Questions Feb 2-4

Post your essays, comments, discussion questions in the comments section below. Remember to include your section # please. (And note, there are lots of legacy comments from last semester. Your new comments will appear at the bottom. Click on "load more" if you don't see yours.)

I'll pose a few questions pertaining to the assigned reading before each class, and encourage all of you to add yours as well. Respond with a comment to any or all that you find engaging, in class we'll decide together what we want to talk about.  

Let me also alleviate any concern any of you may have about the volume of material we're collectively generating. I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed, or obligated to read everything that's posted. Just take what you want or need, leave the rest. 

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* Th 4 Skepticism-LH 3, FL 5-6, HWT 4-5. 

LISTEN-Logic, cherries, boxes, pragmatists... (up@dawn)

LISTEN-Moving forward (but CORRECTION re: William Blake--Bull Durham, not Field of Dreams)... LISTEN-More "How the World Thinks" 

• Is it advisable, or even possible, to go through life without firm opinions? (LH  p.15)
• Should you always mistrust your senses, if they've occasionally misled you? (LH p. 16)
• Do you think it plausible that Pyrrho's skepticism might have been influenced by the philosophy he may have encountered as a young man in India? (LH p.18)
• Is it a promising strategy for happiness to "free yourself for desires and not care how things turn out"? (LH p.19)
• Pyrrhonic skepticism is clearly extreme, but what do you think of moderate skepticism? (LH p.20)

• What do you think of Anne Hutchinson's theology (LH 32) and her confident certainty? (LH 34)
• Why didn't America have figures to rival Shakespeare, Galileo, Bacon et al in the 1600s? (LH 36)
• Why didn't the Age of Reason take, in America? (LH 39)
• What do you think of Cotton Mather's "evidence"? (LH 40)
• Why did so many Americans believe in witches? (LH 41)
• What do you think of Andersen's assessment of the enduring influence of American protestantism? (LH 42)

• "The stress on logic has been the most distinctive feature of Western philosophy... Aristotle first set out the basic principles" (HWT 54) -- Do you think it's important to be "logical," or rational, in constructing your worldview? Do you try to avoid holding logically inconsistent or incompatible beliefs?
• Is our culture too "dualistic," allowing only for "true or false, winner and loser"? 59
• "We are intuitive, emotional and heavily influenced by others and our environment" (68)... so, can we be rational?
• "The human mind works without supernatural assistance" (70) -- Does secular reason, built on logic and curiosity, suffice for human conduct and aspiration?
• Would a "theory of everything" reveal, as Stephen Hawking said, "the mind of God"?  (71) Or might it reveal the irrelevance of a god to explicate the workings of the physical universe as we know it?
• "Science... is not a teacher of morals," William Jennings Bryan complained at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" (78)... But should we all take scientific conclusions into account, in articulating our moral views?

A contemporary of Aristotle, Pyrrho followed Alexander to the East and was exposed to the thinkers of India. Returning to Greece he established the earliest Greek form of scepticism and founded a school of thought that would come to be called Pyrrhonism. When faced by a dilemma, the Pyrrhonist rejects taking a side - finding peace in non-commitment.

Podcast: Scepticism - In Our Time (BBC)
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Scepticism, the idea that it may be impossible to know anything with complete certainty. Scepticism was first outlined by ancient Greek philosophers: Socrates is reported to have said that the only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing. Later, Scepticism was taught at the Academy founded by Plato, and learnt by students who included the Roman statesman Cicero. The central ideas of Scepticism were taken up by later philosophers and came to the fore during the Renaissance, when thinkers including Rene Descartes and Michel de Montaigne took up its challenge. A central plank of the philosophical system of David Hume, Scepticism had a powerful influence on the religious and scientific debates of the Enlightenment. With: Peter Millican Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford Melissa Lane Professor of Politics at Princeton University Jill Kraye Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and Librarian at the Warburg Institute, University of London.

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T 2 (* Th 4) Aristotle-LH 2, FL 3-4, HWT Sections 1-3. Do you think children can be "happy" (can they achieve a life of eudaimonia, can they "flourish") in the Aristotelian sense? 

