Catch up on Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LH 11-12. FL 13-14, HWT 14-15; Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LH 13-14. FL 15-16, HWT 16-17. #12 MEETING TODAY for Library instruction in LIB 264a at 2:40, go straight there... Assign midterm report presentation topics (indicate your topic/date preferences, I'll try to accommodate you... or I'll asssign a topic.
LH
1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______. What do you think of that view?
2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings. Is that how you think about god?
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist?
4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______. If Locke's right, what do you think accounts for our ability to learn from our experiences?
5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall. How do you think you know that you're the same person now that you were at age 3 (for example)? If you forget much of your earlier life in old age, what reassures you that you'll still be you?
2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings. Is that how you think about god?
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist?
4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______. If Locke's right, what do you think accounts for our ability to learn from our experiences?
5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall. How do you think you know that you're the same person now that you were at age 3 (for example)? If you forget much of your earlier life in old age, what reassures you that you'll still be you?
6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution? Do you think it matters if we say such rights are discovered rather than invented?
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?
FL1. 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?
6. Who was Aunt Jemima?
1. It’s pantheism. I think his view is a little too broad.
ReplyDelete2. Infinite, not. That is not how I think about God. I think people usually have their own interpretation of God that they’ve created for themselves with the influence of their religion/ beliefs, and the belief that God is either infinite or indifferent seems a little extreme.
3. Free will. I think it was easy for Spinoza to consistently be a determinist because he believed that God was everywhere and everything, but I don’t think that it would be that feasible to think that way if you don’t believe in pantheism.
4. Experience, blank slate. If Locke was right we would be able to learn from experiences because we would have no prior knowledge to each new experience, so we would constantly be learning every time we did something new.
5. Bodily, overlapping. Just because you can’t remember something doesn’t mean that it never happened to you or didn’t affect you as a person in some way. You from the time you were 3 to now is still the same person, just much more knowledgeable and experienced. Forgetting things as you get older is a natural part of life, but doesn’t mean that experiences you can’t remember in detail didn’t help shape you or aren’t still affecting you.
6. Life, liberty, and property. I think it’s fine to say such rights are discovered and not invented because even if they hadn’t been previously explicitly stated, people in older societies had been operating using these as a basis for how people were treated. Those that were influenced by them and used them in the Constitution ‘discovered’ them by realizing they would be a good basis of government and wrote them down.
Laney #11.
I think you have a great response to the readings. How do you view God?
DeleteAriana Arenas
ReplyDeletesection #11
1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called ___pantheism ____. What do you think of that view? I think he should go more in deep with his view .
2. If god is __infinite___, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _not____, god is indifferent to human beings. Is that how you think about god? Yes, I believe that god is infinite and if god is not infinite than he would not care about us .
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _free will____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist? I do think it is possible to be a determinist but not sustainable.
4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _our experience in life____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ___blank_slate_. If Locke's right, what do you think accounts for our ability to learn from our experiences? I think it is just basically trial and error and from each experience we always learn a lesson.
5. Locke said _bodily____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on _overlapping_____ memories, not total recall. How do you think you know that you're the same person now that you were at age 3 (for example)? If you forget much of your earlier life in old age, what reassures you that you'll still be you? What reassures me is my morals and the fact that they have not change, plus it's alright if you forget things as you age, that's just part of being a human.
6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution? Life, freedom, happiness and property
Do you think it matters if we say such rights are discovered rather than invented?
I do not think so because the basis of the notions remains the same either way.
Aaron Petty #7
ReplyDeleteLH
1. Pantheseim. In the effort of being open-minded, I could understand how someone could come to the conclusion that God is nature. I'm not quite sure if I fully support that claim, but it's a reasonable viewpoint.
2. Infinite, not. No, that's not how I think of it. I don't believe God is involved in the material world. He may have created the universe but his essence isn't inside everything.
3. Free will. No, I don't believe it is possible to be consistent as a determinist. There are things in our world that push us to make a certain decision, but nothing is determined. Everything we control ends with us doing something because we chose to be in that situation. People choose to get good grades, and so they choose to go to college, and to take certain classes, and to do certain assignments like I am doing at the moment.
4. Experience, clean slate. I think the memory of having a memory establishes our ability to learn from our experiences. Because I can have a memory of remembering a lesson my parents taught me, but that doesn't mean I remember the exact incident. All that matters is that I remembered remembering the lesson.
5. Psychological, overlapping. Like Reid said, overlapping memories prove we remember our past selves remembering something we can't now, therefore it must have happened. In old age, the fact that I remember that I remember that I was at one point younger reassures me that I'll still be me.
6. Locke articulated that life, freedom, happiness, and property were all god given rights and they influenced the making of the US Constitution. A discovered right is harder to destroy as everyone excepts it for universal fact. No one would dare argue against them because they too believe them to be universal. It's a whole circle that can never be stopped unless secondary knowledge itself is stopped. An invented right can be torn down and rewrote.
