Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, April 2, 2018

Quiz Apr 5

Voltaire & Leibniz (& Voltaire), Hume & Rousseau; FL 37... and see below**

LH
1. What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right"?

2. What German philosopher, with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason," agreed with the poet?

3. What French champion of free speech and religious toleration wrote a satirical novel/play ridiculing the idea that everything is awesome?

4. What 1755 catastrophe deeply influenced Voltaire's philosophy?

5. What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"?

6. Was Voltaire an atheist?

7. (T/F) Hume thought the human eye so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design.

8. (T/F) Hume's view was that it's occasionally more plausible to believe that a miracle (the unexplained suspension of a law of nature) has happened, than not.

9. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______.

DE (from the first half of each chapter... pose your alternative quz questions on the second half)

10. Name two fields of study Leibniz contributed to, and two of his inventions/proposals.

11. Leibniz's "atoms of nature," each a "windowless" self-contained world , are called what?

12. What did Berkeley allege to be the sole contents of the universe, and who said this was "close to my own view"?

13. Who won first place in a poll among philosophers to pick their all-time favorite, which close friend was at his deathbed, and what did he tell Boswell about an afterlife?

14. What is induction, and what did Hume think accounts for our confidence that the future will resemble the past?

15. What did Hume say theres' no point in trying to do?

16. What ill-defined concept of Rousseau's might be read as providing intellectual support for dictators?

17. What did Rousseau consider better pastimes than intellectual work?

FL 37
18. What was the message of The Courage to Heal?

19. The first big outbreak of what occurred in and around Bakersfield CA  in the '80s?

==
DQ:
1. If "whatever is, is right," is political reform or personal growth and change ever an appropriate aspiration? Does anyone ever really act as if they believe that this is the best of all possible worlds? What would you change about the world or your life, if you could?

2. Even if there's a logical explanation for everything, does it follow that there's a justification?

3. If you agree that "Panglossian" (Leibnizian) optimism is ridiculous, what form of optimism isn't? Are you an optimist? Why?
4. Why do you think people who survive earthquakes, floods, tornadoes etc. so frequently praise god for sparing them, even or especially when their neighbors are not so fortunate? What does this say about human nature and religion focused on personal salvation?
5. Was Voltaire's play an example of "cultivating your garden"? What other examples can you think of? 
6. Do you like Deism? Is it more defensible, against charges of divine indifference, than mainstream theism?

DQ
  • Is it reasonable to expect the sun to rise tomorrow, or "to prefer the destruction of half the world to the pricking of my finger?" Is it objectionable?
  • "The skeptic continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts that he cannot defend his reason by reason." 671 Does he then have a rational basis for his assertion?
  • Comment: "Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." 672
  • "The growth of unreason... is a natural sequel to Hume's destruction of empiricism." 673 Did Hume destroy empiricism, or just show that it leads to skepticism? Does skepticism lead to unreason?
  • Has civilization improved humanity? What do you think of Voltaire's reply to Rousseau? 688
  • What do you think of Russell's comments on Rousseau's belief in God (692) and his "sentimental illogicality" (694)?
  • What do you think of Rousseau's "noble savage"? 693
  • What do you think of Russell's critique of the claim that the general will is always right? 699
  • By enforcing laws that compel us to pay taxes and support social services (unless we're rich enough to take advantage of tax loopholes, apparently), doesn't the modern state effectively accept Rousseau's version of the social contract?
**Quiz Apr 5 Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer LH 19-23, FL 38-39

1. Kant said we can know the ____ but not the ____ world. 

2. How does synthetic knowledge differ from analytic knowledge?

3. What was Kant's great insight?

4. What, according to Kant, is irrelevant to morality?

5. Kant said you should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this view the ____ _____.

6. Who formulated the Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find him today?

7. Who created a thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates to human motivation?

8. What did Hegel mean when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been reached in his lifetime?

9. What Kantian view did Hegel reject?

10. What is Geist? When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge?

11. What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including us)?


12. What did Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire?

FL 38-39
13. Andersen says there's a line extending from flying saucer obsessives to what?

14. What is it important to recognize about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians'?

15. Who is both symptom and cause of conspiracism in America?
==
DQ

  • Do you think we all wear conceptual "spectacles" of some kind? If so, does that present a problem for the possibility of mutual understanding between ourselves and/or other kinds of knowers? 
  • Does the spectacles analogy work, given the impossibility of actually removing our conceptual spectacles or changing prescriptions?
  • Can we really achieve synthetic a priori knowledge from our armchairs? 114
  • If you help someone because you feel sorry for them, have you behaved morally? 116 What if, reflecting on why you feel sorry for them, you conclude that helping them would be the right thing to do?
  • Are there any moral rules you believe to be absolutely inviolable, never to be broken for any reason? Can you imagine a situation in which you think it would be right to lie, cheat, or steal?
  • Does history mean anything, either in advance or in retrospect? Is history (as Henry Ford said) "bunk"? Can we learn lessons from history that will enable us to avoid repeating past errors? Do you agree with George Santayana that if we don't learn from history's mistakes we're doomed to repeat them?
  • Is the world becoming more conscious, somehow? Does nature come to know itself through us?
  • If we could somehow know that the world had no ultimate purpose, would pessimism and despair be an appropriate response?
  • Do art, literature, and music have redemptive properties?
==
(LH); WATCH: The Life of Leibniz; LISTEN: Voltaire's Candide, In Our Time... Podcasts-Cultivating our garden... Pangloss and meliorism

The Almanac recognizes Sam Johnson's sidekick James Boswell, who was also Voltaire's friend. A good segue for us:
It's the birthday of James Boswell (books by this author), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1740). He is best known as the author of Life of Johnson (1791), a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson, which is considered by many people to be the greatest biography ever written in English. As a young man, Boswell's father wanted him to settle down and take care of the family's ancestral estate in rural Scotland. Boswell wanted adventure, excitement, and intrigue, so he ran away to London and became a Catholic. He began keeping a journal in London, and instead of describing his thoughts and feelings about things, he wrote down scenes from his life as though they were fiction. He described his friends as though they were characters and recorded long stretches of dialogue.
As a young man, Boswell was the life of the party, and everyone who met him liked him. The French writer Voltaire invited him to stay at his house after talking to him for only half an hour. David Hume asked him to stay at his bedside when he died. He hung out with the philosopher Rousseau, and Rousseau's mistress liked him so much that she had an affair with Boswell. He was even friends with the pope. And then on May 16, 1763, he met the scholar and writer Samuel Johnson in the back room of a bookstore. Johnson was a notoriously unfriendly man, but Boswell had long admired him and tried hard to impress him. The next time they met, Johnson said to Boswell, "Give me your hand. I have taken a liking to you." Johnson was 30 years older than Boswell and he was the most renowned literary scholar in England. Boswell was undistinguished compared to Johnson's other friends, but Boswell never tried to compete with Johnson's intellect. Their relationship was like an interview that went on for years. Boswell would just ask questions and listen to Johnson talk, and then he would go home and write it all down in his journal. 
The two men eventually became great friends. They talked about everything from philosophy and religion to trees and turnips. Boswell knew early on that he would write Johnson's biography, but he didn't start until after Johnson's death. The work was slow going. He watched as several others published books about Johnson, and he worried that no one would care about his book when he finished it. He had to fight with his editor to keep the odd details, like the things Johnson had said to his cat and what kind of underwear he thought women should wear. He felt that these were the details that revealed who Johnson really was. When the book finally came out, it was a huge best-seller. No one had ever written such a personal biography that so completely captured a life, and no one has done so since.==
It's possible that he, like Yogi Berra, didn't say everything he said. Abe Lincoln warned us not to believe everything we read on the Internet. But these lines attributed to Voltaire are good:


  • “Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
  • “‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” 
  • “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” 
  • “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” 
  • “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” 
  • “The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.” 
  • “I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.” 
  • “Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” 
  • “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.” 
  • “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.” 
  • “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.”
  • “One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion” 
  • “The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.” 
  • “Let us cultivate our garden.” 





Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 
(1646-1716)
...La Monadologie (Monadology) (1714) is a highly condensed outline of Leibniz's metaphsics. Complete individual substances, or monads, are dimensionless points which contain all of their properties—past, present, and future—and, indeed, the entire world. The true propositions that express their natures follow inexorably from the principles of contradiction and sufficient reason.

The same themes are presented more popularly in the Discours de Metaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics) (1686). There Leibniz emphasized the role of a benevolent deity in creating this, the best of all possible worlds, where everything exists in a perfect, pre-established harmony with everything else. Since space and time are merely relations, all of science is a study of phenomenal objects. According to Leibniz, human knowledge involves the discovery within our own minds of all that is a part of our world, and although we cannot make it otherwise, we ought to be grateful for our own inclusion in it.





And the meliorist just wants to make it better.


William James, in Pragmatism:
Truly there is something a little ghastly in the satisfaction with which a pure but unreal system will fill a rationalist mind. Leibnitz was a rationalist mind, with infinitely more interest in facts than most rationalist minds can show. Yet if you wish for superficiality incarnate, you have only to read that charmingly written 'Theodicee' of his, in which he sought to justify the ways of God to man, and to prove that the world we live in is the best of possible worlds... (continues)
And,
...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, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. 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... (continues)
==
An old post-

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Voltaire & Leibniz

Brains, John Campbell was saying in his Berkeley interview, are a big asset. "It's very important that we have brains. Their function is to reveal the world to us, not to generate a lot of random junk."

Voltaire, dubbed by Russell "the chief transmitter of English influence to France," was an enemy of philosophical junk, too. One of the great Enlightenment salon wits, a Deist and foe of social injustice who railed against religious intolerance (“Ecrasez l’infame!”) and mercilessly parodied rationalist philosophers (especially Leibniz, aka Dr. Pangloss).
Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron’s castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses… Candide“There is a lot of pain in the world, and it does not seem well distributed.” [slides here]
William James called Leibniz's theodicy "superficiality incarnate": "Leibniz's feeble grasp of reality is too obvious to need comment from me. It is evident that no realistic image of the experience of a damned soul had ever approached the portals of his mind..." And James's comments continue, in a similarly scathing vein. He was particularly incensed by the disconnect between Leibniz's philosophy and the suffering of a distraught Clevelander whose plight and ultimate suicide stands for the despair of so many through the ages. But if you like Leibniz's defense of the ways of god, maybe you'd love his monadology. Maybe not. But if one substance is good, how good is a practical infinity of them?

Russell raises the basic objection to Leibniz's "fantastical" scheme of windowless monads: if they (we) never really interact, how do they (we) know about each other? It might just be a bizarre collective dream, after all. And the "best possible world" claim is just not persuasive, though many will want to believe it.

People wish to think the universe good, and will be lenient to bad arguments proving that it is so, while bad arguments proving that it is bad are closely scanned. In fact, of course, the world is partly good and partly bad, and no ' problem of evil' Voltaire’s countryman Diderot offered a sharp rejoinder to those who said nonbelievers couldn’t be trusted. “An honest person is honest without threats…” [Voltaire @dawn...Leibniz@dawn... Spinoza Leibniz slides... Voltaire_Leibniz_ James]

"Whatever is, is right." I don't care which Pope* said that, it's crazy. No way to think and live.

Submit.—In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
*An Essay on Man 


Everything happens from a cause, sure, but not "for a reason" if that's code for "for the best."

Irremediably, irredeemably bad things happen. Regret is an appropriate first response. Of course we should try to prevent recurrences of the worst (by our lights) that happens.

