Thursday, November 29, 2012

Does the universe have a purpose?

Probably not the answer the Templeton Foundation bargained for.

No comments:

Home

"When I discovered that Apollo 8 was the only crew in which all the marriages survived (astronaut careers were notoriously hard on marriages) it didn’t surprise me. In a singularly beautiful story, it seemed only fitting that the first men to leave Earth considered home to be the most important place in the universe.” Robert Kurson, Rocket Men

"You are here" - That's here, that's home, that's us... "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." Carl Sagan

“To a wise man the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.” Democritus

Important Dates

January 21 - Classes Begin (Tuesday after MLK, Jr. Day)
February 6 - identify midterm report topics
February 11 - midterm collaborative report presentations begin
March 5 - Exam
March 9-14 - Spring Break
April 28 - Exam
April 29 - Last Day of Classes
April 30 - Study Day, No Classes/Exams/Mandatory Meetings
~~May 1-7 Final Exams as Determined by University Approved Exam Schedule~~
May 5 - Final report blog post final draft due (post earlier if you'd like constructive, collaborative feedback)
May 11 - Deadline for Final Grades

Why we begin class with a glance at the news

News, when pursued honestly, is not just a matter of opinion or partisan preference. It's a crucial part of the philosophers' quest.

Philosophers seek wisdom, which is inseparable from honesty, truth, reality, and the facts. To shun the dogged search for truth and reality is to live in Fantasyland.

Whatever you may think of the positions taken by its editorial board and opinion columnists, the New York Times is a journalistically credible source of objective news and fascinating cultural reflection. As a student at MTSU you are entitled to a free digital subscription. Here's why you shouldn't squander that opportunity!

You can collect bases and runs in our course, in part, by sharing and commenting on news stories and opinion pieces in the Times and elsewhere that capture your interest. Try to "connect the dots" and you'll be a better philosopher.

History, Poetry, & Music

“TO BE IGNORANT OF WHAT OCCURRED before you were born is to remain always a child.” -Cicero

“Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana, The Life of Reason

On this day... Writers Almanac... GK

"Poetry contains philosophy as the soul contains reason." -Victor Hugo

“If music be the food of love, play on. - William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” -Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” -Albert Einstein

"If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness..."

"The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply."

-Charles Darwin

The philosophy of poetry (PhilosophyNow)... Philosophical poems...Poetic naturalism (Sean Carroll)

Texts

REQUIRED for Spring 2020:

American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag (AP)
A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton (LH)
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen (FL)

REQUIRED for Fall 2020:

How the World Thinks by Julian Baggini (WT)
Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life by John Kaag
Why Grow Up? Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age by Susan Neiman
A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton (LH)
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen (FL)

Feel free to use etexts and audiobooks, when available.

I also recommend books/resources listed below. You may wish to use one or more of them, or some other text you find (and I approve), as the basis of your midterm and/or final report.

RECOMMENDED-

[ATTN: Buchanan Scholars] Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean... and see "How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit"
A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy by Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins, and its longer version A Short History of Philosophy
A Philosophy of Walking by Frederic Gros
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
The Joys of Walking ed. Edwin Mitchell (JW)
The Stone philosophy blog (NYT)
The Stone Reader (compilation from the NYT philosophy blog)
Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments: A Stone Reader
Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter(Peter Singer)
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically (Singer)
America the Philosophical by Carlin Romano
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others by Sarah Bakewell
How to Live: Montaigne... (Bakewell)
How Democracies Die by Levitsky & Ziblatt
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Philosophy Bites iPhone app
Philosophy Bites Back (PB)
Philosophy: The Basics (P)
Philosophy: The Classics by Nigel Warburton (book & podcast)
Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein
Popular Culture & Philosophy Series (and see below)
Pragmatism: A New Name for an Old Way of Thinking by William James
The God Dialogues: A Philosophical Journey by Torin Alter & Robert J. Howell
The Greeks: An Illustrated History by Diane Harris Cline
The Meaning of Human Existence by EO Wilson
Very Short Introductions (OUP)
Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Storyby Jim Holt
The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truthby some guys with difficult Greek names

Also see "More books" below... and look for more in the Philosophy stacks on the 2d floor of our library.

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't." Mark Twain

‏ @TheMarkTwain

"What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself."
“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

The attribution of those last two to Twain has been disputed. But he most certainly did have Huck Finn say, in reply to criticism of his friendship with the fugitive slave Jim: “All right, then, I'll go to hell.”

