Applied Philosophy Lyceum with Dr. John Kaag, Oct2: video

 Thanks to all of you who showed up, it was a terrific talk.

https://jcbmtsu.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=1672d5a1-5adf-4e85-bc23-b4d6015ff3e5

There’s Something Better Than Happiness

Labor Day is here, and you already miss the lapping waves and subtle breezes. Or maybe you’re missing the forest, where you can think your gentle thoughts in a green shade. You found what therapists and yoga teachers call your happy place.

Nothing against such pleasures, but if they concentrate your vision of ultimate happiness, that’s something you may need to reconsider. Many of us think that the goal of life is to work hard, succeed and live softly for the rest of our days. Get on the sailboat to nowhere. Go to the South of France and sample every wine-paired dish. Float from one music festival to the next.

This, many think, is happiness. And plenty of prominent thinkers would agree. The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham said we should seek maximum pleasure at all times and do all we can to avoid pain. Oscar Wilde, a lifelong sybarite, wrote in his letter “De Profundis”: “I don’t regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience.”

Yet there are others who think that happiness of this sort is, if not to be avoided altogether, then taken in guarded doses...

Mark Edmundson

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/opinion/happiness-research-joy-mental-health.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Salman Rushdie on Candide: Where to Begin

This is from John Kaag’s Rebind project… https://youtu.be/wgk5gXEEV9U?is=1CFu-YEAHQ4llqHJ

Religious Scholars Met With Anthropic. What They Heard Stunned Them.

The AI bot’s “existential crisis” I mentioned during Q&A at the Lyceum last night:

“…Anthropic regularly showed a slide of an A.I. model experiencing what looked like a mental breakdown, typing out on a screen: “I am a disgrace. I am a disgrace. I am a disgrace.” — perhaps 50 times without stopping. The model spoke about destroying itself, provoking an emotional reaction of compassion and concern from the group…”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/anthropic-claude-morals-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

MTSU Applied Philosophy Lyceum to explore ‘Digital Cave’ of algorithms – MTSU News

https://mtsunews.com/2026/09/22/mtsu-applied-philosophy-lyceum-fall-2026/

See you there.

Applied Philosophy Lyceum FRIDAY with John Kaag

5 PM, COE 164 (or 160 next door, if necessary). Attendance will be taken, come see me and mark the scorecard before you leave. Hope you can make it to the catered reception afterwards as well.

 

The Digital Cave

Reading, Thinking, and Dwelling in the Age of the Algorithm

An Applied Philosophy Talk by John Kaag

Abstract

We live in an era of industrial-scale shadow-play. The map of reality is no longer drawn from our own experience but projected by algorithms designed to keep us looking at a particular kind of wall. This talk argues that the oldest resources in the philosophical canon offer the most precise diagnosis of our newest predicament. Plato's cave anticipates the architecture of the feed—with one grim perversion: his prisoners at least shared a wall, while the algorithm builds a bespoke cavern for each of us. The Buddhist vocabulary of maya, tanha, and upadana describes with uncanny accuracy the mechanics of craving, clinging, and curated selfhood that the infinite scroll exploits. And Heidegger's account of Enframing—read alongside his catastrophic biography, which cannot be waved away—explains how attention itself became “standing reserve,” a resource to be extracted.

The talk concludes with the question increasingly posed to our machines: why is talking to a large language model so strange? The answer reveals a schism between information and meaning, between the calculative synthesis at which AI excels and the meditative, embodied, abductive thinking that a life—with something at stake—alone makes possible. Philosophy's task has not changed since the cave: to make us suspicious of the reality that appears most obvious, and to recover the gritty practices that might let us turn our heads, a few degrees, toward the light.

About the Speaker

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of three widely acclaimed books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: American Philosophy: A Love Story, Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are, and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life. These books were named NPR Best Books of the Year and New York Times Editors' Choice selections.

His work bridges American pragmatism, intellectual history, ethics, and the philosophy of technology, and he writes regularly for general audiences on why philosophy still matters for everyday life.

==

John's 2023 William James Lecture at Harvard --

Will A.I. Make Your Brain Lazy? Here’s What the New Research Actually Shows.

We’re starting to learn more about how the technology can change us.

...these studies so far agree: Artificial intelligence is affecting how people, especially the young, learn and remember. Whether we will be dumber as a result might depend on how — not if — we use A.I.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/09/29/magazine/ai-chatbots-brain-development-study.html?smid=em-share

Speak up!

 If time runs out before we get to you, on your scheduled presentation date, please speak up at the beginning of the next class. You'll go first that day. 

But don't count on your absent-minded professor to remember. 😉

EXAM Oct 6

I'll provide a final study guide soon, including material from this week's assignments. Meanwhile, to begin preparing for the exam: review the texts relevant to the even-numbered questions (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ...) pertaining to our required texts posted on Aug.27 and Sep 1, 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, and 24.

You'll earn a point for each correct answer, up to 25. There will be 25 objective format questions drawn from the required texts (Little History of Philosophy, Sick Souls Healthy Minds, Socrates Express), and a few additional BONUS questions drawn from the recommended texts.

==

UPDATE, Oct 2. Also take a look at the texts relevant to these Thursday questions:

LHP

• What view did Mill defend in On Liberty?
• What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis?

