CoPhi: "Savor every second"

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

"Savor every second"

Well, maybe not every...

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2 comments:

Jay Roark 13October 25, 2023 at 9:21 PM
I agree with this, I feel like I regret not cherishing the seconds in my life that really count now, the memories fuzzy and distant as I miss them. Now I try to keep my memories close and appreciate any time I get with those I love.
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Katherine LephewOctober 26, 2023 at 12:01 PM
#13
I definitely agree with you, looking back I don't remember most of my childhood or early teenage years because I never savored the moment. Nowadays I hold those memories close and try to cherish every moment I have. Love the little things.
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NOV 5 WGU -p.165.SSHM Prologue. Recommended: FL 39-40. WJ, Is Life Worth Living? Final report presentations begin... NOV 7 WGU -p.192. SSHM ch1. Rec: The Dilemma of Determinism. FL 41-42, Setiya Intro-1... NOV 12 WGU -p. 234 SSHM ch2. Rec: The Moral Equivalent of War. FL 43-44. Setiya 2... NOV 14 SSHM ch3. Rec: FL 45-46. Setiya 3.... PHIL 1030, sections H1, H2, H3: TTh 9:40, 1 pm, 2:40; in HONR 116... phil.oliver@mtsu.edu

Texts Fall 2024

REQUIRED: Nigel Warburton, LITTLE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (LHP) (etext linked below)... Susan Neiman, WHY GROW UP (WGU)... John Kaag, SICK SOULS, HEALTHY MINDS: How William James Can Save Your Life (SS)... Eric Weiner, THE SOCRATES EXPRESS: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers (Weiner_)... RECOMMENDED (and available for 3-day checkout at the library): Mariana Allesandri, NIGHT VISION: seeing ourselves through dark moods... Kurt Andersen, FANTASYLAND: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen (FL) ... Julian Baggini, HOW THE WORLD THINKS (HWT)... Kaag & J. van Belle, BE NOT AFRAID OF LIFE: In the Words of William James... Robert Richardson, THREE ROADS BACK: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives... Kieran Setiya, LIFE IS HARD (LH)

*A Little History of Philosophy, by Nigel Warburton (LHP)*

Little History of Philosophy

Syllabus

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Syllabus 2024

Office hours

Fall '24 T/Th 11 am--1 pm on campus (in 300 JUB or at another designated location, call to confirm location before coming in)... (615) 898-2050... (615) 525-7865-only during office hours please. Other days on Zoom, by appointment.

JPO bio

The author of "William James's Springs of Delight: The Return to Life, (VU Press, 2001) " Phil Oliver specializes in the American philosophical tradition with supporting interests in applied ethics (particularly Bioethics and Environmental Ethics), Anglo-American literature, history, humanism, naturalism, science and exploration, peripatetic ("walking & talking") philosophy, baseball, cycling, swimming, the pursuit of happiness, and the perpetual dawn of day. One of his favorite MTSU courses is The Philosophy of Happiness. He is academic advisor for minors in American Culture (American Studies), and a founding board member and current Vice-President of the William James Society. You can follow him on Threads, Instagram (@OSOPHER), Substack (philoliver.substack.com) and on his blogsite Up@dawn (jposopher.blogspot.com) but of course, as Immanuel Kant and Monty Python's Brian Cohen agreed: You don't have to follow anybody. "Sapere aude," have the courage to think for yourself. But not by yourself. Good philosophy collaborates and converses.

Delighted

The worm at the core of our usual springs of delight can tun us into melancholy metaphysicians. But the music can commence again, and again and again, at intervals."
"The really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?" William James's "Springs of Delight"
... Walker Library - 2nd Floor B945.J24 O55 2001... and available as an ebook (or I'll sell you a copy for $10 if you act fast)

Philosophy tutor & Writing Center

The tutor for this year is Elle Robinson. Her email address, should you need to contact her, is: ljr3s@mtmail.mtsu.edu ... Her hours will be Mondays & Wednesdays, 6 pm until 7:45 pm, Feb 19--Apr 24. She will offer tutoring in the library... No tutoring will be offered during Spring Break... WRITING CENTER: The Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center is located in LIB 362 and online at www.mtsu.edu/writing-center. Here, students can receive valuable (and FREE!) one-to-one assistance in person or online on writing projects for any course. Please make your appointment by stopping by LIB 362, calling 615-904-8237, or visiting the UWC website. Visit early and often! https://www.mtsu.edu/writing-center/

Deadline reaper

You'll thank me

Deadlines

Due dates are firm. If you miss an assignment deadline you need to contact me immediately. Extensions are possible in the event of illness or some other unavoidable or extraordinary circumstance, but must first be authorized by me. jpo

The walking cure

Anxious? Anhedonic? Depressed? "Have you tried taking long walks?"

