How to Stop Ruminating and Reclaim Your Mind | Michael Pollan

https://youtu.be/Zlx0fKOksDc?si=RbTPvCgIUgEAepJ0

Fwd: You're Invited! MakerSpace VR Night - Wednesday, March 4, 5-7pm!

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Valerie Hackworth <Valerie.Hackworth@mtsu.edu>

Hello Friends and Supporters of the Library, Technology, and the MakerSpace,

You're invited to join us for our Annual Virtual Reality Night in the MakerSpace on Wednesday, March 4, from 5-7pm!

Try out our headsets! You can choose to dance with Beat Saber in Mixed Reality with our VIVE Pro 2 and experience a variety of adventure, art, history, space, and strategy games in our Classic VIVE headsets. Plus, we encourage you to try your hand at flying with our Logitech gear and Microsoft Flight Simulator. And we'd love for you to check out our game cabinet that was Made in the MakerpSpace!

Returning this year, you can test out speaking the new language you've been practicing or try a new language in our Meta Quest 3!

All are welcome! This event is open to the public. Bring your friends and family! Snacks will be provided.

 See you in the MakerSpace!

 Cheers,

Valerie

 

 

 

Valerie Hackworth, MSCIS

She/Her

Manager, Liaison, and Program Director - MakerSpace

Library Technology Department

MTSU Walker Library

1611 Alumni Drive

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

615-904-8545 – LIB 246A

Valerie.Hackworth@mtsu.edu

https://library.mtsu.edu/vhackworth

https://mtsunews.com/tag/makerspace

https://library.mtsu.edu/makerspace

https://library.mtsu.edu/technology

 

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat."
- Thich Nhat Hanh 

For your Spring Break recreational reading

Browse all our 'best books of 2025' lists (both fiction and nonfiction):
https://fivebooks.com/books/best-books-of-2025/

Best books on humanism

"Humanist beliefs are almost like the common sense of large parts of the Western world today"
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/humanism/

Astounding

"It's entirely possible to go through life without worrying about the "problem" of consciousness—what it is and how it came to be. In fact, it takes a certain kind of mind for "the problem" to arise—one that is self-conscious, or aware that it is aware, and marvels at this mystery (which is, when you stop to think about it, astounding). It is astounding that in a universe we often assume to be dead and purposeless, there evolved beings who can experience this reality and have feelings and thoughts not only about the appearing world but about the fact that they have feelings and thoughts at all! And it is still more astounding that these beings have minds capable of imagining counterfactuals, such as the possibility of a world without consciousness."

— A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

Presentation grades

 FYI: All who've presented so far have earned all 25 available points... Just keep giving us interesting and relevant information and posing provocative discussion questions. Nothing to stress about. (Same for next week's exam.) 

Music

"The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body." —Richard Powers

https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/02/24/richard-powers-music/

Questions FEB 26

Presentations:

Mill - #2 Dean F

Marx - #1 Evie  #2 Amelia  #3 Jonah

Kierkegaard - #1 Sami

Darwin - #1 Sakina 

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?

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?

Feb24

Audio review for Exam 1 (Mar 5), & how to prepare

Here's your audio review for next Thursday's exam...

And here's William James's advice for how best to prepare for an exam (after you've listened to the review and re-read the relevant texts):

"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." -Talks to Students-The Gospel of Relaxation

Steve Jobs: Memento mori

Today is the birthday of Steve Jobs, born in San Francisco (1955) to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who placed him for adoption. Clara and Paul Jobs, an accountant and a machinist, adopted him when he was still a baby. Growing up, Jobs and his father would tinker with electronics in the garage.

He dropped out of college after a semester, went to India in search of spiritual enlightenment, returned a devout Buddhist, experimented with LSD, and then got a job with a video game maker, where he was in charge of designing circuit board for one of the company's games. In 1976, at the age of 21, he co-founded Apple Computers, and less than a decade later, Apple unveiled the Macintosh computer. It was the first small computer to catch on with the public that used a graphical user interface, or GUI (sometimes pronounced "gooey"), where people could simply click on icons instead of typing in precise text commands.

