LHP
1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure? Are they both right?
2. What view did Mill defend in On Liberty? Is that view consistent with his criticisms of Bentham?
3. What's the benefit to society of open discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic? Is our society generally "open" in this sense, or dogmatic?
4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860? What do you think of his response to the Bishop on the matter of ancestry?
5. The single best idea anyone ever had was what, according to whom? Can you think of a better one?
6. What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis? What does it take to turn a theory into something more?
7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was most of his writing about? What do you think of his "leap" and his irrationalism?
8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?
9. What is "the subjective point of view"? Do we need to value objectivity as well?
10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think the whole of human history could be explained? DId he have a point?
11. What was Marx's "vision"? Is it an appealing one
12. What did Marx call religion? Was he being unfair?
2. What view did Mill defend in On Liberty? Is that view consistent with his criticisms of Bentham?
3. What's the benefit to society of open discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic? Is our society generally "open" in this sense, or dogmatic?
4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860? What do you think of his response to the Bishop on the matter of ancestry?
5. The single best idea anyone ever had was what, according to whom? Can you think of a better one?
6. What scientific developments since Darwin's time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or hypothesis? What does it take to turn a theory into something more?
7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was most of his writing about? What do you think of his "leap" and his irrationalism?
8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?
9. What is "the subjective point of view"? Do we need to value objectivity as well?
10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think the whole of human history could be explained? DId he have a point?
11. What was Marx's "vision"? Is it an appealing one
12. What did Marx call religion? Was he being unfair?
HWT
1. What two concepts from Indian and Buddhist philosophy are essentially the same?
2. What are the four stages of Hindu life?
3. What is "the smile of philosophy"?
FL
1. What were Americans spending a third of their time doing, by the end of the '50s?
2. Who grew up in Marceline, MO?
3. What fantasy did Hugh Hefner sell?
4. What was added to currency in 1954?
5. What did Jane Roberts "discover" in 1963?
6. The sudden embrace of what, in the 60s, helped turn America into Fantasyland?
LHP 10-12
ReplyDelete10. Karl Marx was angry at the alienation of the working class, who were barely surviving, while wealthy capitalists grew wealthier off of the bloodshed of the people. He saw this as unacceptable. Marx invented "conflict theory," which views struggle between social classes leading to inevitable progress. He also believed that history has strong patterns, like Hegel. Marx believed the changes stemmed from economic forces. I definitely think he had a point. The wealth gap is growing, and the working class has no stake or say in how they are treated. He would likely be horrified but unsurprised at the state of the world nowadays. Equality between classes and health care and education as a human right is definitely something I believe in pushing for. However, his ideas and teachings have been horribly and ruthlessly corrupted and executed, leading me to question if they are even possible. It looks good on paper, but I do wonder if it is realistic in such a self-centered world.
11. Marx's "vision" could be summed up in his words: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This is the basis for communism. Essentially, the workers are put in the positions to ensure everybody is accounted for and has what they need to survive, and in the people work to make this vision a possibility. It is the definition of co-operation.
12. Marx called religion "the opium of the people." He believed that religion blinded people and kept them from reaching their potential by keeping them sedated. I am not sure if I agree with this. Many people find immense value and meaning in religion, and it positively benefits their lives. Who would we be to take that away from them? As long as they contribute to society and treat everyone with respect, I do not see the issue in it at all. Provided, or course, that they do not attempt to pass religion into legislation.
I agree with your point on question 12 that people should absolutely be allowed to partake in religion as long as the separation of church and state is maintained. I also agree that people find immense value in religion, but I can also see his point in that many people take their devotion very seriously and are sometimes unwilling to question what they believe leading to a sort of blindness.
DeleteHTW
ReplyDelete3. What is "the smile of philosophy"?
The smile of Philosophy is an attitude that approches philosophy with lightness, humor, and acceptance of lifes paradoxes. This idea values the journey of thoughts of joy rather than seriousness or the demand of answers
Jay Triplett, Section 2:
ReplyDeleteLHP
1.Mill thought that Bentham cared too little about how pleasure was produced. Because of this, he distinguished high pleasures, which catered more to intellect and thought, and low pleasures, which are simple enough that even animals could experience them. I believe that both of them can be correct. Some people may enjoy more thoughtful pleasure experiences, while others prefer simpler acts.