Do you think it could be predetermined for someone to be a determinist? What if he had made that argument?
DeleteJohn Wright #12
ReplyDeleteLH
1: Pantheism. It would stand to reason that a person who believes in God would also think that nature and it’s movements would also be at least influenced by God and not working on a separate field of influence.
2: Infinite. This is not how I have thought about God nor is it how I was taught about God throughout my life. Moreover, an indifferent God is terrifying for a believer because we are told that we are loved by God, made in his image, and looked over and cared for by God.
3: Free will. Choosing to be a determinist would mean that there is free will at play. A truly determinist point of view would include being made a determinist and being destined to be a determinist.
Chloe Rush #7
ReplyDeleteLH:
1.Spinoza's view that god and nature are the same thing is a form of pantheism. I believe that god and nature go hand in hand so it is possible to say they are one.
2. Infinite. I do view God as infinite because that is what I have been taught since I was a child, that he was everywhere and can see everything. However, I do not think of God as indifferent. I see God as a being with extreme forgiveness but also extreme wrath.
3. Spinoza believed that free will was an illusion. I do not think it is possible to choose to be a determinist. Because if you choose it, it means you have free will to some degree.
1) pantheism
ReplyDelete2) Infinite; not
3) free will; I don't agree with the fact that free will is an illusion. I explained my beliefs on this on the last two blog posts.
Cole #7
ReplyDelete1. Pantheism
2. Infinite; not
3. free will; free will is real, at least some form of free will, because people make choices all the time that don't make sense in the grand scheme of things.
Pantheism
ReplyDeleteinfinite;not
free will exists in some way, but people can still abuse their free will
Sophia section 7
Betti Houser #12
ReplyDeleteHWT:
1) Atman is a kind of personal essence of being that makes each indivudual who he/she is. Anatta is literally no atman. They both contradict the western idea that the self is a personal self, rooted in the psychological individuality of the person. Both theorize about rebirth but in a non-personal way.
3) Younger people in particular are shunning essentialised identities, believing that they are free to define who and what they are, or to choose not to define themselves at all.
6) In Monty Python's Life of Brian, when a crowd of people are told they are all individuals, and they respond as one, "Yes we're individuals!" Shows that we should not conflate assertions of individuality with the possession of individuality.
FL 1. Daniel Boone wrote a memoir that thrusted him into stardom.
ReplyDeleteFL 4. P.T. Barnum was a man who made profits off of his "half-truths." "If some imaginary proposition is exciting, and nobody can prove it's untrue, then it's my right as an American to believe it's true." (Anderson 106)
FL 6. Aunt Jemima was a character taken from an old song that was used by a pancake company as their mascot. She was African American.
arif #7
ReplyDelete1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______. What do you think of that view?
It is a form of Pantheism. I think that the idea of god being everything is very understandable and rational; Perhaps it is the bias of having grown up in many other eastern philosophies adjacent to this. One thing I really like about understanding it is you have to assume a lot of truths of the universe, like how everything is related to everything. This makes existence a lot less lonely, but assumes you can create room with your physical self. These ideas can be partly backed by science today, but at the time Spinoza's ideas were surely revolutionary.
2.
If god is Infinite, there cannot be anything that is not god: if not, god is indifferent to human beings. I do not think about God. I believe in the Intuition. But my belief can be pulled from this philosophy, what is believed as god is for me understanding that we play in a section of the conscience of the universe. As "God" is, we are.
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion. Do you think it is possible (and consistent) to choose to be a determinist?
Free Will. I think that it is possible to understand that your will is an illusion, and each thought you have is a product of the life you lived before it. but it is inconsistent when you have to pick and choose which thoughts to act on, you decide to do things all the time and i think that is all you. Your thoughts may not be something you can control or be free at all, but your action is.
Reid #12
ReplyDeleteLH 1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called pantheism. Personally, I think this is a valid argument of how one might view God. When I was younger I had similar thoughts because I thought everything belonged to God.
LH 4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from memories; hence, the mind of a newborn is a blank slate. I think this is how we naturally adapt to situations, especially if a past experience has caused us harm we will be inclined in the future to avoid what we did in the past.
This comment doesn't really answer a question, but I thought Locke's questions about how and if we stay the same person were similar to the Ship of Theseus paradox, especially when Reid brought up the question about the old war veteran.
LH
ReplyDelete1. Pantheism
FL
1. Daniel Boone
6. Aunt jemima was an African American who was used as a logo by a pancake company
Samantha pleitez #12
Kayla Pulling #7
ReplyDeleteHWT
4. Japan has been riddled with stereotypes rendering Japan as the West's exotic Other.
7. a term meaning humanity.
FL
6. A black women born into slavery, who went on to create a famous pancake history.