Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Viktor Frankl 🎂

Julia's & Kory's report in #9 today mentioned Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. Coincidentally, serendipitously, it's his birthday - as noted by Maria Popova:
Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (March 26, 1905–September 2, 1997) is a timeless testament to the luminous tenacity of the human spirit. His 1946 psychological memoir Man’s Search for Meaning (public library) is one of the most vital books ever written, and one of the most vitalizing one could ever read — a wealth of insight on how to persevere through troubled times and what it means to live fully... (continues)
Frankl said:

  • “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 
  • “Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it."
  • “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” 


And, quoting Nietzsche:

  • “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” 

Existentialism is a branch of philosophy that explores the concept of free will. Mankind has presence of thought and a need for self-exploration. Through this presence of thought, we create meaning in our lives that guides the direction in which we live them. Existentialist thinking came to light in the 19th century with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and many believe them to be the so called “founding fathers” of this thinking. These men are often credited with bringing this idea into the world, but the idea of man creating their own meaning had been theorized before.
            In the late 16th to early 17th centuries, an Iranian philosopher called Mulla Sadra theorized that “existence precedes essence” meaning that a physical form must exist before developing thought, the essence of life as man. His ideas were vastly different from many Islamic philosophers before him as they believed the essence of life was given to us by God. Mulla Sadra flipped this around to reflect man’s search for meaning in its creation. He believed that God was much more than the essence of being, and that living entities on Earth are interconnected by one essence. His understanding was an early development toward the branch of philosophy we now know to be existentialism.
The belief that “existence precedes essence” would become a phrase often accredited to the 20th century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre built upon this concept to develop his ideas of authenticity and facticity of self. He believed that authenticity is to act exactly the way one wants to act in that moment without influence from others, while facticity considers a person’s past, present, and potential future influences on the action at hand. Sartre’s philosophy recognizes man’s free will as a flexible construct depending on the person and every aspect of their lives. Though we may be free to make our own decisions, we are also forced to live with our consequences as they are a reflection of the choices we freely made. This “burden of free will” is exactly what we make of it. Our past decisions live with us in every moment and influence our decisions of the future.
On one hand, the burden of free will means that our lives are exactly as great as our decisions make them out to be. On the other hand, our lives are just as horrible as we make them. A staunch existentialist may reflect on actions in the past and thank them for any negative effects said decision has made on their lives, causing existential dread. When the responsibility of happiness in fully in the hands of the individual, this may be a large load to carry when life is at a low point. In this, existential thinking can be an excellent motivator to change life for the better because it fully gives the power to the individual.
Man has always searched for the meaning of life in an omnipotent power, but that neglects the beautiful power in the fact that we can ponder these ideas at all. The essence of being is to do what is best for you as in individual and live existentially.

What is it that connects us as human beings?
If mankind were unable to make decisions using free will, would the essence of man remain the same?
If we have the freedom to make our own decisions, are we able to make ourselves free of pain or despair?


-Julia Hudson and Kory Cooke

Method Acting: By Robbie Ramirez and Garrison Stallings (10)


Method acting was created in the 1930s by Russian actor/director/instructor Konstantin Stanislavski. Method acting involves an actor completely succumbing to “emotional memory,” or using memories from the actor’s past to inform the emotions of the character’s present. Ultimately, method acting was developed further by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. Using this new form of method acting, an actor can completely submerge themselves into the consciousness of the character, often leading to them thinking or acting as their character would in everyday situations, even outside of the play or film.

Some notable actors that use method acting techniques are Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Jim Carrey, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Johnny Depp, and Leonardo DiCaprio. These actors use method acting to enhance their talents, giving stunning, truly authentic performances. That is why they use method acting: to give a believable performance because, for all intents and purposes, the actor becomes the character.

However, using such an intense technique can have a negative effect on the actor. In 1999, Jim Carrey starred in Man on the Moon, a biographical film about the life of comedian Andy Kaufman. In the 2017 movie Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Carrey talks about his performance and how he “lost himself” in the role. “I didn’t black out, but the balance was way in Andy’s corner,” said Carrey, who went on to win a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the film. “I broke a couple of times on weekends and stuff, but pretty much from when I woke up to when I went to bed, the choices were all his.” After filming was done, Carrey describes leaving his role as such: “It’s disconcerting at first because it’s a death. Like, ‘Wait a second — I worked really hard putting this thing together.'”

This type of “genuine performance” from actors can also be forced on them by directors. Several movies have actors going through intense situations just to enhance their emotions for the film. The most famous recent example of this is 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. During filming, the directors wanted their actors to feel genuine fear of the imaginary Blair Witch, so they planted actors within the town of Burkittsville, Maryland to spread rumors about the Blair Witch, telling stories about it to the unsuspecting main cast. They also put their actors through rigorous, often abusive events throughout filming, not just when the cameras were on. The actors were forced to walk through rough forest terrain for three days and were deprived of sleep and food during this time. These techniques proved profitable, though. While the budget for the movie was only $60,000, it made $248.6 million at the box office.

While method acting is a very effective way to make believable characters on stage and screen, it can take a toll on the health of the actors. Ultimately, we have to ask if it is worth having great art at the sake of these actors. Is authenticity worth the suffering of the artist?

