Kierkegaard's existentialism (draft)

 H01 - Natalie McGarrity

For my midterm, I presented information on Søren Kierkegaard. You learned about his family, history, and beliefs, but I also mentioned that he is considered the father of existentialism. I will use this final blog post to explain what existentialism is, its history, and more. To begin, according to the Oxford dictionary existentialism is “a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.” 

History

Though Kierkegaard’s writings are considered the first to reflect existential thoughts, Sartre was actually the first philosopher to use the term existentialist to describe himself. Existentialism was a movement that encouraged people to take control of their lives and realize their impending death. It asks, what is your purpose and meaning? Kierkegaard focuses on individuality focusing on personal choice and commitment. His main focus was religion, but he rejected the Danish church because they allowed people to call themselves Christians without making them have a full commitment to God. He believed people must take a leap of faith and have a full and irrational relationship with God rather than simply belonging to a church. His beliefs had a strong influence on many other philosophers including Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, and more. 

Kierkegaard’s writing

Kierkegaard wrote many books including Either/Or (PDF link: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/36ba381a-9850-4782-a471-dbe0bfa3c3b6/downloads/Either_or%20-%20Søren%20Kierkegaard%20(pdf).pdf?ver=1611846256813) which so dramatically stated: “one can do it or do not do it - you will regret both.” Here, he was referring to his failed engagement to Regina Olsen, but what does this have to do with existentialism? Kierkegaard called off the engagement because he believed you cannot have both marriage and passion. Kierkegaard had to take control of his life to find his own meaning and he did that by breaking off the engagement with Regina. He devoted a lot of his time to his writings which were influenced by his life. One major thing that influenced his writing was his feud with the church as seen in his later writings such as Works of Love (1847), Christian Discourses (1848), and Training in Christianity (1850). He believed that Christianity should be difficult, and the church was trying to make it easy. He used the biblical story of Abraham and his son to show a true leap of faith. Abraham was going to sacrifice his son to God because his faith was so strong and irrational. Kierkegaard believes all faith should be this strong and we must find this faith in ourselves. The School of Life does a great job of describing the life and beliefs of Kierkegaard in their short six-minute video linked below. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9JCwkx558o 

The beliefs of others

Of course, Kierkegaard is not the only existentialist. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nietzsche was also an existentialist who claimed, “God is dead” meaning that the possibility of God was eliminated by the Enlightenment. He believed that life is meaningless, also called nihilism. Nietzsche came to the conclusion that most individuals followed a herd mentality when it comes to religion. People believe what they are told regardless of reality. Kierkegaard came to a similar conclusion when he criticized the Danish church. Sartre was one of the first existentialists to actually call himself an existentialist and his motto was “existence precedes essence” meaning you must find your own reason to exist and give your life meaning because it is not predetermined. For more on the beliefs of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and more I urge you to read the article linked below-titled Existentialism. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/#KieSinInd 

Today

Traditional existentialism which has a focus rooted in religion and finding yourself is used much less today, but it can still be seen in movements such as feminism, race theory, and more. Though existentialism is not what it used to be, we still have much to learn from the existential movement. Especially now that everyone has had time to consider their life’s purpose while waiting for the pandemic to end. 

In the classroom

Children spend a lot of their time in the classroom and it is the teacher’s job to educate them while still giving them room to grow into their own person. Existentialism plays a role in the lives of children as they try to figure out who they are and what their purposes are. This can most clearly be seen in the question, What do you want to be when you grow up? In school, students can make their own discoveries and mistakes. When existentialism is emphasized in the classroom students can learn at their own pace and form their own opinions similar to the workings in a Montessori school where students choose their own assignments based on the teacher’s loose guidelines. These classrooms are a place for self-discovery. For more information on existentialism in the classroom check out the video linked below. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OHTrQLmSoE 

In religion/atheism

Existentialism is never more present than in religion and the lack thereof. It is seen in Kierkegaard’s existentialism as taking a leap of faith and having a relationship with God, but Nietzsche believed the universe is absurd so God cannot exist. These men questioned God and their own existences which is what makes them existentialists. 

In conclusion, existentialism is finding the reason for being. For a teacher, it may be to inspire the students, for an artist it may be to create a masterpiece that will be seen by hundreds, and so on. Existentialism is finding your purpose - what makes you, you and gives your life meaning. So, what is your purpose?

THE COMPLEXITIES OF HAPPINESS

 FINAL BLOG-POST ~ HANNAH LITVJAK ~ H2

    For some, happiness is a fleeting emotion; it comes and goes like a brisk breeze, never quite lingering for never quite enough time. For others, it is merely absent. But, as it seems, for the rare few, happiness is there whenever they seem to need it. How can we, as individuals, desire something that upscales an emotion but is unsteady like an emotion? Why does happiness never last? How can we acquire happiness at a more frequent rate? Can we even acquire happiness, at all?