Voltaire's Candide may be the most devastating parody ever penned. A "logical explanation for everything" leaves the world much as it found it, less than perfect and easy to improve. Feeding the hungry, curing the sick, educating the ignorant, saving the earth, etc., are obvious improvements to begin with. "All is well," Miss Blue? (An obscure reference to a sweet-hearted cleaning lady I used to hear on the radio when I was young, who ruined that phrase for me.) I don't think so.

But the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 did nothing to block Voltaire's "Pangloss" from continuing to insist that everything is the result of a pre-established harmony. What must it be like, to live in a bubble of denial so insulated from reality as to permit a learned person to believe that?

After tornadoes, earthquakes, and other fatal natural disasters, people interviewed on television frequently thank god for sparing them. Hardly a reasonable response, even if a lifetime of indoctrination and insulation makes it "understandable." But to say it in the hearing of survivors whose loved ones weren't spared? Unspeakably insensitive. If "acts of god" (as the insurance companies put it) take life randomly, and you happened to be one of the random survivors, is gratitude really the humane response?

Candide's statement that "we must cultivate our garden" is a metaphor for not just talking about abstract philosophical questions but instead doing something for our species while we have the opportunity. It's a plea for applied philosophy. I'm fresh from a philosophy conference where, I'm sorry to report, the old bias in favor of Grand Theory still has its champions. Spectators, not ameliorators, more concerned to polish their conceptual palaces than rebuild the crumbling human abode. (Thinking in particular of an environmental ethics session, where activists were slighted for being less than rigorous.)

Voltaire, as noted, was a deist, a freethinker, and a pre-Darwinian. He was not an atheist. But is that just an accident of history? If he'd come along a century later, might he have embraced godlessness?

Hard to know. He marveled at nature's universe, wondered at (didn't shrink from) the stars, and burned with a passion to make a better world. The highest powers are those aligned with that quest, not the complacent and wildly premature contention that this is the best of all possible worlds. His god, in any age, would not have been an excuse for passivity or indifference to the fate of the earth and its riders.
An old post-
Also of interest: "How Hume helped me solve my midlife crisis, Simon Blackburn on David Hume, David Hume's essays on happiness; see also Essays Moral, Political, LiteraryThe ScepticDavid Hume-a new perspective; LISTEN: Gopnik on Hume & Buddhism (PB); WATCH: Hume on miracles
Podcast... Dawn post-Supremely happy

1. (T/F) Hume thought the human eye so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design.

2. (T/F) Hume's view was that it's occasionally more plausible to believe that a miracle (the unexplained suspension of a law of nature) has happened, than not.

3. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______.

4. The ______ is what we say we want, when we think selfishly.

5. Which of Hume's books was published posthumously?

6. What was Hume's Epicurean deathbed statement to Boswell?

BONUS: Whose ex-boyfriend said the eye was proof of intelligent design?

BONUS: Melissa Lane says it was a paradox of civilization for Rousseau that we're in a society of plenty, but are less _____ than when we wandered naked in the glades of some barbaric past.


BONUS+: Who has a "walk" in Edinburgh? Who had a dog?

BONUS++: Bertrand Russell says Hume cannot refute the lunatic who thinks he's a what?

DQ:

1. What's your reaction to the claim that nature is full of design without a designer (as reflected in the eye), complexity without a goal, adaptation and survival without any ulterior purpose? Is this marvelous or weird or grand (as in "grandeur") or what?

2. Have you encountered or directly experienced an event you would consider a "miracle" in Hume's sense of the term? Was it a "miracle on ice" when the U.S. beat the U.S.S.R. in 1980? Is it a miracle that K.C. almost won the World Series? Is it a miracle that you and I are alive? Do we need a better word for these events?

3. Do you think we should attempt to balance personal freedom with the public interest? Are taxes and other civic obligations (including voting) examples of an attempt to do that? Can anyone ever be compelled to be free? Can an individual be truly free while others remain "chained"? Would life in a "state of nature" be a form of freedom worth having? Is anti-government libertarianism a step forward or back, progress or regress? If Rand Paul had been President in the 1960s, would there have been an effective Civil Rights movement in America?

4. Can freedom be forced? Would we be more free or less, if the law didn't compel us to pay our taxes and behave lawfully? How would you feel, as a law-abiding citizen, if your neighbor could get away with lawlessness? 

5. Comment: [We have insufficient experience of universes, to generalize an opinion as to their probable origins.]

6. Comment, in light of Boswell's last interview with Hume (see "Supremely happy"), on the cliche that "There are no atheists in foxholes."





No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish…. Whoever is moved by Faith to assent to [miracles] is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. David Hume
==
Are you an Inductivist? Do you regularly anticipate, worry about, plan for the events of the day? Would it be reasonable or prudent to do otherwise? What is the practical point of entertaining Humean skeptical arguments about what we can know, based on our experience? Do such considerations make you kinder and gentler, less judgmental, more humble and carefree? Or do they annoy you?

Do you trust the marketplace to provide justice, fairness, security, and a shot at (the pursuit of) happiness for all? Are there some things money cannot buy, but that the public interest requires us to try and provide for one another? Is there an internal mechanism ("hand") in capitalism to insure the public interest's being met? Is capitalism inherently geared to short-term private profit, not long-term public good? Can a market-oriented economy deal adequately with climate change? (On this issue, see Naomi Klein's new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.)

Asking again: Are you happy? Would you be happier if you had better access to health care, if college costs were lower, if career competition were less intense, if you didn't have to commute to school and work, if your neighbors were your closest friends, if your community was more supportive and caring, ...? What if any or all of that could be achieved through higher taxes and a more activist government?
==
An old post-
Thursday, April 2, 2015

Hume & Rousseau

In CoPhi today: David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (LH), Millican on Hume, Phillipson on Hume's pal Adam Smith, and Melissa Lane on Rousseau.

Also note: not assigned but highly recommended, Alison Gopnik's recent PB discussion of theHume-Buddhist connection.

David Hume (follow his little finger) has a public "walk" in Edinburgh.

In 1724 the town council bought Calton Hill, making it one of the first public parks in the country. The famous philosopher David Hume lobbied the council to build a walk ‘for the health and amusement of the inhabitants’, and you can still stroll along ‘Hume Walk’ to this day.He agreed with Diderot that good and honest people don't need threats to make them so, they just need to be well nurtured and postively reinforced in the customs and habits of a good and honest society. Divine justice, he thought, is an oxymoron. “Epicurus’ old questions are still unanswered… (continues)”

Everyday morality is based on the simple fact that doing good brings you peace of mind and praise from others and doing evil brings rejection and sorrow. We don’t need religion for morality… religion itself got its morality from everyday morality in the first place… JMH

Hume was an interestingly-birfurcated empiricist/skeptic, doubting metaphysics and causal demonstrations but still sure that “we can know the world of daily life.” That’s because the life-world is full of people collaboratively correcting one another’s errors. Hume and friends “believed morality was available to anyone through reason,” though not moral “knowledge” in the absolute and indubitable Cartesian sense. Custom is fallible but (fortunately) fixable. [Hume at 300… in 3 minutes... Belief in miracles subverts understanding]

On the question of Design, intelligent or otherwise, Hume would definitely join in the February celebration of Darwin Day. Scientific thinking is a natural human instinct, for him, for "clever animals" like ourselves, providing "the only basis we have for learning from experience." (Millican) [Hume vs. design (PB)... Hume on religion (SEP)]

Open your eyes,” Richard Dawkins likes to say. They really are an incredible evolutionary design. Not “perfect” or previsioned, but naturally astounding.



An early episode of the new Cosmos takes a good look at the eye as well.

Julia Sweeney's ex-boyfriend notwithstanding, an evolving eye is quite a useful adaptation at every stage.

Hume, open-eyed but possibly blind to the worst implications of his skeptical brand of empiricism, is on Team Aristotle. Russell, though, says we must look hard for an escape from the "dead-end" conclusion that real knowledge must always elude us, that (for instance) we cannot refute "the lunatic who believes that he is a poached egg." Russell says this is a "desperate" result. I say it would be more desperate to feel compelled to refute Mr. Egg in the first place. Remember the old Groucho line? "My brother thinks he's a chicken - we don't talk him out of it because we need the eggs."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, of Team Plato along with other celebrants (like the other Marx) of "a communitarian ideal based on men's dreams," was an emotional thinker with a romantically-inflated opinion of human nature and the “noble savages” who would have embodied it in a hypothetical state of nature.



What’s most interesting to me about Rousseau is that his Emile so arrested the attention ofImmanuel Kant that he allowed it to disrupt his daily walking routine “for a few days.” Nothing short of seriously-incapacitating illness would do that to me. Apparently Kant was typically the same way, except for just that once.
Kant could get very upset if well-meaning acquaintances disturbed his routines. Accepting on one occasion an invitation to an outing into the country, Kant got very nervous when he realised that he would be home later than his usual bedtime, and when he was finally delivered to his doorstep just a few minutes after ten, he was shaken with worry and disgruntlement, making it at once one of his principles never to go on such a tour again.

So what’s in Emile that could so dis-comport a creature of such deeply ingrained habit? A generally-favorable evaluation of human nature, and a prescription for education reflective of that evaluation. Kant thought highly enough of Rousseau’s point of view to hold us all to a high standard of reasoned conduct. We should always treat others as ends in themselves, never as mere means to our own ends. We have a duty to regard one another with mutual respect.
The character of Emile begins learning important moral lessons from his infancy, through childhood, and into early adulthood. His education relies on the tutor’s constant supervision. The tutor must even manipulate the environment in order to teach sometimes difficult moral lessons about humility, chastity, and honesty. IEP

Yes, fine. But what precisely in Emile kept Kant off the streets, until he was finished with it?

Could have something to do with other characters in the story. “Rousseau discusses in great detail how the young pupil is to be brought up to regard women and sexuality.” Now maybe we’re getting somewhere.

Or not. Rousseau’s observations regarding women sound pretty sexist and ill-informed, nothing Kant (as a relatively un-Enlightenend male) wouldn’t already have shared.

Maybe it’s what Emile says about freedom that so arrested Kant? “The will is known to me in its action, not in its nature.”

Or religion? “It is categorically opposed to orthodox Christian views, specifically the claim that Christianity is the one true religion.” Maybe.
The Vicar claims that the correct view of the universe is to see oneself not at the center of things, but rather on the circumference, with all people realizing that we have a common center. This same notion is expressed in Rousseau’s political theory, particularly in the concept of the general will.
That’s very promising. Kant’s Copernican Revolution etc.

I wonder if the mystery of Kant’s lost walks could be related, too, to another of fellow-pedestrian Rousseau’s books, Reveries of the Solitary Walker?
The work is divided into ten “walks” in which Rousseau reflects on his life, what he sees as his contribution to the public good, and how he and his work have been misunderstood. It is interesting that Rousseau returns to nature, which he had always praised throughout his career… The Reveries, like many of Rousseau’s other works, is part story and part philosophical treatise. The reader sees in it, not only philosophy, but also the reflections of the philosopher himself.
That may not be a clue but it’s a definite inspiration for my own Philosophy Walks project, still seeking its legs.

Melissa Lane, like me, is very interested in Rousseau's walking.

BTW: we know Rousseau had a dog. Did Kant? If so, wasn’t he neglecting his duty to walk her?

Is nature full of design without a designer (as possibly reflected in the eye), complexity without a goal, adaptation and survival without any ulterior purpose? Is this marvelous or weird or grand (as in the "grandeur" of nature, in Darwin's view) or what? Most designers sign their work unambiguously, even ostentatiously.

