope. However, he is considered one of the first existentialist philosophers who inspired leaders in all forms of culture with his revitalizing philosophy. Even the average person has at least heard of Nietzsche, mostly from his influence on popular culture. Yes, 113 years after his death, he is still one of the better-known philosophers along with the classic Greeks. However, to know what made this inspiring, polarizing figure what he is, one must take a look at his life.
          Nietzsche was born in a rural farmland southwest of Leipzig, specifically in the small German village of a town that one cannot type on an average computer due to the inclusion of two umlauts The closest one could get is Rocken bei Lutzen. Oddly enough, we know that Nietzsche was born at approximately 10:00 AM on October 15, 1884, most likely since it coincided with the birthday of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. When Nietzsche was 5, his father and brother died within six months of each other. Since Nietzsche’s father was the church pastor and the family lived in the pastor’s home, the family had to move to Namburg an der Salle, where Nietzsche lived with his mother, grandmother, two aunts, and his younger sister. The fact that Nietzsche’s father was a pastor may explain why he thought that god was dead, since it would be hard to believe that any god would let their representative die without a proper successor ready to take his place.
          From 1858 to 1864, Nietzsche was in a boarding school named Schulpforta that was about 4km from his home. There he met his lifelong acquaintance, Paul Deussen, who became an Orientalist, philosophy historian, and founder of the Schopenhauer Society. Nietzsche led a small music and literature club named Germania, where his philosophical stance started to form. From 1864 to 1879, Nietzsche was mostly in universities where his appreciation for music and literature was formed. He also had a stage of his required military service where he served in an equestrian field artillery regiment close to Namburg, during which he lived with his mother. This military service was cut short when he attempted to leap-mount into the saddle and suffered a serious chest injury and was put on sick leave after his chest wound refused to heal. After this happened, his university studies continued at the University of Liepzig. After his time in the universities came to an end in 1880, he led a wandering, gypsy-like existence as a stateless person. He circled between his mother’s home and various cities in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. During this time most of Nietzsche’s most significant works were written, including The Gay Science, This Spoke Zarathustra, The Antichrist and Ecce Homo. His life effectively ended on the morning of January 3, 1889, when Nietzsche experienced a mental breakdown that left him invalid for the rest of his life. There are ideas that Nietzsche was anti-Semitic, which seems to be from the fact that his final years were under the care of his sister who was anti-Semitic. This has likely caused people to falsely read such ideas from his literary works.
          Speaking of his literary works, he had quite a few. His first was published in 1872, entitled The Birth of Tragedy, Out of the Spirit of Music. The book proposes an alternative to late 18th/early 19th century understanding of Greek culture, which, based in the designs of ancient sculpture, called ancient Greece as what we would call the Platonic Ideal of simplicity, calm greatness, and calmness. Nietzsche, while proud of his work, described the work in unkind terms as a questionable, strange and almost inaccessible book filled with formulae inherently at odds with the ideas he was then trying to say.
          Nietzsche, by this time having accepted the German romanticist, views that irrational forces make up the foundation of all creativity, as well as of reality. They also identify a wild, free and beastly energy that existed in Greece before Socrates’ reign of annoyance. They claimed that this energy is essentially creative and healthy that has been drowned and overshadowed by forces of logic and sobriety. Such bottling of creative energy, they claimed, is unhealthy and likely to lead to the bottle exploding. Nietzsche advocated the revival and release of these artistic energies that he associates with primordial creativity, existential joy, and truth. Nietzsche perceived the seeds of the rebirth in the standard German music of his time, the compositions of such great figures as Wagner, Bach and Beethoven. The Birth of Tragedy’s conclusion, in effect, adores the emerging of the spirit as the potential savior of European culture.
          Nietzsche’s second publication, Unfashionable Observations, is a set of four studies focused on the quality of European and German culture of the time. As the title suggests, the studies are both unfashionable and nonconformist, mainly due to Nietzsche’s stance as a cultural critic conflicting with the self-congratulatory spirit of the time.
          In 1878, Nietzsche completed Human, All-Too-Human, supplanting this with Mixed Opinions and Maxims as well as The Wanderer and his Shadow in the following two years. Nietzsche, reluctant to construct a philosophical system and sensitive to the importance of style in such writings, composed these works as hundreds of adages of greatly varying lengths. These adages often reflected on things happening in culture and psychology, usually relating to how people are made up. The idea of power, one that he would later be known for, tends to appear as an explanation. He also invokes hedonistic ideas of pleasure and pain that he would later criticize in works like Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The ideas he became infamous for were introduced in The Gay Science, written in 1882. This brings up ideas like the famous “God is Dead” and the idea of eternal recurrence-that we live out our exact lives many times over for all time.
          Besides The Gay Science, one of Nietzsche’s most famous works is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A book for All and None, regarded by him as one of his most significant. It is a tale of self-overcoming, and a guidebook for others heading towards the same end. The work was used to inspire soldiers during World War I, with over 150,000 copies printed and issued. The book is antagonistic to Christianity, and it often inverts parts of the Old and New Testaments. In the spirit of pre-Socratic naturalism, the works is also filled with nature metaphors, invoking such figures as fire, water, earth, air, animals, plants and celestial bodies. All of this serves to describe the development of Zarathustra’s spirit, in all of its solitary, reflective, strong-willed, sage-like, dancing and laughing glory. Zarathustra serves as a voice of heroic self-mastery, along with a proud and sharp-eyed eagle and a wise snake. The mode of higher psychological health, surpassing the human condition, is described by Nietzsche as ubermenschlich, or superhumanness.
          Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a controversial work, mostly since it is thoroughly literary. Nietzsche speaks in parables and short stories populated by the many archetypes as its characters - the hunchback, the ugliest man, the soothsayer, the saint, and the jester, to name a few - leaving the messages that are weaved into the book open to various interpretations. One of the most well known and morally disturbing figures, the superhuman, only really shows up in this, making it questionable if Nietzsche believes this as the real destiny for mankind. There is also the question of whether or not the tale is properly ended at the Third Part’s end, or if the psychologically complicated and question-raising Fourth Part is more than just a supplement and all four parts make a smooth progression.