Gymnasiums of the Mind

"Followers of the Greek Aristotle were known as peripatetics because they passed their days strolling and mind-wrestling through the groves of the Academe. The Romans’ equally high opinion of walking was summed up pithily in the Latin proverb: “It is solved by walking.” Nearly every philosopher-poet worth his salt has voiced similar sentiments. Erasmus recommended a little walk before supper and “after supper do the same.” Thomas Hobbes had an inkwell built into his walking stick to more easily jot down his brainstorms during his rambles. Jean- Jacques Rousseau claimed he could only meditate when walking: “When I stop, I cease to think,” he said. “My mind only works with my legs.” Søren Kierkegaard believed he’d walked himself into his best thoughts. In his brief life Henry David Thoreau walked an estimated 250,000 miles, or ten times the circumference of earth. “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,” wrote Thoreau, “unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from worldly engagements.” Thoreau’s landlord and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson characterized walking as “gymnastics for the mind...” Christopher Orlet, Philosophy Now https://philosophynow.org/issues/44/The_Gymnasiums_of_the_Mind

Admirable profession

"...Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live..."

"To be a philosopher...

is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust." - Henry David Thoreau... https://www.thoreau-online.org/

"I went to the woods because...

I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion... "

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there...

Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now... I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours..."

Where he lived, and what he lived for

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d’appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business."

"We shall not cease from exploration...

And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time..." --T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets... The spirit of philosophy is an exploratory and adventurous spirit. But we're fortunate also to live in an age when we can explore from the comfort of home. For instance: https://artsandculture.google.com/

MALA 6010, '23-4: Foundations of Liberal Arts--Knowledge

Meeting Thursday nights 6-9 pm in COE 248... My classes Mar 14, 21. See https://cophilosophy2.blogspot.com/2023/07/mala-6010-fall-23-knowledge.html

Mental Health and the Good Life

MTSU Honors College Spring 2024 Lecture Series on Mental Health and the Good Life: Strategies for Happiness, Wholeness, and Wellbeing. Mondays 3 pm, HONR 106... APRIL 8: "Healthy Minds, Flourishing Lives: A Philosophical Approach to Mental Health and Happiness"--Dr. Phil Oliver

If you have a powerpoint...

Please don't email it to me. You can email it to yourself, if that's convenient, and then sign in when it's time to present. Or post it, or a link to it, on the blogsite. An account with Slideshare.net makes that easy.

If you're sick...

No need to notify me in advance that you'll miss class, if you're sick... And no need to ask "what did I miss" afterwards: just check the syllabus and the recording (if we didn't go outside).

Vote!

"The 2024 election is going to be decided by people under 30, who have the most at stake, and they need to register to vote in order to make a difference. That’s the answer, simple democracy." -GK... Please visit TennVoterLookup if you would like to check your Tennessee registration status or check RockTheVote.org. TN residents can update or change their information on the TN Government's website. If you're currently registered in another county it may be easier for you to vote here. Register in Rutherford County: https://www.mtsu.edu/amerdem/register-to-vote.php

Author

You need to become an author on this site to post your final report. In the past, too many have waited too long to do that. Make it your first priority in November/April to request and open an emailed author invitation, and to understand how to post your report.

Thinking is a social activity

"We do not (on Justice Holmes's reasoning) permit the free expression of ideas because some individual may have the right one. No individual alone can have the right one. We permit free expression because we need the resources of the whole group to get us the ideas we need. Thinking is a social activity. I tolerate your thought because it is part of my thought—even when my thought defines itself in opposition to yours." — The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand https://a.co/8qI6C9a

Justice Holmes

He and others helped young William James articulate the pragmatic philosophy in their student days.

