(Successor site to CoPhilosophy, 2011-2020)
A collaborative search for wisdom, at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond... "The pluralistic form takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of, being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of 'co'"-William James
Exam 1 will be drawn from the even-numbered questions (2,4,6...) in January and February. Wording will be adjusted to fit the exam format, which will include an answer bank. Best way to prepare: revisit the texts.
Socrates and Plato-LH1; FL 1-2; HWT Intro & prologue...
LH 1. What kind of conversation was a success, for Socrates, and what did he mean by wisdom?
2. What theory is Plato's story of the cave connected with? Do you think some or all humans are naturally, in some allegorical sense, stuck in a cave?
3. What did Socrates say his inner voice told him? Do you think "inner voice" is literal?
FL
1. What statement by Karl Rove began to "crystallize" Fantasyland, in Kurt Andersen's mind?
2. What are half of Americans "absolutely certain" about? What do a quarter believe about vaccines?
3. What is Andersen trying to do with this book?
HWT
What's one of the great unexplained wonders of human history?
Do you agree that we cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand others?
What was Descartes's "still pertinent" conclusion?
Why did the Buddha think speculation about ultimate reality was fruitless?
What aspects of western thought have most influenced global philosophy?
What do Africans not have, according to Kwame Appiah?
Aristotle-LH 2; FL 3-4; HWT Sections 1-3
LH
1. What point was Aristotle making when he wrote of swallows and summer? Do you agree?
2. What philosophical difference between Plato and Aristotle is implied by The School of Athens? Whose side are you on, Plato's or Aristotle's?
3. What is eudaimonia, and how can we increase our chances of achieving it, and in relation only to what? Do you think you've achieved it?
4. What reliance is completely against the spirit of Aristotle's research? Are there any authorities you always defer to? Why or why not?
FL
5. What did Sir Walter Raleigh help invent (other than cigarettes) that contributed to "Fantasyland" as we know it today? Was he a "stupid git," as the Beatles song says?
6. What was western civilization's first great ad campaign?
7. What did Sir Francis Bacon say about human opinion and superstition? Do you ever attempt to overcome your own confirmation bias?
8. Which early settlers are typically ignored in the mythic American origin story?
9. What had mostly ended in Europe, but not America, by the 1620s, and what did the Puritans think would happen "any minute now"?
HWT
10. What is pratyaksa in classic Indian philosophy, and how does the Upanishads say to seek it?
11. There is widespread belief in India that the practice of yoga can lead to what?
12. What is metanoetics, in Japanese philosophy?
13. What does ineffable mean?
14. Unlike the west, religion in Japan is typically not about what?
Skepticism-LH 3. FL 5-6, HWT 4-5. Post your thoughts, responses, questions (etc.) in the comments space below.
LH
1. How did the most extreme skeptics (or sceptics, if you prefer the British spelling) differ from Plato and Aristotle? What was their main teaching? Do you think they were "Socratic" in this regard?
2. Why did Pyrrho decide never to trust his senses? Is such a decision prudent or even possible?
3. What country did Pyrrho visit as a young man, and how might it have influenced his philosophy?
4. How did Pyrrho think his extreme skepticism led to happiness? Do you think there are other ways of achieving freedom from worry (ataraxia)?
5. In contrast to Pyrrho, most philosophers have favored a more moderate skepticism. Why?
FL
1. What did Anne Hutchinson feel "in her gut"? What makes her "so American"?
2. What did Hutchinson and Roger Williams help invent?
3. How was freedom of thought in 17th century America expressed differently than in Europe at the time?
4. Who, according to some early Puritans, were "Satan's soldiers"?
5. What extraordinary form of evidence was allowed at the Salen witch trials? What does Andersen think Arthur Miller's The Crucible got wrong about Salem?
HWT
1. Logic is simply what?
2. What "law" of thinking is important in all philosophies, including those in non-western cultures that find it less compelling?