    Happiness is not simply a universal thought, ideal or feeling; it can be dissected just like any other emotion. To conquer an issue with understanding something, you must look into which part of that something that is either not clicking or resonating with you. Happiness can be, for the sake of simplicity, thus dissected into sections of hedonism, the life satisfaction theory, and the emotional state theory. Hedonism, in its most generalized terms, is prioritizing pleasure in life; doing what makes you happy or simply believing that pleasure and satisfaction are the key aspects of life and avoiding pain or self-reflection if it forsakes pleasure. Life satisfaction theory is where you maintain a positive outlook on the state of your life, wherever and however it changes; patience with yourself is essential. The emotional state theory is about analyzing your psychological state and finding where happiness is lost and found; by improving your psychological state, you can attract and even keep happiness in your life. While the life satisfaction and emotional state theory do fall hand-in-hand, it is not to be familiarized with hedonism, but all three play integral parts into true happiness. (Haybron, Dan. “Happiness.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 28 May 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/.)

    One could certainly haunt themselves with questions of where one falls and where one has troubles resonating within those three sections of true happiness. Sometimes even asking such questions could repel happiness even farther out of reach; however, after conducting extensive research, I have found a perspective that provides the relieving reassurance that happiness is never working against you. You just have to learn not to work against it. I have also created my own three sections that utilize all three of those previous three sections of hedonism, life satisfaction and emotional state theories: action, actions to take and actions to be precautious of in the pursuit of true happiness. Allow me to elaborate.

    Action is simple; to be you must first do, to be or not to be, if you fail three times try again four times, practice makes perfect - all familiar metaphors we become accustomed to through life. Determination and motivation are the key principles to action. If true happiness is what you are searching for, you must employ sincere determination and motivation in your actions. It can be achieved as easily as writing down things that make you feel or used to make you feel comfortable and/or ‘good’, and then seeing what you can do to gain those things back into your daily routine. Sincerity is significant because taking action for true happiness is not an easy task and requires commitment or else you will fail. Socrates even claimed that eros, that is, the life instinct, desire and sexual love/desire, is not a will to possess the good things in life but rather something that “pushes us towards possessing the good forever” (Hooper, Anthony. “Anthony Hooper, the Memory of Virtue: Achieving Immortality in Plato's Symposium - Philpapers.” Classical Quarterly, 1 Jan. 1970, https://philpapers.org/rec/HOOTMO-6.). In other words, the pursuit of true happiness is taking your greatest effort for action.

    Happiness, thus, can often be found through our actions. Determining which actions to take to achieve happiness requires self-reflection, patience and leisure. The mix of all three is a relieving cocktail that people find successful happiness in because it gives us options - both healthy and unhealthy. But what actions do we take to find true happiness? According to John P Robinson and Steven Martin’s 2008 article “What Do Happy People Do?” published in Social Indicators Research, found the results of their study to be “that happy people engage in activities they rate as more enjoyable in time-diary studies … respondents engaged in significantly more social activities, religious participation and newspaper reading. These differences held after important demographic predictors of activity were controlled.” (Robinson, J.P., Martin, S. What Do Happy People Do?. Soc Indic Res 89, 565–571 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9296-6). Human interaction plays a major role in our happiness, so often actions to take are actions that involve people. Someone who can reply, give feedback, have your brain work, entice your being just enough to provoke a pleasant after-feeling that eventually builds to lasting happiness. So, while your actions to find lasting, true happiness is self-inflicted, it is not through yourself to succeed. "Aristotle defined the supreme good (tagathon kai to ariston) as “an end of action which is desired for its own sake, while everything else is desired for the sake of it” (E.N. 1094al9). Prima facie, one can interpret the contention that there is a supreme good in three ways. One may take it as a logical truth, as an empirical observation, or as a moral imperative. Someone who says that there is a supreme good, in Aristotle's sense, may mean that as a matter of logical truth there is a single end which is aimed at in every choice of a human being. He may mean, on the other hand, that every man does as a matter of contingent fact have a single aim in every one of his choices.” (Kenny, Anthony. “Happiness.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/4544724?casa_token=oSwnR2V8_mwAAAAA%3A5YHRGuuEp19RnKpJInQ1ZqIleUH3NV4wj9KxCXoRVVwJuUJCpSNJBUWQ-8943e1fCmD300rUIMRStXFAR0zitg3mTzDSO6bLoPvo4fxWINP8lSVNOSE&Seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents, 1966.)

    There is a controversial statement by Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, who claimed that “the moral worth of all action should be judged by the degree to which it contributes to the ‘greater happiness of a greater number’” (Veenhoven, R. (2003). Happiness. The Psychologist. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/8674 ). What this statement implies is that any action must be only judged based upon if it provided the person their happiness. Let us say you snap on your parent or guardian over them urging you to do your chores while you are busy with finals or you just got home from campus; you yelled at people who care about you to do a house chore/s to provide some relief from your frustration and/or stress, aka a smidge of happiness after a lot of unhappiness. But Bentham requires us to rewire our statement on this by reframing the situation as someone who was protecting their happiness from people who were trying to burden them. Let me also provide a more severe example to demonstrate why the statement is controversial: a fascist dictator utilizes his bioweapons on his own people to protect the future generations of his people in war. We can only judge this as an action for happiness of the greater good, so the innocent lives lost are no longer an ethical judgement in Bentham’s philosophy. What does this mean for people searching for happiness? It means that we should look for happiness with sincerity and ethics. Compromising someone else's happiness does not elevate your own. You cannot lift happiness up a peg. Happiness is a life without struggle with regret; actions that can cause regret in the name of happiness are thus not a work of happiness, so there is nothing for you to gain through such actions. Allow Bentham’s philosophy to be an example of why to be cautious in your journey of happiness; if you can reframe your action to sound as malevolent as the examples I provided, then you cannot gain happiness nor justify happiness in it. Be aware in your pursuit of happiness that a decision made for self-gain does not guarantee any gain at all. Be wary, then, of harming others for your happiness or pursuing unpleasant action to gain happiness.