Quiz Questions

1. Who originated method acting?

2. Who is one actor known for method acting?

3. In Man on the Moon, what comedian did Jim Carrey play?

4. What award did Jim Carrey earn for his performance?

5. What 1999 movie had its actors go on forced marches without food or sleep?

Discussion Questions

1. Do you think that actors should be expected to take on the mental labor of method acting?

2. Should directors be able to push actors to these emotional extremes for the sake of making art?

3. Do you think that, on some level, artists need to suffer in order to make great art?

4. Can we truly become another person just through acting as them? Or are we only ever able to pretend?

Moussa Issa section9
 1  Compared to Americans, what percent in the rest of the developed world prayed daily?
2 After the American invention of Pentecostals, did the rest of the world embrace Pentecostal?
3 Americans are more religious than European. True or False.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Public Lecture at Vanderbilt: "The tragedy of chronic loneliness..."

Berry Lecture in Public Philosophy
“We Are All People Who Need People”
Professor Kimberley Brownlee (University of Warwick) 
Reception at 6:00pm, lecture at 7:00pm
Wilson Hall, room 126
Description: An older couple in Japan, who missed the touch of a baby’s skin, paid $1,100 for a three-hour visit with a stand-in baby grandson. A single mother, who saw her daughter becoming reclusive, hired an actor to pose as her ex-husband and coax the daughter from her shell. Nineteen years later, the actor continues to visit. Such rent-a-family stories highlight the lengths to which we will go to secure decent moments of social connection. Such moments matter not just because they signal that we’re socially accepted, but also because they satisfy our deep interest in being dependable and depended upon. People who feel chronically lonely are often struck by the fact that no one seems to need them. In this Berry Lecture in Public Philosophy, Kimberley Brownlee will explore the tragedy of chronic loneliness, the moral urgency of our need for social connection, and the social human rights that this need grounds. 

Kimberley Brownlee is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.  Her research specializations include social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, and philosophy of law. She is the author of dozens of articles and reviews, and co-editor of Disability and Disadvantage (Oxford University Press, 2009). Additionally, she is the author of the books Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).  

In praise of public higher education

Sometimes the best school isn’t the “elite” college at the top of the national rankings. It’s the public university just down the road.

NASHVILLE — News of the recent college-bribery scandal broke the same week the University of Tennessee announced it would be offering free tuition to Tennessee families earning less than $50,000 a year. The announcement came the day my two younger sons were finishing up their U.T. midterms and packing to come back to Nashville for spring break, where home-cooked meals and fair amount of yardwork awaited them...

The idea of a college search would have been foreign to me as a high-school senior. Of the two flagship state universities, I picked my mother’s alma mater and was admitted simply by having my ACT scores sent there. When I got to Auburn University in the fall of 1980, Pell Grants, work-study assignments and low-interest federal loans were still plentiful enough that students like me — people not impoverished enough or brilliant enough to earn a full ride — could nevertheless get a good education, even if their parents couldn’t afford to pay a dime. It never crossed my mind that I was “settling” for something less than an elite education. I was grateful beyond belief to be going to college at all.

How I wish I had the words, even now, to explain what a gift those years were. I took an overload almost every quarter because extra courses didn’t cost anything extra, and it was impossible to choose from among all the offerings. I wanted to learn everything, read everything, think about everything. And everything seemed to be right there for the taking on that rural campus in the piedmont of Alabama...

Yes, state universities have their problems, and those problems can be profound. Cash-strapped legislatures too often balance their budgets by cutting funds to higher education, resulting in catastrophic tuition hikes. Provincial yahoos too often serve as university trustees or administrators, energetically erecting barriers to the kind of wide-ranging curiosity that a university education is supposed to foster. Tenured professors retire and are too often replaced by adjuncts so underpaid and so shamefully overburdened that their work amounts to exploitation. And that’s just for starters.

Nevertheless, against all odds, the real heart of a college education — the bond borne of shared intellectual exploration between teachers and curious students, between curious students and each other — remains intact, if only in pockets of campus life, at every state university I know. My brother and sister-in-law are professors at a state university, and I have friends who work at other state universities and community colleges across the region. To a person, their commitment to their students and to their own research and creative work is an inspiration. I would entrust my children’s education to them without a moment’s hesitation... Margaret Renkl

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Scuzzball won't be there for you

This Friendship Has Been Digitized
Do I need to explain to my son that a bot will never have his back?“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” my 15-year-old son shouted from his room. “I’m playing Xbox with a friend.”
“Who’s your friend?” I inquired.

“A guy named Scuzzball,” he replied.

“Oh, what’s Scuzzball’s real name?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he said, slightly annoyed.

“Where’s he from?” I continued.

“Somewhere in Canada, I think … no, wait, maybe it’s France. I don’t really know. Oh, wait, it doesn’t even matter, because Scuzzball just left the game and he’s been replaced with a bot.”

“That sucks,” I tried to commiserate. “Your buddy is replaced by artificial intelligence?”

“It doesn’t matter, Dad, it happens all the time! The game continues.”

My son’s indifference about playing with a person or a bot is actually very typical of gamers these days. They refer to one another as “friends,” but to me their bond looks very tenuous. I don’t recognize any sense in which Scuzzball and my son are real friends. And that concerns me. I wonder whether the pre-internet, face-to-face experience of friendship that I knew growing up will be lost to our post-internet children. And I’m not alone.

Friendship has been an important part of our understanding of the “good life,” as far back as we can trace the human story. “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” which is perhaps our oldest tale, written some 4,000 years ago, is a bromance of sorts between Gilgamesh and his beloved friend Enkidu. The Bible, too, celebrates friendship in the story of Naomi and Ruth, revealing Ruth’s great loyalty and devotion despite the lack of blood ties.