3. For Aristotle, the distinctive thing about humanity is what? How does Indian philosophy differ on this point?
4. According to secular reason, the mind works without what?
5. What debate reveals a tension in secular reason?
Epicureans and Stoics, LH 4-5; FL 7-8, HWT 6-8
ALSO RECOMMENDED: De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) Cicero's dialogue between a Skeptic, a Stoic, and an Epicurean... & JMH's smart commentary on it in Doubt: A History*... LISTEN (Sep '21)
LH
1. According to Epicurus, fear of death is based on what, and the best way to live is what?
2. How is the modern meaning of "epicurean" different from Epicurus's?
3. What famous 20th century philosopher echoed Epicurus's attitude towards death?
4. How did Epicurus respond to the idea of divine punishment in the afterlife?
5. What was the Stoics' basic idea, and what was their aim?
6. Why did Cicero think we shouldn't worry about dying?
7. Why didn't Seneca consider life too short?
8. What does the author say might be the cost of stoicism?
FL
1. The people we call the American founders were what?
2. Who was Jonathan Edwards and how was he like Anne Hutchinson?
3. Who was John Wesley and what did he demand of his followers?
4. Who was George Whitefield and what did he "implant" in American Christianity?
5. What did Thomas Jefferson tell his nephew?
6. What was Immanuel Kant's "motto of Enlightenment"?
HWT
1. Who were the three great founders of American pragmatism?
2. When does philosophy "recover itself" according to John Dewey, and what should it not doubt according to Charles S. Peirce?
3. What did Richard Rorty say pragmatists desire?
4. As earlier noted in Kurt Andersen's Fantasyland, Karl Rove said what about "reality"?
1. How did Augustine "solve" the problem of evil in his younger days, and then after his conversion to Christianity? Why wasn't it such a problem for him originally?
2. What does Boethius not mention about himself in TheConsolation of Philosophy?
3. Boethius' "recollection of ideas" can be traced back to what philosopher?
4. What uniquely self-validating idea did Anselm say we have?
5. Gaunilo criticized Anselm's reasoning using what example?
6. What was Aquinas' 2nd Way?
FL
1. How did Enlightenment values advance in America in the 19th century?
2. What fantasy about 1776 has been accepted as fact by Americans across the religious spectrum (and Ronald Reagan) ever since?
3. How was religion in America, unlike Europe, non-binary?
4. How did Thomas Jefferson characterize America's religious differences in the north and the south?
5. What happened in Cane Ridge, KY in 1801, and how did a Vanderbilt historian describe it?
6. Who was Charles Finney, and what did he understand about American Christianity?
7. What did de Tocqueville say was different about religion in America, compared to Europe?
8. Who was William Miller and what beliefs did he help revive?
9. Who was Joseph Smith and what is the most interesting thing about him?
HWT
1. What fundamental and non-western sense of time has underpinned much of human history?
2. What is "dreamtime" and how is it alien to the modern west?
3. The universalism of western universities implies that what is unimportant?
4. What does John Gray say about the idea of progress?
5. Karma originally concerned what, and lacked what connotations now commonly associated with it?
6. What western ideas have displaced karma, for many young Indians?
Machiavelli, Hobbes-LH 9-10. FL 11-12, HWT 11-12.
1. What did Machiavelli say a leader needs to have?
2. Machiavelli's philosophy is described as being "rooted" in what?
3. The idea that leaders should rule by fear is based on what view of human nature?
4. Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes?
5. What fear influenced Hobbes' writings?
6. Hobbes did not believe in the existence of what?
FL
1. What was Arthur C. Clarke's 3d law regarding technology, and what's its converse?
2. What was the original "alternative medicine" and what is its "upside"?
3. What national craze of the 1830s relied on a "totally bogus extrapolation"?
4. Who was Mary Baker Eddy and what are her followers misleadingly called?
5. Who was Dr. William A. Rockefeller?
6. What did Mark Twain say about history?
7. How was the California Gold Rush an "inflection point" in how Americans thought about reality?
8. What did de Tocqueville say was "the chief or secondary motive in everything Americans do"?
HWT 1. How do eastern and western philosophies differ in their approach to things, and what is ma?