    It may seem as though it is a congested process, but by following your own version of action, actions to take and actions to be precautious of, true happiness is not a world's away.

DQ ~

(a) What was your highest point in life like? How did it make you feel? Do you feel like you could replicate that feeling?

(b) Do you consider yourself a happy person? Do you find yourself more caught up in the lighter or darker parts of life?

Just say yes

LISTEN. Happiness meets for the last time in 2021 today, scheduled to return in '23.
I've taught this course biennially for quite a long time now, and I still don't think we can do better for a coda than Charles Schulz. Happiness is a warm puppy. And really, it's "anyone and anything at all/That’s loved by you."

So our parting takeaway has to be: love profligately, and love well.

And don't be Sally Brown.

(Other interesting things also come up when you search "happiness is...")

...For happiness is anyone and anything at all
That’s loved by you. --You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

The end is near

  

 

Cosmic Philosophy- "Where are all the Aliens?"

 Cosmic Philosophy- "Where are all the Aliens?"

Cosmic Philosophy- "Where are all the Aliens?"

Final Blogpost by Thomas Freeman (H2)

     As a species we are all inclined to ask many questions about the nature of the universe and of our own existence. Such questions like, "Does God exist?" "How did the universe begin?" "How will it end?" and one that is very important to our place in the universe and further making of science fiction media, "Do aliens exist?" This is the question that I'd like to hone in on for my blogpost today. I feel like most people, especially those with basic knowledge of the vastness of space, believe that aliens exist. I personally find it impossible for them not to exist. The universe is so vast and old that there simply HAS to be something else out there. But of course maybe that's wishful thinking from me. If there are aliens out there, where are they? Surely we would have seen or received something by now, but we have nothing. And to address this question, I will usher forward an idea brought about by Italian-American Physicist, Enrico Fermi: the Fermi Paradox.

    Named for Fermi, the Fermi Paradox was an idea he put forward in 1950 as he was on a lunch break with some of his colleagues. He meant it as a passing remark, but he questioned that if there was any kind of advanced civilization with any sort of imperial incentive, they could easily go forth and conquer the Milky Way in a short amount of time (short on a galactic scale). So if they truly existed, where are they? Unfortunately for Fermi, he died just four years after in 1954, but his idea would later be published and popularized by other people. This brought forth further speculation of the whereabouts of alien civilizations, and more importantly, intelligent life. Truth be told, there is absolutely no evidence of life outside of Earth. https://www.space.com/25325-fermi-paradox.html Sure, we've discovered the likelihood of water on Mars and on the moons of the gas giants, but that still doesn't give concrete evidence that there could be other life in the universe. But what would stop an alien civilization from growing? Surely since the universe is so huge, there must be at least one space faring civilization by now.

    To answer this, I'd like to bring forth Kurzgesagt once again because they are the reason I became aware of the Fermi Paradox in the first place and their videos are great ways to take in some very abstract scientific content with some great philosophical thoughts attached to them. They also have fun animations and plenty of "Kurzgesagt Birds." The links to their videos "The Fermi Paradox" parts one and two are below:

    I mostly want to touch on the ideas of part one more than anything. Kurzgesagt introduces the Fermi Paradox, much like I have here, and they go on to elaborate on what could stop alien civilizations from growing. These are called "Great Filters," and hopefully that sounds dramatic because it's supposed to be. A Great Filter is, theoretically, a certain obstacle that a species needs to overcome in order to advance, and only few species are supposed to get through them. https://astronomy.com/news/2020/11/the-great-filter-a-possible-solution-to-the-fermi-paradox For example, the development of life could be extremely rare, even on a cosmic standpoint. For things to be perfect on a planet requires a lot of chance and probability. Then on, even the development of intelligent life and consciousness goes beyond that. We as humans are unique here on Earth, so who knows how infinitely rare it might be for other intelligent lifeforms to develop on alien worlds? And since there's yet to be any evidence whatsoever for alien life, who's to say that we're not the only ones in this universe? What if we are completely alone?