          Beyond Good and Evil, Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future is arguably a re-write of Human, All-too-Human due to loose correlations between the tables of contents and the thematic sequence. Nietzsche identifies imagination, self-assertion, danger, originality and creativity as factors that make a genuine philosopher as opposed to incidental characters of scholarship. He takes aim at some of the great philosophers that speak of philosophies that follow these, such as free will and bipolar thinking. Alternatively, Nietzsche takes the perspective of a society that has gone beyond good and evil, challenging the traditional concepts of what is evil, like exploitation, domination, destruction, and harming the weak, as being universal concepts. Above all of this, he believes that living things want to discharge their strength and express their will to power - the pouring out of energy that naturally entails danger, pain, lies, deception and masks. Here, will is a fountain of constantly swelling power as opposed to hollowness inside, deficient feeling or drive for satisfaction.
          While at this perspective, Nietzsche denies the existence of universal morality applicable indiscriminately to humanity, instead designating moralities in an order of rank that rises from the vulgar to the noble; some for the leaders and some for the followers. What counts as preferable and legitimate depends on whether one is weaker and sicklier or healthier and running over with life.
          While talking about Nietzsche’s writings is all and good, I feel that I should give my own stance. One of the most well known ideas from Nietzsche is the idea of a dead god; that god existed at one point, but since then he has died. This is a very believable philosophy; since when have we told people we need to worship god as our lord and not just believed in Jesus, who himself said that god is the one deserving of worship and not him. Furthermore, there is a school of thought that thinks the belief of mankind, genuine belief, feeds divine powers and gives them both power and sustenance. However, in the 1800s people were mainly secular, with those worshipping Christianity doing so due to family pressures instead of being from a real want to worship a higher power. Either god is actually dead or humans have gotten to the point that no good, omniscient and omnipotent figure could stand the presence of them.  One could argue that Nietzsche meant that the idea of a need for religion is dead, but I would say that is unlikely. While not impossible due to the increasing secularity in the 1800s, it seems to me more likely that the actual god is dead given the actual quote by Nietzsche from The Gay Science saying that God is dead. Also, religion had not died, even if god has. Incidentally, it also says we have bled him to death, giving fuel to the flame of belief starvation.
          Besides the idea of a dead god, Nietzsche also promoted the idea of questioning anything that is draining on the expansive energies of life, even if the thing in question is something that societies hold dear. Honestly, this is an interesting idea, mainly due to conflicting ideas on what is or is not draining as well as conflict on the need for society. There needs to be something you can replace the ideas with so that societies do not collapse. As Hobbes said, life without society is brutish, short, and generally unpleasant. One could say that society is a table, held off the ground of natural states by the ideals they believe in, making up the legs. If one leg is simply removed, the table becomes unstable and may collapse, especially if it is a large table. The table could be made more stable by rearranging the ideals, but even then the table is still less stable then before. Instead, a new leg, one that is less draining to life, must replace it.
          The ideas of the focus on the self and a dead god bring up another point, one that Nietzsche actually proposed: the lack of an afterlife. Nietzsche says we instead relive life continuously, experiencing everything we have done infinitely many times over. Some find comfort in this, but I do not. This may be due to how much more bad there has been in my life than good, but I instead attribute this to the fact that I do not want to relive the same experiences infinitely times over, but instead I want to go through new experiences, even if I’m going though similar experiences in a new way. From what I understand of religions that believe in reincarnation, they share this desire, wanting to change from their previous lives and eventually achieve moral perfection.
          Nietzsche was - and still is - an important figure in philosophy. Whether or not you believe that his ideas are right, one must admit that he has had significant cultural impact with them. In all forms of media, the tendrils of influence from him can be seen; the idea of a dead god has been explored in everything from literature to video games. One particular example that comes to mind is the novel Small Gods. Written by Terry Pratchett, Small Gods shows plentiful influence from Nietzschian philosophy that one can bleed a god to death, this following the vein that gods are fed by belief. While the god near death, Om, has many followers, only one actually believes in him. Every other follower is either following out of fear or out of a desire for power. Because there is no true belief, Om is reduced to a turtle. Unlike Nietzsche, Terry Pratchett proposes that the one remaining follower can use his pure strength of belief to convince everyone else to truly believe, which Nietzsche most likely did not conceive of.
          Even before Nietzsche, literature and mythology have shown monsters with a stance beyond or before good and evil that Nietzsche expressed. The traditional monster instead seems to follow Nietzsche’s idea of leadership based on power. For example, Grendel most likely ranks below the Sphynx, who in turn ranks below Medusa, who in turn ranks below Cthulhu.
          Even the original Role-Playing Game, Dungeons and Dragons, uses Nietzschian philosophy on self-improvement and bettering oneself to beyond human levels as a core mechanic. In D&D, as it is colloquially called, characters gain experience that causes them to increase in power and skill, representative of spiritual betterment, to the point of becoming the superhuman.
          One cannot doubt the influence of Nietzsche. His life was a turbulent one, especially early on to start him down the path he took. His works, covering everything from power to the idea of a dead god, act as his face and serve as the reason he is so polarizing. Even when I disagree with him, I respect him as deserving of being one of the faces of philosophy. He has inspired factors in everything from literature to entertainment of all forms. Reading about his philosophy, it is hard to see what makes him so misanthropic besides his desire to challenge society and his denying of universal good and evil. He simply wanted people to embrace more wild and creative thought instead of being purely logical and subdued.




BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wicks, R.. N.p.. Web. 28 Nov 2013.



Honors 10 Page Paper

An Overview of Part 5 of America the Philosophical and a defense of “Sophists and Sophistry”
Anderson, Michael T.
Honors Introduction to Philosophy
12/10/2013 

In part five of his book America the Philosophical Carlin Romano discusses Isocrates, an ancient Greek thinker whom Romano believes to be not just a philosopher, a view not shared among many contemporary intellectuals, but perhaps a philosopher with more influence on American thought than his more famous contemporaries such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In the first subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Busting Isocrates”, Romano begins by highlighting the popularity of Socrates in both intellectual and non-intellectual circles and then contrasts that popularity with the relatively unknown status that Isocrates holds in the same circles. He continues to emphasize the under-appreciation of Isocrates with the example that even in Athens, the home city of Isocrates, it is impossible to locate a bust or illustration of the ancient thinker, while hundreds of depictions of other ancient Athenians abound. Romano proposes that Isocrates should be just as famous as Socrates, and that the battle between the rhetoric of Isocrates and the philosophy of Socrates during the “heyday” of ancient Athens was really just a battle between two different views of philosophy. He goes on to say that the popular view of Socrates as an “open-minded investigator of ideas”, stems from the fact that his own beliefs were never really challenged.
            Romano then contrasts the views of Socrates with those of Isocrates, and emphasizes the “imprecise” discourse and deliberation, logos politikos”, that Isocrates viewed philosophy to be. Romano proposes that this view of philosophy matches American pragmatism and philosophical practice far more than the view Socrates held. He argues that America has operated under the philosophical “sign” of Isocrates for a long time now. He then states that the influence of Isocrates on American philosophy has gone unnoticed and that the intellectual life in America has been described wrong. Romano concludes this subsection with a challenge to both American intellectual historians and foreign thinkers to correctly describe intellectual life in this country.
            In the second subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Isocrates’s Life”, Romano begins by explaining that all reliable biographical information on Isocrates comes from his surviving works and that what little else we know about him comes from tradition, which is often considered unreliable and must be taken with caution. He goes into a brief biography of Isocrates that begins with his childhood, covers members of his family, and then highlights his studies with Tisias, who was thought to have founded the rhetorical practice with his master Corax. The biography then talks about Isocrates’s time as a logographer, which he denied in his late apologia Antidosis, and his tutelage of a young Aristotle. According to Romano six speeches survive that are attributed to Isocrates, yet contemporary scholars are still divided on whether or not he actually gave them.  The text briefly mentions Isocrates’s marriage and then talks about his school in Athens, which served as the chief rival of Plato’s Academy.
            After discussing Isocrates’s school, Romano moves on to what garnered Isocrates the most attention during his time, his call for ‘Panhellenism’. Isocrates believed that the Greek city-states should unite under the leadership of Athens, and under Philip of Macedonia’s leadership later during the war with the Persian ‘barbarians’. According to the text, Isocrates believed that an individual could be a Greek in a cultural and political sense rather than in a racial and ethnic sense. Romano points out that this belief is similar to the contemporary notion that anyone can become an American.  He then states that Isocrates viewed becoming Greek entailed possessing intellectual and linguistic ability, sharing Greek values, and obtaining a Greek education.
            Romano concludes the brief biography with Isocrates’s death, due to self-starvation, after the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. In the next paragraph he states that despite the exclusion of Isocrates from philosophical tradition by Plato and Aristotle, most scholars agree that his school was far more influential on Greek and Roman education than either the Academy or the Lyceum. The text then highlights that in ancient Athens the ability to speak in public was more valuable than the ability to express oneself through writing. It then goes on to highlight Isocrates’s accomplishment of establishing writing as a method of both political expression and activity. Romano wraps up this subsection by once again proposing that Isocrates is indeed a “philosophical founding father”; he also hints at the idea that Isocrates may be the “father of blogging”, highlights his popularity during the Renaissance, and ends with an example of his wit.
