1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
2. What did the later Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations) mean by "language games," what did he think was the way to solve philosophical problems, and what kind of language did he think we can't have?
3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt learn about him at his trial?
4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
5. Both Popper and Kuhn changed the way people understood science. What did Popper say about the method for checking a hypothesis and what name did Kuhn give to major breaks in the history of science?
6. What is the Law of Double Effect? Many people who disagree with its principle--and with Thomson's violinist thought experiment--think that whatever our intentions we shouldn't play who?
WGU
1. Being grown-up is widely considered to be what? Do you agree?
2. Is Leibniz's optimism more likely to appeal to a small child? Why? 3
3. What was Kant's definition of Enlightenment? 5
4. What do Susan Neiman's children say she can't understand? Do you agree? 9
5. Why is judgement important? Is this a surprising thing to hear from a Kantian? 11
6. Being a grown-up comes to what? 12
7. What did Paul Goodman say about growing up? Are his observations are still relevant? 19
8. Why (in Neiman's opinion) should you not think this is the best time of your life, if you're a young college student? 20
9. What did Samoan children have that ours lack? 27 Can we fix that?
10. What is philosophy's greatest task? 31
Weiner ch4
- Thoreau was among the first western philosophers to do what? How does this make him like Marcus Aurelius? Is that good, philosophically?
- What's the difference between wilderness and wildness? Is it good to be wild, in the Thoreauvian sense? Are you wild that way?
- What was Thoreau's view of the rationalism-empiricism debate, and the reliability of the senses? Do you agree with him?
- What's another way Thoreau is like Marcus, and how is he like Socrates? Do you "vacillate" too?
- Why did Thoreau say he went to live at Walden? Do you think such an experience would expand your sense of what it means to live and/or "see"?
FL
- What did Henry David Thoreau do in 1844, at age 27? What American fantasy does Andersen say this epitomized? Do you agree? Do most Americans make an effort to live in harmony with nature? Do you?
Discussion Questions:
- Was Wittgenstein's main message in the Tractatus correct? 203
- What are some of the "language games" you play? (What are some different things you use language for?) 204
- Can there be a "private language"? 206
- "Eichmann wasn't responsible..." 208 Agree?
- Are unthinking people as dangerous as evil sadists? 211
- Is "the banality of evil" an apt phrase for our time? 212
- Was Popper right about falsifiability? 218
- Was Kuhn right about paradigms? 220
- How would you respond it you woke up with a violinist plugged into your kidneys? Is this a good analogy for unwanted or unintended pregnancy? 226
FL
- Pro wrestling is obviously staged. Why is it so popular?
- What do Burning Man attendees and other adults who like to play dress-up tell us about the state of adulthood in contemporary America? 245
- What do you think of Fantasy sports? 248
- Was Michael Jackson a tragic figure? 250
- Is pornography "normal"? 251
Personally it seems like Wittgenstein was overcomplicating the issue. He claims that he is trying to "let the fly out of jar" but then never really offers any solve. His thesis can be easily explained as, language is insufficient. I agree with this truly, but for practical reasons they aren't. There will be things you experience that you simply cannot put to words, and that is ok. As for his "game" example, It seems that a game is just an active form of entertaining oneself.
ReplyDelete1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
ReplyDeleteThat the most important questions about ethics and religion are past human understanding and if they can’t be discussed meaningfully then they shouldn’t be discussed at all.
2. What did the later Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations) mean by "language games," what did he think was the way to solve philosophical problems, and what kind of language did he think we can't have?
Language games are activities that we perform through use of words. He thought the way to solve philosophical problems was to ask the right questions. Wittgenstein thought we couldn’t have “private” language
1. I feel like Wittengenstein's tractatus is flawed because how will we grow and learn if we don't address the things we don't understand?
DeleteHannah Ferreira H01
ReplyDelete1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
The main message of Tractatus was that human understanding was not sufficient to understand the main issues of ethics and religion and that those who did not have anything significant to contribute to a conversation about them should stay silent.
3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt learn about him at his trial?