2. This goes against his earlier criticisms of Bentham, where he describes how a person should experience pleasure. His views of “fulfilling one’s potential” are limited to his own experience and tastes and don’t seem to account for the complexities of the human mind.
3.Mill posed that open discussion benefited society by forcing people to challenge their beliefs. Being dogmatic, Mill argues, will cause people to harbor harmful, unfounded prejudices. Our society has gone through waves of being more “open” and dogmatic, but I’d argue that we tend to be more dogmatic. People get uncomfortable when confronted with something abnormal and think their comfort should be everyone’s priority. As biased humans, we tend towards a self-centered way of thinking, since our experience is the one we know best. However, this also causes us to be less tolerant of change generally.
4. Bishop Wilberforce was debating Thomas Henry Huxley. I believe that Huxley’s response to the Bishop was an appropriate, equivalent response to the one he received. Bishop Wilberforce was obviously against the idea of evolution, and continuing with a one-sided scientific debate was pointless.
5. According to Daniel Dennett, the single best idea anyone has ever had is that humans aren’t entirely separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. In my opinion, one of the best ideas anyone has had is that of free will and self-determination. I don’t think we could have gotten this far in society, with all its scientific and technological innovations, if we believed that we lived in a predetermined world with a scripted life.
6. The excavation of transitional species from early apes, such as Australopithecus and Homo erectus, along with documented evolutions within species, proved that humans evolved gradually over millions of years from our last common ancestor with apes. Verified, repeated evidence can turn a theory into an accepted scientific fact.
7. I don’t agree with Kierkegaard’s message of unquestioningly trusting faith, similarly to how I disagree with Pascal’s wager. I prefer my sources to be verified, not based on assumptions.
8. Warburton argues that faith is irrational since it isn’t based on reason. I agree with him, since there’s no evidence that we can verify that proves we should believe in one mythos over another, or none at all.
9. The “subjective point of view” is the biased experience of a person making choices. I would place an equal importance on the objective point of view, like earlier philosophers like Hegel and Kant did, since the flourishing of an entire society will result in the flourishing of its people.
10. I think this point of view is understandable in the time period Marx lived in. Minimal human rights and labor laws created a monopolized work environment where countless people died and even more were pushed to the brink of death. The future of capitalism in a post-Industrial Revolution and pre-Soviet Union world looked bleak.
11. Marx’s vision was an egalitarian society where people shared resources and provided public assistance to everyone. In Marx’s world, people could flourish in their interests without being tied to grueling factory labor. This vision is appealing, especially in a time with such horrible public welfare.
12. I wouldn’t say Marx was being unfair with his judgment, since he witnessed firsthand how people clung to religion as an escape from their horrible conditions rather than trying to enact change.
I agree with you on number 3. I feel like we should all strive to be open-minded. I don't mean that you should abandon your beliefs just because someone argued against them, but I think it is better for everyone to talk in a professional way than scream at each other. Unfortunately, we tend to choose the screaming action and are more dogmatic, at least currently.
Delete1. Bentham thought that every kind of pleasure is just as inherently pleasurable as the next. Mill thought that some pleasures were better, the example that he gave was would it be better to be a contended pig rolling through mud or a sad human? he argued that being a sad human would be better, because a human can read and write and experience intellectual pleasures. I think they are both right. Bentham is right because some people do not like classical music or reading, but rather they enjoy eating or indulging in things that might not be deemed inherently better pleasures. But Mill is right because every person has a list of things that are more pleasurable than the next.
ReplyDelete3. Mill thought that open discussion was important to our society because it made people think critically about what they believe. If you're dogmatic then you just hold prejudices that you cant really defend. Our society is generally dogmatic in my opinion, were often taught things from a young age by our parents, and rarely do we feel the need to stray from those opinions, unless of course we are pushed to do so by having conversations. But in general humanity is not inclined to change their own views but rather change others.