We talked miracles earlier in the semester, so this may be redundant. But so many of us were so sure that we'd encountered or directly experienced suspensions of natural law that it seems worth a second pass. Was it a "miracle on ice" when the U.S. beat the U.S.S.R. in 1980? Is it a miracle that K.C. almost won the World Series? Isn't it a miracle that you and I are alive? Or that your friend or loved one, who'd received the very bad prognosis, is? Well, not exactly. All of those are plenty improbable, given certain assumptions. But none of them is an obvious law-breaker. We need a better word for these events, a word that conveys astonished and grateful surprise but does not court woo. Or I do, anyway.

J-J Rousseau seems to have been a self-indulgent paranoiac scoundrel, but he wasn't wrong to say we need to balance personal freedom with the public interest. Minimally, we need to tax ourselves enough to provide good public education, reliable infrastructure, and a secure peace. And we need to vote. (I'll ask in class how many are registered and how many will actually cast a ballot tomorrow, then I'll ask what would J-J say.)

Maybe he was just phrase-making, but "compelled to be free" has a chillier aspect from our end of the twentieth century. Whenever we act to pad our own nest wile neglecting the well-being of others, we reinforce the "chains" of oppression. Yet life is a chain. We should remember that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

Whenever I hear libertarians rail against government activism, I wonder: if a Rand Paul had been President in the 1960s, would there have been an effective Civil Rights movement in America?

Last Fall I tried to buoy the spirits of my friend from Kansas City, after his upstart Royals fell to the Giants. I pointed out that teams more often rally when down 3-2 than not. His pessimistic reply: I'm a skeptic about induction. It was a joke, and maybe Hume was joking too. Aren't we all Inductivists, regularly anticipating, worring about, planning for the events of our days? Would it be reasonable or prudent to do otherwise?

Of course we could do with less worry, but that's because experience has taught the truism that most of our worries are unfounded. So what, really, is the practical point of entertaining Humean skeptical arguments? It's not to urge us over the Pyrrhonic cliff, but to redouble our curiosity and our humility: to make us kinder, gentler, less neurotic friends and fellow citizens. As Hume said, "Be a philosopher; but amidst your philosophy, be still a man."

Melissa Lane's interview on Rousseau raises important questions for our time, when the marketplace so clearly has faile to provide justice, fairness, security, and a shot at (the pursuit of) happiness for all. Michael Sandel rightly says there are some things money cannot buy, but that the public interest and common decency nonetheless require us to try and provide for one another.

Adam Smith's "invisible hand" seems more invisible than ever, short-term private profiteering more prevalent. Can a market-oriented economy deal adequately, for instance, with climate change? Naomi Klein's new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate says no.

More Rousseau-inspired challenges: Are we happy? Would we be happier if we had better access to health care, if college costs were lower, if career competition were less intense, if you didn't have to commute to school and work, if your neighbors were your closest friends, if your community was more supportive and caring, ...? What if any or all of that could be achieved through higher taxes and a more activist government?

But let's be real, Jean-Jacques: most of that was never on offer in any realistic state of nature.

Philosophy Matters (@PhilosophyMttrs)
This is Your Brain On Kant pic.twitter.com/HHDZNBFHnk
==
Hegel's philosophy of history made the Sunday Times yesterday-
Like many top intellectuals the world over, I’ve been thinking about the shape of history itself. Spurred on by the emergence of unexpected events and personalities onto the world stage, I have been cogitating deeply on the questions of where we’ve been and where we’re heading... (continues)
==
Bentham's corpse on display - why?

Last month, I came face to face with death. The deathly face in question belonged to the great utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who died in 1832. His preserved head, considered so gruesome that it was hidden from public display for the past 40 years, looks like decaying leather—not unlike how your head will one day look, before it eventually decomposes into nothing at all. 
Too real? In the centuries since Bentham’s death, society has embraced many of his once-radical ideas, including women’s rights, gay rights, and the value of donating one’s body to science. But most people are still catching up to Bentham’s willingness to confront death... (continues)
==
OLD POSTS-
Kant & Hegel, HP 701-746; PW 18.

1. What did Kant do every day with such predictable regularity that his neighbors were said to have set their watches by it?

2. What are space and time, for Kant, if not concepts?

3. What famous phrase did Kant introduce in his Metaphysic of Morals to distinguish his view from utilitarianism?

4. Who was the Galileo and Newton of the 19th century?

5. What did Hegel consider unreal or illusory?

6. What does Russell say freedom meant for Hegel?

7. What concerns did Kant share with Nietzsche?

8. What impresses Gros about Kant?

DQ

  • How would you define "time" and "space"? Do they exist independently of us, or of any and all sentient beings?
  • What makes right actions right? If you do the right thing, does it matter why you did it?
  • Is everything ultimately connected with everything else? Or do things stand more-or-less loosely together (and apart)?
  • If you voluntarily follow a rule or law, is that a free act? Or is it compelled?
  • Are reading, writing, and eating important to you? Why?
  • Do you practice any form of daily discipline that helps you accomplish your goals in a slow and steady way?

Old posts-
[Note: we'll get to Schopenhauer & Bentham soon]


1. Who was Minerva, and what did Hegel say about her? 



(More Hegel quotes below*)

2. Hegel (accepted, rejected) Kant's view that noumenal reality lies beyond our reach, and that we can know only the appearances of things in the phenomenal world. 

3. Stern says Hegel's philosophy is ______ (similar to, different from) Mill's in its emphasis on progress, optimism, and freedom of speech.


4. Schopenhauer was _____  in general, but ______ about the possibility of personal "enlightenment". (optimistic, pessimistic)

5. Schopenhauer called the "deeper reality beyond the world of appearances" ___. 

6. (T/F) Even though he once pushed an old lady down the stairs for chatting outside his door, Schopenhauer thought harming other people was a kind of self-injury. 

BONUS: Who thought he might better understand Hegel if he first ingested nitrous oxide before reading The Phenomenology of Spirit?

BONUS+: Was Schopenhauer an ascetic? 


DQ:
1. Do you consider history important, either your own personal history or that of your community, nation, world, species...? Do you think it generates what Hegel called a "gradual increase in self-awareness"? Is there a "spirit" of history? Is it getting smarter? What has history taught you? Us? What does it ever teach anyone? (Henry Ford said it's just one damn thing after another.) Is it true that those who fail to learn its lessons are doomed to repeat its mistakes? (And do you know who said that?)

2. Is it worth trying to grasp the ultimate reality of things, or do you agree with Douglas Adams?  "The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied." Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

3Are you optimistic about progress in society and history? Are we solving more problems than we're surrendering to? Will future generations be happier, smarter, kinder? If you're pessimistic, does that make you a misanthrope? (How do you feel about George Carlin?) 

4. What do you think of Schopenhauer's belief that everyday life ("the human situation") is a meaningless cycle of will, striving, and unfulfilled desire? Is a blind, purposeless, voracious Will really the ultimate reality of our existence? What do you think of the idea that art and music are our salvation? LH 135

5. What's the deepest reality you know about? How do you know?

6. Should your metaphysics make you a better person? If there's a disconnect between what you believe about reality and how you treat other people, is that a personal or a philosophical failing? Or both?


HE has short hair and a long brown beard. He is wearing a three-piece suit. One imagines him slumped over his desk, giggling helplessly. Pushed to one side is an apparatus out of a junior-high science experiment: a beaker containing some ammonium nitrate, a few inches of tubing, a cloth bag. Under one hand is a piece of paper, on which he has written, "That sounds like nonsense but it is pure on sense!" He giggles a little more. The writing trails away. He holds his forehead in both hands. He is stoned. He is William James, the American psychologist and philosopher. And for the first time he feels that he is understanding religious mysticism... (from "The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher"... "The Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide"... Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit)

But despite the density and difficulty of his prose style, "friend Hegel" had a fairly straightforward message:
To the degree that we are thinking beings, Hegel says, we have to consider ourselves as part of a larger whole and not as neatly individuated. He calls this mental whole Geist, or Spirit, [or Absolute Reason,] and tries to work out the rules by which it develops through time… Robert Prowse
The message is that we're all a part of a progressive history, towards freedom and enlightenment. 
Hegel thinks that one important movement in history is the movement from thinking that just one of us is entitled to freedom (a king, say) to some (the patricians of ancient Athens, say) to all of us, where obviously this development relates to changing views of what freedom is, what we are, how we relate to one another... I'm not free unless I'm working for the good of society.  Robert Stern
Less mystifyingly expressed, Hegel seems to be saying the same thing Carl Sagan used to say:we are the universe, coming gradually but steadily to know itself. History (personal, social, and natural) is the process of dawning self-awareness. We're waking up. This is good!

So Hegel's an optimist, unlike his countryman Schopenhauer and perhaps oddly more like the Brits Mill and Darwin.
==

*A few pithier-than-usual Hegel quotes:
“Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.” 
“Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.” [There's a pedestrian example of what Hegel means by "dialectic" in The Cave and the Light: think of automobiles as the thesis, traffic jams as the antithesis, and stop signs & traffic laws as the synthesis... and so on, ho hum.]
“We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.” 
“What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” 
“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.” 
 
*Schopenhauer was darker, maybe deeper, probably not nicer. He's another philosopher who loved dogs, probably more than people.

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.” 

“We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.” 


“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.” 

“It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer.”

“What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.”

Old post-
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Hegel & Schopenhauer

We're into the 19th century, with Hegel (and Robert Stern on Hegel's dialectic) and his arch-rival Schopenhauer. A pair of audacious Hun metaphysicians who presumed to speak grandly for Reality. 

(What's real, if you ask me? Younger Daughter's home pitching debut for her new school resulted in a 15-3 win yesterday afternoon, as she chipped in another triple and a beautiful scoring line drive to support her own cause. Later, Older Daughter phoned home from college with news that she's been recognized for excelling in both cinema and oratory. That's reality. I don't need a theory to tell me so. But Hegel and Schopenhauer thought otherwise.)

And here come the Germans now, led by their skipper Knobby Hegel... 

Hegel was the ultimate optimist, Schopenhauer the uber-pessimist. I prefer to split the difference with meliorism, myself. More on that later. [Hegel up@dawn... pointless will... James reads Hegel; and some quotes from Schopenhauer, Mill, and Darwin]

They’re both in the song, if that helps. Let’s see… Schopenhauer and Hegel were both out-consumed by David Hume.

But it would probably be more helpful to relate the Germans to their predecessor Kant.

Schopenhauer and Hegel tried to go beyond Kant’s proscription against specifying the “thing-in-itself,” the ultimate “noumenal” reality beneath the appearances. For Hegel, History’s the thing. For Schopenhauer it’s Will.

An amusing sidelight: in spite of himself, and his intent to renounce personal will (so as to starve ultimate Will, or at least deprive it), Schopenhauer was stubbornly competitive with his philosophical rival Hegel. He insisted on lecturing at the same time as the more popular Hegel, withpredictable results

But you have to wonder if his auditors understood a word Hegel said? Maybe free gas was provided? (See William James’s “observations on the effects of nitrous-oxide-gas-intoxication” and his essay On Some Hegelisms - ”sounds like nonsense, but it is pure on-sense!”)

That's funny, but not entirely fair. Hegel wanted to fly with Minerva, through a glorious dawn. Any given snippet of Hegelian prose may be impenetrable, but his overall objective is clear enough: he wanted us to understand ourselves and our lives as active participants in the great progressive unfolding of history, of the coming-to-consciousness of spirit ("geist"), of the birth of enlightenment and freedom. Friendly aspirations all.