Students aren't "customers"

If we describe college courses as mainly delivery mechanisms for skills to please a future employer, if we imply that history, literature and linguistics are more or less interchangeable “content” that convey the same mental tools, we oversimplify the intellectual complexity that makes a university education worthwhile in the first place. We end up using the language of the capitalist marketplace and speak to our students as customers rather than fellow thinkers. They deserve better.

Colleges should stop trivializing the transmission of knowledge.

Molly Worthen

The Misguided Drive to Measure "Learning Outcomes"

Stay

“None of us can truly know what we mean to other people, and none of us can know what our future self will experience. History and philosophy ask us to remember these mysteries, to look around at friends, family, humanity, at the surprises life brings — the endless possibilities that living offers — and to persevere. There is love and insight to live for, bright moments to cherish, and even the possibility of happiness, and the chance of helping someone else through his or her own troubles. Know that people, through history and today, understand how much courage it takes to stay. Bear witness to the night side of being human and the bravery it entails, and wait for the sun. If we meditate on the record of human wisdom we may find there reason enough to persist and find our way back to happiness. The first step is to consider the arguments and evidence and choose to stay. After that, anything may happen. First, choose to stay.”

Stay: A History of Suicide and the Arguments Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht

The School of Life‏

'Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.' - Epicurus

'The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.' - James Joyce

Our brains are like sieves. If anything is going to remain in them, we need regular reminders of what really matters. We only learn what we repeat (vid)

	The School of Life (@TheSchoolOfLife)
The kind person starts from the assumption that others are highly likely to be in quite different places internally: ht.ly/gWRD30dBer5

The School of Life, on RESILIENCE:

We often overestimate how fragile we are. In our nightmares, we assume that life would become impossible for us far earlier than it actually would. In reality, we could manage perfectly well with a lot less than we currently have. Not that we should want this to happen, of course: it’s simply that we could bear it. We forget our resilience in the face of risk and become unnecessarily timid. Our lives become dominated by a fear of losing things that we could in fact do without.

3 a.m. alone in bed is perhaps not the optimal moment at which to derive a true picture of reality. Wait – always – for the perspective of dawn.
Things don’t need to be perfect; we are creatures eminently suited to ‘good enough’.
It sounds heartless to say: ‘you’ll get over it’. But you will.
The brain is designed to exaggerate troubles. We suffer more in our thoughts than in reality.
Loneliness may be more pleasant than the compromises of false community.
We really need only one counsel in the end: This too shall pass...
Most of what we’ve ever learnt came to us in periods of suffering.
You aside, no one is carefully keeping track of your idiocies.
Rather than admire the new and pristine, we should make a cult of mended things.

‏ @Kurt_Vonnegut

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Image result for vonnegut hello babies

"Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail."

Jailbird, prologue

“We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an Afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.” KV's last speech, April '07

Postponing the good life

“How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Pragmatic meliorism

...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism. Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable. Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism... Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become. It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism... Pragmatism: A New Name for an Old Way of Thinking... Refillism

Evolution links & suggested titles

Evolutionfaq.com... Frequently asked questions about evolution (pbs)... TalkOriginsFAQs on evolution... Darwin online...Darwin discussion questions, quotes etc. here...Jay Hosler, Sandwalk Adventures (a graphic novel)... Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr, Darwin: A Graphic Biography... Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist...Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution... Winteron C. Curtis, "A Defense Expert's Impressions of the Scopes Trial" from D-Days at Dayton: Fundamentalism vs Evolution at Dayton, Tennessee (1956)... "A damned-yankee professor in Little Dixie" (1957)... Michael Boulter, Darwin's Garden: Down House & the Origin of Species... Hanne Strager, A Modest Genius: The story of Darwin's life and how his ideas changed everything

Scopes Trial re-enactment 2018, Dayton TN (slideshow)
Science and Human Affairs From the Viewpoint of Biology by Winterton C. Curtis
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen
Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution by Loyal Rue
Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett
The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy by John Dewey
Darwin's Dogs by Emma Townshend
Darwin's Ghosts by Rebecca Stott
Living With Darwin by Philip Kitcher
Charles Darwin-Voyaging by Janet Browne
Charles Darwin-The Power of Place by Janet Browne
Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik
Five best books on evolution, acc'ing to Jerry Coyne
40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania by Matthew Chapman
The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation by Randall Fuller
The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us by Richard O. Prum
The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will by Kenneth R. Miller
Why Darwin Matters: The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer
Varieties of Religious Experience by William James AND Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Richard Dawkins