The problem with the world

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ―The Conquest of Happiness

First answer

"Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; One must first answer." — Albert Camus

You don't have to "follow" me...

You don't have to follow anyone. But if you do, "sapere aude"...

Oliver's slideshows (at slideshare.net)

19th Century Women (Apr '12)

All of them

Americana (Apr '12)

Atheism and spirituality (Feb '10)

Best & wisest gift: What we owe all children (Honors Lecture Apr '13)

Climate change Honors lecture (Feb '20)

Descartes (Oct '10)

Hume, Berkeley (Nov '10)

Nineteenth century-2

Rorty (Feb'22)

Sam Harris (Apr '12)

Schopenhauer & Nietzsche (Mar '10)

Spinoza, Leibniz

Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics (Sep '10)

The Spirit of Modern Philosophy revisited (Feb '20)

Links '23...

Public philosophy-Angie Hobbs

William James online-Gutenberg free (public domain) liby

YouTube

American philosopher

Dave's walks (in the English countryside)

Ed Craig on the value of the MTSU Philosophy experience

Ed Craig/"Grandfather Philosophy"

John Kaag on William James and the sick soul

Overthink podcast

Philosophy

Philosophy Overdose

School of Life

Science & truth

Trout and Coffee

What is philosophy for? (School of Life)

William James & the psychology of possibility, w/John J. McDermott

Experience & Rationality

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Me neither

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ [parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.” ― Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 1

A proper education

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.” ― Wendell Berry

The college project

“The American college may be considered a continuation, at the human level, of the self-education process of the earth itself: universe education, earth education, and human education are stages of development in a single unbroken process...The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” --Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth

Aeon | a world of ideas

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Returning to MTSU

PHIL 3160-Philosophy of Happiness-Fall '23

PHIL 3310-Atheism and Philosophy (A&P)-Spring '24

PHIL 3345-Bioethics-Spring '24

Up@dawn (wordpress)

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"Our errors"

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher. -Will to Believe

The Value of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy-Chapter XV (text)

Gregory Slack, faculty candidate (video)

Quizlet Fall '21

Thomas's quizlet...The password to edit is "cophi"

Thomas's quizlet for exam 3-same password to edit

Timeline

Philosophers' timeline, from A Passion for Wisdom

Seek truth

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth. Run from those who have found it.” Vaclav Havel

Search This Blog

Philosophy Bites

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Philosophy Bites links

More philosophy bites podcasts...

The Stone

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Stone links

More links from The Stone...

How to get the most out of college

...the professors I speak with strongly caution students against wedding themselves to a single field of study before being exposed to several of them. College’s greatest gifts can be an introduction to a passion you didn’t previously have and a pivot into an occupation you never before envisioned. Frank Bruni

Look it up

American National Biography Online-WJ
American Philosophical Association (APA)
Britannica.com
Databases in MTSU Liby
Dictionary of Philosophy
Dictionary of Philosophy (Runes)
Encyclopedia.com
EpistemeLinks
Guide to Philosophy on the Internet
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
JStor
Philosopher's Index
Philosophy Reference Sites
Questia.com
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Democracy in America

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Environmental Ethics

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The Philosophy of Happiness

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Atheism & Philosophy

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Questions NOV 2

LAST CALL: MIDTERM REPORT PRESENTATIONS

Happy Halloween: seize the day

The best is yet to be

A merrier world

The most valuable lesson

Questions Oct 31

NYTimes: From Serial Productions: The Kids of Ruth...

Enlightened wave

Life is hard, but also good

Pizza Party

HCR on NRA

Growing up takes courage

"Savor every second"

Questions Oct 26

Lyceum Nov 17

Questions Oct 24

Southern Festival of Books

Rousseau got this right

Life After “Calvin and Hobbes”

Betraying higher education

Which “triad” are you?

Nine!

What would John Rawls say?

John Dewey

RS colloquium Oct 26

Petition · Establish a Polling Place on Campus for...

Take a hike

Questions Oct 19

How to prepare for an exam: RELAX, says WJ

It’s Eleanor’s birthday

Charles Feeney, Who Made a Fortune and Then Gave I...

Questions Oct 12

Anxiety

If you don't read fiction because you think it's "...