Each year, more and more of our lives take place in the digital space. The average teenager spends up to nine hours a day online. My freshman college students tell me they are actually on screens for around 12 hours a day, since almost all homework is also now online. According to a 2018 Pew report, nearly 90 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds regularly use social media. In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement warning, “Children who overuse online media are at risk of problematic internet use, and heavy users of video games are at risk of internet gaming disorder.” Even Silicon Valley is growing skeptical about digital utopia; 32 percent of tech professionals now believe digital life will harm our mental well-being over the coming decade.

Around 2005, people reported that the average number of their strong friendships had dropped from three to two. At the end of a 2006 study, close to 25 percent of respondents said they didn’t have anyone they could truly trust. More recent research suggests that these trends are persisting, as intimacy among teenagers is replaced by efficiency.

The loss of intimacy, however, does not seem to be a concern among the young people actually growing up online; they report feeling socially supported by large networks of online “friends” whom they rarely or never see face-to-face. Getting “likes” and other forms of digital grooming from larger audiences validates their repeated self-disclosures... The Stone, continues

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Superhero Philosophy

When we think about culture in relationship to the United States, it is impossible to fully grasp our national cultural identity without mentioning superheroes and comic books.  Ever since the release of Action Comics No. 1 in June 1938, generation after generation of youth have had their childhood intertwined with the fantastic worlds expressed through comic books and superhero cinematography. The level at which these larger than life figures have cemented themselves in our society is expressed by the box office. Last year, Avengers: Infinity War grossed 2.048 Billion dollars alone. The impact of these superhero stories is clearly evident, but what philosophical lessons can be derived from them?
An important philosophical question we need to ask is how these comics have adjusted our view of what is possible and what isn’t. This idea of the possible and the impossible can be witnessed when looking at even the first issues of Action Comics. Upon first seeing superman you can immediately convey a understanding that he is greater than the average man. Superman is the foil to the average citizen he is a embodiment of the extraordinary, or in this case a symbol of the impossible. The average citizen in the case of comics is typically what ties us to our understanding of reality in this early comics; with early superheroes such as superman helping the day to day citizens out of precarious situations that have come to be by natural or unnatural methods.
As more superheroes and even super villains were added into the universe of DC comics and Marvel comics, we see a change in how superheroes are portrayed compared to the average citizen. The biggest example could be shown in X-men No. 1 on September 1963, in X-men the superheroes are members of a school created by doctor Xavier. In X-men we are introduced to the concept of a creation story, or a explanation to their powers. The creation story being that the X-men are mutants with extraordinary powers that come about through mutations their their DNA. It could be argued that by giving superheroes a logical reasoning based in science, (even if not entirely accurate), erodes at the impossible nature of these heroes and brings them closer to the citizens they protect. By making this assumption you could then determine that by trying to ground these fictitious characters and events into the laws of our reality these stories suddenly become more believable and impact our views on what is possible and isn’t possible.
These stigmas towards certain beliefs that are not the norm which I will coin as the
“stigma of disbelief”. Our stigma of disbelief is slowly decayed by these stories that have ties in science fiction and resonate with the idea of “What if?”, causing what could be described as a change in our view of reality. This change in our view of reality changes how we perceive what is and what isn’t possible and opens us up to either new possibilities such as in the case of X-men, a open mindedness to genetics and what is possible along the lines of its research. This shift in viewpoint also can affect how we would react to questions of morality and ethics.
Another philosophical connections to comic books that stands out is the idea of the face behind the mask. When a superhero puts on a mask, they are giving away their identity to a greater cause. This action of removing ego and saving the world anonymously helps the reader feel as if they are part of the fight against evil and emphasizes the point that these heroes could be any member of society. The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius says “A human being is formed by nature to benefit others, and, when he has performed some benevolent action or accomplished anything else that contributes to the common good, he has done what he was constituted for, and has what is properly his.” The idea of stoic cosmopolitanism, which is the idea of being a citizen of the world and showing kindness and respect to even people you don’t directly know, is reflected in the action of superheroes.
Quiz Questions
What is a mutation?
What year was Action Comics No. 1 released?
What year was Batman The Movie released?
Name two famous comic book writers.
What is the Punishers real name?

Discussion Questions
Discussion questions
Is the punisher justified in his actions?
Is our society better without the stigma of disbelief?
Who is your favorite superhero and why?
Has a superhero ever made you question your morality?


The Life and Philosophy of Confucius: By Rahimin A Rahim and Alex Walker

The Life and Philosophy of Confucius
        Confucianism is a system of thought based on the teachings of a Chinese man named Kongfuzi or Confucius, which is a Latinized version of his name. He was born in 551 and lived until 479 BC. He is China’s most popular philosopher. Besides that, he was also a teacher and a political theorist, whose ideas had influenced the civilization of China and East Asia. Confucianism was later developed in the era of the “Hundred Schools of Thought”. During this period of time (from the 6th century ro 221 BC), many philosophies and schools were established and flourished. It was an era that contributed a lot in enhancing China’s cultural and intellectual expansion. Wide-ranging of ideas and thoughts were developed and discussed freely. Confucianism is the school of thought that arguably had the most enduring effects on China and its people.


       Confucius is widely known for his down to earth personality which had mostly shaped his philosophy. He claimed that his ideas were not original, and neither were his teachings, but believed himself to be a “transmitter of wisdom of the past”. The past that he was referring to is the theology or values inherited from “the ancestors”. Devotion to one’s ancestors is really essential in Confucianism as a sign of obedience and loyalty. The core of Confucianism is humanistic values, it transcends “the dichotomy between religion and humanism, considering the ordinary activities of human life - especially human relations – as a manifestation or representation of the sacred.”