11. Marx's view was one of communism. he believed that everyone should be equal and that the wealthy should be lowered, and the poor raised to an equal level. Of course this sounds appealing, at first. But it isn't realistic as you need to have a person or persons in power to keep a government and nation turning. But people in government will have more power and that isn't equal. Human beings are also inherently competitive, and in some cases this can be bad but in others this is what leads to change and innovation and, if everyone was the exact same and had the exact same life, why would anyone try to be better?
This is Kaitlyn Young section #2 btw
DeleteI agree with you. I think both Bentham and Mill can be right; it just depends on the circumstances. This might seem like a strange example, but where I am from, fishing and hunting are very popular. Some people get the same amount of "pleasure" from each; some people will get more pleasure from hunting, or vice versa. I believe it depends on the person and what they find as pleasure, so both are right in their own ways.
DeleteMill is one of the few philosiphers I can kind of agree with. I like his ideas on freedom and doing what you want as long as it doesn't harm others. Now, there still are some exceptions, but for the most part, that sounds like a good way to live to me
ReplyDeleteSection #1
DeleteAbby, I also like Mill's philosophy. And I think it's really interesting how relevant his ideas are nowadays. He was controversial during his time when it came to ideas of freedom and free speech, and maybe he would be controversial in America today? What does that say about our country? I highlighted the part where Mill's idea of freedom of speech unless it incites or enacts violence on someone else. I feel like our country is forgetting this but also forgetting his point about offense versus violence. Just because you don't agree with something, or it offends you, that doesn't mean that it is violence and should be restricted.
Antonella Comaschi #3
DeleteI agree with your statement, but how does someone know when their freedom is harming others? For example, I enjoy having the freedom to buy items like my phone or food but my phone is made with conflict materials that causes wars and even deaths.
Bella York, Section 3
ReplyDeleteReading about Kant reminded me of the philosophies my family taught me as a child. I'm not sure about other people's families, but mine was full of philosophy, and I didn't even know it. For example, one day I was hiking with my uncle and cousins. Being stupid kids, we were eating oranges and throwing the peels on the ground beside the trail. My uncle was quite mad, and told us to stop. One of us replied with "But they'll degrade into the ground it's fine." He replied with "That's true, but if everyone threw their peels on the ground, it wouldn't be fun to hike here anymore. If what you're doing wouldn't be good if everyone also did it, then you shouldn't do it." To my child self, this was an epiphany, and it shapes my actions to this very day
It's so important that we hold a strong yet flexible hold of our opinions and world views. Again, if everyone refused to change their mind, the world would be a worse place. Even if I feel very certain that my views are correct, I have to be open to changing them. It simply makes the most logical sense. I would want the people with whom I strongly disagree to listen to me so I could "win them over." Why should I be so arrogant as to think I can't be wrong?
Mackenzie Harris- Section 2
ReplyDelete1. He believed that pleasures could come from any part of life, and some could be better than others. I would say both are right in a way to me because I do think that you can take almost any part of life and turn it into a positive thing besides the obvious heartbreaks. I also agree that many pleasures can be better than others, and that even your lowest moment of pleasure would be better than being a pig in a mud puddle.
2. He defended in On Liberty the idea that paternalism towards adults is unacceptable, and that every adult should be able to live however they want as long as they do not harm anyone else in the process.
3. He believed that open discussion was a benefit to society because it forced people to think hard about what they believed in. He says that if you are dogmatic you will end up holding prejudices that you can't defend. I believe that our society wants to be open, but there is too much violence in this world for us to be truly open without people fearing for their safety.
4. Thomas Henry Huxley. His response to the Bishop on ancestry was funny and good to me because he is mocking the guy who is trying to mock a scientific idea. It has been proven that humans and monkeys as a category have very many similarities many people just don't want to believe that.
5. Daniel Dennett said that the best idea that anyone ever had was the Theory of Evolution. I think the best idea was the domestication of cats because they are the best.