            In the third subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Images and Clichés of Isocrates”, Romano begins with praise given to Isocrates from various classical scholars. After listing several positive quotes from these scholars, Romano reminds readers that negative views of Isocrates exist as well and gives notable examples that paint a much different picture of the ancient Athenian. He again contrasts Isocrates with Socrates, painting the latter as a universally revered hero among philosophers and the former as an often criticized favorite of a niche group. Romano goes on to suggest that the negative clichés about Isocrates have been adopted and perpetuated by those who don’t study him directly. He states that to gain an appreciation for Isocrates and understand why he matters to both Greek and American intellectual history, one must understand the difference between sophists, rhetoricians, and philosophers in ancient Greece.
            In the fourth subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Sophists and Sophistry”, Romano begins by listing the most famous sophists of ancient Greece. He notes that Socrates and Isocrates were both considered to be sophists during their time, though both rejected the label. He describes the sophists as intellectuals who traveled and taught the art of persuasion and argument for a fee. These skills were considered invaluable in a democratic society in which political participation depended on the ability to speak in public and sway an audience’s opinion. Romano notes Plato’s view of the sophists, which was that they were “cheats and sharpies oblivious to the truth”.
            He states that Plato believed the sophists were only teaching their skills in the pursuit of monetary gain and that they didn’t care about the interests of the audience. Socrates considered the sophists to be ‘prostitutes of wisdom’, because they sold their knowledge for a profit. At the time most ancient Greek philosophers shared Plato and Socrates’s views on the sophists, and that is why most of Western intellectual history takes a derogatory stance on the sophists. Thus ‘sophistry’ today is synonymous with “crafty and deceptive thinking”. Romano informs the reader that very little source material exists from the sophists themselves and that Plato, the best source we have available, is biased.
            He then explores Plato’s views on the sophists in depth, and talks about how Plato identified Isocrates with the worst features sophists possessed. Romano asserts that Plato’s label of Isocrates as a sophist is a “distortion”, and then gives several examples of views that Isocrates shared with Plato and Socrates. He also points out one major problem in labeling Isocrates a sophist; Isocrates wrote a pamphlet entitled Against the Sophists circa 390 B.C. In his pamphlet, Isocrates asserted that sophist discourse was “the greatest obstacle to achieving Greek unity and Athenian hegemony”. Romano then concludes this subsection by pointing out Isocrates’s sedentary lifestyle and citizenship of Athens, a sharp contrast to the nomadic sophist lifestyle, as well as his “conceptual scheme” not revolving around what is “powerful” like that of the sophists.
            He points out that Isocrates clearly distinguished himself from the sophists, and then asks if Isocrates was a rhetorician.  In the fifth subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Rhetoricians and Rhetoric”, Romano begins by defining what rhetoric meant in ancient Greece. He highlights Gorgias, the man who made rhetoric famous in ancient Athens. He also notes how even Plato depicted Gorgias and rhetoric fairly in his dialogues, and later recognized a “higher form of dialectical rhetoric” in the Phaedrus. In the next paragraph, Romano discusses how neither Gorgias nor Isocrates used the word rhetorike to refer to what they did.
He points out that Isocrates described his practice as ‘philosophy’, and that Plato and Aristotle are the ones who used the Greek words for ‘rhetoric’ and ‘rhetorician’. In ancient Greece, a rhetor was someone who spoke often in courts or assemblies. Romano states the Plato did not trust training of such orators, because he believed it would not produce ‘proper statesmen’.  Plato was actually the one who coined the word rhetorike and who spread the derogatory meaning of it, ‘duplicitous’ or ‘deceptive’ argumentation. He states that Plato coined rhetorike in order to distinguish his own discourse and thus elevate it to a “privileged status”.
Romano highlights the popular opinion among classical scholars that there are two incredibly different intellectual practices from ancient Greece, “dubious rhetoric and noble philosophy”, and that Isocrates represents the former and Socrates and Plato represent the latter.  He states that classics often “bandy” about the terms philosophy and rhetoric, and concedes that differences of scholarly opinion on the subject is partly a matter of “semantic choice”. He then points out that Isocrates distanced himself from the “worst non-philosophical aspects” of rhetoric, just as he did with the “worst non-philosophical aspects” of sophistry. Romano goes on to highlight Isocrates’s position on the teaching of rhetoric and how he believed there should be no “rigid” form used. Isocrates was “amazed” when he saw teachers of rhetoric “using an ordered art as a model for a creative activity”.
Romano concludes this subsection by giving an example of a scholarly opinion on Isocrates which “corroborates the element of semantic choice in this area”, and then explains why Isocrates avoided using the term rhetoric to describe his profession. Isocrates did not want to be too closely connected to oratory teachers whom Plato had said would never be ‘regarded as philosophers’. In the sixth subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Isocrates, Philosopher”, Romano begins by exploring the origin of the word philosopher. He looks at Pythagoras, the first to use the term, and then observes how Plato changed the meaning of the word to ‘lover and pursuer of wisdom’. According to Romano, “Philosophy, for Plato, aimed at understanding ‘transcendent essences’ of the concepts it addressed”.