Adolf Eichmann was in charge of transporting the Jews of Europe to concentration camps in Poland. He organized a railway system that was responsible for this. Arendt learned that he was not deliberately evil like many had thought, he simply had not thought too hard about what he was doing at the time. He simply thought he was doing his job, and did not have any hatred toward Jewish people. However, he still obeyed Nazi orders and was guilty of evil.
4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
She used the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe the way such a common, ordinary, not evil person had obeyed Nazi orders simply because he felt obeying orders was the right thing to do.
3. What was Kant's definition of Enlightenment? “Coming of age.”
ReplyDelete6. Being a grown-up comes to what? “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.”
ReplyDelete10. What is philosophy's greatest task? “To enlarge our sense of possibility.”
ReplyDeleteWGU 4
ReplyDeleteSusan Neiman’s children say that she can’t understand the abysmal nature of contemporary culture because she doesn’t use social media. I disagree, I think people who are off of social media see it as much worse than it actually is. I’m not going to deny that social media, by nature, is not the greatest, but it is not as awful as people make it. It can be very helpful sometimes.
WGU 8
ReplyDeleteIn Neiman’s opinion, young college students shouldn’t think college is the best time of their lives because this is a hard time in a person’s life, due to hormones and things. So, if you believe that this is the best time of your life you will grow to dread and fear the future.
I find this so interesting because I feel like if we don't take advantage of the time we have now, who knows if we will have a future. This mindset it entirely based on if one is guaranteed the future, THEN we could wait but honestly it just feels like a dismal way to look at life. Especially when you think about when exactly is the future where you CAN enjoy your life?
DeleteWGU 9
ReplyDeleteSamoan children had the experience of making meaningful contribution to their community. I don’t think this is something that needs to be fixed. Children will have many years to make contributions to their communities when they’re older. As children, they should be allowed to explore their environment and be kids. They shouldn’t be relied on for important tasks. They will gain this experience of contribution when they are older.
1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
ReplyDeleteImportant questions surrounding ethics and religion go beyond human understanding and if we can't talk meaningfully about them then we shouldn't talk about it at all.
WGU #1
ReplyDeleteBeing grown-up is widely considered to be what? Do you agree?
Being grown-up is widely considered to be a matter of renouncing your hopes and dreams, accepting the limits of reality you are given, and resigning yourself to a life that will be less adventurous, worthwhile and significant than you supposed when you began it.
I would agree to some extent that being grown-up can include coming to terms with the fact that life probably isn't the same as you had once viewed it; it can be much more stressful and difficult to get to where you want to be or where you wanted to be when you were younger. Which can be traced back to the notion that reality can be cruel and difficult and in some instances, entirely out of our control. However being grown-up can also mean having the freedom and ability to try and achieve the dreams you once had, the path just might not look the way you thought it would.
8. Why (in Neiman's opinion) should you not think this is the best time of your life, if you're a young college student?
ReplyDeleteDescribing the time period between 18-21 as the best time in a young person's life only makes it harder for the people going through it. If young people see life as only going downhill they won't expect much from life.
10. What is philosophy's greatest task?
Philosophy's greatest task is to enlarge our sense of possibility.
4.“The banality of evil”
ReplyDelete5. Popper said that a hypothesis had to be falsifiable, they had to be able to be tested and potentially disproven. Kuhn called major breaks in science paradigm shifts.
6.The Law of Double Effect says that it may be permissible to harm an individual while acting for the sake of a proportionate good, given that the harm is not an intended means to the good but merely a foreseen side-effect. Don’t play God.
Adriana Ramirez Speis H03
ReplyDeleteLHP
1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus? The main message of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus was that we have a very limited understanding that most ethical and religious matters ie outside of. We should not comment on these matters if we cannot meaningfully contribute to the conversation. 2. What did the later Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations) mean by "language games," what did he think was the way to solve philosophical problems, and what kind of language did he think we can't have? Language has many different uses besides labeling things and we would be foolish to assume all languages have the same functions. We cannot have our own private language because our individual minds are not private. 3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt learn about him at his trial?