The graphic user interface revolutionized computers, and it's on almost all computers today. It's on a whole lot of other devices as well, like fancy vending machines and digital household appliances and photocopying machines and airport check-in kiosks. And graphical user interface is what's used with iPods, another of Apple's wildly successful products.

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. He opted for a variety of alternative treatments, but eventually — in 2004 — he underwent surgery to remove the tumor. His health began to decline in 2009. He was 56.

Jobs once said, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-tuesday-13e?selection=5b9402a9-2dd5-4b31-b8d4-717fe23492f3&r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Questions FEB 24

Presentations:

Kant - #1 Jayden #2 Laura

Bentham - #2 John #3 Christopher

Schopenhauer - #2 Ribka #3 Alina 

LHP

1. Kant said we can know the ____ but not the ____ world. Can we?

2. What was Kant's great insight? Is this a credible form of "armchair philosophy"? Or does it also depend on experience?

3. What, according to Kant, is irrelevant to morality? Is it really?

4. Kant said you should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this view the ____ _____.  Have you ever violated this principle? If so, do you regret it?

5. Who formulated the Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find him today? If everyone followed this principle would it be a better world?

6. Who created a thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates to human motivation? Would you opt for the machine? Why or why not?

7. What did Hegel mean when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been reached in his lifetime? What would Socrates say about that?

8. What Kantian view did Hegel reject? What would Kant say?

9. What is Geist? When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge? Does this seem supernatural and mystical to you, or could it be naturalistic?

10. What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including us)? Could anyone really know that?

11. What did Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire? Is that the only way? Is that cycle really universal?

Weiner ch5

1. What was teenage Arthur Schopenhauer's worldview? What sort of world (by contrast with Leibniz/Pangloss) did he think it is? Do you, or have you ever, felt the same way? 
2. What kind of listening mattered most to Schopenhauer? Do you share his attitude about that?
3. In what sense was Schopenhauer an Idealist? What analogy (similar to one I've suggested applies to Leibniz's monads) does Nigel Warburton suggest characterizes it? Does it seem reasonable to you?
4. What are some different names philosophers have applied to the allegedly more real (than sensations) world of Ideas? What "dark twist" did Schopenhauer add? 
5. How did Schopenhauer say we can escape Will and "shake off the world"? Do you want to shake it off? 
6. What did Schopenhauer have in common with Rousseau? Do you think his affection-starved childhood may have contributed to his eventual philosophy?
7. How does art differ from pornography, on S's view? What's your view?
8. Weiner thinks Schopenhauer's Will made manifest in our time is what? Do you agree?

HWT

1. What one word most characterizes the ideal Chinese way of life?

2. Western suspicion of hierarchy is built on what?

3. What did the late Archbishop Tutu say was "the greatest good"?

4. What omission in western ethics would seem bizarre to the classical Chinese thinkers?

5. What is the most famous Confucian maxim?

6. Virtue is never solitary, said Confucius, it always has ____.

FL

1. How, according to Scientific American in 1915, are motion pictures like drugs?

2. What came into existence simultaneously with America and created the concept of celebrity?

3. What place did film critic Pauline Kael call a "fantasy-brothel"?

Feb22

Where to start with Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer turns 238 today (Sunday)… he was a pessimist, but still fun to read.

https://open.substack.com/pub/davidbatherwoods/p/where-to-start-with-schopenhauer?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

“A man is never happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something that he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbour with mast and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he is happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.”

the spark of consciousness

The everlasting wonder of being – the poetic science of how a cold cosmos kindled the spark of consciousness.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/08/22/victor-johnston-consciousness/

Astonishing

"What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years."
— Carl Sagan

Fresh (though ancient) proverbial wisdom

"Look before you leap" (etc.) is smart, but stale to the western ear.

The Wisdom of African Proverbs 

https://youtu.be/_9ZOix4QG5s?si=kcKJ4Zi7bd2YGvbF

“Brains exist to keep bodies alive, not the other way around”

And, again: consciousness is rooted in feeling, so AI is not conscious and may never be. Insects and plants, on the other hand…
—Michael Pollan on Colbert's Late Show

https://youtu.be/HIIZTS8OFOM?si=a8BXX9mtiM7QqacW

UPDATE, FEB 24. A World Appears is officially released today. Listened to the audiobook on my commute this morning. Highly recommended!