        Confucianism is more than just a philosophy but also, “a religion, a rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life”. It places emphasis on the importance of personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. In other words, it focuses on the ideals of order and harmony with the idea that people should live in harmony both with one another and with nature. To achieve this, Confucius created a system of human relationships and strong government. Good governance to him was one of the most important characteristics needed in a society. The political aspect of his philosophy is what really sets it apart from others.


        In Confucius’ time, he was involved in politics and held a position in government. In the state of Lu, the government was then headed by a ruling ducal house which consisted of three aristocratic families. The position of “Minister over the Masses”, who was also the “Prime Minister”, was held by the Ji family. The Meng family and the Shu family held the positions “Minister of Works” and “Minister of War” respectively. In the year 501 BC, he was appointed to the minor position of governor of a town and eventually, Confucius rose to become the Minister of Crime. According to Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), Confucius had a conflict with the duke of Lu when the neighboring Qi state sent the duke 100 good and healthy horses and 80 beautiful girls in a bid to sabotage Lu that was, at that time, becoming too powerful. He fell for it and indulged himself in the pleasure of the world, and as a result, abandoned his official duties. Confucius, obviously, did not agree with him and decided to leave both his post and the Lu State. This was the point when he began his long journey of wandering and at the same time, spreading his teachings.


        During his odyssey (consisting of a set of journeys) around the principality states (monarchical, feudatory, or sovereign states, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince) of north-east and central China, while spreading his teachings, his followers collected his ideas and sayings and compiled it into the Analects of Confucius (Lunyu, in Chinese). At first, it was considered merely as a commentary to compliment the Five Classics (five Chinese books consisted of poetry, documents, ancient rites, and etc. Its’ authorship is still unknown, but scholars believe Confucius had compiled and edited them), but instead, the status of the Analects grew to become one of the central texts of Confucianism. The Analects is still one of China’s most widely-read and studied documents for the last 2000 years and it continues to have a substantial influence on Chinese and East Asian values and thought, both socially and politically. Some of his proverbs are easily recognizable - most notably his version of the “Golden Rule”, often referred to as the “Silver Rule”: “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself”.


        One trait that sets Confucius apart from many other people is that he certainly seemed to value the lives of animals, as evidenced by a parable of his in which a stable burns down. “The stable burned down when Confucius was at court. On his return he said, ‘Has any man been hurt?’ He did not ask about the horses.” This suggests that the lives of animals were important to him. However, another of his parables suggests that he placed even higher importance on ceremony. This parable reads:

“Tsze-kung wished to do away with the offering of a sheep connected with the
inauguration of the first day of each month.

The Master said, “Tsze, you love the sheep; I love the ceremony.”

        Although Confucius valued the lives of animals, to him, they clearly came secondary to ceremony, even if the ritual involves sacrificing an animal. This is because he felt that ceremony and formality were essential to societal order. Without them, he felt there was no way for people to learn how to properly behave, which could cause problems.


        Another trait that Confucius felt essential to a properly functioning society was obedience to one’s parents. He felt that people should always submit to their parent’s commands, and that if they should take issue with them, they must politely suggest that they make a change, but if they choose not to accept the suggestion, the child should simply continue to submit without complaint, regardless of how unreasonable or distressing their commands may be. He believed that this would instill a proper reverence in individuals for people in classes or positions of authority above themselves. One of his famous ideals was to “Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, a father a father, and a son a son.” To him, a proper, structured hierarchy with clearly defined separation of classes was extremely important to a strong society.


        Overall, the philosophy of Confucius was largely focused on the value of order in social interaction and politics, with the objective of helping a society to run more efficiently and effectively. This sets him apart from many philosophers in that everything he taught had a specific functional purpose and focused on fixing existing issues rather than focusing on the hypothetical or abstract. While his teachings often parallel with those from many world religions, Confucianism is not in itself a religion, and could be applied to anyone to help them become a more productive member of society. The philosophies of Confucius have already become an integral part of Asian culture, and Confucianism contains many teachings that would improve the world we live in a great deal if we just integrated even a few of them into our own culture.


Quiz Questions
1. What was Confucius’ real name?
2. Confucius became the Minister of what in the state of Lu?
3. What name was given to the compilation of his teachings?
4. What is his standpoint on how a ruler should govern?
5. What is the Confucianism's aim of education?

Discussion Questions
1. How is Confucianism's take on education still relevant to this day?
2. Do you think Confucianism is a religion or a philosophy?

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Athens in pieces-Socrates' fate, and ours...

This is the sixth installment in an eight-part philosophical tour of the ancient city by the author. The entire series can be found here.

ATHENS — Since we began our little tour I have tried to take you to some of the less obvious sites around the ancient city, often at the periphery. But now I want to head right to the center of it: the Agora. This was a large public square, humming with human activity — shopping, gossip, dramatic performances, military and religious processions — and surrounded on all sides by buildings, including many of the key institutions of Athenian democracy.

Excavations since the 1930s have uncovered the Agora, an open green area, about 30 acres sloping down northwest from the rock of the Acropolis. What I most like about it is its feeling of space, the sense of absence that triggers the imagination and allows one to conjure the ruined city in the mind’s eye.

The reason for coming here on this particular day was entirely selfish: It was my birthday and I wanted to return to my favorite site in Athens and visit the ruins of the house of the source of my name: Simon the Cobbler. He also pretended to be a philosopher of sorts... (continues)
==
Also in The Stone, a disquieting challenge: confronting anti-Semitism in Hume, Voltaire, Kant, and other iconic Enlightenment philosophers...


Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon is a 17th century philosopher whose well-known accomplishments include being a well-respected lawyer and statesman who presented many great arguments in Parliament and famous trials. He eventually served as Lord Chancellor to James l. His intellect was unusually original. One of his most important contributions was paving the way for the scientific method to come into existence. In his writing Novum Organum, he gives “true directions concerning the interpretation of nature”.   

Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, England. He was the son of the lord keeper meaning he was charged with the physical custody or the Great Seal of England. He attended Trinity College in Cambridge but acquired ill health while attending. It was here where his learned and disputed Aristotelian philosophy.

In 1576 Bacon was invited to study at London’s Gray’s Inn, which was one of the four Inns of Court that served as institutions for legal education. He eventually worked his way up the “corporate ladder” so to speak, to become a member of the queen’s counsel and eventually the attorney general. He was very successful as a lawyer but the career path did not fulfill his philosophical and political aspirations.

 He was working towards a part in the English political spectrum when he wrote a “Letter of Advice” to the queen which indicated his interest in politics and showed a lot of potential I doing so. Bacon his a rut in 1593 when he opposed the government’s demand for subsidies to help with the war against Spain. Queen Elizabeth was disgusted of this gesture and Bacon was in disgrace for several of the following years.

Upon Elizabeth’s death in 1603, Bacon began focusing his writings to showcase his abilities for a spot on James l’s counsel. He voiced his concerns for Irish affairs, the union of the kingdoms, and the pacification of the church to prove that he had much to offer the new king. With the help of his cousin Robert Cecil, he was dubbed as a knight. He sat in the first Parliament of the new reign and was a commissioner for the possible union with Scotland.

Bacon was appointed again to attorney general by the king in 1613. He was constantly in conflict with Coke of the King’s Bench and “champion of common law”, until Coke was dismissed for defying orders given to him by the king. This escalation brought Bacon to a title of lord keeper of the great seal in 1617, as his father once was. The following year he became lord chancellor. During these times and slightly after, Bacon is known for coming up with some of his greatest philosophical works, the most influential being Novum Organum.

In 1621, Bacon was accused of two counts of bribery. This happened when he had fallen ill, which made it difficult for him to meet the charges. There were more complaints received about his nobility. He admitted to the receipt of gifts but claimed they never affected his judgment. He eventually resigned the seal and was hit with a 40,000 pound fine and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

During his time after his incarceration, without the worry of his services to the court, Bacon was able to offer inspiring and educated views on multiple aspects such as the war with Spain, educational reforms, biographies, and history pieces. He was never fully pardoned by the king. He died from a case of bronchitis on April 9, 1626.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Bacon-Viscount-Saint-Alban

Lea, Kathleen Marguerite, et al. “Francis Bacon.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia          Britannica, Inc., 18 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Bacon-Viscount-   Saint-Alban

Monday, March 18, 2019

Legislators Are Not Stupid People. So What’s Behind Their Stupid Behavior?


Following the Koch playbook, Tennessee keeps finding new ways to undermine the welfare of its citizens.
NASHVILLE — The 111th General Assembly of Tennessee convened on Jan. 8, and it will disperse on April 26, not a moment too soon. Already, its Republican supermajority has introduced bills that wouldfurther weaken lax gun laws, increase campaign-donation limits and undermine a progressive Nashville law passed by public referendum, among other assaults on democracy and good sense. Tennesseans should get down on their knees and thank God for the citizen-legislator model of government, because there’s no telling how much damage these people could do if they met all year.

Fortunately, much of what happens in the General Assembly is pure political posturing. So far this year, Tennessee Republicans have introduced bills to amend the state constitution (they want it to insist that “liberties do not come from government but from Almighty God”), prohibit state officials from recognizing marriages between people of the same gender, deny birth certificates to babies born to undocumented parents and, most controversially, outlaw abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Heart cells begin beating so early in gestation that many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant.

None of these proposed laws would accomplish anything at all. God is already invoked three times in the constitution of Tennessee, and the United States Constitution has already established birthright citizenship for babies born in this country. The Supreme Court has made same-sex marriage the law of the land, and the “heartbeat bill” would run afoul of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects a woman’s right to an abortion. The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi have already announced that they will challenge the law if it’s passed, and they will win in court.

Bills like this are red meat to the constituencies that elected the Republican supermajority in the first place. But this year, resistance to their efforts has come from surprising places: business and the religious right... (Margaret Renkl, continues)

Carlo Rovelli on science vs. certainty

Descartes's quest for certainty in the name of science was an error.

"Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present...

To seek to look further, to go further, seems to me to be one of the splendid things that give sense to life. Like loving, or looking at the sky. The curiosity to learn, to discover, to look over the next hill, the desire to taste the apple: these are the things that make us human..."



“The atoms of our body, as well, flow in and away from us. We, like waves and like all objects, are a flux of events; we are processes, for a brief time monotonous”  Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
 g'r

“And it seems to me that life, this brief life, is nothing other than this: the incessant cry of these emotions that drive us, that we sometimes attempt to channel in the name of a god, a political faith, in a ritual that reassures us that, fundamentally, everything is in order, in a great and boundless love—and the cry is beautiful. Sometimes it is a cry of pain. Sometimes it is a song. And song, as Augustine observed, is the awareness of time. It is time. It is the hymn of the Vedas that is itself the flowering of time.131 In the Benedictus of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the song of the violin is pure beauty, pure desperation, pure joy. We are suspended, holding our breath, feeling mysteriously that this must be the source of meaning. That this is the source of time. Then the song fades and ceases. “The silver thread is broken, the golden bowl is shattered, the amphora at the fountain breaks, the bucket falls into the well, the earth returns to dust.”132 And it is fine like this. We can close our eyes, rest. This all seems fair and beautiful to me. This is time.”
― Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time

Sunday, March 17, 2019

The trouble with nihilism


Friday, March 15, 2019

Inside Montaigne's tower

Following up the Montaigne report from Gavin, Colton, and Joslyn... (Bonus Runs if someone wants to give us an English-translation transcript.)