    This sounds incredibly depressing and lonely. At least it does to me. I always thought it'd be the coolest thing to find alien life somewhere out there. Think of all the weird animals that live here on Earth. Jellyfish, axolotls, giraffes, literally anything living in the bottom of the ocean. That's not to mention animals that used to live here. *Ahem* the dinosaurs. Imagine what life could look like on some planet all the way across the galaxy on a planet totally different than Earth. It's exciting to imagine. However, all of this excitement gets quickly shot down if you were to believe that we were alone in the universe. Luckily, there is a bright side. At least if you choose to see it that way. Sure, we don't get to see any cool space giraffes, but that also means we get the whole universe all to our self. The (seemingly) infinite expanse of space is all ours to explore, so this means that we just have to explore it. All the wonderful sights of the universe (trust me, there's many), are all for our eyes. 

One of my favorite song lyrics, from the song "Saturn" by Sleeping at Last, goes as follows: "...the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes." I think it's such a great verse (seriously, check out the song, it's on YouTube, Spotify, etc.). It's very freeing for me. If I choose to, I can believe the universe is all for me. Or on a bit of a broader scale, the universe is for all of us as humans. I see it as very unifying in this sense. The great scale of the universe makes the Earth small in comparison, and truthfully it is, so it's very bold and kind of selfish to say the universe is all ours. But then again, who's stopping us? 

The answer to this is a little more depressing than it is hopeful. 

    So, maybe we're all alone. Maybe we're the only life that exists in this massive expanse that we call the Universe. That's why we have to "show off and show out." Going back on "Great Filters," we have one of our own lying ahead, and that's ourselves. Our own biggest obstacle is humanity itself. If we are the one spark in this Universe, how sad would it be to end up destroying ourselves before we ever got the chance to see the beauty of the Universe for our own eyes. These past two years have been unfriendly reminders of how easily we can all turn on each other, and this should be very worrisome. We have a right as people and as citizens to be kind to each other, because truth be told, we may be all we've got in the cosmos. Why waste time destroying each other, and why not better attempt to prosper together? 

So what do you think?

    Would it be more comforting for aliens to exist or for us to be alone? Why?

    If we ever discover other intelligent life, do you think they will be friendly or hostile? Does the        way we behave effect your opinion on this?

    Is it possible that aliens choose to ignore us?

Final Tally

Counted 29 classes, average about 3 bases per class (attendance, discussion question responses, making the quizlet for exams)

Final report

Give us a trailer/teaser: what's your final report blogpost about? Tell us before the exam, or in comments below.

Remember, in your final draft (due Friday), to include links, video, maybe an embed from Google Books, a bit of colorful graphic content.

If you have constructive comments for a classmate, please share.

Have fun, don't worry, be happy.

Philosophy podcasts

https://truesciphi.org/phipod_series.html?s=02

Last words

LISTEN. Back from Thanksgiving, it's time to wrap things up and send the classes of Fall 2021 out to meet their uncertain futures. The usual last words apply, there really are no fortunes to be told. There definitely is advice to be given, however. Do stay curious, kids, do keep asking questions. And do keep in touch.

It was nice to hear again from my old grad school friend the Biochemist, who makes a point of sending out holiday missives every Thanksgiving and Valentines Day that keep our old far-flung and socially distant 80s cohort in touch in spite of ourselves... (continues)

Questions Nov 29/30

K ch5; WJ Pragmatism Lec VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"; "The Gospel of Relaxation"

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?

==

K ch6; WJ "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"; "A Pluralistic Mystic"

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?

5. What would we lose, if we were without feeling?

6. When does a life become "genuinely significant"?

7. "To miss ___ ___ is to miss all."

8. "Life is always worth living" if you have responsive sensibilities like ____'s.

9. What is distinctive about B.P. Blood's version of mysticism?

10. What's WJ's last word in philosophy?

Discussion Questions:

• Can personal struggles, whether with ideas and philosophies or with more tangible life challenges, contribute to a meaningful life and even save it?
• Should truth "mean" something to us, in the existentialist sense of meaning?
• Do you value the experiences in your life that you cannot put into words? Can you give an example? What can you say about it?
• Are you more like tough-minded Hume or tender-minded Leibniz? 132
• Is our world a "mid-world" in Emerson's sense? 133
• What is the "life-and-death significance of the pragmatic method of testing ideas against experience"? 138
• Do you agree that free will is melioristic, where determinism is not? 144
• Have you ever had a Gertrude Stein moment, during an exam? Could her response ever work for you in such a situation, do you think? 152
• How does "zest" makes us all both the same and different? 156
• Is "Hands off" good advice? 158
• Have professors displaced true teachers? 161
• Is "man is the measure" a humanist proposition? 163-5

• What do you hope to create in your life that will outlast it?
• Do you consider it a mark of education to "dally" with suicide?
• Do you agree that maybe is the right answer to "Is life worth living?"
• Could you resign yourself to a hopeless life? Would that life be worth living?
• Do you believe in an "unseen order"? Must you, to be religious?
• Are you willing to "go further than secular skeptics" with respect to religious experience? 181
• What sorts of experiences give you a feeling of eagerness, zest, reality, importance, etc.?
• Have you had an experience you'd describe as "mystical"?
• Do you ever "tap into the sublime"? 182
• Have you ever had an unbidden moment of "perfect exhilaration"?