Marcus: just be good

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Marcus Aurelius

“suspended in a sunbeam”

"That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives."

On this day in 1993, Carl Sagan drafted what would become his classic Pale Blue Dot. Here it is, animated:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/12/10/pale-blue-dot-motion-graphics/

Evacuation Day

 I've been invited by a journalism student to comment on our school's upcoming "Evacuation Day" celebration and reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence on March 17... (continues)

Free bird

Alysa Liu's improbable comeback, her gold medal performance yesterday in Milan, and above all her demeanor in celebrating and lifting up her disappointed Japanese competitors who took silver and bronze, are an inspiration. And she's just 20 (after "retiring" at 16)... (continues)

==

"That's what life is about: learning"

Before she stood atop the podium, Alysa Liu stepped away from the ice.

Her advice to young athletes (and people generally)? "Don't let anyone push you past your breaking point… you are the only one that knows your limit."

Proof that rest isn't quitting — it's growth.

==

Another impressive young Olympian, Eileen Gu:

“I spent a lot of time in my head, but not in an egotistical way” - What Eileen Gu is describing here is meta-cognition...

David Hume (and Oliver Sacks) meet death with dignity

Oliver Sacks channeling David Hume-

On Gratitude, the Measure of Living, and the Dignity of Dying – The Marginalian

"It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it "My Own Life."

"I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution," he wrote. "I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company."

https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/11/24/oliver-sacks-gratitude-book/

==

Death and David Hume

Two of the most famous late 18th-century Scots were James Boswell and David Hume. Convivial, but neurotic, Boswell was the biographer, friend and admirer of Samuel Johnston, compiler of the first English Dictionary and arbiter of literary taste down south. David Hume was the philosopher who dared to expose the fatal flaws in some of the most popular and generally accepted arguments for the existence of God. He rubbished the argument that the study of nature showed that it must have an intelligent creator. He attacked belief in miracles. To his disappointment, his most biting treatises seemed to make little impact on the society around him - but his ideas had an impact on someone. Poor Boswell suffered from DOUBT, which he was always trying to assuage. The atheism of one of the most brilliant minds in Scotland was a horror to him. Here is Boswell's own account of his interview with Hume on the latter's deathbed in 1776.

An Account of my last interview with David Hume, Esq.
Partly recorded in my Journal, partly enlarged from my memory,
3 March 1777

On Sunday forenoon the 7 of July 1776, being too late for church, I went to see Mr David Hume, who was returned from London and Bath, just adying. I found him alone, in a reclining posture in his drawing-room. He was lean, ghastly, and quite of an earthy appearance. He was dressed in a suit of grey cloth with white metal buttons, and a kind of scratch wig. He was quite different from the plump figure which he used to present. He had before him Dr. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric. He seemed to be placid and even cheerful. He said he was just approaching to his end...

I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not burn; and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that we should exist for ever...

I asked him if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes. 'Well,' said I, 'Mr Hume, I hope to triumph over you when I meet you in a future state; and remember you are not to pretend that you was joking with all this infidelity.' 'No, no,' said he...

Mr. Lauder, his surgeon, came in for a little, and Mr. Mure, the Baron's son, for another small interval. He was, as far as I could judge, quite easy with both. He said he had no pain, but was wasting away. I left him with impressions which disturbed me for some time.

Boswell in Extremes 1776-8, eds. C. McC. Weis and F. Pottle, London, 1971.

https://digital.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/17762.html

Tee-shirt Tuesday

 Dean Lyons was pleased to see me sporting our Philosophy tee-shirt, on the College of Liberal Arts's  "Tee-shirt Tuesday," when I ran into her at the library. (She was wearing our Religious Studies colleagues' shirt.) 

Maybe this will jog the memory of those who always seem to "forget" it's Tuesday.

Philosophy tutoring ‘26

Midterm report presentations, Spring '26

Take a look at the schedule, make sure you're on it:

Select a topic related to the day's scheduled assigned reading OR to one of the RECOMMENDED texts #1-8 on reserve in the library, below* (focus on the first couple of chapters, if you wish you can return to the rest of it for your final report presentation later) OR on one of the additional RECOMMENDED (but not reserved) texts.**

Plan to speak for about ten minutes, then give us a discussion question or two and direct the discussion. We'll do two presentations per class. If you can find a suitable way to incorporate a library-produced podcast and/or video into your report presentation (as we learned about on our Library Day tour), you're welcome to do so.