Bill Nye on the Fermi Paradox

Following up Austin's & Omar's report...

Fred Rogers

Following up that wonderful report by Tymeria, Miya, & Andrew on the formative influence of childhood television programming, I strongly recommend this film. I saw it last summer at a packed Belcourt Theater, full of adults who were clearly grateful to Fred Rogers for the impact he'd had on their lives.



Thursday, March 14, 2019

Montaigne - Midterm presentation. Colton Williams, Joslyn Parker, Gavin Dunn

Montaigne's Early life:



Michel de Montaigne was a 16th century French philosopher. He was born Feb 28, 1533 in a small town just outside of Bordeaux. Soon after Montaigne’s birth, he was sent to live with a humble family in a nearby village for 3 years. Montaigne’s father wanted him to understand the common folk and drink their breastmilk because he would one day inherit the estate and he needed to be comfortable with his charges. So, “Instead of bringing a nurse to the baby, he sent the baby to a nurse”… for 3 years.


When finally brought home to the Chateau, Montaigne’s father hired a Latin instructor in order to raise him as a native Latin speaker. No one in the house hold was allowed to speak to Montaigne unless they were speaking in Latin. (everyone spoke French) This was quite difficult as no one but the instructor knew any Latin, but Montaigne’s parents as well as the servants learned enough to get by. Montaigne’s father also thought that a child should never be abruptly woken from sleep, so he hired a lute to player to play at this bedside each morning until he awoke. At 6 years old, Montaigne was taken from his home and sent to a school in Bordeaux. (he quickly surpassed the other students due to his exceptional Latin skills, but was a bit alienated since he didn’t know French) According to Montaigne, as the years passed, he ended up knowing less Latin than when he arrived due to making friends. He stayed at the school until 1548.


Montaigne’s first job in the courts was not in Bordeaux, it was in a nearby town. He joined it 1554 and in 1557 he went on to work for the courts in Bordeaux. Montaigne worked for the Bordeaux parlement for 13 years. In February 1571 he left parlement to care for his estate, which was left to him when his father passed in 1568.


Montaigne was afraid of death. In his twenties he spent a lot of time reading classical Philosophers, who never tired of talking about death. According to Cicero.. “To philosophize is to learn how to die.” When he was 30 (1563) his best friend Etienne de La Boetie died from the plague, when he was 35 (1568) his father died, and spring of the following year (1569) his brother died in a sporting accident. All of this put together made him fear death. Montaigne’s favorite sages, the Stoics, said “That if you ran through the images of your death often enough it could never catch you by surprise.” But this did not console his fears.





Sometime between late 1569 or early 1570, Montaigne nearly met his death. He was out riding with friends, and one of them accidentally (his horse charged) ran into Montaigne, knocking him off his horse. He suffered a serious blow to the head and chest and was throwing up blood. His friends carried him back to his estate. As he lay there, he felt tranquil. As if he were drifting off to sleep and he took pleasure in the experience. Later when we came to, his friends tell him that he was thrashing about and trying to rip off his doublet. He was no longer afraid of death.


Montaigne's Late life and Travels:



Montaigne sought to travel the European landscape in search of cultural differences. He traveled from Paris through the Holy Roman Empire to various Italian, Polish, and German cities to learn of the customs beyond those of the French. He was primarily interested in churches and religious activities of Germany and Italy. Whilst staying in Rome, Montaigne earned his citizenship after a short five-month stay in Rome due to his zealousness of being a cosmopolitan. During these travels, he noted persisting problems with kidney stones. He wrote of the intense pain it caused him.


Montaigne returned to France after traveling for approximately fifteen months. He eventually became the Mayor of Bordeaux, France due to his same zealous attitude as a cosmopolitan. He served a total of fours in office, being reelected after his first term in 1583. It was during his time in office that Montaigne published a corrected and refined version of his Essays. Throughout this time of authority, he wrote of political and religious struggles that caused him strife and fear.


As Montaigne’s writings gained momentum in France, his style of writing and motivation to do so inspired further writers. Writers from beyond Montaigne’s time cite a correlation between Montaigne’s writing and Shakespeare’s. A specific excerpt is cited as a direct inspiration by the name of “Gonzalo,” by Shakespeare, respectively.


Age was worn on Montaigne’s sleeve, as he grew older. He had amassed a name for himself by his writings. His later writings were noted to contain more allusions to religious philosophy along with his daily activities. However, Montaigne felt he was losing touch as his writings gained popularity and respect. He wrote how he felt he could not continue writing consistently due to the commercial success of his Essays.


By 1588, Montaigne had successfully finished another edition of his Essays. During the same year, a woman by the name Marie le Jars became his editor and publicist. She was heavily gravitated toward Montaigne because of his “fatherly figure” he acted as towards her. He wrote much more about animals now than ever. In specific, Montaigne wrote about traits animals and humans shared with one another. This was one of his works that motivated the Pyrrhonian Skepticism that later readers analyzed.


Montaigne fell into unconsciousness on an unknown date between 1588-1590. In this time, he confirmed a thought he had been contemplating for his entire life: that nature does everything for you. Montaigne now viewed death as more open and friendly as he grew old and frail. His daily writings were more reflective now, pointing to the feeling of passing between life and death.