Just gonna keep sayin'...

LHP (Even Number’s) Test Questions and Answers to ...

A matter of survival

Family guy

Open Your Eyes

NdT: "We won the lottery"

Questions Oct 10

This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ....

Nobel Peace Prize

“We need to fight isolation”

“The universe is under no obligation to make sense...

Hegel’s Absolute, “truly a Professor's God”

Without a College Degree, Life in America Is Stagg...

Senator Butler

Questions Oct 5

Ban book bans

Midterm report presentations

Questions Oct 3

Wallace Stevens, peripatetic poet

Maybe in Your Lifetime, People Will Live on the Mo...

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Planting seeds

One thing is certain: if our educational system does not honestly and explicitly promote the central tenet of science—that nothing is sacred—then we encourage myth and prejudice to endure. We need to equip our children with tools to avoid the mistakes of the past while constructing a better, and more sustainable, world for themselves and future generations. We won’t do that by dodging inevitable and important questions about facts and faith. Instead of punting on those questions, we owe it to the next generation to plant the seeds of doubt." Lawrence M. Krauss, "Teaching Doubt"-The New Yorker

Maturity = Enlightenment = Courage

Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. this immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”–that is the motto of enlightenment. Kant

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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The Philosophers' Magazine TPM

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WJ with "younger, shallower brother" Henry

Enlightened thoughts

“Reason drives your search to make sense of the world by pushing you to ask why things are as they are. For theoretical reason, the outcome of that search becomes science; for practical reason, the outcome is a more just world.”

“A defence of the Enlightenment is a defence of the modern world, along with all its possibilities for self-criticism and transformation. If you’re committed to Enlightenment, you’re committed to understanding the world in order to improve it.”

“Freedom cannot simply mean doing whatever strikes you at the moment: that way you're a slave to any whim or passing fancy. Real freedom involves control over your life as a whole, learning to make plans and promises and decisions, to take responsibility for your actions' consequences.”

“Doing what you can to move your part of the world closer to the way that it should be, while never losing sight of the way that it is, is what being a grown-up comes to.”
― Susan Neiman, Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

The thinkers of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment saw an urgent need for a secular foundation for morality, because they were haunted by a historical memory of centuries of religious carnage: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, the European wars of religion. They laid that foundation in what we now call humanism, which privileges the well-being of individual men, women, and children over the glory of the tribe, race, nation, or religion. It is individuals, not groups, who are sentient—who feel pleasure and pain, fulfillment and anguish. Whether it is framed as the goal of providing the greatest happiness for the greatest number or as a categorical imperative to treat people as ends rather than means, it was the universal capacity of a person to suffer and flourish, they said, that called on our moral concern.”

“The Enlightenment thus translated the ultimate question ‘How can I be saved?’ into the pragmatic ‘How can I be happy?’—thereby heralding a new praxis of personal and social adjustment.”

“The ideals of the Enlightenment are products of human reason, but they always struggle with other strands of human nature: loyalty to tribe, deference to authority, magical thinking, the blaming of misfortune on evildoers.”― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

“We must cultivate our garden.”

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.” Voltaire

“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”

“To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.” ― John Locke

“One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.”

“I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore cannot but confess here again,–that external and internal sensation are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this DARK ROOM. For, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: which, would they but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.”

― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.”

“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

“It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear... ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... [Jefferson, Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]”

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”― Albert Einstein

“There is strong shadow where there is much light.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen

“How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”
― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”
― William Blake

“To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education

“We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before, everything was in a fog.”
― Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit

“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
==
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American life is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

“If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
==
On the other hand, eastern enlightenment...

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

How to add links, embed videos etc.