My old Mizzou prof often spoke of "Friend Hegel," and so did Michael Prowse.
To the degree that we are thinking beings, Hegel says, we have to consider ourselves as part of a larger whole and not as neatly individuated। He calls this mental whole Geist, or Spirit, and tries to work out the rules by which it develops through time… Hegel didn’t regard Geist as something that stands apart from, or above, human individuals. He saw it rather as the forms of thought that are realised in human minds… What Hegel does better than most philosophers is explain how individuals are linked together and why it is important to commit oneself to the pursuit of the general or common good.
And that's why, as Stern points out, 
Hegel thinks that one important movement in history is the movement from thinking that just one of us is entitled to freedom (a king, say) to some (the patricians of ancient Athens, say) to all of us, where obviously this development relates to changing views of what freedom is, what we are, how we relate to one another... I'm not free unless I'm working for the good of society.
That's not Schopenhauer's view, nor is it even remotely close to his mindset and general sensibility. Anything at all ambitious, let alone something as grand as the liberation of society and triumph of good, was to him just more fuel for the Will. Will is a voracious, never-sated, all-devouring blind force or power that uses us, and everything else in its path, to no end beyond its own perpetuation and expansion.

Moreover, Schopenhauer was morose and constitutionally dis-affected. He despised happiness as a form of self-delusion.

But I have to admit: for such an old sourpuss, Schopenhauer’s a lot of fun to read. His aphoristicArt of Controversy is a good place to begin.
The average man pursues the shadow of happiness with unwearied labour; and the thinker, the shadow of truth; and both, though phantoms are all they have, possess in them as much as they can grasp. Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; could we learn them in some other way, we should not live. Thus it is that wise sayings and prudential maxims will never make up for the lack of experience, or be a substitute for life itself.

And his Studies in Pessimism are oddly cheerful.

Schopenhauer, In Our Time...


One of the lesser-known but more intriguing facets of Schopenhauer’s philosophy was his belief that music is our point of entree to Will, and to ultimate reality.

Schopenhauer, like Rousseau, loved his dog…So maybe he knew a little something about love.






1. Kant said we can't know the _______ world of things-in-themselves, but we can know the _______ world of appearances as presented by our mental "spectacles."

2. If (and only if) you help an injured stranger because _________ (it's your duty, you feel sorry for him), Kant says, you've acted morally. 







3. Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism affirms the Greatest ______ Principle, defining _____ as pleasure and the absence of pain.


4. According to Nigel, the best way for a Benthamite to maximize pleasure and minimize pain would be to plug into what? OR, who was Bentham's famous pupil and critic, who said maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is not all there is to the good life?

5. What's the difference between analytic and synthetic knowledge, and what does a priori mean?

6. According to Moore, where does Kant rank among philosophers?


BONUS: Who said “
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable"?

BONUS+: Who did Kant say "awakened [him] from his dogmatic slumbers”?

BONUS++: Who had a walking stick he called "Dapple" and a teapot called "Dick"?


BONUS: What Irish-born critic of the French Revolution said it was a sham, proclaiming equality as a pretext for redistributing property?

DQ:

  • Do you think it would be possible to communicate with an intelligent alien, whose mental "spectacles" might not perceive space, time, cause-and-effect, etc., as we do? How? Or do you think such categories must be universal among all forms of intelligence? Why?
  • Have you ever gone out of your way to help a stranger? Did you do so because you thought it was the right thing to do, because you felt sympathetic for the stranger's plight, or for some other reason? Do you agree with Kant that dutifulness alone is morally relevant to such acts?
  • Is it better to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or as they would have you do...?
  • What does it mean to you to "use your reason" and think for yourself? Does that require a particular form of courage? (Kant: "Sapere Aude," have the courage to use your reason...)
  • Do you agree that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain are the main (if not exclusive) criteria of ethical action? Why or why not?
  • There's a (false) old saying that he or she who finishes the game with the most toys wins. What about finishing with the most blissful experiences? Would that make you a winner? Would a lifetime of blissful experiences, "real" or not, be tempting to you?
  • What's so funny about liberty, equality, and fraternity? (An Elvis Costello question) 
  • OR, Is redistributivist activism a pretext, or a legitimate political program?
  • Who, in your opinion at this stage of your philosophical education, is #1 (in terms of insight, influence, wit and charm or whatever)?



“Dare to think!”

“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

“For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first.” 


"The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail?" 

“Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to diminish something of their pains.”

“No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.”

“What is the source of this premature anxiety to establish fundamental laws? It is the old conceit of being wiser than all posterity—wiser than those who will have had more experience,—the old desire of ruling over posterity—the old recipe for enabling the dead to chain down the living.”

“The quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry.” 

==
An old post-
Today in CoPhi we'll talk Immanuel Kant, who said the starry heavens struck him with awe (and Adrian Moore on Kant's metaphysics), Jeremy Bentham, and Richard Bourke on ancestral conservative Edmund Burke. [Kant & Bentham quote gallery]

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.”*

No, he wasn’t. Not at all. But that’s still the first thought that ever pops into my head when I hear his name, thanks to the Bruces, and my old Kant professor from grad school whose Brooklynese made his “how I met my wife” story downright vulgar.

Kant was actually the most soberly stable and fastidious of men. They “set their watches by him as he went on his daily walk” in 18th-century Konigsberg, Prussia. That’s probably the thing about him I like most. He well knew the truth of William James’s later observation that steady habits are our greatest productive ally. Kant was as productive, eventually, as he was un-flashy.“Awakened from his dogmatic slumbers” and his romantic dalliance withRousseau and Leibniz by David Hume’s dash of cold water skepticism, he assigned appearance and reality to the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, respectively. He didn’t mean that phenomena are unreal or unknowable, just that we know them through the categorical spectacles of our projective understanding. We don’t know them “in themselves,” the “ding-an-sich” is a non-starter.Russell: "The 'thing-in-itself' was an awkward element in Kant's philosophy, and was abandoned by his immediate successors, who accordingly fell into something very like solipsism." Or what may be worse, into the conceit of thinking they had themselves discovered the things-in-themselves: for Hegel, History, for Schopenhauer, Will, etc.

"It's as if we have innate spectacles through which we look at reality," and knowledge is what we get from "reflecting on the nature of our own spectacles." The spectacles give us categorical knowledge of space and time, causality, and all the other things Hume called mere habituation and custom, or constant conjunctions. "Science is concerned with how things appear to us through the spectacles," continues Adrian Moore, and the result (nicely summarized by Nigel) is supposed to be the protection of the possibility of God, free will, the moral law, etc., "even though we can't be absolutely sure about these things."

But Kant knew what he knew. The stars are awesome, and so is a dutiful conscience (“the moral law within”). Fealty to the latter led him to his “Categorical Imperative” and its “silly” obsession with inflexibly rational consistency.Kant. Obsessive, punctual of habit, semi-gregarious, a mouth-breather, fond of Cicero, and also a philosophical walker (but with a weird aversion to sweat). Famous last word: “Sufficit.” Enough. (I like his countryman Goethe’s better: “Mehr licht.” More light. (Or was it “Mehr nicht,” No more?) Famous living words: “Sapere aude.” Have the courage to reason and think.Kant & Hegel from Osopher [Kant/Hegel slides]

What I love most about my teaching job is that it keeps teaching me new things about our subjects. Utilitarian pioneer Jeremy Bentham is a good example.

It should come as no surprise that the philosopher who had his body preserved and housed for public display (though he keeps losing his head) in University College London had other charms and quirks, but I learned of them only recently. The first volume of Parekh’s Critical Assessmentsreports that (like Kant and Rousseau) Bentham also was a walker and an eccentric, an understatedly “amusing” man.


Bentham was an extremely amusing man, and in many respects rather boyish. Most of his life he retained an instinctive horror of being left alone… He had a large black tom cat of an ‘uncommonly serious temperament’ which he nicknamed the ‘Doctor’ and ‘The Reverend Doctor Langborn’… He had amusing names for his daily activities and favourite objects. His favourite walking stick was called Dapple, after Sancho Panza’s mule, and his ‘sacred tea-pot’ was called Dick. His daily routine included ‘antejentacular circumgyration’ or a walk before breakfast, an ‘anteprandial circumgyration’ before dinner, and an ‘ignominious expulsion’ at midnight accompanied by the ‘putter-to-bed’, the ‘asportation of the candle’ and the ‘transportation of the window.’So yes, he was weird. But also “basically a warm, generous, and kind” man. He wanted to reform the misery-inducing industrial culture of his time and place, and to improve the basic quality of life of his fellow human beings. So, this cartoon featuring Bentham's zombie auto-icon confronting Phillipa Foot is unfair. But not unfunny.

Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, will invite you, to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own…

Sorry, Mr. Mill, that’s just not what I’d call a “pig philosophy.” It’s humane and compassionate, and it deserves a hearing too.Russell says Bentham was nicer than his philosophy per se encourages people to be, "seduced by his own kindly and affectionate nature" into expecting everyone to pursue not only their own pleasure but to seek to maximize others' as well. I think that's an unduly (but not uncommonly) literalist reading of "greatest happiness for the greatest number." The greatest number would be wholly inclusive. The trouble comes when he dismisses individuals' rights, our ultimate safeguard against unjust discriminatory exclusion, as "nonsense on stilts." A utilitarian need not endorse that dismissal.

A note from a friend currently in painful convalescence from surgery says Bentham was right, the Stoics were wrong: ignoring pain does not work, we've got to work actively to replace it with pleasure.

And following up on Rousseau and Kant and the mystery of what it was about the former’s Emile that kept the latter off the streets– “Everybody who does Education has to read Emile cover-to-cover,” says this jet-lagged Yale lecturer– Rousseau’s Dog is instructive:

According to one anecdote, the fastidious Immanuel Kant, whose daily routine was so rigid and undeviating that people set their watches by him, became so absorbed in Émile that he bewildered his neighbors by forgetting to take his usual post-lunch constitutional… Rousseau understood, he thought, the paradox of autonomy—that freedom meant conformity to a rule. As he was writing his own masterpiece, the Critique of Pure Reason, he had a single portrait in his house—of Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau’s Dog

So while it was Hume whom he credited with waking him from his “dogmatic slumber,” it was the somber Swiss who really inspired his work and set his Copernican Revolution spinning.

But, Kant "realized that Rousseau's picture of the noble savage was an ideal construct:'This wish for a return to an age of simplicity and innocence is futile.'" (Cave&Light)

In other words: we must live in our own age, not retreat to a romantic and probably false dream of an idyllic Eden. We must continually work to make our complex and "civilized" arrangements and institutions genuinely civilizing. The melioristic impulse is also in our nature.

But I still wonder what the dog thought. [Chains, laws, stars, push-pin & poetry]

I'm not a big fan of Burke, with his defense of aristocracy and the 1% solution. But I do love the quote from him that most everybody knows: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” If he said it. I know he didn't say one of the other things commonly and falsely attributed to him on the Internet: “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”

That last is actually a misquotation of Santayana. Or maybe Abe Lincoln. But don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

For discussion. The Kantian mental spectacles that allegedly give us our phenomenal world might very well also prevent us from seeing someone else's. Imagine an alien intelligence, whose world must look very different. Could it be that, on Kantian grounds, the search for ET is doomed? Or are the languages of math and physics literally universal?

Kant's commitment to dutifulness as the sole determinant of correct moral action is distressing to most of us, who want to feel virtuous in our sympathies and not deflected from the paths of righteousness. Why can't solicitude for strangers be dutiful and compassionate, and moral in equal measures?

Is there any reason why the impulse to maximize pleasure and minimize pain must be strictly egotistical? Why do critics of utilitarian ethics make this assumption?

There's a (false) old saying that he or she who finishes the game with the most toys wins. What about finishing with the most blissful experiences? Would that make you a winner? Would a lifetime of blissful experiences, "real" or not, be enviable or pitiable? (What would Neo or Professor Nozick say?)

An Elvis Costello question: What's so funny about liberty, equality, and fraternity? OR, Is redistributivist activism a pretext, or a legitimate political program?