If it's a nice day and the class decides to go outside, be prepared to present your report without technological support - you can do a PowerPoint (etc.) and post it, but we'll look at it when we're inside.

Indicate your date & topic preferences in the comments space below, and include your section # (1, 2, or 3). Don't request a topic someone in your section has already requested. First come, first served.

When selecting from a list of philosophers to be covered on a given date, just pick one or two.

Before your assigned report date, post your sources in the comments space below. 

An accompanying blog post is optional on this report, but will be required for the final report in April. If you wish to accompany your midterm presentation with a blog post, you'll need to sign up as an Author on the site. 

FEB

10 Machiavelli and/or Hobbes - #1 Shane #2 Sarah A #3 Josie

*How [some of] the World Thinks - #1 Sarah

**________________ -

12 *Montaigne, Descartes, and/or Pascal

Pascal - #1 Artin

Descartes - #2 Ben

Additional options today:

🐟Darwin (in honor of Int'l Darwin Day) - #1 Sakina

❤Plato's Symposium (in honor of Valentines Day, and your Prof's b'day) - #1 Zariayana

17 Spinoza or Locke & Reid -

*_Locke - #1 Rylie #3 Natalie M

Sartre - #2 Ava Oops: that should be MARCH 17

19 Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, or Rousseau -

*Rousseau - #1 Megan #2 aidyn

**How to Think Like Marcus Aurelius - #3 Chenoa

          Leibniz - #1 Daniel

24 Kant, Bentham, Hegel, or Schopenhauer -

Kant - #1 Jayden #2 Laura

Bentham - #2 John #3 Christopher

Schopenhauer - #2 Ribka #3 Alina

26 Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, or Marx-

Mill - #2 Dean F

Marx - #1 Evie  #2 Amelia

Kierkegaard - #1 Sami

Darwin - #1 Sakina

MAR

3 Peirce & James, Nietzsche, or Freud -

*Freud - #2 thatgirldayz

**Peirce/James - #2 Simeon

          Nietzsche - #1 Haylie #2 Liam #3 Presley

5 Exam 1.

Spring Break

17 [Happy Green Day!] Russell, Ayer, Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Camus -

de Beauvoir - #1 Natalie 

Russell - #1 Ainsley

Ayer - #2 Truett 

         Camus - #2 Caleb

         Sartre - #2 - Ava

19 Wittgenstein, Arendt, Popper & Kuhn, or Foot & Thomson -

Wittgenstein - #1 Kiersten #2 Johnathane #3 Shaun

Popper & Kuhn - #1 Graham W

24 Rawls, Turing & Searle, or Singer; or WGU Introduction thru p.35 -

*________________ -

**________________ -

*RECOMMENDED TEXTS on 3-day library reserve, at the circulation desk:

1. How the World Thinks (HWT) by Julian Baggini - because Western philosophy is not the whole story.
2. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen (FL) - because the contemporary crisis of American democracy is rooted in our history.
3. How to Think Like Socrates, by Donald J. Robertson - because he was, as the Monty Python song says, "a lovely little thinker..."
4. How to Think Like Marcus Aurelius, by Donald J. Robertson - because he was a wise stoic and emperor, as close to a Philosopher-King as we've had or are likely to get.
5. The Philosopher Queens: the lives and legacies of philosophy's unsung women, by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting - because women have always philosophized too.
6. Starry Messenger: cosmic perspectives on civilization, by Neil deGrasse Tyson - because we are cosmopolitans, citizens of the cosmos.
7. Question Everything: A Stone Reader, eds. Catapano and Critchley - short popular essays by contemporary philosophers published in the New York Times, because philosophy is relevant to contemporary issues.
8. Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives by Robert Richardson - because we'll all eventually lose someone close.
9. Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James-companion anthology to Sick Souls Healthy Minds by John Kaag - because William James can save your life, or at least ameliorate it.
10. Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help by Kieran Setiya - because we'll all eventually be challenged by something hard.
11. Night Vision: seeing ourselves through dark moods, by Mariana Allesandri - because all is not sunshine and light.

