Questions APR 2

Presentations: #2 Truett-Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist thought experiment and abortion

WGU -192

1. What hallmark of modernity reversed Plato's and Aristotle's judgment?

2. What gives life meaning, for Kant?

3. In a truly human society, according to Marx, how would our capacities to work develop?

4.  Most jobs involve what, according to Paul Goodman? 

5. People were certain, as late as 2008, that what?

6. What alternatives to consumerism have small groups begun to develop?

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?

==

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?

2. How many people refusing vaccines can lead to the collapse of herd immunity?

3. What do experts say about most mass killers?

4. Who wrote a "demented" letter on behalf of gun rights in 1995?

Building concentration is like building muscle and endurance

…Your writing should be your own. The strain required to craft a clear memo or report is the mental equivalent of a gym workout by an athlete; it's not an annoyance to be eliminated but a key element of your craft…

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/opinion/technology-mental-fitness-cognitive.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

The Casino That’s Eating the World

Gambling away our citizenship (not to mention our maturity)

"…boosters tell us, grandly, that the sum of all those bets gives us our best forecast of the future — even a workable approximation of the truth. They also offer an unnerving implicit philosophy: that we should relate to the future not as citizens or moralists, problem solvers or advocates, but as gamblers, each of us surveying the horizon of possibility somewhat indifferent to human outcomes and looking instead for a betting edge.

The markets don't concern only matters of grim geopolitical consequence, such as when Iran might lose control over Kharg Island, when China might invade Taiwan or how many different countries Israel will attack this month. No, they offer lighthearted action, too, such as whether the vacuous YouTuber MrBeast will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028 (he won't be legally eligible to run until 2036), or about what words would be said in an episode of "The Late Show" (even after the interview in question had already been taped), about just how high the temperature will rise one day in Miami or how much snow might accumulate the next day in Manhattan, on when the United States might confirm the existence of aliens, whether the price of Bitcoin will be up or down in the next five minutes or whether Jesus Christ will return this calendar year...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/prediction-markets-gambling.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Good trouble in KC

https://substack.com/@philoliver/note/c-235059088?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Rethinking Thoreau: We’ve Been Mispronouncing His Name for Centuries

The guy at the Walden visitor center in Concord set me straight on this decades ago. Finally, the rest of the world is also informed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/books/review/thoreau-pronunciation-documentary.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Questions MAR 31

Presentations: #1 Rylie, #3 Kiersten

WGU -p.165

1. Kant's definition of maturity is what?

2. Education, travel, and work share what common purpose, ideally?

3. You're not grown-up if you've not rejected what? 

4. Why should languages and music be learned as early as possible?

5. What is the message of Rousseau's Emile?

6. What does it mean to love a book?

7. The internet, says Nick Carr, is a machine geared for what?

8. If you don't travel you're likely to suppose what?

9. What did Rousseau say about those who do not walk?

10. What is travel's greatest gift?

Discussion Questions

• What are some other signs of being grown-up, besides the ability to think for yourself? 123
• Are you good at accepting compromise? Are the adults in your life? 124
• Have you "sifted through your parents' choices about everything"? 125
• Do you "love the world enough to assume responsibility for it?" 126
• Has your educational experience so far broken or furthered your "urge to explore the world"? Do you still "desire to learn"? 127
• Should corporations like Coca-Cola be allowed to have "pouring rights" in public schools? 132
• "You must take your education into your own hands as soon as possible." Did you? How? 140
• Should the age of legal maturity be raised to match the age of brain maturity? 140
• "Minds need at least as much exercise as bodies..." 141 Do you get enough of both forms of exercise? Too much of one or the other? Do you subscribe to Mens sana in corpore sano?
• Do you love books and reading? 143 
• Do you agree with Mark Twain?: "A person who won't read has no advantage over a person who can't."
• Are you willing to go a month without internet? Or even a day? 148
• Were Augustine and Rousseau right about travel? 150-51
• Does group travel "preclude real encounters" with a place? 158
• Do you hope to live and work one day in another culture for at least a year? Do you think it will contribute to your maturity? 162-3

SSHM Prologue

1. Young William James's problem, as he felt "pulled in too many directions" and worried that we might be nothing but cogs in a machine, was ____.

2. What is distinctive about "our age" that makes James particularly relevant?

3. What happened on Feb. 6, 2014 that prompted Kaag to write this book?

(See "Is Life Worth Living...)

4. "Too much questioning and too little active responsibility lead" to what?

5. Human history is "one long commentary on" what?

6. A "wider world... unseen by us" may exist, just as our world does for ___.

7. The "deepest thing in our nature," which deals with possibilities rather than finished facts, is a "dumb region of the heart" called (in German) ___.