Videos: in Blogger, after clicking on "New Post"-- 1. Copy the URL of the video you want to share. 2. Click on "More options" on the far right of the toolbar above, then Insert Video icon (3d from left) 3. Select YouTube 5. Select Search 6. Paste the URL & Select it == To insert links: 1. Highlight a word or phrase in your text 2. Click on the link icon 3. Paste the URL address of the site or passage you want to link to == To insert graphics, either just copy-&-paste... OR, click on the "insert image" icon (to the right of the link icon, to the left of the "insert video" icon) and select the appropriate option == To embed Google Books pages: 1. Find the book you want to embed. 2. Select Preview 3. Select (click on) the page you want to embed. 4. Click More Actions (the three vertical dots in the upper right) 5. Select Embed (unless you just want to link the page) 6. Copy the code 7. In edit mode on blogger, select the pen icon in the upper left and click on HTML view 8. Paste the code == Familiarize yourself with the edit icons in the drop-down menu (link, insert image, insert video, etc.) Always make sure, after you Publish, that the formatting is correct on the blogsite. If not, click More options (the three horizontal dots in the upper right) and then Clear Formatting on the far right (the T with a diagonal slash).

London '94

A street artist did this in about five minutes, for just a few pounds. I share it mostly to tweak my friend who paid $$$ for a professional portrait that (in my opinion) looks less like him now than mine looks like me then.

Final report blogpost

OPEN YOUR EMAIL AUTHOR INVITATION, then look for the NEW POST tab in the upper right on our blogsite (do NOT create a new blog, post your final report on our site)... The topic should complement, clarify, and elaborate on some central aspect of your final presentation. Share and defend your own view(s), if you have any. Address one or more of your discussion questions.... Aim for a minimum of 1,000 words... Include relevant links (at least half a dozen or so), embeds (a couple), and graphics (one or two): how to do it... When referencing texts we've read in the course, cite page #s and abbreviations (LHP=Little History of Philosophy, LH=Life is Hard, SSHM-Sick Souls Healthy Minds, WGU=Why Grow Up, F=Fantasyland)... Make sure your post has formatted correctly. If not, use the Clear formatting command in the toolbar in the upper right, above, to fix it... You can continue to edit and revise until the final draft is due...

How to prepare for an exam: RELAX, says WJ

If you want really to do your best in an examination, fling away the book the day before, say to yourself, “I won’t waste another minute on this miserable thing, and I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.” Say this sincerely, and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method permanently. William James, “Gospel of Relaxation" If you’ve been up all night cramming, in other words, good luck. You’ll need it. But if you’ve been diligent, have steeped yourself in the subject all semester long, and either went out to play or to an early bed the night before, your luck will be the residue of design. You’ll do fine. Relax. But don’t try too hard to relax. It is needless to say that that is not the way to do it. The way to do it, paradoxical as it may seem, is genuinely not to care whether you are doing it or not. Care later. On exam day just show up and do your best.

Hitch vs. nihilism

A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called ‘meaningless’ except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.” Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

WJ & Josiah Royce at Chocorua

Previously - old announcements

APR 26 Final blogpost due, complementing your presentation (post earlier for constructive feedback--1,000 words minimum, include embedded links, video & graphics)... PHIL 1030, sections H1, H2, H3: TTh 9:40, 1 pm, 2:40; in HONR 218... phil.oliver@mtsu.edu ... DEC 10 Final report blogpost due (post earlier draft for feedback)... If you're not yet an AUTHOR, didn't PRESENT, or want FEEDBACK... We're having technical issues with the site refusing to allow additional authors, I suspect that's because so many pending invitations have not yet been opened. If you have not done so, OPEN your author invitation please. If this problem persists, EMAIL your blogpost (early draft or final version) to me directly: phil.oliver@mtsu.edu... Underline the words/phrases you intended to link, and footnote them with the intended link destination. Also indicate what other blog content you intended to include (video, graphic, Google Books page etc.)... IF YOU WANT FEEDBACK ON YOUR FINAL REPORT BLOGPOST... you need to push PUBLISH... IF YOU DID NOT DELIVER YOUR FINAL REPORT PRESENTATION... and we've not already agreed to let your final report grade ride entirely on the blog post, email me ASAP... IF YOU DID NOT POST AN EARLY DRAFT...you should take a look at some of my comments on others' drafts, especially regarding the addition of links and other bloggish content. And DO proofread, eliminate grammatical and spelling errors, etc. IF YOUR POST FORMATS INCORRECTLY, highlight it and use the "Clear Formatting" icon on the far right (the T with a diagonal slash)... PHIL 1030, sections 10, 11, & 13: TTh 9:40, 11:20, 1 pm; in JUB 204... ...CoPhi returns August 29, 2023. OCT 12 EXAM 1-drawn from the EVEN-numbered Questions (2, 4, 6 etc.) posted prior to each class (so that's the Study Guide: just revisit the archive, in the sidebar below)...AUDIO REVIEW linked under "How to prepare for an exam"... AUG 31 Socrates and Plato-LHP 1. Recommended: FL 1-2. HWT Intro & prologue... Questions pertaining to the assigned reading will normally be posted the day before each class. Try to find the answers in the text, and post your thoughts in the comments space below the questions. Some will be on the exams. Questions pertaining to the recommended texts will appear as bonus questions, with correct answers earning full credit... NOTE: Almost had a situation yesterday that would have required us to meet remotely today via Zoom, fortunately that didn't eventuate. But if it ever does, WATCH THIS SPACE for the Zoom link and details... AUG 29 Introductions. Post your response to these questions, interpreted any way you like: Who are you? Why are you here? And, What do you think Philosophy is? Do you have a favorite philosopher? Do you have an easily-summarized personal philosophy? (Maybe something short like Charlie Brown's sister Sally's?--"No!")... And see the syllabus (linked below) for recommended readings, videos, & podcasts...