**ADDITIONALLY RECOMMENDED (but not currently on library reserve, in the stacks)

• Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist, by David Bather Woods
• Kant: A Revolution in Thinking, by Marcus Willaschek
• Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, by Brenda Wineapple. About the Scopes Trial in Dayton TN, 1925.
• Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, by Agnes Callard (our Spring '25 Lyceum guest)
• The Varieties of Experience: William James After the Linguistic Turn, by Alexis Dianda (our Spring '26 Lyceum guest). About the philosophical importance of experience, even when philosophers cannot put it into words.
• Thinking in Transit: Explorations of Life in Motion, by Ed Casey and Megan Craig. About the value of philosophy that literally moves, co-authored by our Fall '25 Lyceum guest Megan Craig

Philosophy club?

Interested in starting a philosophy club at your institution? Check out the APA Guide for Undergraduate Philosophy Clubs and Groups for ideas on structure, funding, visibility, and more!

https://www.apaonline.org/undergradclubs

Questions FEB 19

Presentations:

19 Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, or Rousseau -

*Rousseau - #1 Megan #2 aidyn

**How to Think Like Marcus Aurelius - #3 Chenoa

          Leibniz - #1 Daniel 

LHP

1. How did Samuel Johnson "refute" Berkeley's theory? Did he succeed? Why or why not?

2. What made Berkeley an idealist, and an immaterialist? Are you one, the other, both, neither?

3. In what way did Berkeley claim to be more consistent than Locke? DId Berkeley have a point about that?

4. What was Berkeley's Latin slogan? Do you think existence depends upon being perceived?

5. What obvious difficulty does Berkeley's theory face? Is it possible to have ideas that are consistent (non-contradictory) but still about non-realities?

6. What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right," and what German philosopher (with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason") agreed with the poet? Does this imply that nothing is ever wrong or bad? Is it really possible or reasonable to believe this?

7. What French champion of free speech and religious toleration wrote a satirical novel/play ridiculing the idea that everything is right (for the best)? 

8. What 1755 catastrophe deeply influenced Voltaire's philosophy? Do you have a philosophical perspective on natural catastrophes that makes rational and moral sense of them?

9. What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"? Do you agree with hin?

10. Did Hume think the human eye is so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design? Why would an omnipotent designer design a flawed organ?

11. What was Hume's definition of "miracle"? Did he think we should usually believe others' reports of having witnessed a miracle? Where would you draw the line between events that are highly improbable and events that are impossible (according to known laws)?

12. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______. Are we all more free when we act not only for ourselves but for the good of the whole community (world, species)?

Weiner ch3

1. What were Rousseau's "multitudes"? Most of all he was a ___.  Are you one?
2. Rousseau's philosophy can be summed up in what four words? What does he claim is our "natural state"? (Note the contrast with Hobbes's "state of nature" that we previously discussed.) Do you agree more with him, with Hobbes, or with neither? Is it prudent to generalize about human nature?
3. Who were some other peripatetics (walking philosophers) named by Weiner? This approach to thinking "gives the lie" to what myth? Do you know how Diogenes "solved" Zeno's paradoxes of motion? [See * below]
4. How was Rousseau like Socrates? Are you, too?
5. What is Rousseau's legacy to us? How does he contrast with Descartes? What did he foresee?

 

Reveries of the Solitary Walker 

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks19/1900981h.html

Hume on miracles

"...In Hume’s ‘Of Miracles’ in Section X of his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he sets out what he considers a decisive case to show that we are not justified in believing in miracles. Beginning with the proposition that we should proportion our belief in accordance with the strength of the available evidence, Hume observes that the sole evidence most of us ever have for any miracle is usually that of the testimony of others. But hearsay is not particularily strong evidence. He goes on to conclude that the testimony in favour of a miracle can never balance, let alone outweigh, the evidence a gainst it, especially when it contravenes accepted natural law...