Wonder & cosmic perspective

"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder." Plato

"It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Aristotle

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself... it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Carl Sagan

The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself. Neil deGrasse Tyson

In the cosmic blink of our present existence, as we stand on this increasingly fragmented pixel, it is worth keeping the Voyager in mind as we find our capacity for perspective constricted by the stranglehold of our cultural moment. It is worth questioning what proportion of the news this year, what imperceptible fraction, was devoted to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded for the landmark detection of gravitational waves — the single most significant astrophysical discovery since Galileo. After centuries of knowing the universe only by sight, only by looking, we can now listen to it and hear echoes of events that took place billions of lightyears away, billions of years ago — events that made the stardust that made us.

I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us. Maria Popova

Golden record... Golden record goes vinyl... Golden record 2.0... Contact opening... A way of thinking (video interview/transcript)

"Two billion years ago, our ancestors were microbes; a half-billion years ago, fish, a hundred million years ago, something like mice; then million years ago, arboreal apes; and a million years ago, proto-humans puzzling out the taming of fire. Our evolutionary lineage is marked by mastery of change. In our time, the pace is quickening." Pale Blue Dot

“We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.” Cosmos

Variations on the theme... Four billion years of evolution in 40 seconds... in 8 minutes

Conceptual shotgun

Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession condemns him to this industry, but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy. His formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs seen outside the instrument; they lack the depth, the motion, the vitality. In the religious sphere, in particular, belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience. Varieties of Religious Experience

Alan Watts

@AlanWattsDaily
We need, above all things, to slow down and get ourselves to amble through life instead of rush through it.
==
The wisdom of Alan Watts in four animations
==
Alan Watts Introduces America to Meditation & Eastern Philosophy: Watch the 1960 TV Show, "Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life”
==
The only real "you" is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.” The Book: on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." Thoreau

"The really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?" William James

JPO blogs at Up@dawn and Delight Springs, podcasts here and on Soundcloud (More day to dawn, at iTunes), and tweets @osopher. "You don't need to follow me..."

but if a blog or podcast link is included with the daily quiz you'll probably want to read or listen.

Peripatetics

The original peripatetics were Aristotle's students at the Lyceum, back in the day. Legend has it that they didn't sit indoors in orderly rows like students nowadays, but instead roamed the grounds in small groups, walking-and-talking philosophy. I like their style, apocryphal or not. It’s a model we’ll emulate when the weather is nice enough, outdoors.

	Henry David Thoreau (@ThoreauPage)
7/25/18, 2:23 PM "I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements." #Thoreau #Quote

Henry walks to work...

Full moon over Walden video...

Would you be interested in joining a peripatetic Study Abroad summer course that involves walking and talking in England? Let me know...

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

& grades, Spring 2020-

participation, which we'll track on a daily "scorecard" with "bases" and "runs" contributing to final grade. 4 bases = 1 run, which you can earn in each class. You have to come to class to "get on base" and have a chance to score your daily participation run, but if you ever have to miss a class see the *make-up policy below.
two 20-question objective format exams based on short ungraded daily quizzes which we'll go over in class, exams worth one run per correct answer
MIDTERM COLLABORATIVE REPORT, working with two other classmates. 500+word blog post (due date tba) & 10-15 minute presentation (to be scheduled), worth up to 20 runs. Include quiz & discussion questions, relevant graphics, videos, and links in your blog post. Topics tba, including pre-Descartes philosophers, recommended supplemental texts, Stone & This I Believe essay(s)...
FINAL SOLO REPORT. 500+ word blog post (due date tba) worth up to 20 runs. Possible topics include any post-Descartes philosopher, further development of midterm report topic, a StoryCorps interview/essay, a transcribed imaginary dialogue between yourself and one or two philosophers...

Presentations, like group discussions, will follow the peripatetic model when weather and inclination permit. So, post all supplemental and supportive multimedia material on our site in advance and be prepared to report like a peripatetic, in the open air.

*MAKE-UP POLICY. To "get on base" and be eligible to score when you're not able to be physically present, post an extra-credit blog post of 500 words (minimum) on a topic covered when you were absent, within one week of the class date you missed.