Section #1
ReplyDeleteLHP
3. Mill said that having debates and conversations with people who hold a different opinion than your own can improve your own understanding of the world. I really agree with him about this because I have observed how closed-minded and "dogmatic" people have been in today's society (and throughout history). I don't think its smart or beneficial to claim to be certain about your opinion or spurn other people's perspectives. So many philosophers have asked, "How can we know anything? How can we be certain?" We really can't-- we learn new things everyday, and previously accepted claims are proven wrong constantly. That's why I like learning about new ideas in this class because I have never been exposed to them (at least not in great detail). It's interesting learning other people's philosophies and logical ways of thinking while comparing them to the beliefs that I've grown up with. I think I've benefited greatly from opening my mind to more possibilities of how the world works.
I totally agree with your opinion and appreciate your reasoning behind it. While we may think we know more than what we have already seen I would have to agree with your statement that "we learn new things everyday, and previously accepted claims are proven wrong constantly."
DeletePhuilopateer Iskandar
DeleteI do believe that it is important to debate about different ideas my only problem is that maybe both parties won't act in a way with each other that accepting of each others view one person can debate bring evidence and explain it in a polite way but then other person could just keep talking saying were wrong and not bring any substance to the coversation so i beleive it is important to debate others but in a way both parties are actually being courtious to the other.
Section #1
ReplyDeleteLHP
8. Warburton says that faith is irrational because it is not based on reason. I agree with this. If you have faith in something, then you are essentially putting your hope in it. You don't truly know for absolute certain that what you believe in is real or will happen. The only way to be absolutely certain about anything is through logic and reasoning that leads to an non-disprovable conclusion. I am not sure, though, that you cannot prove your faith or have logical reasoning behind your beliefs. I'm not well-educated on the validity of religion or faith-- I've always been a Christian, so I've tried not to doubt it. But until there is undeniable evidence that God exists or the Bible is telling the truth, I can't say for certain that my beliefs are right or wrong.
Section 3
DeleteI think it's tough for people to have a strong faith in anything, which is why Christianity is difficult to stay with. As humans, we are curious and always search for the answers. But faith humbles us in a way. We have to give up our doubt and understanding to rely on the idea of God. Contrary to this, I still think there is a lot of evidence for God just by how our world is constructed. I think science allows us to see the intricacy of God's design. This in a sense, is a foundation for our faith.
4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford in 1860? What do you think of his response to the Bishop on the matter of ancestry?
ReplyDeleteBishop Wilberforce debated Thomas Henry Huxley at Oxford in 1860. I personally love Huxley's response to Bishop, and find that while Bishop may have thought himself the intellectual superior to Huxley, he made himself more a fool than an intellect when he decided to mock Huxley.
8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteFaith is irrational according to Warburton because it requires belief without sufficient evidence or even against the evidence. From a logical stand point I would have to agree with Warburton but based off of my personal experience I have trouble understanding Warburton's reasoning. I do believe it comes down to what we define as faith which is of course different for different people, but in experience I do believe in faith.
I believe faith is rational because of one big reason that it excitis when i think about christinaity started over a thousand years ago and is still strongly believed in today so how could i say something is irrational if it has lasted for so long.
DeletePhilopateer iskandar section 3 I believe faith is rational because of one big reason that it excitis when i think about christinaity started over a thousand years ago and is still strongly believed in today so how could i say something is irrational if it has lasted for so long.
Deletethis was my comment i forgot to put my name
1. I think they are both right in a sense. Bentham's simple calculation will still differ from person to person because what brings happiness and does not cause pain to one person may do the opposite for someone else. I agree that there certainly are higher and lower pleasures, but to say that the higher pleasures offer a greater degree of happiness universally just because they are higher and more intellectual doesn't make sense to me. While some people may greatly prefer higher pleasures, not everyone will be partial to them.
ReplyDelete3. I think we have become largely dogmatic as a society today. So many people will closely follow the words and sentiments of those they trust without question and proceed to defend their position tooth and nail. It seems now more than ever that having a down-to-Earth rational debate without it devolving into a shouting match is extremely difficult. While politicians don't represent all of society, I have found the comparisons between the early TV presidential debates of the 60s-2000s with those in the last decade very eye-opening to the current state of our society's attitude toward discussion.
Section 2
ReplyDelete8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel Warburton? Do you agree?
According to Nigel Warburton, faith is irrational because it requires blind trust and risk without sufficient or any proof.
