- WGU -p.192. #H1 Kenji, #H2 Kaitlyn Woodland, #H3 Evan Burrell
- SSHM ch1 Determinism and Despair, & WJ, The Dilemma of Determinism (1897) - in BNA, on reserve - #H1 Ally Brumfield, #H2 Sawyer Crain, #H3 Bobby Goodroe
- Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard Intro-1 Infirmity (on reserve), #H2 Samwaeil Bowles
SSHM ch1
1. Calvinism set out, for Henry James Sr., what impossible task?
2. Kaag thinks the Civil War gave WJ his first intimation that what?
3. WJ's entire life had been premised on what expectation?
4. What did WJ say (in 1906, to H.G. Wells) about "SUCCESS"?
5. What Stoic hope did young WJ share with his friend Tom Ward?
6. What thought seeded "the dilemma of determinism" for WJ?
7. As WJ explicated determinism in 1884, the future has no what?
8. WJ found what in Huxley's evolutionary materialism alarming?
9. Determinism has antipathy to the idea of what?
10. To the "sick soul," what seems blind and shallow?
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Setiya Intro, ch1
1. What reminder does Kieran Setiya say he needed when he was younger? What kind of philosophy did his teachers say he needed? (pref) What has he experienced since age 27?
2. What is moral philosophy about?
3. Does Setiya think "everything happens for a reason"? What were Job's friends wrong about?
4. What did Nietzsche say about happiness and the English?
5. Who is Susan Gubar?
6. To whom should disability matter?
7. What's the difference between disease and illness?
8. What does Setiya think Aristotle gets wrong?
9. Who are Setiya's heroes?
10. What does Setiya say about Marx's vision of communist society?
11. What was Harriet Johnson's reply to Peter Singer?
12. What did Setiya appreciate about his fifth urologist?
13. What, contrary to Descartes, does pain teach us about our bodies?
FL 41-42
1. What became of the 1998 study that promoted the false belief that vaccines cause autism?
FL-1: In Fantasyland, Andersen notes the fallout from the 1998 study linking vaccines to autism, which became a foundation for modern vaccine skepticism. Despite being debunked and retracted, the study’s effects persist. The misinformation amplified on social media continues to influence public opinion, making the anti-vaccine movement a lasting issue in the U.S. as part of the broader rejection of mainstream science.
ReplyDeleteFL-2: Andersen discusses how small numbers of people refusing vaccines can threaten herd immunity, especially with highly contagious diseases like measles. He explains that only a modest decline in vaccination rates can weaken herd immunity, highlighting how belief-driven choices, even by a small minority, can endanger public health.
FL-3: He argues that mass killers are often mythologized in ways that reflect societal fantasies about heroism, rebellion, or individualism gone wrong. This glamorization, combined with a culture of gun rights advocacy, fosters a climate where violent fantasies resonate with certain individuals.
FL-4: The “demented” letter in 1995 was written by Charlton Heston, a prominent figure in the NRA, who framed gun rights as essential to American identity and freedom. Andersen describes how Heston's rhetoric contributed to the good of the pro-gun movement by appealing to deeply held fantasies of American freedom and resistance to government control.
H01
ReplyDeleteSSHM 1. Calvinism- the belief that God has already determined everyone’s lives and whether they will go to heaven or hell- swept Henry James Sr. into the impossible task of exercising free will. This led him to a state of religious and psychological turmoil as he navigated the conflict between his faith and actions.
SSHM 4. James stated that the treacherous journey for “bitch-goddess” success is a disease. He argued that he, among many others, would sell their soul in favor of material wealth. People will lose their humanity and work for decades to obtain success, only to realize that they were never truly living.
SSHM 7. According to William James, the future has no hidden trails waiting to be discovered; everything in existence is set in place.
Roman Phillips H#03
ReplyDeleteSSHM Chapter 1
2. While Louis Menard argued that the Civil War set the context for James's philosophical studies: the devastation of a conflict, motivated by grand ideological visions, convinced James and his fellow pragmatists to fashion a philosophy of modest, testable beliefs and goals. Kaag, however, believed that the Civil War affected James's perception in a more immediate and rattling way. While watching helplessly as loved ones went off to war and experiencing the fragileness of human life, James began to understand that he was not free, but his fate was already predestined.
5. James wrote to his friend Tom Ward in June of 1866 encouraging him to take up Marcus Aurelius. James expressed how everything can be stripped from a person except his/her free response to the horrible situation into which he/she has been thrown. Stoicism presumes there are two basic parts of every person: the bodily self that is subject to natural laws and the "ruling" spiritual self (a soul) that can determine its orientation to the working of nature.
7. WJ explained determinism in 1884 by expressing, "The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in his womb; the part we call the present is compatible with only one totality."
LIH
2. Philosophy is much more than moral obligation and the subject is expansive as it addresses everything in life that matters. Philosophers study abstract questions and dispute each other's views, they trade in thought experiments making the familiar strange, but moral philosophy has a practical purpose. Through much of history, there was no clear distinction between philosophical ethics and self-help because the assumption was that philosophical reflection on how to live should make our lives better.
4. The truth is that we should not aim to be happy but to live as well as we possibly can, but Nietzche said, "Humanity does not strive for happiness, only the English do." This was a jab at philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who only valued pleasure over pain.
Fantasyland
3. According to Andersen, most experts think that "most mass killers are not psychotics or paranoid schizophrenics in the throes of clinical delusion; rather they're citizens of Fantasyland, unhappy people with flaws and failures they blame on others, the system, the elitists, the world. They worry those resentments into sensational fantasies of paramilitary vengeance, and they know that acting out those fantasies will make a big splash and force the rest of us to pay attention to them for the first time" (383).
#H01
ReplyDeleteSSHM
1. The impossible task that Calvinism set for James Sr was to exercise your free will in order to satisfy a God. Your actions had to matter in some moral and existential way.
2. Kaag Believed that the civil war gave WJ the impression that we are not free but fated for the inevitable doom that is our world.
4. WJ said that the worship of the bitch-godess success was a disease. That people will lie, cheat, and steal for success but are not really living. They will die with regret.
H02
ReplyDeleteSSHM
1. For Henry James Sr., Calvinism set out an impossible task of exercising the human will freely and meaningfully in order to satisfy God who was both omnipotent and removed. Meaning that it is impossible to exercise human will and action in order to completely satisfy God. However, in God's eyes, the actions to be meaningful were essentially useless. God might have a plan but human evils exist, which can impact or change God's plan.
3.William James' life was premised on the expectation that he could exercise his free will. James' father gave the aspect of free will to his children; making, William James believe that he could do whatever he wanted, which he then discovered he couldn't. I mean if you are raised in an environment where you believe freedom and free will can be exercised you would believe it.
4. William James, foully, said, "The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That- with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word 'success'- is our national disease." He mentions that the disease progresses and then once you die you are just faced with death and regret.
#H01
ReplyDeleteSSHM-
1. For Henry James Sr. calvinism set out the impossible task of pleasing an omnipotent and infinitely removed God, with one's free will, meaningfully. This caused him to have a spiritual and personal crisis as it seemed that the acts of man no matter how good or bad mattered not in the eyes of his God.
2. Kaag says that the civil war gave James his first intimation that rather than being free we were fated, that we had a set path for us and there was not much we could do to avoid it.
3. William James’ life was premised on the expectation that he could exercise his own free will, and in Kaag’s words “It was only a matter of time before he discovered that he couldn’t.”