Scorecards, & how to play the game

Can't tell the players without a scorecard.

We'll track daily participation with baseball-style scorecards. But our game's much easier than the national pastime, all you have to do to get to 1st base is show up for class (or submit a make-up post when you have to miss class: see make-up policy above). Each class date is a column or "inning" on the scorecard. Simply showing up to class gets you to 1st base. Mark your scorecard accordingly. Now you're eligible to collect more bases and score your daily participation run (runs=participation points, 4 bases = 1 run).

Collect up to four bases (= 1 run) per class.

How to score your daily participation run. Come to class: you're now on 1st base. Move up to 2d, 3d, & home to score if you posted any combination of three relevant alternative quiz questions, discussion questions, comments, and/or links. (Post in the comments section under the day's quiz. Keep a record of your posts in your own notes, be prepared to document them by date and location when asked.) Bases awarded during class also count toward your daily participation run.

Besides posting, you can claim a base if you started the computer/projector & opened this site in our classroom before class, or were verbally awarded a base during class.

How to post. Eventually, everyone will have an opportunity to sign up as an "author" on our site. Until then, post your questions, comments, links, etc. in the current "comments" section under each day's quiz. Or, post via a classmate's author account (click on "new post" in the upper right.)

Daily Quiz

We'll do daily ungraded quizzes, posted before class on our site by me and supplemented (in the comments section) by you. Exams will be based on the daily quizzes.

Why a daily quiz? Because philosophy is all about the questions, and because "frequent quizzes can deepen learning" (see "How to Study" below).

And note: "One reason scientists suspect that studying in pairs or groups can be helpful is that students are forced to talk to one another about the material-or better yet, argue about it... [this] deepens learning more than passively rereading or reviewing the material" alone. Hence, the rationale for our quiz-and-collaboration course format.

And besides, it's fun.

Questions & Links etc.

QUIZ QUESTIONS, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS. An example of a QQ: “Was it Plato or Aristotle who presented the Allegory of the Cave in his book The Republic?” [Plato]. A DQ might be: “Who do you think had a better understanding of reality and how we can discover it, Plato or Aristotle? Why?”

LINKS. An example of a posted link that would earn you a base: “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is helpfully explained in a cartoon I found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EPz5z1pUag”... OR, “I found a helpful article about Aristotle in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://www.iep.utm.edu/aristotl/” etc.

"Solvitur ambulando"

It’s a Latin phrase that literally means, “It is solved by walking.” Or, a little more loosely, “It is solved by walking around"... There was a time in which writers and philosophers wrote poems and paeans to the humble walk, publishing books and essays with titles such as “The Reveries of the Solitary Walker,” “In Praise of Walking,” and “Walking as a Fine Art.” Bipedal locomotion was referred to as “the manly art of walking,” and enrollment in the “noble army of walkers” was encouraged... (continues)

Poetic Naturalism

Naturalism comes down to three things.

1. There is only one world, the natural world.

2. The world evolves according to unbroken patterns, the laws of nature.

3. The only reliable way of learning about the world is by observing it.

...The poetic aspect can also be summarized in three aspects.

1. There are many ways of talking about the world.

2. All good ways of talking must be consistent with one another and the world.

3. Our purposes in the moment determine the best way of talking...

Ten Considerations...

Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

How to major or minor in Philosophy at MTSU

Here's one reason why you should consider it... and here are many more, along with the names of lots of accomplished Phil Majors like Steve Martin, Woody Allen, Ricky Jervais (so it's great prep for a career in stand-up!), David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Oliver Wendell Holmes (or you can join the Supremes), Steve Jobs, George Soros, Carl Icahn, Carly Fiorina (you can revolutionize computing, business, & finance), Studs Terkel, Umberto Eco, Edward Abbey, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, David Foster Wallace (become a great writer, but don't kill yourself)... Why Philosophy Belongs in the Core... Curriculum... On the benefits of a philosophy major ...In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined... growing media interest in the study of philosophy... dramatically increasing enrollment in philosophy programs... Google's in-house philosopher... Philosophy in biz... What Philosophy can do for you... it's highly marketable... What your philosophy degree can do for you... How to talk to your parents about majoring in the humanities... famous philosophy majors poster... What 20 successful people did with their philosophy degrees... "I Think, therefore I earn"... "Be employable, study philosophy"... Beyond Academia: nonacademic careers for philosophy majors..."Philosophy is a great major"... Mark Cuban: the future of jobs is the liberal arts... the "most practical major"... You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education-"The top earners among high achievers: Philosophy and Political Science. The high achievers with those majors out earn high achieving engineers and computer scientists"... Earnings by major...

Six Myths About Choosing a Major-"Not all philosophy majors wind up as baristas, and not all engineers get rich. Here’s what you need to know before making this big decision."

And here's more info on the Philosophy program at MTSU.
==

What is college for? ..."To be sure, material benefits are essential to a complete vision of human flourishing. Yet our default vision of the good life today is too often restricted to consideration of material accomplishment – resumés, salaries, and zip codes. If we do not have a rich understanding of what education is for, we’ll lose more than mere enrollment counts. We don’t need merely smarter, wealthier, or more politically civilized people. We need good people. We need higher education to reclaim its distinctive role in moral formation – in the transition from youth to adulthood – situated at the crossroads of family, religious community, workplace, and state. The task now is renewing the conversation about the sorts of excellence that characterize the good people we want to form. Education without moral vision is no education at all." OUP blog
==
"The study of philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism about the moral opinions, political arguments and economic reasonings with which we are daily bombarded by ideologues, churchmen, politicians and economists. It teaches one to detect ‘higher forms of nonsense’, to identify humbug, to weed out hypocrisy, and to spot invalid reasoning. It curbs our taste for nonsense, and gives us a nose for it instead. It teaches us not to rush to affirm or deny assertions, but to raise questions about them.

Even more importantly, it teaches us to raise questions about questions, to probe for their tacit assumptions and presuppositions, and to challenge these when warranted. In this way it gives us a distance from passion-provoking issues – a degree of detachment that is conducive to reason and reasonableness." Why Study Philosophy

"I was told to choose a degree that would be marketable. But I decided not to. I decided to study philosophy instead of commerce because I believed that it would train my mind to be an entrepreneur instead of train myself to be an employee." entrepreneur.com/article/318252

==
When to declare a major. Here's a Vandy philosopher's advice: "Told incoming frosh today that she should declare a major only after she'd learned enough to be disgusted with the way the world is." @RobertTalisse

==
Philosophy is a great major...

	Daily Nous / Justin Weinberg (@DailyNousEditor)
5/13/19, 9:14 AM What can you do with a degree in philosophy? A new book collects answers from thirty people who majored in philosophy and went on to pursue a variety of careers. dailynous.com/2019/05/13/var…

For philosophy majors, what's next?

	TED Talks (@TEDTalks)
5/14/19, 10:57 AM “If you don’t know what you want to do with the rest of your life, you’re not a failure. Give yourself time and get yourself experience to figure things out.” — Angela Duckworth t.ted.com/PPOVabZ

Philosophy Club

The MTSU Philosophy Club has fallen into a state of inanition, torpidity, or possibly even non-existence. WOULD YOU LIKE TO REVIVE IT? If you're interested in becoming involved with the next iteration of the club, let me know.

Here's the apparently-final missive from the club's last-known leader:

A NOTE FROM THE FORMER PREZ: "I am Blake Welker, your new Philosophy club president. I would like the club to be an academic and social resource. We are planning on starting a journal! We are looking for any submissions about anything relating to your perceptive experience. If you have a submission or question please email me atjbw4r@mtmail.mtsu.edu."

Slogans & Quotes

A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.--William James

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.--Rene Descartes

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Buddha

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.” -Baruch Spinoza

Sapere Aude! Have the courage to think for yourself.

Carpe diem! Seize the day.

Don't believe everything you think.

Even determinists and fatalists look both ways before crossing the street.

I am, therefore I (should) think.

Nemo liber est qui corpori servit No one is free who is a slave to his body.

Que sais je? What do I know?

Slow down, pay attention, question everything, start now.

Solvitur ambulando (Diogenes the Cynic, and jpo) It is solved by walking.

"There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist." Mark Twain

	Mark Twain (@bymarktwain)
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. #MarkTwain

TPM Philosophy Quote‏ @tpmquote
The great philosophers of old are remembered largely by their posthumous contributions to dictionaries of quotations.--Anthony Gottlieb
More from TMP...