2. An interest in what is much more developed in eastern thought?
3. What is dukkha?
4. What is Sakura?
5. What takes the place of religion in China?
6. Chinese thought does not distinguish between natural and ____, focusing on what?
7. What is the famous story of Zhuangzi?
8. The Japanese fascination with robots reflects what traditional view?
1. What state of mind, belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR, What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned?
2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming?
3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.")
4. Pascal's best-known book is _____.
5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________.
6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______."
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets.
(See Montaigne questions below*)
FL
1. Conspiratorial explanations attempt to make what kinds of connections?
2. What was the Freemasons' grand secret, according to Franklin?
3. What conspiracy did Abe Lincoln allege in his famous "House Divided" speech in 1858?
4. Why did many northerners think the Civil War went badly for them early on?
5. What did the narrator of a popular 1832 work of fiction say about the slaves?
HWT
1. What familiar western distinction is not commonly drawn in Islamic thought?
2. According to Sankara, the appearance of plurality is misleading. Everything is ____.
3. The Islamic concept of unity rules out what key western Enlightenment value, and offers little prospect of adopting modern views on what?
4. What Calvinist-sounding doctrine features heavily in Islamic thought?
5. What deep philosophical assumption, expressed by what phrase, has informed western philosophy for centuries? To what concept did Harry Frankfurt apply it?
Sarah Bakewell says Montaigne's first answer to the question "How to live?" is: "Don't worry about _____."
What was Montaigne's "near death experience," and what did it teach him?
Montaigne said "my mind will not budge unless _____."
What pragmatic American philosopher was Descartes' "most practical critic"?
(T/F) A.C. Grayling thinks that, because Descartes was so wrong about consciousness and the mind-body problem, he cannot be considered a historically-important philosopher.
What skeptical slogan did Montaigne inscribe on the ceiling of his study?
FEB 15 Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LH 13-14. FL 15-16, HWT 16-17. Midterm report PRESENTATIONS begin (3 presentations per class)... LISTEN ('19)
HWT 1. What are atman and anatta, and what classical western idea do they both contradict?
2. What was John Locke's concept of self or soul? What makes you you?
3. Shunning rigid essentialized identities, younger people increasingly believe what?
4. What cultural stereotype did Baggini find inaccurate when he went to Japan?
5. What important distinction did Nishida Kitaro draw?
6. What point about individuality did Monty Python make?
7. What is ubuntu?
LH
1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______.
2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings.
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion.
4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.
5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall.
6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution?
1. In what way was the idea of a separable soul a "corruption"? What French philosopher of the 17th century defended it? What Scottish skeptic of the 18th century disputed it?
2. What do Owen Flanagan's findings suggest, that contrasts with Aristotle's view of human nature?
3. If you ask an American and a Japanese about their occupation, how might they respond differently?
LH
1. How did Samuel Johnson "refute" Berkeley's theory?
2. What made Berkeley an idealist, and an immaterialist?.
3. In what way did Berkeley claim to be more consistent than Locke?
4. What was Berkeley's Latin slogan?
5. What obvious difficulty does Berkeley's theory face?
6. What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right," and what German philosopher (with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason") agreed with the poet?
7. What French champion of free speech and religious toleration wrote a satirical novel/play ridiculing the idea that everything is awesome?
8. What 1755 catastrophe deeply influenced Voltaire's philosophy?
9. What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"?
10. Did Hume think the human eye is so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design?
11. What was Hume's definition of "miracle"? Did he think we should usually believe others' reports of having witnessed a miracle?
12. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______.
FL
1. What amazing theme park was erected in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century?
2. Who was Robert Love Taylor?
3. What was Birth of a Nation?
4. What did H.L. Mencken say about southerners?
5. What did The New Theology say about the supernatural?
6. How did Modernists reconcile science and religion?
7. What famous trial was held in Tennessee in 1925, and what did Clarence Darrow say about it, and what was its cultural impact?