...I have not seen anyone raised from the dead, nor have I seen the Sun dance in the sky. On the other hand, I do not wish to seem rude by impugning the integrity of people who do claim to have witnessed such things. I suspect that such events will be fondly remembered as highlights of their lives. Therefore, with Hume, I take the polite course, and can only comment that, not having seen it for myself, I will always have better reasons for not believing such reports than for believing them." Paul Warwick

HWT

1. In what way was the idea of a separable soul a "corruption"? What French philosopher of the 17th century defended it? What Scottish skeptic of the 18th century disputed it?

2. What do Owen Flanagan's findings suggest, that contrasts with Aristotle's view of human nature?

3. If you ask an American and a Japanese about their occupation, how might they respond differently?

FL

1. What amazing theme park was erected in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century?

2. Who was Robert Love Taylor?

3. What was Birth of a Nation?

4. What did H.L. Mencken say about southerners?

5. What did The New Theology say about the supernatural?

6. How did Modernists reconcile science and religion?

7. What famous trial was held in Tennessee in 1925, and what did Clarence Darrow say about it, and what was its cultural impact?

 

==

Peripatetic philosophy:

* The Gymnasiums of the Mind

...pondering the happy connection between philosophy and a good brisk walk.

If there is one idea intellectuals can agree upon it is that the act of ambulation – or as we say in the midwest, walking – often serves as a catalyst to creative contemplation and thought. It is a belief as old as the dust that powders the Acropolis, and no less fine. 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.” [Solvitur ambulando, as Diogenes said to Zeno as he literally walked away in demonstrating motion and change]

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.”

In order that he might remain one of the fittest, Charles Darwin planted a 1.5 acre strip of land with hazel, birch, privet, and dogwood, and ordered a wide gravel path built around the edge. Called Sand-walk, this became Darwin’s ‘thinking path’ where he roamed every morning and afternoon with his white fox-terrier. Of Bertrand Russell, long-time friend Miles Malleson has written: “Every morning Bertie would go for an hour’s walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction.”

None of these laggards, however, could touch Friedrich Nietzsche, who held that “all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Rising at dawn, Nietzsche would stalk through the countryside till 11 a.m. Then, after a short break, he would set out on a two-hour hike through the forest to Lake Sils. After lunch he was off again, parasol in hand, returning home at four or five o’clock, to commence the day’s writing.

Not surprisingly, the romantic poets were walkers extraordinaire. William Wordsworth traipsed fourteen or so miles a day through the Lake District, while Coleridge and Shelley were almost equally energetic. According to biographer Leslie Stephen, “The (English) literary movement at the end of the 18th century was…due in great part, if not mainly, to the renewed practice of walking.”

Armed with such insights, one must wonder whether the recent decline in walking hasn’t led to a corresponding decline in thinking. Walking, as both a mode of transportation and a recreational activity, began to fall off noticeably with the rise of the automobile, and took a major nosedive in the 1950s. Fifty plus years of automobile-centric design has reduced the number of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly spaces to a bare minimum (particularly in the American west). All of the benefits of walking: contemplation, social intercourse, exercise, have been willingly exchanged for the dubious advantages of speed and convenience, although the automobile alone cannot be blamed for the maddening acceleration of everyday life. The modern condition is one of hurry, a perpetual rush hour that leaves little time for meditation. No wonder then that in her history of walking, Rebecca Solnit mused that “modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness,” which seems the antithesis of Wittgenstein’s observation that in the race of philosophy, the prize goes to the slowest.

If we were to compare the quantity and quality of thinkers of the early 20th century with those of today, one cannot help but notice the dearth of Einsteins, William Jameses, Eliots and Pounds, Freuds, Jungs, Keynes, Picassos, Stravinskys, Wittgensteins, Sartres, Deweys, Yeats and Joyces. But it would be foolish to suggest that we have no contemporaries equal to Freud, et al. That would be doing an injustice to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Edward O. Wilson, James D. Watson, and the recently departed Stephen J. Gould. But as to their walking habits, they varied. Gould, a soft, flabby man, made light of his lack of exercise. Edward O. Wilson writes that he “walks as much as (his) body allows,” and used to jog up until his forties. Watson, the discoverer of the DNA molecule, frequently haunts the grounds of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, particularly on weekends, and is said to be both a nature-lover and bird-watcher.