==

Truth and consequences

LISTEN (11.18.21). Today's poem ("...I begin to wonder about people—I wonder/if they also wonder about how strange it is that we/are here on the earth...") reminds me of this:

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.” Living Philosophies (via Chris Stevens, Northern Exposure)

Teachers are here for the sake of those others we call students, which makes it so gratifying to hear that one of them has mentioned to a colleague that I've made a memorable impression. We can't all be Einstein, but we can try to contribute in some small way to others' happiness while pursuing our own... (continues)
==
Eagerness

LISTEN (11.23.21). We conclude Sick Souls, Healthy Minds today in Happiness, with John Kaag's concluding chapter "Wonder and Hope"--a far cry from the "Determinism and Despair" we began with. We also glance at James's own favorite essay, "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings," and at his last, "A Pluralistic Mystic."

Is there a greater use of life than to spend it on something that will outlast it? Surely that depends on what the lasting legacy turns out to be. James spent himself defending experience, sometimes "against philosophy" but always against resignation and despair... (continues)

==

VI "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"

When Clerk Maxwell was a child it is written that he had a mania for having everything explained to him, and that when people put him off with vague verbal accounts of any phenomenon he would interrupt them impatiently by saying, "Yes; but I want you to tell me the particular go of it!" Had his question been about truth, only a pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so abominably misunderstood, that here, if anywhere, is the point where a clear and simple statement should be made.

I fully expect to see the pragmatist view of truth run through the classic stages of a theory's career. First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it. Our doctrine of truth is at present in the first of these three stages, with symptoms of the second stage having begun in certain quarters. I wish that this lecture might help it beyond the first stage in the eyes of many of you... (continues)
==
The Gospel of Relaxation

William James

I wish in the following hour to take certain psychological doctrines and show their practical applications to mental hygiene,—to the hygiene of our American life more particularly. Our people, especially in academic circles, are turning towards psychology nowadays with great expectations; and, if psychology is to justify them, it must be by showing fruits in the pedagogic and therapeutic lines.

The reader may possibly have heard of a peculiar theory of the emotions, commonly referred to in psychological literature as the Lange-James theory. According to this theory, our emotions are mainly due to those organic stirrings that are aroused in us in a reflex way by the stimulus of the exciting object or situation. An emotion of fear, for example, or surprise, is not a direct effect of the object's presence on the mind, but an effect of that still earlier effect, the bodily commotion which the object suddenly excites; so that, were this bodily commotion suppressed, we should not so much feel fear as call the situation fearful; we should not feel surprise, but coldly recognize that the object was indeed astonishing. One enthusiast has even gone so far as to say that when we feel sorry it is because we weep, when we feel afraid it is because we run away, and not conversely. Some of you may perhaps be acquainted with the paradoxical formula. Now, whatever exaggeration may possibly lurk in this account of our emotions (and I doubt myself whether the exaggeration be very great), it is certain that the main core of it is true, and that the mere giving way to tears, for example, or to the outward expression of an anger-fit, will result for the moment in making the inner grief or anger more acutely felt. There is, accordingly, no better known or more generally useful precept in the moral training of youth, or in one's personal self-discipline, than that which bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much for what we feel. If we only check a cowardly impulse in time, for example, or if we only don't strike the blow or rip out with the complaining or insulting word that we shall regret as long as we live, our feelings themselves will presently be t..he calmer and better, with no particular guidance from us on their own account. Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not... (continues)

==
THE LESSONS OF THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION
by Ed Craig

The Gospel of Relaxation is an essay by William James. It is, in written form, a commencement address he gave to the 1896 graduating class of Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. James, an M.D. (who never practiced as such), was a professor at Harvard, a psychologist, a philosopher, and a popular lecturer at a time when public lectures were in vogue. Think Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. He was, in fact, the father of American psychology, and became America’s most eminent philosopher. In 1890, James published his masterwork, ten years in the making, Principles of Psychology. It is volume 53 of The Great Books of the Western World. In 1892 he published an abbreviated form of Principles as Psychology: Briefer Course. After publishing these books, James was asked by the Harvard Corporation to give a few public lectures on psychology to Cambridge teachers. Their purpose was to provide some guidance to the proponents of scientific methods of teaching. There were sixteen lectures, later collected as Talks to Teachers. Additionally, in response to invitations to deliver 'addresses' to students at women's colleges, he gave three. These are included as essays in his 1899 volume titled Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. The first of these addresses to students, delivered to the ladies of Boston Normal, was The Gospel of Relaxation. The Gospel is best seen as a guide to inner peace. It provides psychological and philosophical wisdom on the value of equanimity and how to find it. James gives us lessons, based on physiology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, that we can apply to ourselves, and live a better life. James states his purpose in the first sentence of the essay. He proposes to show the practical application of certain psychological principles to mental hygiene, the conditions or practices conducive to maintaining mental health. (825)i It is to be a self-help lecture. (continues)

https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao604sECdB1UqR5jed3RRDe9fvGL?e=vDgpNZ
==

On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings

William James

OUR judgments concerning the worth of things, big or little, depend on the feelings the things arouse in us. Where we judge a thing to be precious in consequence of the idea we frame of it, this is only because the idea is itself associated already with a feeling. If we were radically feelingless, and if ideas were the only things our mind could entertain, we should lose all our likes and dislikes at a stroke, and be unable to point to any one situation or experience in life more valuable or significant than any other.