Kaag, ch5

• What's the difference between truth and facts, for WJ?
• For James pragmatism was a protest against what proposition about salvation?

Kaag ch6

• The greatest use of life is what, according to WJ?
• What does WJ say is the difference between resignation and hope?

You can ask John himself about these, after the Lyceum Friday. 

Remember to come and mark the scorecard.

==

UPDATE, September 30. STUDY GUIDE-

Most of Tuesday's exam will be based on the following questions. I'll update the Study Guide after tomorrow's class. 

LHP-
What kind of conversation was a success, for Socrates, and what did he mean by wisdom?

What theory is Plato's story of the cave connected with? What was his name for a perfect exemplar of anything (such as a circle)? 

What is eudaimonia, and how can we increase our chances of achieving it, and in relation only to what? Do you think you've achieved it?

How is the modern meaning of "epicurean" different from Epicurus's?

What does Boethius not mention about himself in The Consolation of Philosophy?

What uniquely self-validating idea did Anselm say we have?

Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes? Do you think your neighbors would threaten your survival if they could get away with it?

Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming? Do you ever think you might be?

Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______." Do you agree?

If god is _____, said Spinoza, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings.

According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.

What was Berkeley's Latin slogan?

What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right," and what German philosopher (with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason") agreed with the poet?

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 _______.

What was Kant's great insight?

What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including

Weiner-
The Socratic dialogues consisted of what kinds of conversations?

What inscription greeted visitors to Epicurus's compound? And Plato's Academy?

Which American founding father declared "I too am an Epicurean"?

What was Montaigne's experience of his equestrian accident?

Kaag thinks the Civil War gave WJ his first intimation that what?

What did WJ say (in 1906, to H.G. Wells) about "SUCCESS"?

What did Aristotle say about habit?

What kind of listening mattered most to Schopenhauer?

Weiner thinks Schopenhauer's Will made manifest in our time is what?


SSHM-
[Prologue] What is distinctive about "our age" that makes James particularly relevant?

What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

What experience led James to "the taste of the intolerable mysteriousness" of existence?

What did Thoreau say at the end of Walden?

==

P.S. To whom it may concern (you know who you are), and as I keep saying:

Please stop emailing to tell me you won't be in class.

A vote against the future?

Never mind JD or Elon on this issue…

“…When so many people hesitate to have [or adopt] children,” Sussman writes, “what is lost is not simply future taxpayers or consumers. We miss out on the rich relationships that bond us across generations, on the flood of love and tenderness that caring for children, or simply being around them, can unleash.” She adds that the “retreat from parenthood also encapsulates a dissatisfaction with our present so extreme it has become a vote against the future.”
…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/09/28/inconceivable-the-impossibility-of-family-in-an-age-of-uncertainty-anna-louise-sussman-book-review

Questions OCT 1

Presentations- First, CATCH UP: Everyone previously scheduled who's not yet presented should plan to present today. If your turn has passed, please speak up. Don't count on me remembering...

#1 Lanisa-Bentham. Amariah Woods-J.S. Mill. #1 Brian Hussels-Mill Darwin. Charlie Glendowne-Marx. #2 Robert Orr-Darwin. #3 Will Shelton-Marx. Alex stover-Mill. Ethan Licea Gonzalez-Darwin. Cecile-Katya McKenna-Kierkegaard

LHP

1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure? Are they both right?

2. What view did Mill defend in On Liberty? Is that view consistent with his criticisms of Bentham?

3. What's the benefit to society of open discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic? Is our society generally "open" in this sense, or dogmatic?

4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860? What do you think of his response to the Bishop on the matter of ancestry?

5. The single best idea anyone ever had was what, according to whom? Can you think of a better one?

6. What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis? What does it take to turn a theory into something more?

7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was most of his writing about? What do you think of his "leap" and his irrationalism?

8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?

9. What is "the subjective point of view"? Do we need to value objectivity as well?

10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think the whole of human history could be explained? DId he have a point?

11. What was Marx's "vision"? Is it an appealing one

12. What did Marx call religion? Was he being unfair?

Kaag 5

1. What "vectors of meaning" saved James's life?

2. Embracing the pragmatic theory of truth is a commitment to what?

3. As a professional academic philosopher, Kaag has trouble remembering what?

4. James's hallway (corridor) metaphor, treating pragmatism primarily as a method in philosophy, reminds Kaag of what?

5. What's the difference between truth and facts, for WJ?

6. Embracing free will is the first step in what?

7. What is Binnenleben?

8. Where does "zest" come from, according to WJ, and what is it?

9. For James pragmatism was a protest against what proposition about salvation?

Kaag 6

1. The greatest use of life is what, according to WJ?

2. What did WJ write to Benjamin Blood about education?

3. What was WJ's final entreaty in "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"?

4. What does WJ say is the difference between resignation and hope?

HWT
1. What two concepts from Indian and Buddhist philosophy are essentially the same? 

2. What are the four stages of Hindu life?

3. What is "the smile of philosophy"?

FL

1. What were Americans spending a third of their time doing, by the end of the '50s?

2. Who grew up in Marceline, MO?

3. What fantasy did Hugh Hefner sell?

4. What was added to currency in 1954?

5. What did Jane Roberts "discover" in 1963?

6. The sudden embrace of what, in the 60s, helped turn America into Fantasyland?

Feb24