- Is Hannah Arendt's emphasis on natality as important as mortality, in defining the human condition? Would it still be, if we ever achieved natural immortality? 80-81
- Is the US still a proud nation of immigrants, or more like those European nations "struggling with what they regard as the problem of immigration? 81
- Are there ways other than travel to "experience the world as babies do" etc.? 83
- Did your upbringing make it easier or harder for you to trust? 86
- "Once you start asking why, there's no natural place to stop." 88 So why do so many people stop, or else never start?
- How long (or how inattentively) would we have to live, to see this as Leibniz's "best possible world"? 89
- Was Hume right about reason being slave to the passions? 93
- Was Thrasymachus right about justice? 94
- Do you agree with the cliche about socialism? 100
- Is Hume's strategy for dispelling melancholy a good one? 104
- Has the gap between ought and is narrowed in the world, historically?107
- Was Nietzsche right about stoicism? 113
- Is it childish to expect the world to make sense? 114
- How can philosophy help us grow up? 119
- Do we have a right to happiness? 122
Monday, June 14, 2021
Questions June 14
WGU Part 2 ( -p.122). We're zooming on Monday night this week, I have a date with the surgeons Tuesday and Wednesday. Please post your questions, comments, and short essays on this section before Monday if possible.
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Some of the thoughts that stuck with me in the readings...
ReplyDelete1) Do you agree with psychologists when they say that we learn more in our first three years than the rest of our lives? (84)
2) Why do you think that children wish to be an adult and when they enter adulthood they yearn for the ease of childhood? (90)
My first clear memory was at age 3 (sitting in my grandpa's pickup between he, driving, and my dad riding shotgun... grandpa didn't live much longer, succumbing to stroke before I turned 10). I always chart my learning from that date, but of course we all have to learn incalculable and mostly inarticulate volumes of information from birth forward. Is that knowledge, in the philosophers' sense?
Delete2. Something in the human condition is instinctively dissatisfied with the status quo and the present moment, we have to work at our happiness and contentment. Coming to appreciate the sufficiency of the moment may be our greatest spiritual challenge.
Kelly,
DeleteI find your second questions very interesting. I can remember asking myself the same exact question. When I was younger, I wished I was an adult, and now that I am an adult, I wish I was a child again. I think children yearn to be like adults because they ultimately want to grow up. They want the responsibilities that adults have not knowing what it really entails. Children have the ability to be carefree, play, and do whatever they desire. As adults, we take on responsibility like a job, paying bills, or taking care of our family. Sometimes I wish I could go back and be carefree!
I think that children wish to be an adult because they view responsibilities as enviable. The children do not see the finer details of adult's duties. Such as the role of employment, money earned goes to pay bills, and they are in charge of several people and their schedules. Seeing the surface of it makes them believe that responsibility makes you essential. An adult with multiple responsibilities may want a break from all of the duties and relax like a kid. Some of the best times children do not even realize how much fun they have until they cannot sit in their room configuring a fort 12 different ways or build the most elaborate lego castle without directions. I know that both have been true for me, I wanted a car and job as a kid, and now somedays I want a break from work and all of my responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to grow up so people would stop telling me what to do. Also, I thought my peers were immature and incurious, and I wanted to separate myself from them ASAP. Wish I could go back and slow down!
DeleteAnd now, I want to revisit those carefree days of childhood when I complained of boredom--but knowing what I now know, I'd have no time for ennui.
1. Neiman says on page 98 that, “For Kant… the movement from dogmatic certainty to radical skepticism was crucial to the process of growing up.” Do you agree? Would it also follow that fundamentalists (religious or otherwise), are still in a childlike state of mind and have not yet grown up?
ReplyDelete2.The first couple of pages of the “Dissatisfied Minds” section was interesting to me (pgs. 108,109). Growing up means we have more experience under our belts, but also means we grow used to or bored with certain things and it takes more to enthrall us—“dimming of sparkle.” Lines from page 109 resonated… “With the passing of time and the accumulation of experience, things get repeated, and the more the repetition the less the surprise. As surprise recedes, so does passion… Life is dimmer and duller, but it doesn’t hurt so much, either… the edge is missing, but so is the hangover.” Do you see that fact as being jaded/cynical or as a benefit of growing up? I see it as a little bit of both.
1. Dogmatic certainty is almost always unwarranted, especially as a starting place in inquiry. Skepticism of some sort in enlightened, but I'm not sure about "radical"... To me, modest and moderate skepticism is an appropriate permanent condition, and it just means always asking for reasons and remaining open to new information. It's safeguarding the "chastity of the intellect," but also being willing to risk error if that's what it takes to motivate action. See James's "Will to Believe":
Delete"Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher." https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm
2. Only the first couple?
A bit of both, definitely. But as I said in my dawn post today, my morning coffee still sparkles!
Are there ways other than travel to "experience the world as babies do" etc.? 83
ReplyDeleteAs a Carpenter I discover new things and new ways to approach the things that I do continuously. We have a general set of rules and parameters that we work within but each job is different. I've worked most of my career as a trim carpenter and as such my jobs can vary from residential interior trim work, to work in stores like Dillard's or Nordstrom. I even worked on the facade at the Schermerhorn.
Photo Credit: https://www.nashvilledowntown.com/go/schermerhorn-symphony-center
Each job is a new puzzle to figure out there are tools and materials there are people and there is time. Each creates its own conundrum. As I move through each job it becomes less a voyage of discovery and more a timetable. But as each drawing becomes a reality there is a feeling of discovery in seeing a project take shape. I believe that that may be similar to what a baby's voyage of discovery is but a little more complicated.
Very interesting. I'm envious of those who have a skilled craft they can express artfully, so that doing the same thing again is not just the same old thing but an opportunity for creative discovery. Delight in discovery is what babies seem to experience, as they first encounter their world. It's a shame that so many of us loose our capacity for delight, it's the music of life. James speaks of the "falling dead of the delight," and then its recommencement. That's renewal.
Delete"Once you start asking why, there's no natural place to stop." 88
ReplyDeleteSo why do so many people stop, or else never start?
We had a scare on Saturday. I heard Lisa's voice on the answering machine saying, “I had another seizure. I'm in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.” I immediately called her phone and she answered she sounded call and I asked her “What happened?” she related what she knew but she really didn't remember much. So, I went to get ready and I texted her, who is the president? Do you need any clothes? What is your exact location? She answered all of these questions rather quickly and accurately. When I got to the hospital the first thing that I did was look at her skull and start to feel her head and she said I didn't fall down I started to feel strange, and I went to customer service and I don't remember very much else. I could continue about the progression of the story of events that I went through on Saturday but at this point I can kind of let you know that Lisa seems fine. I asked her permission to write about her experience this way and she is fine with it. We will see a neurologist next week but she seems relatively normal. But now I question everything I say to her and every response she gives and there are endless questions about is it this or did this happen or did something else happen or why is she speaking this way or why doesn't she remember saying that to me before and I can continuously get into this spiral of questions of wondering, what if or what could be but I will never know the answer without consulting a neurologist or at least our General practitioner first.
That's scary. I guess all "why" questions can be scary... but especially those touching on the fundamentals of personal identity and mortality itself. I hope you get answers soon!
DeleteDogmatism and trouble start when the Unconditioned is reified…Is Kant saying that there is no Dogma that can answer every question? In other words, there is no possible way to answer every question and if you can, something must be wrong.
ReplyDeleteHe's saying that, surely, and more. The Unconditioned is an idea, or an ideal, not an established "thing": an aspiration, never realized within our experience but a motivation and a direction. In practical terms that means we live in a conditioned world which is less than ideal, but we strive to inmprove it. The dogmatist already thinks it's good enough or even (for a Leibniz) perfect as is. In Neiman's terms, this ignores the gap between ought and is, between ideal and actual, and removes our motivation and direction.
DeleteWas Thrasymachus right about justice? 94
ReplyDeleteOn many levels and in many circumstances, yes, Thrasymachus was right. His thoughts on morality and justice as being made up by strong, powerful men to control the weak was a very cynical view of the world, but sadly it was the correct view much of the time, and still is. A certain former President who shall not be named comes to mind and there are many examples throughout history of acts of self-serving justice—I’d go to the extent to call it “gaslighting” of an uneducated and/or naive public.
But I wouldn’t say he was right 100% of the time. I feel like his view doesn’t take into account or leave room for the true believers of and fighters for real justice… those who are doing genuine good in the world and who are actively pursuing justice—justice for persons of color, immigrants, the homeless, and other marginalized populations. I believe we have a moral obligation to treat everyone fairly and with dignity and respect. There are leaders in the world who are doing that and showing us what justice can and should look like.
I found it interesting that Neiman talks about how “every age produces a crop of Thrasymachues” and that this way of thinking is almost a rite of passage for adolescents. Indignation, anger, and frustration at an unjust world had created many am idealistic, riled-up teenager (and in some cases, adults who channeled these feelings into productive activism). However, Thrasymachus took it to a very negative place, past activism and fighting for change and well into anger and cynicism.