            He then highlights Isocrates’s disagreement with Plato on the meaning of philosophia and discusses the “in play” nature of the word. Isocrates attempted to designate his own method as philosophia through his various works, such as: Antidosis, Helen, and Nicocles. Romano asserts that “genuine philosophy” must answer everyday problems, and that it enhances a student’s thinking and speaking abilities. He proposes that Isocrates transitioned philosophy from speech to writing and in doing so, assists us in understanding the internal origins of philosophy. Romano then highlights Isocrates’s “moral sensibility” in his work, a sensibility that the sophists or rhetoricians of the day did not possess.
Isocrates rejects the Platonic view that there exist ethical principles that can apply to all possible situations, and stresses “the contingency of such judgments”. Nonetheless, the Platonic definition of philosophia was adopted by Western intellectual history and thus is the definition that most scholars use today. However, Romano proposes that the definition of philosophy is once again being contested and that America the Philosophical, like Isocrates, doesn’t pigeonhole philosophy to one type of thinking nor proposes that ‘any’ sort of this thinking amounts to philosophy. He once again declares Isocrates to be a philosopher and asserts that he is a more “compatible” thinker with American philosophy than either Plato or Socrates.
In the seventh and final subsection of part five of America the Philosophical, “Isocrates, Greece and America”, Romano begins by once again comparing Isocrates’s Panhellenism to the modern day concept of being an American. With Panhellenism, Isocrates proposed that being Greek was a “state of mind” and that sharing a common culture was more important than sharing a common blood. Isocrates was an advocate of sophrosyne, or self-control, and valued the freedom of others. The text suggests that this makes Isocrates a ‘pronounced believer in democracy’, as long as that democracy doesn’t turn into “mob rule”.
Isocrates was unique in this respect, because during his time most philosophers were critical of rule by the people. He showed far more support for it than Plato and other influential philosophers of the day did. However, his stature in political thought suffered as much as his stature in philosophical thought due to deriders likes Aristotle. Aristotle did not share Isocrates support of democracy and often condescended to him in the political realm. Isocrates’s view of a united, Athenian led, Greece has been seen as imperialistic by many intellectuals, but the text gives several examples of scholars defending this view.
 Romano then suggests that Isocrates’s resonates with contemporary America, and that he “appeals to the instincts of the man in the street”. He goes on to identify several ways in which Isocrates’s vision of Athens and greater Greece resembles America. He highlights connections between classical writers and the founding fathers, and suggests that the classics gave them a large portion of intellectual tools. Romano suggests that America’s “immense diversity” forces its citizens to philosophize and that if Americans have come to recognize that truth emerges from consensus, it can be attributed to Isocrates. He concludes the final subsection with John Rawls’s recognition of the pluralism of philosophical and political beliefs present in the United States, and Rawls’s inability to convince Americans of principles they would not accept.
In the subsection of part five of America the Philosophical entitled “Sophists and Sophistry” Carlin Romano’s main thesis is “There is no question that Isocrates distinguished himself from the Sophists.” I agree with this thesis, because in the text Romano clearly defines what a sophist is, he presents accusations of Isocrates being a sophist, and then gives sufficient evidence that shows that Isocrates did distinguish himself from the sophists. Most of what we know about sophists and sophistry comes from collected fragments that amount to less than twenty pages, and the most credible source we have on the sophists is Plato. Plato as a source is biased, because in his day he was a major detractor of sophistry and was the one who labeled Isocrates as a sophist. Plato had extra incentive to tarnish the reputation of Isocrates because his school was the chief rival of Plato’s Academy, and his overall attitude towards sophistry was a mocking and condescending one.
Isocrates actually shared views that Plato had, such as the disparagement of eristics. Isocrates even wrote a pamphlet entitled Against the Sophists in which he considers them to be greatest obstacle preventing his Panhellenism from being realized. Unlike sophists, Isocrates demanded reflection and deliberative choice, rather than unthinking response. Isocrates was also not a nomad like the sophists, and in fact led a fairly sedentary lifestyle. His shared views with Plato, open opposition of sophists, and his lifestyle convince me that Isocrates was not a sophist.
Bibliography
Romano, Carlin. America the Philosophical. New York: Knopf, 2012. Print.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Final Paper: My Thoughts on the Existence of God... :)

