Questions March 2

Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau-LH 15-18, FL 17-18, HWT 18-19; and report presentations (See  schedule under NEXT. Reporters, post your summaries and discussion questions before class in the comments space below, OR request an author invitation. 

NOTE to those early reporters who've contacted me in a panic, requesting more time, I remind you: I've been saying in class for at least two weeks that anyone who didn't want to risk being volunteered to go first should indicate a different topic preference. Those who did were accommodated. 

Do your best. If you decide later that you omitted something crucial, you can share that in a post. I'm not looking for an exhaustive account of your topic, just a brief discussion of some aspect of it. Do a bit of research, and tell us about it. And don't panic.)

• What can Pope (or Leibniz) possibly mean by "whatever is, is right"? Does any reasonable and sane person really believe that nothing is ever wrong?
• Does the "Principle of Sufficient Reason" really state or imply that nothing is wrong? 
• Is it possible to believe that all's for the best, or that ours is the best of all possible worlds? 
• Do natural events that kill or maim innocent victims challenge your faith in divine providene?
• What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"? (See SoL...)

 

• What do you think of Deism?
• If the human eye was intelligently designed, why do so many of us need glasses?
• Have you ever personally experienced the violation of a law of nature? Do we speak too casually of "miracles"?
• Was Rousseau right about freedom and "chains"? Can we break the chains of social obligation merely by coming to understand that they're in our best ("general") interest?
• Did Samuel Johnson "refute" Berkeley's Idealism?
• What do you think of Berkeley's slogan "Esse est Percipi"? 

 

FL

• What do you think of the "slavery theme park"? 119
• What do you think of Robert Love Taylor? 120
• Are you surprised that Birth of a Nation was the first movie shown at the White House?
• Was Wilbur Cash right about "gaudy" southern fantasy-worlds? 121
• What do you think of The New Theology (123) and the modernists' reconciliation of science and scripture? (126) 
• Were you taught about the Scopes Trial before coming to college? 126-
• 
  

HWT

• Were Montaigne and Socrates good role-models for learning "how to die"? 203
• Is it a mistake to think of the soul or self as "uniform, indissoluble, immortal, divine"? 
• Is "heart-mind" a better concept than "mind-body"? 204
• Was Aristotle's concept of soul better than Plato's and Descartes's? 204-5
• Do you ever "catch yourself without a perception"? 204
• Is it wrong to adopt the religion of your community without questioning it? 207
• Can we really author our own lives? Do Americans underrate "contingency" and show too little humility? 208
• Is there a breakdown of equilibrium between intimacy and integrity in the west? 214
• Do you "belong in your hometown"? 215

Podcasts: 

Voltaire's Candide
In Our Time-Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Voltaire's novel Candide. First published in 1759, the novel follows the adventures of a young man, Candide, and his mentor, the philosopher Pangloss. Candide was written in the aftermath of a major earthquake in Lisbon and the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, events which caused such human suffering that they shook many people's faith in a benevolent God. Voltaire's masterpiece piles ridicule on Optimism, the fashionable philosophical belief that such disasters are part of God's plan for humanity - that 'all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds'. Often uproariously funny, the novel is a biting satire whose other targets include bad literature, extremist religion and the vanity of kings and politicians. It captivated contemporary readers and has proved one of French literature's most enduring classics.

The Social Contract
In Our Time-Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Social Contract and ask a foundational question of political philosophy – by what authority does a government govern? “Man was born free and he is everywhere in chains”. So begins Jean Jacques Rousseau’s great work on the Social Contract. Rousseau was trying to understand why a man would give up his natural freedoms and bind himself to the rule of a prince or a government. But the idea of the social contract - that political authority is held through a contract with those to be ruled - began before Rousseau with the work of John Locke, Hugo Grotius and even Plato. We explore how an idea that burgeoned among the 17th century upheavals of the English civil war and then withered in the face of modern capitalist society still influences our attitude to government today.

George Berkeley
In Our Time-Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of George Berkeley, an Anglican bishop who was one of the most important philosophers of the eighteenth century. Bishop Berkeley believed that objects only truly exist in the mind of somebody who perceives them - an idea he called immaterialism. His interests and writing ranged widely, from the science of optics to religion and the medicinal benefits of tar water. His work on the nature of perception was a spur to many later thinkers, including David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The clarity of Berkeley's writing, and his ability to pose a profound problem in an easily understood form, has made him one of the most admired early modern thinkers.

David Hume
In Our Time-Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of the philosopher David Hume. A key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, Hume was an empiricist who believed that humans can only have knowledge of things they have themselves experienced. Hume made a number of significant contributions to philosophy. He saw human nature as a manifestation of the natural world, rather than something above and beyond it. He gave a sceptical account of religion, which caused many to suspect him of atheism. He was also the author of a bestselling History of England. His works, beginning in 1740 with A Treatise of Human Nature, have influenced thinkers from Adam Smith to Immanuel Kant and Charles Darwin, and today he is regarded by some scholars as the most important philosopher ever to write in English.With:Peter MillicanProfessor of Philosophy at the University of OxfordHelen BeebeeProfessor of Philosophy at the University of BirminghamJames HarrisSenior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews