Perspective

LISTEN. In CoPhi today it's bonus content for section H1, so as to keep us in sync with our Monday-Wednesday cohorts. They'll get the quick and abridged version tomorrow of William James's first Pragmatism lecture (and see Baggini, HWT ch6, p.80ff.), Emerson's (and others') appreciation of the peripatetic life, and the philosophical significance of Carl Sagan's "pale blue dot" before we move on to Stoics and Epicureans.

Also, we'll consider what philosophy is for.  Top of my list, in a word (and implied by those images of our little "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam"): perspective... (continues)

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Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power... 

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The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—

As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—

Emily Dickinson

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"...During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective." --Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Cosmic Perspective