      Savannah Shipman 
       Dr. Oliver 
       Philosophy 1010 
      December 7, 2013
So what is going to happen when I die? Luckily, I live in a world in which I can talk openly about what will happen after death; in the past, people have been persecuted, executed, and excommunicated for having differing beliefs than those in power—so I would like to exercise my right to discuss openly my thoughts on whether or not there is a god or gods. For the sake of conformity throughout this paper, I will not refer to one specific god (i.e. Allah, Yahweh, or the Christian God) but gods as a whole; I would like to discuss my opinion on whether anything created our world and if we shall join any universal creator after death. 
            My entire life I have been brought up in a Christian home with Christian values. Growing up in this way, I learned certain attributes such as honesty, humility, and piety; at the same time, I grew up prejudiced against people of other religions, people of no religion, homosexuals, and even people of other sects of Christianity. When I entered high school, however, things began to change; I could not help but notice when some of my teachers made off-hand comments about the discrepancies in the Christian religion, that one of my closest friends was a strong atheist, and that as I learned history, the permanence of the Christian religion began to fall away. And so I began to think. Maybe I should examine other theories instead of simply believing what I have always been told my whole life.  It was a philosophy that first made me have this idea—Descartes to be exact. And it was the ideas of other philosophers that made me really question my beliefs and arrive a new and better (at least I think so!) conclusion about the world and my place in it. In this paper, I would like to discuss my current views on religion and why I believe what I believe with the help of the philosophers we have talked about in class. I have always enjoyed historical thinking and I believe the best way to move forward is by observing the past. 
            So let us start from the beginning before the Christian religion was even fathomed and people of Ancient Greece were “pagan,” or without “right” religion. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would have been these “pagans,” and it is with these men that western philosophy was brought into existence. Socrates certainly believed in a god; when the oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man in Athens, he was perplexed, but believed these words whole heartedly. Thus, this shows Socrates believed in Apollo, a god of a religion we do not believe in nowadays. I am not sure if Plato subscribed to the same beliefs as Socrates, but he did believe in a more theoretical form of god; Plato believed more in the idea of perfection, and believed that there is certainly something larger than us at work in the world. Aristotle seemed more down to earth in his philosophies, but it would be a safe bet to assume Aristotle ascribed to the same beliefs his mentors did.
            This is perhaps one of the first things that struck me about the religion I was brought up in; it is hard for me to imagine one religion as correct while there are so many others that have existed within the world. In my opinion, it is unjust to claim that what someone believes is wrong; it is certainly just to say you do not agree with someone’s beliefs, but I do not believe it is right to say people are delusional or barking up the wrong tree to use a euphemism. So as I learned about the beliefs of Socrates and the other Greeks, it really got me thinking about the ways in which religions fall in and out of favor. The Romans believed in multiple gods, as did the Greeks, the Ancient Egyptians, and the Celts; so in this world where Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the dominant religions, the world seemed to open up a bit more when I realized that there were other religions that people had believed in completely. In this way, Christianity lost a lot of its mysticism for me and I was able to step back and think about religion logically from an outside point of view.
            But in order to observe religions from a logical standpoint, I first had to set aside my belief in Hell. To be honest, Hell is a truly terrifying concept, and once I put the idea of Hell behind me, I was actually a lot more comfortable with my life in general once I stopped believing in the concept of Hell. Hell truly terrified me as a child while also interesting me as a young adult when I read The Inferno by Dante. Western humanity as a whole also seems to be perplexed by the concept of Hell; Augustine is one theologian who was also concerned with this terrifying prospect.
            Augustine was perplexed by the concept of Hell; and if you are a Christian, going to Hell is a very real possibility—and a very terrifying one! So Augustine wrestled with the ideas of evil in the world and whether or not we had freewill.  After much philosophizing, Augustine decided that God (this time the Christian god) gave us free will even if God knows how things will eventually end up. Boethius was also interested in the concept of free will and believed that even if God knows how everything will end up, he operates outside our time. Augustine’s and Boethius’ philosophies are interesting, but during Augustine’s early life, he seems to have struggled with the notion of God—specifically on how to reconcile physical pleasure and religion. One of the first things that struck me about religion was the guilt trip it seemed to create. True, religion does give hope and strength to some, but it also creates a system of rules and regulations that are not to be broken. Augustine seemed to have the same thoughts as he participated in all sorts of debaucheries in his earlier life and prayed to God to give him piety and strength—but not yet, because he was simply enjoying himself too much.
            This is certainly an interesting concept to me. Physical pleasure is a very integral part of life—I mean, we aren’t stoics or anything. People drink, smoke, have sex, and party all the time almost as if they need to. True, these events can get quite raucous—and perhaps that is why they are considered sins. Is it not convenient that many of the things that are fun in life are sins? It is almost like religious rules were made to control people—do you not agree? Well this is what runs through my mind, at least. Augustine found a sort of faith in this concept, but the system of guilt under which Christianity seems to operate simply does not work for me. It does not seem healthy, nor does it seem like a very fruitful way to live my life. To me, life is about human relationships and having fun as much as possible. I do not believe anything happens after I die, so why not enjoy this truly precious life that we have now? The fact that I believe this is the only life I will live makes my life all the more precious.
            Most of the philosophers we studied in class, at least the earlier philosophers, were strong Christians. Anselm attempted to prove the existence of God (the Christian God, specifically) with his Ontological Argument. Anselm seemed to believe that God existed simply because we humans had the possibility to imagine and understand this being, he (or she…) then existed. I have a number of problems with Anselm’s theory, however. First of all, Anselm’s theory must be applied to all possible gods and does not seem exclusive merely to the Christian God. I guess Anselm could say people were mistaking their thoughts of Apollo (as an example) for the Christian God, but this seems like a feeble response. Second of all, Guanile of Marmoutiers’ reasoning to disprove Anselm’s theory is quite strong. He cites an example of the perfect island and how ridiculous it would be to imagine that this perfect island exists just because we can imagine it. It would be awesomely magical if we could imagine anything we wanted and it would awesomely appear, but it seems a fantastical way to prove that God exists. Thirdly, I feel that Anselm bridles the imagination with his proposal. Perhaps one of the most amazing things about us humans is our brains and we can imagine, understand, and create.
            This thought leads me to Nietzsche—perhaps my favorite philosopher. Nietzsche was quite angry with religion and seems fed up with the ways in which it constricts us. Instead of looking to the sky for answers—a pre-19th century phenomenon, it seems—Nietzsche instead looked to the human race for answers and for salvation. This philosophy affected me the most of all philosophers, I think. Humans have continuously put faith in something that has been bigger than them, stronger than them, and smarter than them. But Nietzsche suggested that perhaps the savior we have been searching for all along was one of us—to me, this theory certainly seems more reasonable than the belief in a mysterious and fantastical god somewhere in the sky.