• Whose side would you be on, if you were depicted in Raphael's "School of Athens"? (LH p.10)
• How do you define happiness? Is it anything like eudaimonia? (LH p.11)
• Do you agree with Aristotle's approach to developing the right kind of character? (LH p.12)
• Do you try to avoid relying on external authority, in deciding what to believe and how to live? (LH p. 14)

• What do you think of Daniel Boorstin's suggestion about the shaping of American civilization? (FL p.22)
• Was Francis Bacon right about humans' tendency to embrace superstition and notice only instances of experience that seem to confirm it, while selectively ignoring other instances that do not? (Fl p. 23)
• Why do you think so many failed prophecies of "the second coming" have failed to deter apocalyptic thinking in America? (FL p. 30)  

• "No questions were taken" at the Indian philosophy conference (HWT p.6), in sharp contrast to what typically goes on at American/academic philosophical conferences. Which do you think you'd find more enlightening, and why?
• Do you think enlightenment and insight into genuine reality is more a matter of "seeing" and "meditating" in the Indian style (HWT p.9), or cogitating, conversing, and analyzing as western philosophers are more prone to do? Or is it best to combine both approaches?
• What do you think of the idea that students should ALWAYS defer to their teachers, even when they're wrong? (HWT p.11)
• Do you agree or disagree with Nishida's statement that "It is the artist, not the scholar, who arrives at the true nature of reality." (HWT p.21)
• Is it good that western philosophy has distanced itself from the idea of philosopher -as-sage or guru? (HWT p.24)
• "Doctrines are less important [in Buddhism etc.] than they are in Western Christianity in part because it is believed that the purest knowledge of reality comes from direct experience..." (HWT p.26) So... it's a belief about the relative un-importance of belief that makes belief less important? Does that strike you as maybe a little bit inconsistent?
• "To know that one does not know is best..." (HWT p.27) -- That's Daoism, but it sounds like Socrates. Are these traditions really so different, where it counts?
• "This is why we need poetry: to give us some sense of what we cannot precisely capture in language." (HWT p.29) Do you agree? Do you have a favorite poet/poem?
• What do you think of Immanuel Kant's distinction between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it, and the claim that we can never entirely transcend the limits of our own perceptions? Or in other words, that we can know phenomena (appearances) but not noumena (reality in itself)? (HWT p.33)
• Are you surprised that John Locke, champion of tolerance and individual liberty, said we should not tolerate atheists because they can't be trusted to keep promises etc.? (HWT p.41)
• Under what conditions can philosophy and religion peaceably coexist?
• If climate change renders life as we've known it unsustainable, will that be primarily the fault of western civilization? Will more traditional societies (including Islamic states) be vindicated? (HWT  p.45)
• Do religion and philosophy "stem from the same roots"? (HWT p.50)
• Please add your own Discussion Questions

School of Athens -- who's who...

PODCAST: The School of Athens
In Our Time Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The School of Athens – the fresco painted by the Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael, for Pope Julius II’s private library in the Vatican. The fresco depicts some of the most famous philosophers of ancient times, including Aristotle and Plato, engaged in discussion amidst the splendour of a classical Renaissance chamber. It is considered to be one of the greatest images in Western art not only because of Raphael’s skill as a painter, but also his ability to have created an enduring image that continues to inspire philosophical debate today. Raphael captured something essential about the philosophies of these two men, but he also revealed much about his own time. That such a pagan pair could be found beside a Pope in private tells of the complexity of intellectual life at the time when classical learning was reborn in what we now call the Renaissance.With Angie Hobbs, Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Warwick; Valery Rees, Renaissance scholar and senior member of the Language Department at the School of Economic Science; Jill Kraye, Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and Librarian at the Warburg Institute at the University of London

Athens in the 5th to 4th century BCE had an extraordinary system of government: democracy. Under this system, all male citizens [excluding women, slaves, non-property-owners...] had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to participate directly in the political arena. Further, not only did citizens participate in a direct democracy whereby they themselves made the decisions by which they lived, but they also actively served in the institutions that governed them, and so they directly controlled all parts of the political process... (AHE)

Aristotle was born around 384 BC in the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia where his father was the royal doctor. He grew up to be arguably the most influential philosopher ever, with modest nicknames like ‘the master’, and simply ‘the philosopher’. One of his big jobs was tutoring Alexander the Great, who soon after went out and conquered the known world. 