More books

- "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a work of fiction" Cass Seltzer’s (Rebecca Goldstein’s) appendix
- American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia Ed. by Talisse, Lachs
- Breakfast With Socrates “An Extraordinary Philosophical Journey Through Your Ordinary Day”
- Doubt: A History Jennifer Michael Hecht’s romp through the history of doubt, skepticism, atheism, humanism, naturalism…
- Gutenberg Project etexts in the public domain
- In Love With Life
- Last Days of Socrates Usefully annotated and hyperlinked edition of Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.
- Pale Blue Dot: a vision of the human future in space Carl Sagan’s spiritual vision of our future. He likes William James’s definition of religion, ” a feeling of being at home in the universe.” But “if we mean the real universe, then we have no true religion yet.”
- Passion for Wisdom
- Pragmatism: a new name for an old way of thinking
- Principles of Psychology (1890)Full text of William James’s classic introduction to the young field he helped to pioneer.
- Simon Critchley's "Book of Dead Philosophers" Lots more fun than it sounds…
- Six Questions of Socrates: A modern-day journey of discovery through world philosophy Chris Phillips goes global in his search for Socrates.
- Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy Chris Phillips’ first book “in search of Socrates” in the contemporary world.
- The Demon-haunted World: science as a candle in the dark Carl Sagan
- The Greatest Show on Earth The evidence for evolution, masterfully assembled by the former Oxford “Professor for the Public Understanding of Science.”
- The Really Hard Problem: meaning in a material world Owen Flanagan says the problem of meaning is soluble without fantasy, and we can be happy. “I recommend joyful optimistic realism. Life can be precious and funny.”
- The Varieties of Religious Experience WJ’s Gifford Lectures
- The Varieties of Scientific Experience Carl Sagan’s Gifford Lectures
- Trials of the Monkey: an accidental memoir Darwin’s descendant (great-great grandson) Matthew Chapman’s memoir, couched in a funny and ultimately sympathetic road trip to Dayton TN for the the Scopes Trial reenactment
- Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder “Spirituality” from atheist Richard Dawkins
- William James's "Springs of Delight" Limited digitized version of a pretty good book…
- William James: in the maelstrom of American Modernism Robert Richardson’s bio of WJ

Five Books

Five Books (@five_books)

Nigel Warburton's reading list if you are interested in philosophy and look to gain understanding twitter.com/philosophybite… links to 41 philosophy interviews

John Kaag's 5 books on American philosophy... & Rob Talisse's on pragmatism

5 books on everyday living

Sarah Bakewell recommends 5 books on Existentialism

5 books on Evolution & cooperation

5 books on Morality Without God (Mary Warnock)

5 books on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence

5 books on Voltaire

5 books on the brain

-==

5 books on consciousness (Sue Blackmore)

5 books on time and mind

5 books on time and eternity

5 most frequently recommended books (HINT: #1 is a great philosopher of liberty)

Alain de Botton recommends the best books of illuminating essays
buff.ly/2ukmkvB pic.twitter.com/gMPrjYTmm1

5 books on world philosophy... on cosmology

	Five Books (@five_books)
8/12/18, 5:00 AM "Reason may not be as self-sufficiently robust as some had hoped, but it doesn’t have to be ... it has brought us, often kicking and screaming, into our greater collective well-being" Philosopher Rebecca Goldstein ⁦‪@platobooktour‬⁩ reason and its limitations fivebooks.com/best-books/rea…

	Five Books (@five_books)
8/13/18, 6:38 AM NEW interview: Aristotle, says Edith Hall, is "quite simply the most important intellectual who ever lived." Here the author and classicist selects five key texts to further your understanding of the great philosopher's life and work. fivebooks.com/best-books/ari…

	Five Books (@five_books)
8/15/18, 11:45 AM "Hobbes is brilliant in two ways. One is his style of writing: he is a phrasemaker with very memorable quotations. There are things I’ve read just once that stuck in my head. He’s also analytically brilliant." Jonathan Wolff on Political Philosophy: fivebooks.com/best-books/jon…

	Five Books (@five_books)
8/16/18, 1:30 PM Charles Fernyhough (⁦‪@cfernyhough‬⁩) on William James: "probably the most influential psychologist of all time" fivebooks.com/best-books/cha…

Teaching Doubt

One thing is certain: if our educational system does not honestly and explicitly promote the central tenet of science—that nothing is sacred—then we encourage myth and prejudice to endure. We need to equip our children with tools to avoid the mistakes of the past while constructing a better, and more sustainable, world for themselves and future generations. We won’t do that by dodging inevitable and important questions about facts and faith. Instead of punting on those questions, we owe it to the next generation to plant the seeds of doubt." Lawrence M. Krauss, "Teaching Doubt"-The New Yorker

"This I Believe"

Another final report option: Read and listen to others' "This I Believe" essays, and post your own (as I did-see below), at their website and on ours. I did. (May be time to update this...)