            Nietzsche makes a few really good points, in my opinion; he forms the image of the Ubermench and attempts to prove that one day, hopefully, there will be a man who will rise up and lead the rest of the humans. For far too long have humans bowed down to a god who seems fairly absent; true, people cite parts of the Bible in which God has direct influence in human affairs and seems to actually care about what is going on with the Isrealites—but it seems quite curious that God (or any god for that matter) does not come into the world anymore and make himself (or herself) known. When I mentioned this stark absence to my friend, he said that he believed God had stepped away from the world because humans had been too sinful. This reply really disturbed me. I asked him why he thought it was our fault that God had stepped away—I mean, what could humans possibly have done to upset and all-knowing God who is supposed to love humans? In fact, I told him it was unhealthy that he was blaming the human race, and thus himself, for God’s departure. It is the same system of guilt under which I feel Christianity has always operated under—I think it is unhealthy to continually blame humans for the troubles within the world. I mean, look at this violent and pain-filled world we live within! If a God has stepped away to leave us here, then I don’t think he needs to be revered or loved anyway—at least that’s my opinion!
            Nietzsche perhaps thought the same as he stressed the idea of the Ubermench and how only one of our own kind can save us from this harsh world in which we are all forced to live and work. True, his theories favor survival of the fittest and violence under some circumstances, but I think he is completely correct in asserting that only from the ranks of humans will we find any kind of guidance and comfort. It is certainly a romantic notion to look to the skies for guidance and answers to life’s questions, but in an age where people no longer fear the creaking sounds coming from the woods, why wouldn’t we put our faith in something that we can see and understand? Human kind is something to be celebrated! We are finally reaching an age in which we can have worldwide peace and celebrate each other’s differences while also working together in a global economy, trading and making goods for each other. Many of the countries with which we communicate also subscribe to other religions—we, as a human race, have taken enormous strides since historical religious disasters such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades.
            So when Nietzsche suggested that we allow one of us to step up as a sort of demi-god or leader, I am going to have to agree that this is a more reasonable explanation than waiting for some massive being in the sky to come and judge us off His morality. Humans need to make their own morality and stand as leaders of their own lives. Why wouldn’t we? It seems crazy that we would bow down to something that is not there, forsaking and alienating other human beings, and creating splits in cooperation for the sake of religion. And I am talking about any religion, as I said at the beginning of this paper.
            Thomas Aquinas, a theologian who I actually like a lot, also attempted to explain why God (the Christian God, specifically) must exist. In order to explain this, he used an example of someone finding a clock randomly. This person, according to Aquinas, must then postulate that someone, or something, made this watch. Aquinas then expanded this theory to include everything in our world—if we see it now, and it works perfectly, who then is the watchmaker?
            This theory is an interesting idea, and I have certainly struggled with the idea of how we are here and why this world even exists for me to experience, but David Hume points out that just because it appears that someone made this universe, it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone did. This is a good point that Hume makes, but I also have a few comments on what Aquinas said. If he were around for me to debate with, I would ask him why he so adamantly assumed that it was the Christian God specifically who made this world. Why not Zues? Why not Apollo? Why not any of the other gods people have worshipped over the years? Perhaps he didn’t even fathom this possibility because he lived in a western world where they only entertained western ideas. It is certainly true that the western world has been ardently Christian until recent years, so his tendency to only entertain the idea of the Christian God seems to make sense—but it does leave some holes and prejudices in his philosophy.
            Hobbes believed that God was more like some huge machine who created the world and left it pretty much alone after that. Many thought Hobbes was a disguised atheist, so good for him in my opinion, but he received much criticism for his views. It does not bother me that he is an atheist, but Hobbes’ low view of  humanity seems to sprout from the Christian tendency to believe that there is something wrong with humanity that only a all-knowing God can fix. Hobbes commented that humanity was “nasty, brutish, and short” as they are driven by base desires of lust, jealousy, and violence. I think it is unhealthy to sit around and talk about how horrible human nature is—instead, Hobbes could have been more productive if he focused on the positivity in human nature. Maybe he would have been less of a misanthrope if he concentrated on the successes of human nature instead of wallowing in their downfalls.
            Voltaire seemed to have a more positive view of human nature than Hobbes. He ridiculed Leibniz’s view that this is the best of all possible worlds, but points out the futility of sitting around being absurdly hopeful in the face of events that are unfavorable. As an answer as to how we should deal with monstrosities and unfortunate events in our lives, Voltaire in Candide, suggested that we simply cultivate our garden—or attempt to do something positive in the world instead of waiting around for others or a god to do some good. Voltaire’s is perhaps one of the best working philosophies I have studied—and certainly the most simple! True, the world is filled with a lot of pain and misery, but Voltaire puts the responsibility of change in the hands of humans. I feel that this philosophy is akin to Nietzsche’s as Voltaire charges humans to have influence over their own lives instead of waiting around for a god to come and save them or make the world better in some way.
            So at this point of my life, I would definitely consider myself an atheist. But when I was still struggling with exactly how I would define my religious views, Pascal’s Wager struck me as very interesting. Pascal basically said that we might as well believe in God (the Christian god) because the repercussion of just believing would be way better than not believing and risking eternal damnation. Is this really faith though? I don’t think so. But also, what kind of wonderful God would even send his creations down to Hell?—but that is another conversation, I think. Anyway, Pascal’s Wager was definitely something to think about when I was struggling with my faith, but in the end did not really end up affecting my decision. I feel like my opinion on Pascal was actually influenced by one of Descartes’ philosophies; when he comments that God must exist because we can fathom this concept, this philosophy seems to flow both ways. I think it is possible for a god to exist in one person’s reality but not in another. At least this is how I have reconciled people’s strong belief in god with my own disbelief. Good for you if you believe in a god, but sorry, I don’t. And I don’t think that because of this I will be punished in any way for not believing or being sinful or whatever. 
            After we die, I think blood stops pumping through our brains and that’s it; but people can believe in whatever they want while they are alive as long as it does not harm other people. I personally do not believe that anything is going to happen after we die, but if it comforts you to think that, go you. But there is no reason to feel any sort of hostility towards me or people of other religions—because I certainly have seen this before! Maybe they are threatened from my disbelief or feel alienated because I do not subscribe to their beliefs, but people need to quit splintering and alienating each other on this planet. If one thing is certain, our time here on this planet is exceedingly limited, fleeting, and short; so can we all get along for the time being?

