Peirce & James, Nietzsche, Freud-LH 28-30, HWT 25-26, FL 23-24, (This material will not be covered on Thursday's exam.)
#6 Emma-Peirce & James, Steven-Nietzsche, Nick K-Freud; #7 Hayden-James, Savanna-Peirce, Ashton-Freud, Jordan-Nietzsche, #10 Hannah-Freud
1. What's the point of James's squirrel story? Have you ever been involved in a "metaphysical dispute" of this sort? How was it resolved?
2. Who said truth is what we would end up with if we could run all the experiments and investigations we'd like to? (And what's a word his name rhymes with?) What does it imply about the present status of what we now consider true?3. What did Bertrand Russell say about James's theory of truth? Was he being fair?
4. What 20th century philosopher carried on the pragmatist tradition? What did he say about the way words work? Does his approach seem reasonable to you?
5. What did Nietzsche mean by "God is dead"? (And what's a word his name rhymes with?) Does that statement seem nihilistic to you?
6. Where did Nietzsche think Christian values come from? What do you think about that?
7. What is an Ubermensch, and why does Nigel find it "a bit worrying"? Does it worry you that some of our peers think of themselves as exempt from the rules and norms that the rest of us follow?
8. How did Nietzsche differ from Kant but anticipate Freud? Is rationality less available to us than we think?
9. What were the three great revolutions in thought, according to Freud? Was he overrating his own contributions?
10. The "talking cure" gave birth to what? Have you had any direct experience with it, or any other form of "talking cure"?
11. Why did Freud think people believe in God? Was he right, about some people at least?
12. What was Karl Popper's criticism of Freudian psychoanalysis? Do you agree?
HWT
1. What really distinguishes utilitarianism, for Baggini?
2. How did Mozi's maxim resemble J.ZS. Mill's principle of utility?
3. Each item of Jonathan Israel's key principles of Enlightenment concerns what?
4. Pluralism is often mistaken for what?
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LH
ReplyDelete3. What did Bertrand Russell say about James's theory of truth? Was he being fair? Bertrand Russel said that William James must believe in Santa Claus if he believed his theory of truth, which stated that the truth what was whatever was beneficial for us. He was being somewhat unfair because someone could disprove Santa Claus' existence far more easily than disprove God's existence.
4. What 20th century philosopher carried on the pragmatist tradition? What did he say about the way worlds work? Does his approach seem reasonable to you? Richard Rorty carried pragmatic thinking into the twentieth century. He said that the truth was 'whatever your contemporaries let you get away with'. He believed that because different people lived at different times there was only the 'correct' way of thinking to the time you are in but that view couldn't and wouldn't be correct for all time. This approach seems reasonable to me in some ways because it seems every new generation has a different way of thinking than the last but its not always clear whether or not its a 'more right' way than the rest.
6. Where did Nietzsche think Christian values come from? What do you think about that? Neitzsche thought that Christian values arose from a 'slave mentality'. He believed that because salves and the weak were envious of the powerful, they began to value generosity and compassion for the weak in order to turn the aristocrat values of strength and power on their head and make themselves feel more virtuous than they really were. I think it's an interesting idea I hadn't heard of before.
9. What were the three great revolutions in thought, according to Freud? Was he overrating his own contributions? The three great revolutions in thought according to Freud were Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that Earth was not the center of the solar system, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and his own discovery of the unconscious. He was overrating his own contributions, I think most people would put others' discoveries, such as Newton's, far above Freud's.
ReplyDeleteLHP Q2. → C.S. Peirce. (rhymes with purse). It implies that we don’t really know truth, and that we might have to reject what we claim to know as true today, if we find something to be true that contradicts that.
LHP Q4. → Richard Rorty. He thought words work as tools that we do things with, and that they allow us to cope with the world. This does seem like a reasonable and optimistic way of thinking, very stoic I think.
LHP Q6.→ he believed that christian values emerged out of envy. This is a pretty weak position in my opinion, as it totally disregards the whole history of christianity and its values, by just putting a blanket statment on the whole thing.