I agree that faith, then, is a highly irrational matter, but I would also then add that I believe to have a perspective at all is to have some degree of faith, whether religiously-rooted or not. In essence, if you follow the train of causes in any statement of proposed fact, I believe you must, at some point, arrive at an impasse where nothing but implication is at all tangible. For example, take the belief that the world I experience is real, as in it exists as many individual components which interact with each other in complex ways to enact what we call physics and matter. Ok, well how do I know what I experience isn’t an illusion or misleading in dramatic ways? In truth, I do not. The only thing compelling me to believe that this is true is the consistency of my experience. Sure, consistency is evidence, but not definitive proof. I could still be being deceived, and in fact have been already by my senses in ways I have been able to notice. That, I think, is faith. It is trust in that which cannot be truly proven.
Beyond firsthand experience, take something more removed, such as believing in the existence of atoms. I do, but I have never observed, firsthand, a single atom in isolation. I trust what I have been taught of them so far, enough for it to be an ingrained part of my conception of the world, but I have, again, had no experience of an atom. Even if I were shown an individual atom on electron microscope or some similar device. How am I to know for sure that the device is showing me atoms? I do not know how an electron microscope works, I did not invent it and have never built one, and am at best presented a blurry arrangement of what could be atoms. I trust that they exist, and that imaging of atoms is indeed that, an image of atoms, but faith is required to reach such a point.
Beyond secondhand information, there are beliefs in the origin of the universe like the Big Bang theory, the age of the Earth, or what life was like before humanity, but every one of those scenarios requires a substantial amount of faith to support any theory regarding them.
I bring up exclusively secular examples partly because I resonate the most with them personally and feel better equipped to properly discuss them than religious ones, and because faith is often associated only with religion, as if it were absent in science, but I feel that this is not true at all. I think the true “distinction” between the two is that religion typically relies more so on faith and less on consistency to back up said faith (though I feel separating all religion and all science into two camps is pretty reductive and overly simplistic, foregoing the complexities and varieties of perspective across both).
So yes, faith is inherently irrational, but so is all belief at some point.
Philopateer Iskandar
ReplyDelete1. Mill said that pleasre should be measured by quality not how long or intesne that it might me. I think depending on who is right depends of the person answering the question since everybody finds pleasure in different things.
I agree. It depends on the person. I know some people who would rather do one quick and very "pleasurable" action, while some of my friends like doing smaller "pleasurable" actions that last longer. I also know people who couldn't care less what action they are doing as long as they get the same amount of "pleasure" from it. It really does just depend on the person.
DeleteMill and Bentham disagreed on the existence of higher and lower pleasures. In my opinion, once philosophers get too scientific with quantifying certain aspects of human experience their argument becomes less convincing. What determines a “high” pleasure would be different from person to person- who is anyone to say what constitutes a “higher” pleasure?
ReplyDeleteThe benefit of open discussion to society is that it forces people to think about their beliefs, rather than having prejudices they can’t really defend. In a perfect society, everyone would think critically about their choices. What actually happens is beliefs are passed down from generations and become so intertwined with certain identities no amount of debate or discussion will cause those people to yield. More often than not people will refuse to entertain any kind of debate for this very reason, which is very unfortunate and telling for the state of our society.
Kierkegaard’s work was mainly about the difficulty of choosing how to live and knowing which decision is the right one. I think for people as indecisive and regretful as Kierkegaard, a leap of faith is often the only option. There are so many hard decisions we must make in our lives and sometimes all you can do is trust that the universe will work it all out for you.
Karl Marx was angry at the unfair treatment of workers after the Industrial Revolution. He believed the whole of human history could be explained as a class struggle between the poor and wealthy. I think Marx absolutely has a point. The way society has been structured throughout modern history, where one person or group is in charge, means that there’s inherently people who have more and those who have less. Marx has a right to feel this sense of injustice at people suffering merely because of where in life they were born.
Section 3
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the different aspects of pleasure or happiness. This is why a utopia cannot exist for us because each person has a different idea of what perfect looks like to them. Maybe Bentham didn't talk with enough people who had different personal ideals. He was only close with his brother after all.