September of 1592, Montaigne wrote of a severe attack from a kidney stone. This would be the final time he would have one, as this somehow led to an inflammation of his throat. Three days after the initial infection, Montaigne was limited to writing from his bed and using writing as his primary means of communication. He wrote his final wishes and testament in the following days. He also noted a final religious inspiration in his near death state of mind, writing of a final mass he held in his bedroom. Montaigne finally passed away only a couple days after this mass. It is speculated that the cause was a stroke due to lack of oxygen or asphyxiation. After his death, later writers studied Montaigne’s works and deliberated the answer to his question “how to live?” An answer derived from one writer by the name Virginia Woolf suggests ‘life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself’.


Montaigne and his Writings through History:
Montaigne was a skeptic, like Pyrrho, and its reflected in his writing in how he is constantly contradicting himself, sometimes changing his mind on a few sentences after stating something, saying "my footing is so unsteady and so insecure, I find it so vacillating and ready to slip, and my sight is so unreliable, that on an empty stomach i feel myself to be another man." This is, often considered to be part of his charm, Montaigne celebrated human fallibility, and his writings showcases the human condition, unstable, unsure, ever-changing, and most importantly real. Bakewell writes that for Montaigne, "philosophy lives in individual, fallible humans; therefore, it is riddled with uncertainty." It's due to this style of writing, that readers of his work "Essays" still see themselves in his writing, which has lead to a number of different people and groups adopting his ideas for their own causes, and in a sense creating a "new Montaigne" every time they do so.
The first of these different versions of Montaigne that appear through out history comes about in and shortly after his lifetime, where he and his works were celebrated by the church. His essays were often assigned to heretics, due to the message it portrayed that humans are fragile, and cant trust their own perceptions, which played well into the dogma of the church.

The second iteration of Montaigne comes after his death, during the time of Rene Descartes and Pascal, two of his biggest critics. The two changed the view of his work dramatically, having it go from being recommended by the church to being put on the list of forbidden text. In their writings Descartes and Pascal criticize Montaigne's celebration of human fallibility, claiming that it is degrading. In a time where people felt a growing need to defend human dignity, Montaigne's celebration of fault posed a major threat to people's securities. Though, despite their hatred of him, Pascal and Descartes couldn't help from seeing themselves in Montaigne as numerous people throughout history have. Pascal goes as far as to write "It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that i find everything is see here" in reference to Montaigne's essays.

A later group, the Libertines, would latch onto Montaigne's writings due to the question he always asked, how should one live. Libertine's focused on Montaigne's ideas of "how to live", and used it a a guide on how to be good people, and believe Montaigne's writings held the key to their question.

In his later writings Montaigne became fascinated with the native groups of the Americas. He admired their self sufficiency, and especially their freedom from societal pressures. He emulated this freedom in his own life to an extent, leaving the business of his estate to his wife and servants and focusing primarily on what he wanted to do, writing and living life. Montaigne's fascination with indigenous American groups would later be latched onto by 18th century Germans, specifically two of his songs known as the "cannibal songs". The Germans view Montaigne's criticism of societal pressures as underlying ideas of revolution, and thus Montaigne's writings spawned yet another version of himself.

Overall, Montaigne's writings have been adopted by a number of very different groups and people, and it speaks to the reliability that his writing style offers; where everyone, even those who despise him, are able to see themselves in his works.

Quiz Questions:
  1. What language did Montaigne’s father want him to speak natively?

  1. What was Montaigne’s reasoning for loving his best friend, La Boetie?

  1. Who said, “To Philosophize is to learn how to die?”

  1. What was Montaigne’s answer to the question “How to live?”

  1. How long a term did Montaigne serve as Mayor of Bordeaux?

  1. What piece by Shakespeare were Montaigne’s writing interpreted to be influenced by?
Discussion Questions:
Montaigne, in his essay "Apologia", suggest that he believes Animals have a similar sentience to Humans, Do you agree with statement or do you align more with Descartes's view that animals are on par with machines.

In his writings Montaigne says that he finds comfort in his "insignificance" in the universe, and he finds the largeness of it comforting. Do you agree with this sentiment or do you align more with Pascal who argues that the largeness of the universe and the unknown elements of it are frightening.

Religious Studies Colloquium

Fuzzy, Messy, Icky: The Edges of Consent in Biblical Rape Narratives and Rape Culture

Speaker: Dr. Rhiannon Graybill (Rhodes College)

Consent is the primary framework used to talk about sexual violence, both in reading religious texts and in responding to rape on college campuses. However, this appeal to consent is predicated on troubling assumptions. Most centrally, consent discourses fail to acknowledge the fuzzy, messy, and icky as they pertain to sexual violence. Fuzzy names the ambivalence that surrounds many situations of sexual violence, an ambivalence that extends to the complex feelings of survivors. Messy identifies the aftermath of sexual violence, and the ways that it defies a tidy resolution, or the ways that survivors’ stories cannot fit into a neat pre-ordained narrative of suffering and recovery. Icky describes ambiguity, discomfort, and unpleasant feelings upon encountering stories of sexual violence or other traces of rape culture. Taking as a starting point the fuzzy/messy/icky nature of sexual violence, this talk argues for a new feminist approach to reading rape stories in the Bible, and for responding to rape culture more broadly. The stories of Dinah (Gen. 34), Tamar (2 Sam. 13), and Lot’s daughters (Gen. 19) will receive special attention.