Tech assistance quick guide

FACULTY QUICK GUIDE FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
If you need immediate assistance in an in-person classroom: Call the Help Desk 615-898-5345 and a team will be dispatched ASAP.
If you are teaching web-assisted or remotely and you need technical assistance with Panopto, Zoom, or D2L: Call FITC 615-904-8189 or email itdacad@mtsu.edu
If you are teaching a class designated online and need assistance: Call MTSU Online 615-904-8276 or email online@mtsu.edu
If you have a pedagogy or course design question: Call the LT&ITC 615-494-7671 or email ltanditc@mtsu.edu
If you need to request a hotspot or temporary-use laptop: Click on this link: https://www.mtsu.edu:8443/itd/equipment-request/index.php
If you are using lecture capture and/or recording Zoom sessions and need to review policy and procedure (includes recommended syllabi statements): Click on this link: https://mtsu.edu/stayoncourse/faculty/lecture-capture.php; Watch the Lecture Capture Quick Start video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT0-70L14A
If you need to find additional resources for online, remote, and web-assisted teaching: Click on this link: https://mtsu.edu/stayoncourse/faculty/index.php
Fall Semester 2020

Lifting the veil

Appearance and reality

Planning the day

“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” Anthony Trollope

"Keep a'goin'..." Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson), Nashville

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." E.B. White

Home

"When I discovered that Apollo 8 was the only crew in which all the marriages survived (astronaut careers were notoriously hard on marriages) it didn’t surprise me. In a singularly beautiful story, it seemed only fitting that the first men to leave Earth considered home to be the most important place in the universe.” Robert Kurson, Rocket Men
"You are here" - That's here, that's home, that's us... "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." Carl Sagan

“To a wise man the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.” Democritus

Why we begin class with news, history, and (sometimes) poetry

News, when pursued honestly, is not just a matter of opinion or partisan preference. It's a crucial part of the philosophers' quest.

History's errors, as George Santayana said, are sure to be repeated if we don't study and learn its lessons.

Poetry is as close as we can come to communicating that whereof we cannot directly speak.

News, history, and poetry, in measured doses, move us closer to reality

Philosophers seek wisdom, which is inseparable from reality, honesty, truth, and the facts. To shun the dogged search for truth and reality is to live in Fantasyland.

Whatever you may think of the positions taken by its editorial board and opinion columnists, the New York Times is a journalistically credible source of objective news and fascinating cultural reflection. As a student at MTSU you are entitled to a free digital subscription... here's how to get it. Here's why you shouldn't squander that opportunity!

Free digital access to current and archived New York Times content for MTSU faculty, staff, and students. Create a personal account using your MTSU email address at http://www.nytimes.com/passes. Resource provided by MTSU Academic Affairs.
Current digital subscribers or members of a group subscription are not eligible to receive an NYTimes academic pass account through MTSU. You must cancel your current subscription over the phone at 1-800-NYTIMES (800-698-4637) before you can create an account with an academic pass.

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James Union Building (JUB)

Home of the peripatetic, pluralistic, social philosophy of "co"...*

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