Now the blindness in human beings, of which this discourse will treat, is the blindness with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves.

We are practical beings, each of us with limited functions and duties to perform. Each is bound to feel intensely the importance of his own duties and the significance of the situations that call these forth. But this feeling is in each of us a vital secret, for sympathy with which we vainly look to others. The others are too much absorbed in their own vital secrets to take an interest in ours. Hence the stupidity and injustice of our opinions, so far as they deal with the significance of alien lives. Hence the falsity of our judgments, so far as they presume to decide in an absolute way on the value of other persons' conditions or ideals.

Take our dogs and ourselves, connected as we are by a tie more intimate than most ties in this world; and yet, outside of that tie of friendly fondness, how insensible, each of us, to all that makes life significant for the other!—we to the rapture of bones under hedges, or smells of trees and lamp-posts, they to the delights of literature and art. As you sit reading the most moving romance you ever fell upon, what sort of a judge is your fox-terrier of your behavior? With all his good will toward you, the nature of your conduct is absolutely excluded from his comprehension. To sit there like a senseless statue, when you might be taking him to walk and throwing sticks for him to catch! What queer disease is this that comes over you every day, of holding things and staring at them like that for hours together, paralyzed of motion and vacant of all conscious life? The African savages came nearer the truth; but they, too, missed it, when they gathered wonderingly round one of our American travellers who, in the interior, had just come into possession of a stray copy of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and was devouring it column by column. When he got through, they offered him a high price for the mysterious object; and, being asked for what they wanted it, they said: "For an eye medicine,"—that being the only reason they could conceive of for the protracted bath which he had given his eyes upon its surface.

The spectator's judgment is sure to miss the root of the matter, and to possess no truth. The subject judged knows a part of the world of reality which the judging spectator fails to see, knows more while the spectator knows less; and, wherever there is conflict of opinion and difference of vision, we are bound to believe that the truer side is the side that feels the more, and not the side that feels the less.

Let me take a personal example of the kind that befalls each one of us daily:—
(continues)
==

A PLURALISTIC MYSTIC

Not for the ignoble vulgar do I write this article, but only for those dialectic-mystic souls who have an irresistible taste, acquired or native, for higher flights of metaphysics. I have always held the opinion that one of the first duties of a good reader is to summon other readers to the enjoyment of any unknown author of rare quality whom he may discover in his explorations. Now for years my own taste, literary as well as philosophic, has been exquisitely titillated by a writer the name of whom I think must be unknown to the readers of this article; so I no longer continue silent about the merits of Benjamin Paul Blood.

Mr. Blood inhabits a city otherwise, I imagine, quite unvisited by the Muses, the town called Amsterdam, situated on the New York Central Railroad. What his regular or bread-winning occupation may be I know not, but it can’t have made him super-wealthy. He is an author only when the fit strikes him, and for short spurts at a time; shy, moreover, to the point of publishing his compositions only as private tracts, or in letters to such far-from-reverberant organs of publicity as the Gazette or the Recorder of his native Amsterdam, or the Utica Herald or the Albany Times. Odd places for such subtile efforts to appear in, but creditable to American editors in these degenerate days! Once, indeed, the lamented W. T. Harris of the old “Journal of Speculative Philosophy” got wind of these epistles, and the result was a revision of some of them for that review (Philosophic Reveries, 1889). Also a couple of poems were reprinted from their leaflets by the editor of Scribner’s Magazine (“The Lion of the Nile,” 1888, and| “Nemesis,” 1899). But apart from these three dashes before the footlights, Mr. Blood has kept behind the curtain all his days.[2]

The author’s maiden adventure was the Anesthetic Revelation, a pamphlet printed privately at Amsterdam in 1874. I forget how it fell into my hands, but it fascinated me so “weirdly” that I am conscious of its having been one of the stepping-stones of my thinking ever since. It gives the essence of Blood’s philosophy, and shows most of the features of his talent–albeit one finds in it little humor and no verse. It is full of verbal felicity, felicity sometimes of precision, sometimes of metaphoric reach; it begins with dialectic reasoning, of an extremely Fichtean and Hegelian type, but it ends in a trumpet-blast of oracular mysticism, straight from the insight wrought by anaesthetics–of all things in the world–and unlike anything one ever heard before. The practically unanimous tradition of “regular” mysticism has been unquestionably monistic; and inasmuch as it is the characteristic of mystics to speak, not as the scribes, but as men who have “been there” and seen with their own eyes, I think that this sovereign manner must have made some other pluralistic-minded students hesitate, as I confess that it has often given pause to me. One cannot criticise the vision of a mystic–one can but pass it by, or else accept it as having some amount of evidential weight. I felt unable to do either with a good conscience until I met with Mr. Blood. His mysticism, which may, if one likes, be understood as monistic in this earlier utterance, develops in the later ones a sort of “left-wing” voice of defiance, and breaks into what to my ear has a radically pluralistic sound. I confess that the existence of this novel brand of mysticism has made my cowering mood depart. I feel now as if my own pluralism were not without the kind of support which mystical corroboration may confer. Morrison can no longer claim to be the only beneficiary of whatever right mysticism may possess to lend prestige.