Finally, and in anticipation of next week's exam extra credit discussion prompt: Who, in your opinion at this stage of your philosophical education, is #1 (in terms of insight, influence, wit and charm or whatever)? Moore says Kant. I can't agree. I do love Russell's impish question concerning the Sage's bachelorhood: 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica remarks that 'as he never married, he kept the habits of his studious youth to old age'. I wonder whether the author of this article was a bachelor or a married man.You probably have to be married (though not necessarily male) to get what's impish about that.

51 comments:

  1. John Locke was the father of classical liberalism and was born on August 29th, 1632 in Wrington, England and was very popular in the 17th century. He studied medicine at Oxford University which played a large part of his life. He wrote about many different topics such as epistemology, political philosophy, and education. Locke’s father was a lawyer and a former service member. His parents were both Puritans. Locke received the honor of the Kings scholar, with that and his father’s connections it was insured he would have attend Christ Church, Oxford. After graduating Locke returned to the Master of Arts program and eventually worked at the university. He had many revolutionary ideas such as social contract theories and the natural rights of man. He also helped form the French and American revolutions with this ideas. Locke soon became a person of interest to the government. He was forced to evade the government due to a failed assassination on the kind and leave England in 1683. Locke was to Holland where he composed An Essay Concerning Human Understanding which was spread throughout four books. Locke returned to England in 1688. He published a plethora of essays and books after his return. He was a hero to the Whig party. Locke brought the board of trade back to life in the Americas where he was a crucial member of the board. Locke developed poor health and eventually passed away on October 28, 1704 in Essex where he lived for the last ten years of his life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 8 4-6 AQQ
    1.When was Kant born?
    2.When did Kant die?
    3.What did Kant believe we were all walking around?
    4.The filter is what?
    5.What does the filter determine?
    6.Where does everything we perceive take place?
    7.What dont we have direct access to?
    8.Kants own mine was very ordered and what?
    9.Did Kant ever marry?
    10.Kant imposed a strict what to each day?
    11.When did he have his servant wake him up?
    12.What was the first thing he would do when he woke up?
    13.What would he do after he drank tea?
    14.Kant wrote numerous books and what?
    15.Where would Kant lecture?
    16.What time would he go for a walk?
    17.How many times would he walk up and down his street?
    18.Where did Kant live?
    19.What is this town called now?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. #8.

      1. Immanuel Kant was born in 1724.
      2. Kant died in 1804.
      3. Understanding the world through a filter like this.
      4. The human mind.
      5. How we experience everything.
      6. Time and space.
      7. The way the world is.
      8. Logical.
      9. Never.
      10. Pattern.
      11. At 5 a.m.
      12. Drink some tea.
      13. Smoke a pipe, and begin work.
      14. Essays
      15. University.
      16. 4:30.
      17. Eight times.
      18. Konigsberg
      19. Kaliningrad

      Delete
  3. I had difficult time finding the reading for your post.

    Additional Questions

    1. Where did Kant live?

    2. When did he die?

    3. Where was he born?

    4. What was walking around according to Kant?

    5. What is the town called?

    6. Who did he marry?

    7. What did he do after he drank tea?

    8. He imposed us to do what each day?

    9. When did his servant wake him up?

    10. The filter is what?

    11. What does the filter determine.

    12. What don't we have direct access to?

    13. What is the first thing he did everyday?

    14. What were the name of his books?

    15. Where did he lecture?

    16. When would he go for a walk?

    17. How many times would he walk up and down his street?

    18. What is the town called now?

    19. Where did he live?

    I had to use Chris as a guide for my questions since I wasn't able to find the reading but still wanted to get credit for the post.

    If someone will link me to the reading I will gladly answer the questions, discussion questions and post additional content of my own

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer LH 19-23

      Delete
    2. That doesn't help, what is that?

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  4. Section 8 -- Discussion Questions

    1. Yes, I do think we all were “spectacles” of sorts. Our perspectives really do affect how we see the world and the knowledge that we gather from this world. People with different perspectives and outlooks do struggles to have mutual understanding with those whose perspective and outlook differ. It is impossible to fully understand someone else’s knowledge without having their exact perspective.

    2. I suppose the “spectacles” analogy would not actually work because I think we can change our perspectives, and new knowledge can aid in changing our perspectives.

    3. I think we have to get out of our armchairs to gain knowledge, synthetic of priori. Just sitting and thinking really hard cannot possibly give us this knowledge. We have to go out and experience things to collect this knowledge. It is my belief that knowledge is gained through experience in the world.

    4. If you feel sorry for someone and help him or her for just that reason, you are really just trying to make yourself feel better. Your good deed toward that person is not for their benefit, although they may end up benefitting from it. So no, if you do it because you feel sorry for the person, it is not a good moral action. It is only for you.

    5. I think that moral rules must sometimes be broken so that, for instance, evil cannot get ahead in the world. If someone must lie to prevent a bad person from doing harm, then I think that is the right thing to do. If they must steal from the bad person to prevent harm or cheat them, so be it. Although that may make the liar/cheater/stealer seem like a bad person, too, ultimately they are preventing the other bad person from causing more harm.

    6. I think history is very important, and we can find meaning in it. Many lessons can be learned from history, so yes, I think it has the potential to keep us from repeating errors. However, it doesn’t seem we are learning from our history and correcting ourselves/preventing more errors. (For example, racism is still a huge issue.) But I think paying attention and learning from our history is essential to fixing problems and preventing more mistakes.

    8. If we found out that the world had no purpose why should that affect our purpose in the world? We can give our world purpose. It does often seem that there is no purpose, and pessimism and despair and common responses (trust me, I know), but we can give our world purpose and not rely on some pre-assigned purpose for the world. Besides, how would there be a pre-assigned purpose anyways? “Purpose” is a human concept.

    9. I’m not entirely sure what this question is asking. What are they redeeming if they do indeed have redemptive properties? If the answer to this is “humans” then yes, I do think that music, literature, and art have redemptive properties. They offer new perspectives that can change a person’s way of thinking. This has the potential to prevent harm perpetrated by that person. I think that music, lit., and art can help us heal, change, and understand our world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Section 8- DQs

    1.) Yes, I think we all wear tinted lenses of some kind. We each are raised in different environments and witness our own experiences. I think that it sometimes presents problems in understanding; however, I do not think that different perspectives themselves actually cause those problems. I feel as though lack of empathy or sympathy or the willingness to try to understand one another causes those problems. The differences in perspectives may just further add to the confusion thereafter.

    2.) I do not think it works if we cannot change them. Arguably, we are different at each stage of our lives. We grow and learn. Even eyes themselves change prescription. That being said, without change, stubbornness may take over, and more conflicts may arise if we cannot learn to understand one another or change ourselves.

    3.) I think that in some cases we can achieve knowledge as such from our armchairs. I believe imagination is a great, motivational force. If we can believe and imagine ourselves doing something, we may actually get up and do it. I feel as though the armchair is a good start, but we need to get up from it eventually to continue to grow.

    4.) I do not think that doing something for someone because you feel sorry for them is the right thing to do. You should help someone on mostly their terms and because they need it and not just because you feel moved to do so. Regardless of how you feel, they are the one who has gotten themselves into a predicament. Sometimes, they are the only ones who know what they need. You should do something to make them feel better and not yourself, if they are the ones with the problem.

    5.) I think all rules can be broken, if the right reason occurs. Rules are subjective to the individual, even though there are more than just individual consequences for certain actions. For example, most would all agree that murder is wrong; however, killing someone for your country during war is considered okay. I feel it is mostly about perspective. I can think of many situations where it may be okay to lie, steal, or cheat. But, the main example that I am thinking of is an Irish blessing that is used in the movie "Leap Year." It goes like this:

    "May you never steal, lie, or cheat, but if you must steal, then steal away my sorrows, and if you must lie, lie with me all the nights of my life, and if you must cheat, then please cheat death because I couldn't live a day without you."

    ReplyDelete
  6. DQ's Section 10
    1. Yes, we do wear conceptual spectacles. The problem isn’t having different perspectives when it comes to mutual understanding. The problem is typically not trying to understand a perspective other than your own.
    3. I think you can achieve knowledge from your armchair, but you can achieve a greater amount of knowledge by getting up and experiencing the world.
    4. No, because you did it to make yourself feel better. If you want to behave morally you should think of benefiting others and not yourself.
    5. I do believe moral rules should be broken if the situation demands it. If a lie could protect someone from physical harm, then it would be a situation where I would feel alright with lying.
    6. History is important if you want to understand the present. We learn lessons that could enable us from repeating past errors, but we do not always use them.
    8. It may an appropriate response for some, but I would not say it would be for everyone. I feel that if the world had no purpose then it is up to us to find our own. Despair would only yield me from making the best out of a bad situation. I think having one set purpose would be kind of boring. I look at it like an artist presenting their work to the world. They do not tell us what to feel. They let us make our own interpretations of the artwork. The world is like that because its ultimate purpose is open to interpretation.
    9. I like to think that it can, but it just depends on the situation.


    ReplyDelete
  7. Section 10 Discussion Questions
    1. Yes, I think we do wear spectacles. Everyone perceives life in a different way and has different perspectives in different situations. It makes for an interesting conversation.

    2. No, I guess it really doesn't. As you grow and have different experiences, your perspective on life can change. So using the analogy of the spectacles, you would need to be able to take them off and put on new ones.

    3. You could achieve basic knowledge from your arm chair. However I think you would be better suited to get up and go experience things for yourself.

    4. I guess it wouldn't be behaving morally. When you do something morally, you do it because at the end of the day it is the right thing to do. Doing something to make you feel better about yourself isn't really for the greater good. The person may get helped by your actions, but at the end of the day it was really only to make you feel better.

    5. I think there are circumstances where you do have to bend the rules a little bit. If you have to lie when it's concerning someone's safety, then I think that's okay, Sometimes you just have to do what's best for people, even if it means bending the rules a little bit.

    6. I think history definitely means something. It does help you learn from past mistakes and try not to repeat them. It also Might give you a little insight about why things are the way they are today.

    8. It's different for everyone I'm sure, but I would choose to live my life to the fullest anyway. Why not take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way and make the most out of every situation?

    9. I think they do, they can be an outlet for people, a way to escape.

    ReplyDelete
  8. #10

    4. Based on Kant, it is not the moral thing to do because emotions are clouding reasoning. The fact that I felt sorry for him regardless of how much I reason it, it will still not be considered as behaving morally because emotions were involved in the decision making.

    5. I don't think there is absolute moral. All rules have exceptions at some point. It is right to lie, cheat, and steal to save someone's life.

    7. Yes, I do believe that. For example, the fight for freedom and equality shows how we're becoming more conscious as a species. It started with Gender equality -> race equality -> sexual equality. As years pass, we're being open and try to understand humanity better.

    8. I don't think pessimism is the appropriate response. I believe we should make the most of what we've been given, there is no reason to be bitter.

    ReplyDelete
  9. sec 10
    DQ
    1. I think people usually see the a world from a specific perspective that may be different from others. This has presented problems between people with different view points.

    2. I would say that it doesn't work if you can't change them

    3. His synthetic knowledge seems to be the start of the modern deductive reasoning, where knowing one thing you can assume something encompassed by the already previous knowledge, but in order to reason correctly you need to to know the facts.

    4. With that question it is important to understand the different reasons of why people may lie, cheat, or steal. For example, someone that is starving may steal food. Is that considered wrong? We consider what is right or wrong based off of how much a situation may hurt someone, someone taking credit for something they don't deserve, and someone being taken advantage of. It is important to also consider both sides of the story as well because that also needs to be weighed in when determining how much something is wrong or right, and whether or not that person deserves punishment or not.