Questions FEB 22
Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer-LH 19-23. FL 19-20, HWT 20-22. PRESENTATIONS: 1. Immanuel Kant vs. Jeremy Bentham: Is ethics about creating the greatest happiness for the greatest number? #6 Becky Vorabouth; #9 Nicholas Miller; 2. Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy of pessimism - #6 Sameria Bohanon; #9 Karmina Ghobrial 3. The rise of virtue ethics - #6 Daniel S.; Moksa and Nirvana - #9 Kaylee [FL 19-20 or HWT 20-22]... #9 Gerges Cosmic philosophy
LH
1. Kant said we can know the ____ but not the ____ world.
2. What was Kant's great insight?
3. What, according to Kant, is irrelevant to morality?
4. Kant said you should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this view the ____ _____.
5. Who formulated the Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find him today?
6. Who created a thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates to human motivation?
7. What did Hegel mean when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been reached in his lifetime?
8. What Kantian view did Hegel reject?
9. What is Geist? When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge?
10. What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including us)?
11. What did Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire?
HWT
1. What one word most characterizes the ideal Chinese way of life?
2. Western suspicion of hierarchy is built on what?
3. What did the late Archbishop Tutu say was "the greatest good"?
4. What omission in western ethics would seem bizarre to the classical Chinese thinkers?
5. What is the most famous Confucian maxim?
6. Virtue is never solitary, said Confucius, it always has ____.
FL
1. How, according to Scientific American in 1915, are motion pictures like drugs?
2. What came into existence simultaneously with America and created the concept of celebrity?
3. What place did film critic Pauline Kael call a "fantasy-brothel"?
Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Marx-LH 24-27. FL 21-22, HWT 23-24. PRESENTATIONS 1. Charles Darwin's natural selection: its importance for philosophy-#6 Eden Tucker; #9 Phillip Smith; 2. Karl Marx's revolutionary philosophy - #6 Bayleigh Elliott; #9 Keegan Barrett; 3. Moksa - #9, Andrew Quinn Burton [ FL 21-22 or HWT 23-24]
HWT 1. What two concepts from Indian and Buddhist philosophy are essentially the same?
2. What are the four stages of Hindu life?
3. What is "the smile of philosophy"?
FL
1. What were Americans spending a third of their time doing, by the end of the '50s?
2. Who grew up in Marceline, MO?
3. What fantasy did Hugh Hefner sell?
4. What was added to currency in 1954?
5. What did Jane Roberts "discover" in 1963?
6. The sudden embrace of what, in the 60s, helped turn America into Fantasyland?
LH
1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure?
2. What view did Mill defend in On Liberty?
3. What's the benefit to society of open discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic?
4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860?
5. The single best idea anyone ever had was what, according to whom?
6. What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis?
7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was most of his writing about?
8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton?
9. What is "the subjective point of view"?
10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think the whole of human history could be explained?
11. What was Marx's "vision"?
12. What did Marx call religion?
FL
1. Who wrote a memoir of life on the Kentucky frontier that turned him into a "real-life superhero"? (He's in my family tree, btw.)
2. Who built a cabin by a lake, moved in on the 4th of July, and epitomized a perennial American pastoral fantasy? What do you think he'd say about modern suburbia?
3. What did The New York Sun announce in a week-long "news" story in 1835? Who believed it?
4. Who was P.T. Barnum, and what was his fundamental Fantasyland mindset?
5. Whose touring play marked what key milestone in America's national evolution?
LH 1. Kant said we can know the phenomenal world but not the noumenal world.
2. Kant's great insight was that we could discover features of own minds that tint all our experience.
3. Your sympathy is irrelevant to the morality of your action.
4. Kant said you should never lie, because you couldn't make a general principle that everyone should always lie when it suited them. Kant called the principle that supports this view the Categorical Imperatives.
LH
ReplyDelete1. Kant said we can know the phenomenal world but not the noumenal world.
2. Kant's great insight was that we could discover features of own minds that tint all our experience.
3. Your sympathy is irrelevant to the morality of your action.
4. Kant said you should never lie, because you couldn't make a general principle that everyone should always lie when it suited them. Kant called the principle that supports this view the Categorical Imperatives.