(I believe in) the next 40 years Phil - Nashville, Tennessee Entered on July 20, 2009

I believe that humans have a bright future among the stars. A 12-year old boy might have been excused, on July 20, 1969, for picturing the world of 2009 as far closer to Captain Kirk’s than this. The “space race” had been run and won in a few focused frenetic years, from Sputnik in the […]

(continues)

John Dewey on experience, education, secular "faith," and the continuous human community

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” The School and Society

One of America's greatest philosophers outlines a faith which is not confined to sect, class, or race. Dr. Dewey calls for the emancipation of the true religious quality from the heritage of dogmatism and supernaturalism that characterizes historical religions. He describes a positive, practical, and dynamic faith, verified and supported by the intellect and evolving with the progress of social and scientific knowledge. g'r

Natural piety is not of necessity either a fatalistic acquiescence in natural happenings or a romantic idealization of the world. It may rest upon a just sense of nature as the whole of which we are parts, while it also recognizes that we are parts that are marked by intelligence and purpose, having the capacity to strive by their aid to bring conditions into greater consonance with what is humanly desirable. Such piety is an inherent constituent of a just perspective in life...

A [properly] religious attitude needs the sense of a connection of man, in the way of both dependence and support, with the enveloping world that the imagination feels is a universe. Use of the words "God" or "divine" to convey the union of actual with ideal may protect man from a sense of isolation and from consequent despair or defiance.

The things in civilization we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link. Ours is the responsibility of conserving, transmitting, rectifying and expanding the heritage of values we have received, that those who come after us may receive it more solid and secure, more widely accessible and more generously shared than we have received it. A Common Faith
==
William James on the "religion of humanity"- Whether a God exist, or whether no God exist... we form at any rate an ethical republic here below. And the first reflection which this leads to is that ethics have as genuine and real a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well as theism does. William James, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life
==
Bertrand Russell on "a free man's worship"-United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed. Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship... Russell's message to future generations (vid)

Some of my favorite philosophers

1. William James
2. John Stuart Mill
3. John Dewey
4. David Hume
5. Michel de Montaigne
6. Bertrand Russell
7. Ralph Waldo Emerson/Henry David Thoreau (a tie)
8. Aristotle (mostly because he contradicts Plato)

9. Voltaire

Where are the women? Up until relatively recently, they weren't invited into the conversation. But I'm doing my homework. Thanks to Jennifer Michael Hecht's wonderful Doubt: A History, I know the names of some 19th century women who'd likely have become favorites of mine and many others, in a better world: Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Annie Besant, Ernestine Rose, Etta Semple, Helen Hamilton Gardener...

Jefferson the Stoic-Epicurean

"Before he attained domestic happiness he had probably worked out his enduring philosophy of life; it was marked by cheerfulness not gloom, and he afterwards described it as Epicurean, though he hastened to say that the term was much misunderstood. He came to believe that happiness was the end of life, but, as has been said, he was engaged by the "peculiar conjunction of duty with happiness"; and his working philosophy was a sort of blend of Epicureanism and Stoicism, in which the goal of happiness was attained by self-discipline."

Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian

Coming

Coming Summer 2018: MALA 6040, Evolution in America: a course studying the cultural, social, historical, and philosophical impact of the theory of evolution in America and specifically in Tennessee, possibly including a field-trip to Dayton, TN (site of the infamous 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" and of an annual dramatic reenactment). Texts include Edward Larson's account of that event, Summer for the Gods, and Matthew Chapman's Trials of the Monkey (he is Charles Darwin's great-great...grandson, a Brit who made a pilgrimage to Dayton himself, and wrote about it). We'll look at why the idea of evolution has encountered both enthusiasm and hostility in this country, and at the prospects for peaceful coexistence between evolutionary science and religious faith in the future.

CoPhilosophy

Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Does the universe have a purpose?

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