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 (3PM)

Location: Student Union Building, Parliamentary Room 201




Sponsored by:

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
National Women’s History Month Committee

For more information contact:

Dr. Rebekka King (rebekka.king@mtsu.edu)

Boethius IOT



In Our Time (@BBCInOurTime)
Boethius, a politician awaiting execution, found solace in ideas on the nature of reality and the meaning of a moral life bbc.in/2ESWNga

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein, & Happy Pi Day

Today is Pi Day, in honor of the mathematical constant pi (π), an irrational number that begins 3.14 — like today’s date, March 14th or 3/14.
π is a letter of the Greek alphabet, and it’s the symbol for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In other words, if a circle has a diameter of 10 inches, we could find out its circumference by multiplying 10 inches by π, and we’d find out that the circle with a 10-inch diameter has a circumference (or perimeter) of approximately 31.4159265. It can only ever be approximate — never exact — because π is an irrational number, meaning that it goes on forever without repeating or having patterns. Using powerful computers, π has been calculated in recent years into trillions of decimal places.
Pi Day began in 1988, started by a physicist named Larry Shaw. Pi Day celebrations around the nation today involve eating dessert pies or pizza pies, throwing cream pies, and listening to lectures on the importance of the irrational number — sometimes all of these things occurring in unison.
There are legions of people worldwide devoted to memorizing π to as far as they can memorize it. And today around the world, there are π recitation contests.
To aid in the memorization of the never-ending, pattern-less number, people have written poetry and stories in a mnemonic called “Pilish,” which is a way of constrained writing “in which the number of letters in each successive word “spells out” the digits of π.” One of the earliest and best-known examples of it was a sentence by English physicist Sir James Jeans, who wrote: “How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!” ‘How’ has three letters, ‘I’ has one, “need” has four — so it forms 3.14, the start of π — and each successive word’s letter count represents the next digit in π.
Then, in 1996, a piphilologist (as these people are called), wrote a 3,834-digit Cadaeic Cadenza, which begins with a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”; every single word adheres to the constraints that render letter counts into accurate successive π digits.

Today is Albert Einstein’s (books by this author) birthday. He was born in Ulm, Germany (1879), and his pre-kindergarten fascination with a compass needle left an impression on him that lasted a lifetime. He liked math but hated school, dropped out, and taught himself calculus in the meantime. Einstein worked for the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, where his job was to evaluate patent applications for electromagnetic devices and determine whether the inventions described would actually work. The job wasn’t particularly demanding, and at night he would come home and pursue scientific investigations and theories.
In 1905, he wrote a paper on the Special Theory of Relativity, which is that if the speed of light is constant and if all natural laws are the same in every frame of reference, then both time and motion are relative to the observer. That same year, he published three more papers, each of which was just as revolutionary as the first, among them the paper that included his most famous equation: E = mc2. E is energy, m is mass, and c stands for the velocity of light.
Einstein received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. He said, “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” WA
==
...he said: “Why is it that nobody understands me, and everybody likes me?” That’s Albert Einstein (books by this author), born in Ulm, Germany (1879). As a boy, he was slow to begin speaking, which worried his parents, and later, as a student, he was unremarkable. He graduated from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich with a teaching degree, but despite his obvious intelligence, his grades weren’t very good — he skipped classes he disliked, and refused to work on projects that didn’t interest him. After graduation, he was the only member of his class not offered a teaching job at the institute, and he spent two years trying unsuccessfully to find a permanent teaching position. Finally, he gave up and applied to work as a technical assistant at the Swiss patent office in Bern. He was hired, and he went to work six days a week, eight hours a day. The work was easy for him, and he earned 3,500 Swiss francs a year.
At the patent office, he worked all day at a lectern, reviewing applications of inventions to see if they were worthy of receiving patents. He said: “Working on the final formulation of technological patents was a veritable blessing for me. It enforced many-sided thinking and also provided important stimuli to physical thought.” His boss encouraged him to be skeptical of every application, not to be taken in by the assumptions of the would-be inventors, and Einstein took the work seriously and was a strict reviewer. Because he was so efficient, he was able to get a day’s work done in just a few hours, which left him the rest of the day to pursue his own scientific ideas. He kept all his notes and theories in the second drawer of his desk, which he called his “theoretical physics department.”
Einstein tried to manage his time evenly: eight hours a day at work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for everything else — although in reality, that “everything else” often cut into his sleep. One of the things he did in his free time was meet with a group of friends to discuss physics and philosophy. Before he secured the job at the patent office in June of 1902, Einstein had advertised himself as a physics tutor. A Romanian philosophy student named Maurice Solovine saw his ad in the paper and went to Einstein’s house to sign up. The two men talked for hours, and after a few more sessions, Einstein decided they should abandon the idea of a tutor-student relationship and just get together to talk as peers. Soon they expanded the group to include others, and named themselves the Olympia Academy. They gathered at Einstein’s apartment, where they ate sausages, cheese, and fruit, and debated the ideas of great thinkers.
All of these ideas about philosophy and theoretical physics were in Einstein’s head as he sat in the patent office conducting what he called his gedankenexperimenten, or thought experiments. He also considered the patents he was reviewing, many of them about electric light, power, the mechanisms of clocks, and electromagnetism. Einstein called the patent office “that worldly cloister where I hatched my most beautiful ideas.”
In the year 1905, while he worked as a patent clerk, Einstein published four papers that changed the field of physics. These papers were about his particle theory of light; determining the size of molecules suspended in liquid, and how to determine their motion; and special relativity, including his famous equation relating energy and matter: E=mc².
He said, “All of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.” WA