Aristotle studied in Athens, worked with Plato for several years and then branched out on his own. He founded a research and teaching centre called The Lyceum: French secondary schools, lycées, are named in honour of this venture. He liked to walk about while teaching and discussing ideas. His followers were named Peripatetics, the wanderers. His many books are actually lecture notes... (SoL, continues)

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	Correct	Deviant
One Ruler	Kingship	Tyranny
Few Rulers	Aristocracy	Oligarchy
Many Rulers	Polity	Democracy

Aristotle on democracy. Although Aristotle classifies democracy as a deviant constitution (albeit the best of a bad lot), he argues that a case might be made for popular rule in Politics III.11, a discussion which has attracted the attention of modern democratic theorists. The central claim is that the many may turn out to be better than the virtuous few when they come together, even though the many may be inferior when considered individually. For if each individual has a portion of virtue and practical wisdom, they may pool these assets and turn out to be better rulers than even a very wise individual... (SEP)

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Aristotle's Politics. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the

"Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, "

whom Homer denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.

Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part... (ICA)

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Aristotle's "Golden Mean" ...every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate (a “golden mean” as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency (1106a26–b28). In this respect, Aristotle says, the virtues are no different from technical skills: every skilled worker knows how to avoid excess and deficiency, and is in a condition intermediate between two extremes. The courageous person, for example, judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, and experiences fear to a degree that is appropriate to his circumstances. He lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear. Aristotle holds that this same topography applies to every ethical virtue: all are located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency. (SEP)

The Golden Mean (NWE)... Table of virtues

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The Ethicist, Kwame Anthony Appiah:

"Can I Stay Friends With Someone Who Voices Racist Views?"

“Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue,” Aristotle said in the “Nicomachean Ethics.” That is, and was meant to be, a pretty demanding standard. Given that your friend’s racist views, by contrast to your antiracist views, represent a vice, you are not alike in virtue. I find Aristotle’s standard too demanding, though. For one thing, perhaps because I was raised with a Christian consciousness of original sin, I am aware that no one is wholly virtuous... (continues)

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For the Aymara people living in the Andes, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind. Laura Spinney looks at how different languages reflect, and shape, our conception of timeThe old man shields his eyes against the fierce light of the Altiplano and considers the question. When he talks about his ancestors, does he mean the Incas? No, he replies in a sort of Spanish creole, he means his great-great-grandfather. And with his right hand he makes a rotating gesture up and forwards from his body. The Incas, he adds, came way earlier. And with the same hand he sweeps even further forward, towards the mountains on the horizon.

In the next video clip, the researcher asks a woman to explain the origins of her culture. She starts by describing her parents' generation, then her grandparents', and so on, extending her arm further and further in front of her as she does so. Then she switches to talk about how the values of those earlier generations have been handed back to her (her hand gradually returns to her body from out front), and how she will in turn pass them on to her children (she thumbs over her shoulder).

The man and woman belong to an Amerindian group called the Aymara, who inhabit some of the highest valleys in the Andes - in their case, in northern Chile. The researcher is Rafael Núñez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who is interested in how we develop abstract ideas like time. Núñez now believes that he has definitive evidence that the Aymara have a sense of the passage of time that is the mirror image of his own: the past is in front of them, the future behind... (Guardian, continues)
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A historical American female philosopher you should know:

	TPM Philosophy Quote ⁦‪@tpmquote‬⁩ I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.--Margaret Fuller 8/30/20, 7:00 AM

 

A contemporary American female philosopher, Agnes Callard... Her remarks on Socrates and William James (on YouTube) are very interesting...

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A tweet from Kurt Andersen:

	Kurt Andersen ⁦‪@KBAndersen‬⁩ One small measure of the insane, socially destructive growth of the U.S. financial industry over the last 40 years, and its contribution to inequality: Steven Mnuchin “was hardly a top-tier financial player,” but his “net worth was more than $400 million.” nytimes.com/2020/08/30/bus… 8/30/20, 8:35 AM

"Hawk. Lizard. Mole. Human"

Because William Blake was right: Every living thing is holy.

...How lucky I am to live in a home with windows. Against all odds — the encroachments of construction companies and lawn services and exterminators — these windows still open onto a world that stubbornly insists on remaining wild. I love the bluebirds, and I also love the fierce hawk who reminds me that the peace of the backyard is only a fiction. I love the lizard who looks so much like a snake, and I also love the snake who would eat her if it could.

And my friend the mole, oh how I love my old friend the mole. In these days that grow ever darker as fears gather and autumn comes on, I remember again and again how much we all share with this soft, solitary creature trundling through invisible tunnels in the dark, hungry and blind but working so hard to move forward all the same. Margaret Renkl, nyt

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Aristotle investigates some pre-Socratics (more Existential Comics featuring Aristotle here)

CSI: Athens

Ethics in Bricks

@EthicsInBricks

·

Apr 13, 2020

"The fact that Aristotle believes something does not make it true." - Martha Nussbaum