Adolf Eichmann was a nazi administrator responsible for the railways used to transport Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Arendt learned at his trial that he was a coward who did not hate Jews. He did not ‘think’ about his actions of the consequences they would have. 4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” based upon her observations of Eichmann’s ordinariness.
5. Both Popper and Kuhn changed the way people understood science. What did Popper say about the method for checking a hypothesis and what name did Kuhn give to major breaks in the history of science?
Popper said that people must look for evidence to prove their hypothesis false, because if you’re only looking for affirmation, that is all you will see. You will ignore the “black swans” and jump to potentially face conclusions. Kuhn named major breaks in the history of science “paradigm shifts.”
6. What is the Law of Double Effect? Many people who disagree with its principle--and with Thomson's violinist thought experiment--think that whatever our intentions we shouldn't play who? The Law of Double Effect defends “predictable bad side effects of an action with a good intention” while condemning deliberate harm. An example of this would be stand your ground laws in which killing someone if you believe they are intending to kill you is permissible. Thomson believed, however, that we shouldn’t try to play God.
H02 - WGU 8
ReplyDeleteNeiman believes that young people shouldn't consider college the best time of their life because that will lead to them viewing life as only possibly going downhill from here. This will overall lead to less joy when thinking about the future.
ReplyDelete3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt learn about him at his trial?
Eichmann was a nazi who oversaw the the transportation of Jews and other "undesirables" to the concentration camps, Arendt learned he was an "unthinking man" who was remarkably simple and was just following rules and orders because that is what he was brought up and raised to do.
4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
"Banality of evil"
H02 - WGU 1
ReplyDeleteBecoming grown-up is widely considered to be the time where you abandon your hopes and dreams and tune into reality. I agree that this is generally what adulthood is associated with, but I don't think this needs to be the case. While you do need to get more in tune with the limitations of what is realistically possible, I don't think this should mean you completely dismiss your hopes and dreams.
Tessa Wallace H03
ReplyDelete1. The main message of Tractatus was that people could not understand the issues of ethics and religion enough to contribute anything so we should just stay quiet.
3. Eichmann was a German in charge of making sure that the Jews got to the constatation camps on the trains. Arendt learned that he was stupid for just following orders and that he was given. This proved that he was not evil just following the orders of evil people.
4 Arendt’s phrase was the banality of evil this is used to describe the way Eichmann’s ordinariness was.
H02- 4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
ReplyDeleteShe described it as the "banality of evil".
Adriana Ramirez Speis H03 WGU
ReplyDelete10. Philosophy’s greatest task is to “enlarge our sense of possibility.”
9. Samoan children had “the experience of making meaningful contributions to a community.” I believe we could have this in the USA but it would require cultural and possibly geographic change. People would need to feel like they are a part of a community, possibly requiring smaller yards, porches closer to the street, more walking and biking, less apartments, etc. An example I can think of is a lemonade stand. I used to have those growing up but now I rarely see them around.
Adriana Ramirez Speis H03 WGU
ReplyDelete8. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking college is the best time of our lives when it is in fact the hardest and life will only continue to go downhill. I realized back in the beginning of February I had a pretty busy week ahead of me. I had my midterm presentation, my final state AEMT practical, and I was presenting at a conference I had to drive four hours to get to. But I told myself, “next week will be better.” Now it seems, every week since has been just as busy and it never ends. I truly feel like a hamster running on a wheel. I told my friends and they said “welcome to adulthood.” Maybe Susan Neiman is right because I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life!
Adriana Ramirez Speis H03 WGU
ReplyDelete3. kant’s definition of enlightenment was “reason’s emancipation from its self-incurred immaturity.”
Adriana Ramirez Speis H03 WGU
ReplyDelete4. Susan Neiman’s kids say that she cannot understand the “abysmal nature of contemporary culture” because she doesn’t use social media. I agree with them. I think you can somewhat get an idea by paying attention to the news and people around you, but I don’t think you can truly grasp how horrible it is without taking a peek at social media and the content posted to it.