This is my philosophic, as distinguished from my literary, interest, in introducing Mr. Blood to this more fashionable audience: his philosophy, however mystical, is in the last resort not dissimilar from my own... (continues)
...
“There are sadness and disenchantment for the novice in these inferences, as if the keynote of the universe were low, but experience will approve them. Certainty is the root of despair. The inevitable stales, while doubt and hope are sisters. Not unfortunately the universe is wild–game flavored as a hawk’s wing. Nature is miracle all. She knows no laws; the same returns not, save to bring the different. The slow round of the engraver’s lathe gains but the breadth of a hair, but the difference is distributed back over the whole curve, never an instant true–ever not quite.”

“Ever not quite!”–this seems to wring the very last panting word out of rationalistic philosophy’s mouth. It is fit to be pluralism’s heraldic device. There is no complete generalization, no total point of view, no all-pervasive unity, but everywhere some residual resistance to verbalization, formulation, and discursification, some genius of reality that escapes from the pressure of the logical finger, that says “hands off,” and claims its privacy, and means to be left to its own life. In every moment of immediate experience is somewhat absolutely original and novel. “We are the first that ever burst into this silent sea.” Philosophy must pass from words, that reproduce but ancient elements, to life itself, that gives the integrally new. The “inexplicable,” the “mystery,” as what the intellect, with its claim to reason out reality, thinks that it is in duty bound to resolve, and the resolution of which Blood’s revelation would eliminate from the sphere of our duties, remains; but it remains as something to be met and dealt with by faculties more akin to our activities and heroisms and willingnesses, than to our logical powers. This is the anesthetic insight, according to our author. Let my last word, then, speaking in the name of intellectual philosophy, be his word.–“There is no conclusion. What has concluded, that we might conclude in regard to it? There are no fortunes to be told, and there is no advice to be given.–Farewell!”

Holy curiosity

"Life is like riding a bicycle... keep moving."

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

—"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”

― Albert Einstein

Mutation

What doesn't kill you mutates and tries again. https://t.co/OpRLM22reT
(https://twitter.com/EthicsInBricks/status/1464996635730235399?s=02)

Why Does Thoreau Live On?

A Few Famous Writers Offer Answers.

… Why does Thoreau live on? Because we need him to. Thoreau suggested that the busyness of life — the frenetic pace of our jobs, the demands of our bank accounts, the status that we seek and never find — should never be the exclusive focus of living. Can we, as Lightman puts it in his essay, free ourselves from the "rush and the heave of the external world"? This is the lesson of Walden Pond: that our immediate concerns usually obscure the important ones, and almost always distract us from what is ultimate, the chance to live and die with the knowledge that we have tried to "truly live." 

…

John Kaag 

NYT 

Kaag on Bloom

"How can we live a meaningful life not only in the face of suffering but also by virtue of it? At least in America, @paulbloomatyale suggests, we're in a crisis in meaning only exacerbated by our attempts to make life as enjoyable and painless as possible"

...Before the pandemic, when I taught my students about Sisyphus's suffering, the lesson elicited awkward giggles and blank stares. They just didn't understand how suffering might matter. I asked them how they could lead lives of lasting significance, given that their efforts would eventually be rolled over by an indifferent world. How can we live only to suffer and die? How should we take up suffering? Today, students don't laugh at these questions. They stare at me like a class of eyewitnesses. Lately, many of them have experienced suffering in the form of physical and emotional pain, boredom, and continual frustration. Bloom speaks directly to such a reader and suggests that one's orientation to suffering, rather than its total mitigation, is central to a fulfilling life. Many of the most valuable events in life—falling in love, getting married, having kids, being moral—are at certain points excruciatingly difficult or rather simply excruciating. And this, Bloom contends, for better and for worse, is simply our lot if we hope to live meaningfully.

Perhaps you want to be free of suffering. Perhaps you often desire the wrong things. I certainly do. Bloom's modest yet compelling book echoes a sentiment expressed by American novelist David Foster Wallace: "The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty unsexy ways, every day." In other words, one is free to take up suffering, to own it, and to make it worthwhile. It is only when Sisyphus can own up to his boulder, claim it entirely, that, as Albert Camus once said, we might imagine him as truly happy. I am grateful to Bloom for explaining, once again, why it isn't so bad to be long suffering.

John Kaag

https://t.co/MyUGJvqnSM
(https://twitter.com/TheAmScho/status/1464640375549833220?s=02)

Exam 3 study questions & recorded Zoom review link

Recorded Zoom review: 

https://mtsu.zoom.us/rec/share/kpIXMPKjimxpSmvwhlTOwjOeoB1cTkuO56e1NbhiimUhR_hDSxhuCzKIXq4FPCYT.8cpJD6qlQQdXeTZP

Access Passcode: H2%B8bY1

The exam will cover the odd-numbered questions.