            At least that’s my philosophy. Human beings are awesome! We are the most highly evolved and intelligent things on the planet. So why don’t we quite bowing down to something that may or may not be there and celebrate our amazing lives that we have now? Maybe a god is there, but if he or she wants us, then they will have us. I don’t really think our wants or needs or actions will have much to do with it in the ends. All I know, is that I will continue living my life as usual as I have as much fun and laugh as much as possible. That is my philosophy at least for this moment. I try to be as optimistic as possible. I consider myself a good person and I do not lie or hurt anyone intentionally. I think on this earth we are supposed to enjoy our lives, never mind how we got here! If there is a god, let him or her come over here then! But I am not going to spend my time worrying about it. I am going to truck along in my little life, happy to be here, and happy to be alive. 

Friday, December 6, 2013

Exam #3 study guide

Remember to study the relevant texts, don't just memorize.
Good luck. Don't stop asking questions.
Section 16 - Group 1 Final Exam Review Questions:

1.      New York Times called Obama what because of his speeches? (Professor in Chief)

2.      Who was a Cambridge mathematician who helped invent the modern day computer? (Alan Turning)

3.      Which Australian philosopher argued that a drowning child in front of you is as bad as the starving children in Africa? (Peter Singer)

4.      Which American philosopher wrote the highly influential book A Theory of Justice in 1971? (John Rawls)

5.      What famous thought experiment did Judith Jarvis Thomson come up with to argue for a woman's right to choose to have a baby? (The famous violinist)

6.      Who wrote Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

7.      What did Paul Fussel mainly study? (Class Structure)

8.      Which philosopher used the Greek myth of Sisyphus to explain "human absurdity”? (Albert Camus)

9.      What did Nietzsche start his career as? (Classical Philologist)

10.  Which philosopher helped found the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? (Russell)

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16-2 
Which social class did Karl Marx fight for? (the working class, or proletariat)

Which book, written by Kierkegaard, gives the reader a choice between aesthetic and the ethical? [Either/ Or] LHp 153

Who was the philosopher who wrote under the name Johannes de Silentio - John of Silence? (Soren Kierkegaard)

Was Charles Darwin a philosopher? ( No, he was a biologist and a geologist) [He was both: JPO]

What was Darwin's famous book called? (On the Origin of Species)

Mill's message, " Every adult should be free to live as he or she pleases as long as no one else is harmed" is known as ________? The Harm Principle [LH p141]

Who was a German philosopher and a major figure in German Idealism? Hegal

Schopenhauer believed that we are all part of what he called _______. [The World of Will

For Schopenhauer, the reality exists in what two aspects? ( Will and Representation)

What are antinomies? (literally unresolvable contradictions)

What book did John Mill write about giving people room to grow like trees? (On Liberty)

Who discovered a verification principle? (Alfred Ayer)

What was Bertrand Russell's method of explaining how what we say relates to what exists called? (Theory of Descriptions)

What theory did Ramsay come up with? (Success Semantics)

How old was Alfred Jules Ayer when he wrote Language, Truth, and Logic (LTL)?

______ is the special category of people who think that all talk of God existing or not existing is complete nonsense?

Henry Sidewick, a late 19th century Victorian philosopher and professor at Cambridge University who wrote "Method of Ethics" was a ________ utilitarian. (hedonistic)

who wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience? James

Who discovered the third great revolution in human thought called unconsciousness? ( Sigmund Freud)

What was Pierce's, James', and Rorty's ideology? (Pragmatism)

What philosopher was a mathematician and helped invent the modern computer? ( Alan Turing)

What philosopher asserted that it is just as wrong to perform painful experiments on an animal as it is to perform them on a mentally disabled human being? (Peter Singer)

what is Peter Singer known for writing?(Animal Liberation)

What did Alan Turing originally name the Turing Test? (The Imitation Game)

Originally called the Imitation Game, _________ was a test for artificial intelligence

Who is one of the most influential,modern philosophers? (Peter Singer)

Who invented the Chinese Room thought experiment? (John Searle)

Who wrote the most influential book of the twentieth century, called A Theory of Justice? (John Rawls)

What type of income is emphasized in Rawls' "A Theory of Justice"? (Average income)

What is the name of Ludwig Wittgenstein's first book? (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

Which philosopher founded the school of thought known as Existentialism, which believes that human life is meaningless and the only purpose for our lives are what we give them? (Sartre)

Who was the best known philosopher of the twentieth century? (Jean-Paul Sartre)

What was the name of the cafe in which Jean-Paul Sartre would often spend his time? (Les Deux Magots - The Two Wise Men)______ came from the ideas that we find ourselves first existing in the world, then having to decide what will make of our lives? ( Existentialism)

______ came from the ideas that we find ourselves first existing in the world, then having to decide what will make of our lives? ( Existentialism)

_______ is pretending to yourself something which if you thought about it for 5 minutes you would realize was not true. (bad faith)

Scientists and philosophers of the nineteenth century were impressed by which philosopher's description of scientific method? ( Karl Popper)

Where was Arendt born? (Linden, Germany)

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NoPhi (16-3) Study Guide

hi (16-3) Test Questions

1: Which German philosopher believed that history follows reason and has a natural order?
(Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel)


2: Who was a child genius philosopher who was taught by Jeremy Bentham and fought for equal rights for men and women to do as they wanted as long as it didn't harm others?
(John Stewart Mill)

3: Who was the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher and Christian theologian who is credited with being a father of existentialism?
(Soren Kierkegaard)

4: what is the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual? 
(Existentialism)

5: Who was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist?
(Karl Marx)

6: Which art obsessed, German philosopher proclaimed that "god is dead" in one of his most famous books?
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

7: What is the movement that began in the twentieth century, primarily with the writings of Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey? 
(Pragmatism)

8: What twentieth century French novelist/philosopher wrote 'Being and Nothingness'?
(Jean-Paul Sartre)

9: _______was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language, he also taught at the University of Cambridge.
(Wittgenstein)

10: The 'Liberty Principle', the 'Difference Principle', and the 'Fair Opportunity Principle are the key ideas in which book written by John Rawls in 1971?
(A Theory of Justice)

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