Thrasymachus was right to say that justice is often a sham, that it's proclaimed by the unjust to offer cover for their own corrupt self-aggrandizement. But he was wrong, wasn't he, to suggest that we're chumps to resist that corruption and try to instantiate real justice in the world? Real justice is not merely "the interest of the stronger," might does NOT make right. Not in a world committed to righteousness and fairness.
DeleteAnd yet, we can understand the cry of youth protesting hypocrisy from their elders who proclaim pieties of morality and ethics while stealing, cheating, and lying with impunity. The temptation to think it's all just a lie is great. But it's not all a lie, it's just a challenge and a struggle to overcome the liars and replace them with virtuous men and women and institutions and laws.
Questions for Don't Get Fooled Again
ReplyDelete1. Morality is built largely on religious beliefs. How would personal morals differ if we lived in a religious-less society? What kind of beliefs would we then build morals off of?
2. Religion plays a large part for philosophers, but it was rumored that Hume was atheist. How does Hume's logical approach to philosophy make his literature different than other philosophers?
1. Many people believe, incorrectly, that morality requires religion. But plenty of atheists are virtuous, and plenty of the devout are without solid character. I have every confidence that a world without religion would be no less prone to rectitude... and that a world in which religious people were more universally committed to enacting their professed values would be more so. Morals are built not merely or even mostly on beliefs but (as Hume said) on custom and habit, perceived mutuality of purpose and sympathy or fellow-feeling. Morality and ethical propriety are built on common cause and shared mutual regard, and it's likely that communities which uphold customs and habits of virtue fare better in the long evolutionary arc of history.
DeleteHere are some suggested works on morality without religion (note that Hume's Dialogues are #1): https://fivebooks.com/best-books/mary-warnock-godless-morality/
2. Hume and others of his time, except for the French, generally did not use the A-word... but a reading of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion leaves a very strong impression that he was a skeptic in religion as in all else. I don't think his particular approach was distinctively more "logical" than that of most other philosophers. If by his "literature" you mean his extra-philosophical work, his History of England for example, it IS distinctive that he wrote such a history at all. Most philosophers stay more in their lane. But he was a comparatively facile and elegant writer, as Neiman notes that Kant observed.
Did your upbringing make it easier or harder for you to trust? 86
ReplyDeleteAfter thinking about my childhood, I believe that I trust too easily. My parents have always been supportive and trustworthy. I have been surrounded by reliable people throughout my life. Even during my elementary and middle school years, I went to such a small school that we were all close and trusted one another.
It was not until I began working that I realized I could not trust everyone I was acquainted with. I was shy and naive when I first began, but I soon realized the people that I should be surrounding myself with. I especially saw this when I began moving up into leadership. I am now a manager and I interact with a lot of different people. We all talk regularly and we know what leaders can and cannot be trusted. We have also realized that people in the workplace attempt to manipulate others and we now know those people cannot be trusted and we can handle the manipulation.
I think it's humane and generally admirable to give people the benefit of the doubt, until they give us cause to withdraw it. Plenty will disappoint, of course; but plenty more will reciprocate your trust.
DeleteI don't usually quote Ronald Reagan: "Trust, but verify."
My two questions from Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence:
ReplyDelete1. Erik Erikson states how a baby's first task is developing trust (pg. 86). What are the positive and negative effects of trust being developed at such a young age? Any personal examples?
2.In the section of Don't Get Fooled Again, the author discusses how young children devise imaginary worlds or playmates (pg. 91). Can doing so be positive in a life of a child? What can a child learn in having an imaginary world or playmate?
1. Humans without an instinct to trust their caregivers wouldn't last long, I think. Its our default condition...
ReplyDelete1. In the section "Dissatisfying Minds", would you agree that this is a form of desensitizing?
ReplyDelete2. "It's the step back that allows us to ask questions and make judgements about experience." (p. 118). Do you agree? Is this the only way judgements should be made?
"It's the step back that allows us to ask questions and make judgements about experience." (p. 118). Do you agree? Is this the only way judgements should be made?
ReplyDeleteHaving been an ORCO major, I firmly believe in taking the time to practice self-reflection. This goes for professional and personally experiences. In doing so, I believe this better equips me for future successful choices. I do not think this is the only way judgements should be made, but I do believe that it should not be discounted. The value and fruitful habits that stem from this form of thinking can expand and enlighten future judgements.
In my experience, taking the time to step back allows me to make the important and intentional shift from reacting to responding. Reactions are natural, impulsive acts while responses are thoughtfully crafted and allow for more productive situations.