    5. knowing about our history is one of the best ways to learn which strategies do and don't work for handling certain strategies.

    6. people create their own purposes, and even if you haven't found a purpose you should strive to find something that makes you inspired.

    ReplyDelete
  10. #10 Post for 11/8/2017

    DQ1: I think it's a pretty well established belief that we all perceive our experiences with a perspective and with a cultural background upon which we draw. That does not mean that we will have problems with mutual understanding, but only that we do see the world according to our own cultures.

    DQ2: Removing your spectacles may not be possible, but changing your prescription is very doable - that's the foundation of cultural anthropology!

    DQ3: Synthetic knowledge requires observation or experience, so I suppose that depends on the knowledge or experience necessary!

    DQ4: Morality is a measure of actions, not feelings; if you do what is right, then it was a moral action, even if you did so for another reason.

    DQ5: Christ has given us our commandments, and it is never okay to violate them, but nor is it alright to ignore Christ's commandments so that I can judge another.

    DQ6: History is the record of what we, as a species, have done. We can learn a great deal from history (which is why we learn history in every subject we study), and we will continue to learn the lessons of the past until we have perfected society or died trying!

    DQ7: No.

    DQ8: I don't think so, but I also don't think that we, as humans, should worry too much about proving or knowing the purposes for our lives.

    DQ0: Certainly they do, though what they are, specifically, depends on which form of art we're discussing (and perhaps the specific piece).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Quiz q's #10
    1. Who was kant?
    2. When was kant born?
    3. Where did kant live?
    4. When did he die?
    5/ What did he say about the world?
    6. What did he like to drink?
    7. Who did he marry?
    8. Did he like to walk?
    9. What is the town he lived in called now?
    10. What did kant impose daily?

    ReplyDelete
  12. #6

    1. No. I think we see the world exactly as it is. There's no reason to suspect there's more to reality than meets the eye.

    2. Not particularly. I think the better (or perhaps literal) analogy would be that our eyes are damaged, and thus don't see reality quite correctly. Additionally, glasses are never designed to impede vision, so it's just a poor comparison.

    3. If it's true that mathematics can provide synthetic knowledge, as per the example of 7+5=12, then yes. All of modern mathematics could have been discovered by one sufficiently-genius man who never left his desk.

    4. I believe yes. In my eyes, also yes. I don't really follow the reasoning to suggest doing something out of compassion isn't moral.

    5. No. No matter what moral principle is being discussed, there is always some contrived exception. Lying to protect a friend would be moral. Cheating in a gambling game because you need money to pay for your mother's heart transplant would be moral. Stealing works for the previous example. There's always an exception.

    6. Knowing history is only useful in the common turn of phrase of not repeating it, but despite this, it is over and over again repeated. Therefore, it is worthless. I'd say we're doomed to repeat our own mistakes regardless of whether or not we study them. People don't change.

    7. Through the internet and social media, we're becoming more conscious of a number if issues, but we likewise don't care as much because we see they're always happening and they get unbearably boring to talk about.

    8. No. Just because there's not some greater purpose given to us by a divine creator doesn't mean our lives don't matter - at least to one another and ourselves. We can still enjoy life.

    9. I don't think so, but that's mostly because I'm not really spiritual, and would thus usually only use "redemption" in a sarcastic sense. They do however have therapeutic effects on some people, which I would say is the closest thing to a proper conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. #10 reply to number 8 answer
      Why can some humans not think of other humans as worthless there are some that do think so.

      Delete
  13. If we could somehow know that the world had no ultimate purpose, would pessimism and despair be an appropriate response?

    Sometimes I feel very pessimistic when I think that the world has no purpose, but that doesn't have to be the case. I reject religion and get stuck in this thought pattern of "everything is meaningless and nothing matters," but that doesn't necessarily have to be true. Even if we are just existing and ultimately have no purpose, there can be some freedom and optimism in that mindset. There's a song called harmony parking lot by Johnny Hobo that has a line "here's to our lives being meaningless and how beautiful it is because freedom doesn't have a purpose." I think that opens up a more appropriate response to the idea that we are meaningless. I think there is beauty and pleasure in life no matter what, and the human race can find hope even in a miserable world. Some people would still live in despair, but I don't really think we would change our lives that much if we were certain that we had no purpose. Humans have the natural instinct to want to survive and the thought of pain and death doesn't seem appealing to many people. There isn't a pretty way to die and I do not believe humans would seek to find despair. People are all different and would respond differently to this assumption.

    ReplyDelete
  14. #9
    Do you think it would be possible to communicate with an intelligent alien, whose mental "spectacles" might not perceive space, time, cause-and-effect, etc., as we do? How? Or do you think such categories must be universal among all forms of intelligence? Why?

    Yes I believe so because there have been many studies of exceeding the 3rd dimensions of the world as we see it. Things like quantum physics and metaphysics challenge what we can see as feel. We may not understand completely, but I think we could definitely communicate.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anna Morgan
    #9

    Have you ever gone out of your way to help a stranger? Did you do so because you thought it was the right thing to do, because you felt sympathetic for the stranger's plight, or for some other reason? Do you agree with Kant that dutifulness alone is morally relevant to such acts?

    Yes, actually. I drove a man home who was having trouble walking last week. I'm not really sure why I did it, I didn't put too much thought into it. I did think it was right, and I did feel sympathetic, but I mostly just thought "why not." Kind of like I would do for a friend. Yes I do agree with Kant because you have to act on ideas that you think are morally right, if you want to truly be a good person.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anna Morgan
    #9

    Is it better to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or as they would have you do...?

    I kind of just do what I want in the moment and I guess I lean more towards helping the person if I feel like their needs are actually important, and also depending if i like the person. If someone I didn't like was really in need I'd help them but I wouldn't go out of my way to do them a favor or anything. I think if you do treat people well if they aren't very good people then they will have a false sense of reality and will be kind of spoiled and unaware. So I think it can be like a wake up call for someone annoying to be like oh i don't always get everything i want. I think just decide what you want to do in the moment is appropriate because every situation is different.

    ReplyDelete
  17. DQ #6
    •Do you think we all wear conceptual "spectacles" of some kind? If so, does that present a problem for the possibility of mutual understanding between ourselves and/or other kinds of knowers?
    Yes I feel like we all see things in different ways no 2 people think exactly alike. This can present a problem of mutual understanding.

    •If you help someone because you feel sorry for them, have you behaved morally? 116 What if, reflecting on why you feel sorry for them, you conclude that helping them would be the right thing to do?
    Yes I think that is a moral behavior. I think no matter why you feel sorry for them you should help

    •Are there any moral rules you believe to be absolutely inviolable, never to be broken for any reason? Can you imagine a situation in which you think it would be right to lie, cheat, or steal?
    I think rules are made to be broken and have loops holes and I don’t think there would ever be a right situation to do anyone of those. I might be starving for days and steal a bag of chips but that doesn’t make it right.

    •Does history mean anything, either in advance or in retrospect? Is history (as Henry Ford said) "bunk"? Can we learn lessons from history that will enable us to avoid repeating past errors? Do you agree with George Santayana that if we don't learn from history's mistakes we're doomed to repeat them?
    History means A LOT. I think we can learn a lot from history to help us not repeat prior errors, hence the saying “you learn from your mistakes”. Yes I agree if we don’t learn from history and try to prevent the things that we know were terribly wrong we are doomed

    •If we could somehow know that the world had no ultimate purpose, would pessimism and despair be an appropriate response?
    I don’t think it’s the right response however it would be extremely hard not to react this way

    •Do art, literature, and music have redemptive properties?
    Yes . I feel like these are all means of salvation and expression which ultimately lead to happiness.

    ReplyDelete
  18. #6
    Essay Links:

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/16465/
    An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/22869/
    The Tense Middle

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/18108/
    A Way to Honor Life

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/101911/
    You Meet People for a Reason

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/96760/
    Beyond the Noise

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/94282/
    Litany for Memories

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hayley Gray9:37 AM CST

    #6 DQ:
    4. If you help them solely because you feel sorry for them then I would not say you are being moral. But, if you help them because you know it is the right thing to do, then that is being moral.
    5. I think most rules might have to be broken if you are put in a situation where breaking the rules could save someone or yourself from harm, etc.
    6. History is extremely important, especially when trying to not repeat past errors. I definitely agree with George Santayana that our doom is inevitable if we do not learn from history's mistakes.
    8. Just because the world has no purpose does not mean our lives do not.
    9. I believe art, literature, and music can serve as an outlet for people to express themselves in a nonviolent way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 4 - I just don't understand Kant's reasoning on that one: how does feeling sorry for somome make your actions to help them less moral?

      Delete
  20. 1. What statue did Schopenhauer have on his desk?
    2. What goddess is associated with the wise owl
    3. When did the radical theory of Utilitarianism appear
    4. What book did kant write?
    5. What time did Kant go on his walks? How did it benefit some of the neighbors?
    6. What parable does Warburton use to argue morality?

    ReplyDelete
  21. AQQ #10 11/8/17

    1.) What was the view of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?
    2.) When was Hegel born?
    3.) When did Hegel die?
    4.) Was his writing fiendishly difficult?
    5.) What was his writing mostly expressed in?
    6.) He often used what in his writings?
    7.) Who is the Roman goddess of wisdom that is usually associated with the wise owl?
    8.) Who did he inspire by his view that history will unfold in a particular way?
    9.) What did Marx end up doing during the early 20th century?
    10.) Did Hegel irritate many philosophers?
    11.) _______ _______ despised Hegel's works, and ____ _____ declared that most of Hegel's sentences expressed nothing at all.

    ReplyDelete
  22. AQQ #10 11/13/17

    1.) According to Arthur Schopenhauer, we are all caught up in a what?
    2.) When was he born?
    3.) When did he die?
    4.) Schopenhauer thought that if we could only recognize the true nature of reality, we would what?
    5.) His message was very close to what spiritual figure?
    6.) How can we achieve enlightenment according to Buddha's teachings?
    7.) Unlike most Western philosophers, Schopenhauer had read widely in what kind of philosophy?
    8.) Schopenhauer was what kind of man?
    9.) What job did he occupy in Berlin?
    10.) Was Hegel more popular than Schopenhauer?
    11.) What was one of his works that was published in 1818?
    12.) When did he finally finish the longer version of his book?
    13.) According to his work, Will and Representation are the two aspects of what?
    14.) What is the Will?
    15.) What is the World as Representation?
    16.) The World as Representation is what Kant called the _________ world.
    17.) Your experiences gathered through you senses is what?
    18.) What organizes your experience to make sense of it all?
    19.) Like Kant, Schopenhauer believed that there was what?

    ReplyDelete
  23. #10

    Do you think we all wear conceptual "spectacles" of some kind? If so, does that present a problem for the possibility of mutual understanding between ourselves and/or other kinds of knowers? - I think we all do wear "spectacles" of some kind, but I don't think they are as extreme as Kant's. I believe we all wear spectacles that do vary how we as individuals all perceive the world and they cause us to experience things differently. I believe it does present a problem of mutual understanding.


    Does the spectacles analogy work, given the impossibility of actually removing our conceptual spectacles or changing prescriptions?- I think it works because we don't get to change our spectacles, even though we can change prescriptions because we are still experiencing the world differently than each other because we still perceive it differently.


    If you help someone because you feel sorry for them, have you behaved morally? 116 What if, reflecting on why you feel sorry for them, you conclude that helping them would be the right thing to do?- I believe that if you help someone you have behaved morally; I think emotions are allowed to play a part in morality. Regardless of how you felt about it, you helped them and I believe that makes you morally right.



    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous7:21 PM CST

    1. Art and music have the same type of outlet, per say. But, I would not necessarily say redemption. Everyone's feelings are different with each type of "art."
    2. I think pessimism would be an appropriate response if the world had no ultimate meaning because there is nothing else to think besides how awful a life without meaning is.
    3. The "world" as far as people is definitely becoming more conscious as far as being aware of what the world is supposed to be like- with climate change and so on. I would also say the "world" as far as nature is more conscious because if people don't take care of what is precious, there are natural disasters.
    4. History always means something, the point of history is the educate the youth about the world before and about what is yet to come.
    5. We can absolutely learn from history, that is exactly the point. However, it doesn't matter how much you educate people, people are more likely to repeat history no matter what.
    6. I absolutely believe there are some morals that you do not break, no matter the circumstances. If I whole heartedly believe in something, I am not going to dismiss that for anyone or anything.
    7. I think the natural reaction to help someone is because you feel bad for them, but I wouldn't necessarily say it is based on morals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2 - Though the entirity of the internet is meaningless, but people still enjoy it. We can even entertain ourselves playing singleplayer games against machines. Why is life so different?

      5 - I agree. I think they should at least drop the slogan that history helps to prevent tragedies that happened in the past.

      Delete
  25. #6
    Essay Links:

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/13265/
    The Power of Music

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/15389/
    Sally’s Monday

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/43396/
    A Kind and Generous Heart

    https://thisibelieve.org/essay/34187/
    Combating the Tyranny of the Positive Attitude

    ReplyDelete
  26. #6
    Discussion Questions Answered:

    1. Do art, literature, and music have redemptive properties?
    - I do think that they have redemptive properties because depending on what type of music you are listening to, some songs may connect to people in different ways and help redeem themselves.

    2. Is the world becoming more conscious, somehow? Does nature come to know itself through us?
    - I do not think that the world is becoming more conscious because everyone in the world still thinks the same way they thought years ago and people will still continue to think the same way.

    3. Do you think we all wear conceptual "spectacles" of some kind? If so, does that present a problem for the possibility of mutual understanding between ourselves and/or other kinds of knowers?
    - I do think that we all wear some kind of conceptual glasses but I believe that they are all different because we do not all think the same way and we all have different opinions about different aspects of our life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2 - I think we just like to imagine ourselves as having made leaps and bounds

      Delete
  27. #6

    Old Post DQs:

    1. I'd define space as the physical area we inhabit and time as the limiting factor for how quickly reactions occur in a localized area. Well at one point, the entire universe was a nuclear inferno, so I'd say yes: they can exist without sentient life.

    2. Actions are right if we think they are, is what it really comes down to. The concept of moral ambiguity or the "gray area" only exists because most people try to gather up morality into a neat little package that applies to everyone. I judge people by actions, so I don't care why someone did something "right", just that they did it.

    3. Everything is connected in the sense that if something weren't there we could notice. But really, anything in the universe that's not a star or the moon is irrelevant. For the most part we live completely independently of things even nearby.

    4. It's free because we don't technically have to follow it.

    5. Eating is very important to me; I'd die otherwise. Reading and writing are also pretty high up the list: they're cornerstones to any profitable job, as well as a source of entertainment and creativity.

    6. No. I jump around from thing to thing as I get bored. That being said, I usually put several hours into each thing in enormous blocks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. #6

    Old Post DQs 2:

    7. While perception may vary from person to person, including beyond species, they're never so different that one can't be mapped to the other somehow: e.g. while we might perceive time differently, we all know what it is, in a general sense - at least sufficiently to understand one another. They're more or less universal, as they are literally universal properties of the universe. Perception is the only potential problem.

    8. I don't really go out of my way to help someone unless they ask me to. In that sense, I suppose it could be considered almost obligatory, but I do genuinely like helping people (within reason). I disagreed with Kant the moment he said reasons outweigh actions for determining morality of an action.

    9. I much prefer the Laveyan: "Do unto others as they do unto you," words of wisdom from the satanic bible. It just makes sense. As Lavey explained, you should treat others kindly as per usual, unless they continually fail to do the same - at which point, why bother keeping up the facade?

    10. It requires only sufficient courage to not be a sheep. Beyond that, it's just a matter of personal philosophy.

    11. Only on a wholistic vie for all of society: we should maximize the overall pleasure of everyone in a community and minimize its pain. Doing this on a per-person basis is what gives rise to tyrants, where a few live in luxury and everyone else wallows.

    12. Yes. I don't care about reality so long as I enjoy the experience. For instance, I'd happily enter a virtual reality where it was more entertaining than the real world, despite it not being real.

    13. Liberty entails freedom, while equality and fraternity demand some form of restraint on human interactions.

    14. Redistribution in its usual context of wealth is a very bad idea, at least in a capitalist economy (aka the only good good economy). You can't take things from people with no compensation and expect them to be ok with it. What would end up happening is all the rich people move to another country. Then there's no money to redistribute, and less tax money to play around with. An awful idea, really.

    15. So far I'm still on the Aristotle bandwagon. He had a lot of the right ideas (and several very bad ones), but overall he's had lasting positive effects in virtually every field, especially including his expansion of the art of archiving.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Discussion Questions #6
    4. I don't think you feeling sorry for someone should be the determining factor as to whether it is moral or not. If you feel sorry for someone and helping them is the right thing, that's moral. If you feel sorry for someone and helping them in a certain way is not the right thing, and you still do it just because you feel sorry for them, that is not moral. For example, if I felt sorry for someone whose house had burned down, I think helping them rebuild their house is moral. To contrast, if I felt sorry for someone who was in withdrawal from an illegal drug, giving them money to go buy said drug, while it will help ease their withdrawal symptoms, that is not moral to help someone get back on drugs.

    ReplyDelete
  30. #6 DQ older post
    • How would you define "time" and "space"? Do they exist independently of us, or of any and all sentient beings?
    Time is the continued progress of existence and space is the area in which something exists. I think they are related and not independent of each other.
    • What makes right actions right? If you do the right thing, does it matter why you did it?
    I don’t think right and wrong actions can be viewed separately because it depends on the circumstances.
    • If you voluntarily follow a rule or law, is that a free act? Or is it compelled?
    I think it is a free act if its voluntarily
    • Are reading, writing, and eating important to you? Why?
    Yes I think they are all important for the mind.
    • Do you practice any form of daily discipline that helps you accomplish your goals in a slow and steady way?
    no
    • Is it worth trying to grasp the ultimate reality of things, or do you agree with Douglas Adams? "The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied." Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    I don’t think we will ever know what is really going on
    • What do you think of Schopenhauer's belief that everyday life ("the human situation") is a meaningless cycle of will, striving, and unfulfilled desire? Is a blind, purposeless, voracious Will really the ultimate reality of our existence? What do you think of the idea that art and music are our salvation.
    I don’t think life is meaning less at all. I think everyone has a purpose in this world; it’s not really about finding one it’s about creating one. I don’t think art and music is our salvation
    • Is it better to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or as they would have you do...?
    As they would do because not everyone wants to be treated like you do

    ReplyDelete
  31. #10
    1. If you do what is right then no matter if you feel sorry for someone or not, helping them is acting morally.
    2. As far as moral rules, I believe that it is not black and white. I could say that for me it is wrong to lie but for someone else there may be a justifiable reason. There is too much gray area to have a definite answer but I definitely believe there are situations that make it "okay" to violate moral codes.
    3. History is one of the singe handed most important things in our society. History repeats itself and we must learn from the mistakes of the past in order to prevent making them again. However, we obviously haven't learned much as seen with our current state.

    ReplyDelete
  32. DQ: 11/14/2017
    1. I do think we do. I mostly think it is from our own cultural influences that do this though. These influences make it harder to understand or even tolerate other people.
    2.yes.
    3.No I don't think we can. We must engage to learn.
    4.In a way yes.
    5. Just because you feel sorry for someone it doesn't make it any less important. helping people is always the right thing to do.
    6. I think lying to hide hurt might be okay. It really depends on the situation.
    7.Yea I think we can learn from history, but if history has thought us anything, we has a human race cannot learn from them.
    8. The world is doomed. Mrs. Rose said "Hell NO."
    9. Yes it would. The world acts on fear, hate, love, its all emotional.
    10. I don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  33. #10 DQ
    1. If we have conceptual spectacles, how do we remove them?
    2. How could we conceive of other knowers?
    3. Is god a form of other knower that we can conceive of but not talk to?
    4. Is empathy moral?
    5. What can be gained from empathy?
    6. Do you think that lying in some moments is ok?
    7. what is an unforgivable act one could commit?
    8. How does the world become more conscious of itself?
    9. Can we truly ever make up for the mistakes of the past?
    10. Why do you think we should care about the past?
    11. Is pessimism good in some cases?
    12. Is understanding our limits and making a smart decision pessimistic?
    13. Does art restore our minds to a degree?
    14. why should we try to understand other types of thinking beings?
    15. Are animals just other forms of thinking beings that our spectacles prevent us from communicating with?
    16. Are the other thinkers inferior or superior to us in your opinion?
    17. Why be optimistic if everything is hopeless?
    18. What does optimism gain a person?
    19. If we are unrealistic of our limits is that a good thing?

    ReplyDelete
  34. 4/5 No Class Online Assignment (20 comments)
    1. John Mack is a prime example of the fact that you can be "book smart" without actually being smart.
    2. Whitley Strieber publishing a book about being abducted by aliens and people going along with it proves how influential media is to our every day lives.
    3. Strieber saying that skepticism of people who believe they were abducted by aliens is as "ugly as laughing at rape victims" is very disrespectful.
    4. Nova dedicating an episode to Mack shows that you can't believe something just because it's on the television.
    5. Bill Cooper sounds like the type of person that exists today; one that stockpiles weapons because they think the government is out to get them.
    6. Bill Cooper's story sounds like every teen novel out there all rolled into one book.
    7. I believe most conspiracy theorists want to be seen as intelligent, which is why they target presidents and leaders of countries for their conspiracies- they want to be seen as smarter than someone in power.
    8. I'm not sure what it is about the desert that attracts the strangest people- maybe living "off the grid" is a less monitored lifestyle and that's why cult leaders such as Vernon Howell like it?
    9. Vernon Howell's followers sound a lot like the outspoken people we know today- obsessed with the idea of a post apocalyptic America.
    10. Ross Perot sounds a lot like Donald Trump.
    11. I don't believe that AIDS is a "government engineered disease," but the government definitely could've done more about it.
    12. People like Pierre Salinger spread misinformation like it is truth, and once the myth becomes popular enough, people start citing each other as sources, which just makes it look credible and spreads the lies even further.
    13. Chris Carter was definitely an influential person, as TIME states. I know several people who have been influenced by the X Files.
    14. Although I don't believe them, I find 9/11 conspiracy theories the most interesting because they make more sense than any of the other popular conspiracies out there.
    15. I agree to some extent that the Democrats and Republicans are "two factions of the same party."
    16. I think it's interesting that they called JFK the last true president but provided no details. I'd like to hear more on why they say this.
    17. Jones is not the only one to think Sandy Hook was fake. I've heard several people talk about it and I've seen several people post about it, but I think it is disrespectful to the children that lost their lives.
    18. People that call Alex Jones a "performance artist" are very right. Every celebrity, be it an actor, a politician, or a singer, is playing a character to some extent.
    19. Kurt Andersen is very correct when he states that "in Fantasyland, everyone is graded on a curve." Yes, you have your extremes on both ends, but everyone falls somewhere in between.
    20. Andersen brings up a valid point when he says that everything sounds like a conspiracy these days, so much that we don't pay attention to the real issues until it's too late.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Jasper Von Buseck5:49 AM CDT

    4/5/18 no class online assignment
    #8

    LH 19:
    - I think it’s interesting that Kant believed each person had a unique filter. Considering he was born in the 1700’s, I think that’s a pretty open-minded concept to have.
    - Kant believed that each person had a different way of interpreting things, and he had a very clear and organized mind, and daily structure. It makes me wonder if his clear way of thinking is due to his understanding of people’s perspectives, allowing him to take a more objective approach to life, or if his understanding of others’ views is due to how he thinks.