==

Why Grow Up, 123-

1. Kant's definition of maturity is what?

2. Education, travel, and work share what common purpose, ideally?

3. You're not grown-up if you've not rejected what? 

4. Why should languages and music be learned as early as possible?

5. What is the message of Rousseau's Emile?

6. What does it mean to love a book?

7. The internet, says Nick Carr, is a machine geared for what?

8. If you don't travel you're likely to suppose what?

9. What did Rousseau say about those who do not walk?

10. What is travel's greatest gift?

WGU, 165-

1. What hallmark of modernity reversed Plato's and Aristotle's judgment?

2. What gives life meaning, for Kant?

3. In a truly human society, according to Marx, how would our capacities to work develop?

4.  Most jobs involve what, according to Paul Goodman? 

5. People were certain, as late as 2008, that what?

6. What alternatives to consumerism have small groups begun to develop?

WGU, 193-

1. What mixed messages keep us in states of immaturity?

2. The older you get, the more you know what?

3. What does the U-bend tell us about aging?

4. Growing up means realizing what?

5. Philosophy is an attempt to wrestle with what three questions, according to Kant?

6. The young have only vague and erroneous notions of what, according to de Beauvoir?

7. Shakespeare's As You Like It is a gloss on what modern message?

8. Philosophers seek answers to children's questions such as what?

Kaag, Sick Souls (K) Prologue; William James (WJ), Is Life Worth Living? (Link to full text below... or you can order the Library of America's terrific William James : Writings 1878-1899... vol.2 is William James : Writings 1902-1910).

1. Young William James's problem, as he felt "pulled in too many directions" and worried that we might be nothing but cogs in a machine, was ____.

2. What is distinctive about "our age" that makes James particularly relevant?

3. What happened on Feb. 6, 2014 that prompted Kaag to write this book?

4. "Too much questioning and too little active responsibility lead" to what?

5. Human history is "one long commentary on" what?

6. A "wider world... unseen by us" may exist, just as our world does for ___.

7. The "deepest thing in our nature," which deals with possibilities rather than finished facts, is a "dumb region of the heart" called (in German) ___.

K ch1; WJ, The Dilemma of Determinism

1. Calvinism set out, for Henry James Sr., what impossible task?

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

3. WJ's entire life had been premised on what expectation?

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

5. What Stoic hope did young WJ share with his friend Tom Ward?

6. What thought seeded "the dilemma of determinism" for WJ?

7. As WJ explicated determinism in 1884, the future has no what?

8. WJ found what in Huxley's evolutionary materialism alarming?

9. Determinism has antipathy to the idea of what?

10. To the "sick soul," what seems blind and shallow?

 

K ch2; The Moral Equivalent of War

1. "Anhedonia" is what?

2. What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

3. Renouvier said an individual's will could break what?

4. What must one frequently do, according to James, to establish reciprocity in a relationship?

5. "Looking on the bright side," though often not objectively warranted, is nonetheless what?

6. Why did James think most of his contemporaries would not have preferred to "expunge" the Civil War?

7. Readiness for war is the essence of what, according to General Lea?

8. James says he devoutly believes in what, and in a future that has outlawed what?

9. Non-military conscription of our "gilded youth" would do what for them, according to James?

K ch3-Psychology and the Healthy Mind; Principles of Psychology ch9-Habit; K ch 4 Consciousness and Transcendence; Principles of Psychology ch IX The Stream of Thought

1. James wrote Principles of Psychology to answer what question?

2. What did Aristotle say about habit?

3. What realization would make young people give more heed to their conduct?

4. James complained in 1884 that what devoured his time?

5. James thought everybody should do what each day?

6. How is habit "the enormous fly-wheel of society"?

7. There is "no more miserable human being" than ...

8. There is "no more contemptible type of human character" than …

K ch 4 Consciousness and Transcendence; Principles of Psychology ch IX The Stream of Thought

1. Tragedies that befell him in his 40s led to James's quest for ___.

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

3. What did James think is sacrificed when we study the mind in objective analytic terms?

4. What did Thoreau say at the end of Walden?

5. His experiments with nitrous oxide gave James what warning?

6. What did James say about his house in Chocorua?

7. What does James mean by "continuous," when he says consciousness is continuous?

8. What metaphors most naturally describe consciousness?

9. We all split the universe into what two great halves?

K ch5; WJ Pragmatism Lec VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"; "The Gospel of Relaxation"

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?

K ch6; WJ "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"; "A Pluralistic Mystic"

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?

5. What would we lose, if we were without feeling?

6. When does a life become "genuinely significant"?

7. "To miss ___ ___ is to miss all."

8. "Life is always worth living" if you have responsive sensibilities like ____'s.

9. What is distinctive about B.P. Blood's version of mysticism?

10. What's WJ's last word in philosophy?