There seems no scientific basis to link the disparate acts of walking and thinking, though that didn’t stop Mark Twain from speculating that “walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active.” Others have concluded that walking’s two-point rhythm clears the mind for creative study and reflection....

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, walking remains for me the best “of all exercises.” Even so, I am full of excuses to stay put. My neighborhood has no sidewalks and it is downright dangerous to stroll the streets at night; if the threat does not come directly from thugs, then from drunken teens in speeding cars. There are certainly no Philosophers’ Walks in my hometown, as there are near the universities of Toronto, Heidelberg, and Kyoto. Nor are there any woods, forests, mountains or glens. “When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and the woods,” said Thoreau. “What would become of us, if we only walked in a garden or a mall?” I suppose I am what becomes of us, Henry.

At noon, if the weather cooperates, I may join a few other nameless office drudges on a stroll through the riverfront park. My noon walk is a brief burst of freedom in an otherwise long, dreary servitude. Though I try to reserve these solitary walks for philosophical ruminations, my subconscious doesn’t always cooperate. Often I find my thoughts to be pedestrian and worrisome in nature. I fret over money problems, or unfinished office work and my attempts to brush these thoughts away as unworthy are rarely successful. Then, again, in the evenings I sometimes take my two dachshunds for a stroll. For a dog, going for a walk is the ultimate feelgood experience. Mention the word ‘walkies’ to a wiener dog, and he is immediately transported into new dimensions of bliss. I couldn’t produce a similar reaction in my wife if I proposed that we take the Concorde to Paris for the weekend. Rather than suffer a walk, my son would prefer to have his teeth drilled.

In no way am I suggesting that all of society’s ills can be cured by a renaissance of walking. But maybe – just maybe – a renewed interest in walking may spur some fresh scientific discoveries, a unique literary movement, a new vein of philosophy. If nothing else it will certainly improve our health both physically and mentally. Of course that would mean getting out from behind the desk at noon and getting some fresh air. That would mean shutting down the television in the evenings and breathing in the Great Outdoors. And, ultimately, it would involve a change in thinking and a shift in behavior, as opposed to a change of channels and a shift into third.

© CHRISTOPHER ORLET 2004

Christopher Orlet is an essayist and book critic. His work appears often in The American Spectator, the London Guardian, and Salon.com. Visit his homepage at www.christopherorlet.net

https://philosophynow.org/issues/44/The_Gymnasiums_of_the_Mind

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A contemporary peripatetic philosopher, and past MTSU Lyceum lecturer (Fall '25): Does being in motion change how we think? Tracing the connections between thinking and transit—including walking, being transported by a vehicle, and many other modes—this innovative book shows how embodiment and movement deepen, expand, and transform creative thought... g'r

Dr. Megan Craig, Stony Brook University, at MTSU’s Applied Philosophy Lyceum

Full lecture: https://jcbmtsu.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=f4a600a0-37e1-405f-a5e8-b35a012181b6&start=660

Joined in progress (from closer range):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZhTSYE66Jg0&feature=shared

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John Kaag: “James says, no, reality always outstrips the descriptions of it — and that’s for the best.”

NYTimes: Psychedelics Blew His Mind. He Wants Other Philosophers to Open Theirs.

"The findings of psychedelics wouldn't have surprised Heraclitus, Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Nietzsche and, most certainly, William James," John Kaag, a philosopher at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and an expert on James, told me. Only over the past 100 years has the discipline, through an "analytic turn," been "trying to reduce all of human experience to the understandable, to the explicable," he said. "And James says, no, reality always outstrips the descriptions of it — and that's for the best."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/books/review/justin-smith-ruiu-on-drugs-philosophy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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The Presocratics

"For the most part, these are thinkers of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. They weren't a group in any sense of the word, they mostly didn't know each other."

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/angela-hobbs-on-the-presocratics/

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If you were Boethius…

I'll bet Neil Degrasse Tyson didn't see this question coming:

https://www.threads.com/@philosophyofaphysicist/post/DO-wagGkj5g?xmt=AQF0OfmKn_aG8HZrECt34ZmFq1LAmOTLWmIKMP25AddsiA&slof=1