    LH 20:
    - As bizarre as it may be, I actually agree with certain aspects of Kant’s view on morality. I don’t believe it’s immoral to lie in any situation, but I like what he says about ‘why’ you do good is more important than the fact that you did. I know a lot of people do good things because they feel it’s the right thing to do, which is great because compassion is important. If someone did something good just for karma points and bragging rights, then I think that takes away the value of their good action.

    LH 21:
    - I think it’s amazing that Bentham, or anyone, actually calculated the wrote the formula for happiness. How is this the first time I’ve heard about this?
    - Personally, I don’t think Bentham would approve of plugging into a virtual reality machine that lets you live out dreams for the rest of your life. He said himself that nature gave us pleasure and pain to help guide us through life, but if we never experienced anything but pleasure, we would never truly feel it.

    LH 22:
    - I find it frustrating when Hegel writes in obscure language, because that prevents easy comprehension of his thoughts, however I can still understand that easy understanding may not be the highest priority when seeking wisdom.
    - I find his thoughts on noumena more realistic than Kant’s. I think reality is always changing, and I really do believe that history happened for a reason and is leading us somewhere.

    LH 23:
    - I like Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and how closely it sounds to Buddha’s teachings. For Schopenhauer to recognize the cycle of wants instead of needs makes me believe he was a genuinely intelligent person.
    - I like Schopenhauer’s definition of Will, the part of reality that encompasses all the energy we can’t exactly see directly. But I still feel like this concept is more vague than concrete.
    - Another thing I like about Schopenhauer is his teachings of morality, specifically compassion. The idea that all people are connected reminds me of some of Buddha’s teachings as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where Schopenhauer got his basic idea from.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Jasper Von Buseck5:51 AM CDT

    4/5/18 no class online assignment
    #8

    FL 38:
    - I find it curious how in the 1900’s, people switched from believing in fantasies on things such as the supernatural to fantasies within science fiction, like being abducted by aliens. The weirdest part is how much attention it gets from scientific individuals like physicists.
    - Anderson points out that Bill Cooper took the title of his book from Revelation, even though the book doesn’t talk much about Christianity. Anderson later claims Cooper slides from fantastical beliefs including the Book of Revelation to giant conspiracies, but how can Anderson say Cooper believed in Revelations if Cooper took a single phrase, and not much else?
    - I wish Anderson went into detail on how Koresh and his disciples died. Are we just supposed to assume because they were a cult that they tried to strong-arm federal agents? Surely there could have been more information regarding the start of a week-long massacre.
    - After reading about Pierre Salinger, it’s obvious that a lot of modern conspiracies and myths are spread by people who read uncredited information, take it as truth, and spread it. Why can’t people just double-check information they read nowadays? It’s so much easier to do now than it was hundreds of years ago.
    - Reading about Art Bell made me think a lot about how America behaves after the Trump election. I wonder what would be discussed if Art Bell and Alex Jones did a show together.

    FL 39:
    - I was surprised in reading the first page how Alex Jones used to say a lot of things I would agree with, much less agree with Noam Chomsky. The mental image of the latter blows my mind after seeing a lot of Jones’ latest comments that have been circling the web.
    - Alex Jones was occasionally educated by some members of the John Birch society when he was growing up. I searched the society online, which turns out to be a far-right self advocacy group. Anderson quotes Jones saying “The John Birch Society was right about everything”. That quote makes me wonder what exactly that society was right about. Presumably, Alex Jones would be digging into the same things the group would, but I’ve mostly seen Alex Jones blowing a gasket on the radio/TV.
    - I like what Anderson said about Alex Jones making moderate conspirators more confident in their beliefs. I often wondered why Alex Jones was so popular with people who weren’t focused on his outrages, and I think Anderson highlighted the point that Jones puts himself at the top, making other people seem more normal. As Anderson said, “everybody is graded on a curve”.
    - I find Anderson’s comment on 70’s conspiracies interesting. He calls out solved conspiracies for what they were, and recognizes that people took parts of those solved conspiracies to make new ones.
    - Anderson takes it a step further and comments on how many widespread conspiracies there are currently, and the negative affect it has the media. Now with so many conspiracies out there, it takes attention away from the legitimate ones, filling our news outlets with false information.

    ReplyDelete
  37. #8
    April 5th - No class Assignment

    LH 19
    1. Like Kant, I have found it interesting that we have a filter on our senses that
    wont let us perceive what’s really there.
    2. The simple fact that I can see colors or hear things that other animals cant
    makes me question, what am i missing out on perceiving that others are not.
    3. His book, 'The Critique of Pure Reason', seems relatable to how I struggle to
    Answer some problems. I can get so far into a thought that I confuse myself
    And then lose my track when I try to repeat it. Which sometimes can make it
    hard for others to understand what point i'm trying to get across.
    LH-20
    4. Unlike Kant, I believe that in certain situations, telling a lie can be the morally
    right thing to do.
    LH-21
    5. Bentham’s Utilitarianism theory sounds nice but it wouldn't work for everyone,
    Considering happiness is relative to each individual.
    6. It seems that Bentham would say it's ok to lie if it will deliver more happiness. I
    disagree, it's ok to lie if it’s the right thing to do.
    LH-22
    7. I’m surprised that Hegel was considered the best-known philosopher of his
    time, after reading that Bertrand Russell and AJ Ayer thought that most of his
    work was nonsense. Hegel did become a headmaster and professor in Berlin so
    maybe it
    was his verbal words that helped him "rise to fame" rather than his written ones.
    8. I would agree with Kant rather than Hegel on the idea that noumenal reality
    lies beyond the phenomenal world.
    9. Hegel said that civilians living under tyrannical rulers in ancient china were not
    aware of freedom. I disagree, them simply witnessing the life of their ruler
    makes them aware of what freedom looks like.
    10. I disagree with Hegel that true freedom arises from only a properly organized
    society; a society has a contract, which in some ways limits true freedom.

    ReplyDelete
  38. #8
    April 5th - No class Assignment

    LH-23
    11. Schopenhauer said life is painful and it would be better not to be born. This is a
    relative statement; for example I would say my life has been worth living even
    when taking into consideration any pain that I have experienced, on the other
    hand, I would say the lives of baby sea turtles that are killed by birds or snakes
    right after hatching are unfortunate.
    LH-23
    12. I agree with Schopenhauer that there is no god to give direction to things. Will is
    just a meaningless force that is shown in our everyday reality.
    13. Warburton says that no other philosopher (other than Schopenhauer) gave such
    a central place to music in the arts. What about Pythagoras?
    FL-38-39
    14. John Macks response after using the "Holotropic Breathwork" technique at the
    Esalen institute sounds pretty fantastical. Then he had discovered his past life in
    Russia by simply hyperventilating.
    15. In 'Communion', Strieber says that skepticism of alien abductions is just as bad
    as laughing at victims of rape. The analogy is falsely implied. If people could say
    they were raped and not expect an investigation to go through then I would say
    people would claim they were more often.
    16. I would doubt Mack if he were to tell me about these alien abductions but I would
    keep the conversation going for the sake of entertainment. At least he didn’t go
    with the cliché alien apocalypse take over. His optimistic faith that aliens are here
    to preserve life on Earth is something new.
    17. Bill Cooper seems to have really gone far with nothing. Surely aliens didn’t land on
    two different military air bases in Florida to have a negotiation take place with the
    Eisenhower administration.
    18. Alex Jones says that JFK was the last true president of the United States. I would
    add Obama to the list, I say he deserves some credit.
    19. Andersen explains that Alex Jones was influenced to be a natural
    "omniconspiricist" because of growing up with neighbors in the John Birch
    Society in the 90's towards the end of Communism. I would add that the Internet
    in the 90's also played a big influential part.
    20. Jones explains that evil lurks everywhere; he goes on about smart cars, smart
    homes, and cancerous vaccines coming out to get us. I wouldn’t call that evil as
    if its one force behind everything unsatisfying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maria Rodriguez8:43 PM CDT

      #3
      ~to #11: Schopenhauer's dad died when he was young, and he had a rocky relationship with his mother. He had a daughter, but she died within a year. His academic life seemed unsuccessful, so he lived the last two decades of his life alone (from Wikepedia). I see why he saw life as a bleak existence, but different people do interpret and comprehend their lives differently.
      ~to #15: there are ways to see if someone was raped (DNA tests), but checking to see if someone was abducted by aliens should be a similar process.
      ~to #20: Jones has also talked about lizard-men ruling the government, so maybe evil lurks under the skins of our politicians. His extremeness contributes to the fear-tactic that he promote, so his points usually have no real backing.

      Delete
  39. #8
    Alternative Quiz Questions
    FL 38-39
    1. When did the first important bridge between fantasyland regions of UFO true
    believers and conspiricist appear?
    2. What disease did Spike Lee claim was government engineered?
    3. Who claimed that the elite poses an illusion of consent on the people, that US
    elections are mostly meaningless, and that the Democrats and the Republicans
    are really just two factions of one party?
    4. What is an item that Alex Jones referred to as an example of evil lurking
    everywhere?

    ReplyDelete
  40. Brendan McGee #8
    -Quiz for April 5th

    1. Immanuel Kant was born in 1724.
    2. Kant died in 1804.
    3. Understanding the world through a filter like this.
    4. The human mind.
    5. How we experience everything.
    6. Time and space.
    7. The way the world is.
    8. Logical.
    9. Never.
    10. Pattern.
    11. At 5 a.m.
    12. Drink some tea.
    13. Smoke a pipe, and begin work.
    14. Essays
    15. University.
    16. 4:30.
    17. Eight times.
    18. Konigsberg
    19. Kaliningrad

    -Discussion:
    1. Yes we each have our own lense that we view the world through. Every person has unique experiences that have molded them toward the worldview they have today.
    2. Our perspective is always changing. I joined this class for that reason, to gain new perspective.
    3. Thoughts lead to action.
    4. Being emotionally forced to take action is often the wrong way to make decisions. Every decision made should be made with a clear head.
    5. Rules are subjective. The killing of another person can be the right call if I am being attacked by him/her.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Maria Rodriguez8:21 PM CDT

    #3 for April 5th
    ~ Everyone wears conceptual "spectacles" because we all see the world using our different experiences. We might use the words of someone else to guide our own ideas, but those words are still part of our own experience. It poses a problem because the people arguing do not start with the same base, and the rest of the argument becomes an issue dealing with opposing experiences.
    ~The spectacles analogy works because even if we change what kind of experiences we receive, they are still subjective and unique.
    ~Feeling sorry for someone is a morally just way to help someone. By feeling bad for them, you can help them or realize that you want to help them.
    ~There are no moral rules that are absolutely inviolable. Morality chnges with the society, and an absolutely inviolable moral would be accepted by all societies at all points in time.
    ~We can use history to give meaning to the present and to reflect on how we should or should not act.
    ~The world cannot become more conscious. Nature would have already tried to kill us (humankind) if it were conscious.
    ~Life has more meaning and urgency when you realize that the world has no ultimate purpose. You realize that your lifespan is short, so pursuing various art forms or social bonds becomes important.

    ReplyDelete
  42. DQ From Apr 5th:
    Even if there's a logical explanation for everything, does it follow that there's a justification?
    -I think that everything is relative, and every occurrence possible can be considered justified under the right circumstances.

    ReplyDelete

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