==

As we commence reading John Kaag's Sick Souls, Healthy Minds (SSHM), here's a new venture he's recently launched:

Rebind: a new interactive way to read, a novel application of AI to learning. "Turn books into conversations"-

For the past year, two philosophy professors have been calling around to prominent authors and public intellectuals with an unusual, perhaps heretical, proposal. They have been asking these thinkers if, for a handsome fee, they wouldn’t mind turning themselves into A.I. chatbots.

John Kaag, one of the academics, is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is known for writing books, such as “Hiking With Nietzsche” and “American Philosophy: A Love Story,” that blend philosophy and memoir... (nyt, continues)

==
Discussion questions:

• Have you ever felt "pulled in too many directions"? 2 How did you respond?
• Do you approach philosophy as a "detached intellectual exercise," an "existential life preserver," or something else?
• Where would you place yourself on the spectrum between "sick soul" and "healthy-minded"? Does that change, over time?
• Can belief that life is worth living become self-fulfilling?
• Do you know any "sick souls"? 3 Or "healthy minds"? 4 Are they the same person?
• Do you agree that believing life to be worth living "will help create the fact"? 5
• Do you like WJ's answer to the question "Is life worth living?" 9
• Is suicide always "the wrong way to exit life"? 10
• Have you ever visited the Harvard campus? What were your impressions?
• Is "maybe" a good answer to the eponymous question of James's essay below?
• Do you like Whitman's poetic expression of "the joy of living"?
• Have you ever been as happy as Rousseau at Annecy?
• Do you agree that nature cannot embody the ultimate "divine" spirit of the universe? What if you remove (or re-define) "divine"? 489
• Do you agree that "sufferings and hardships do not, as a rule, abate the love of life..."? 491
• Does the "purely naturalistic basis" suffice to make life worth living? 494
• Does life feel like a "real fight" to you? 502

==
*IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? (see the Library of America's terrific William James : Writings 1878-1899... vol.2 is William James : Writings 1902-1910).

When Mr. Mallock's book with this title appeared some fifteen years ago, the jocose answer that "it depends on the liver" had great currency in the newspapers. The answer which I propose to give to-night cannot be jocose. In the words of one of Shakespeare's prologues,—
"I come no more to make you laugh; things now,

That bear a weighty and a serious brow,

Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,"—

must be my theme. In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly; and I know not what such an association as yours intends, nor what you ask of those whom you invite to address you, unless it be to lead you from the surface-glamour of existence, and for an hour at least to make you heedless to the buzzing and jigging and vibration of small interests and excitements that form the tissue of our ordinary consciousness. Without further explanation or apology, then, I ask you to join me in turning an attention, commonly too unwilling, to the profounder bass-note of life. Let us search the lonely depths for an hour together, and see what answers in the last folds and recesses of things our question may find... (continues)

FL 39-40

1. Who's the (former-fringe) freak and Sandy Hook "truther" who nonetheless draws the line at shape-shifting reptilian humanoids?

2. Where did the reptilian conspiracy idea begin?

3. What started to happen with "unhinged" people in the 90s?

4. What fictional work and author influenced libertarian/conservative politicians like Paul Ryan?

5. What has the GOP become, besides a distinctly Christian political party?

6. What two states "require officeholders to believe in Heaven and Hell"?

7. What did H.L. Mencken say about "civilized Tennesseans"?

DQ

• Why does anyone give Alex Jones any credibility at all?
• Why do people like Ayn Rand's message that selfishness is a virtue?
• Was Mencken right about the Scopes Trial? 375

HENRY DAVID THOREAU TO AIR ON PBS MARCH 2026

HENRY DAVID THOREAU TO AIR ON PBS MARCH 2026

Source: About PBS - Main
https://share.google/1hsIbj4ladm6L9CHF

Questions MAR 26

 No class today, I'm at a conference out of town... but go ahead and post your thoughts about the assigned reading.

1. After Plato, the next philosopher to turn his attention to the details of child-rearing was who?

2. What's the first step of human reason, according to Kant?

3. If we have hope for moral progress, what do we want for the next generation?

4. What was Orwell's nightmare?

5. What "perfidious reversal leaves us permanently confused"?

6. What are you committed to, if you're committed to Enlightenment?

7. What is freedom, according to Rousseau and Kant?

8. What's the key to whether or not we grow up?

==

Discussion Questions
WGU

• Should philosophers pay more attention to child-rearing and parenting? 36
• What do you think Cicero meant by saying that philosophy is learning to die?
• Do you feel fully empowered to "choose your life's journey"? If not, what obstacles prevent that? 37
• In what ways do you think your parents' occupations influence the number of choices you'll be able to make in your life?
• If you've read 1984 and Brave New World, which do you find the more "seductive dystopia"? 39
• Are we confused about toys and dreams? 40
• Do others make the most important decisions for you? 41
• Do you "make a regular appointment with your body"? 42
• Do you trust anyone over 30? 45
• Is it "reasonable to expect justice and joy"? 49
• Are you "committed to Enlightenment"? 51
• Do the passions for glory and luxury make us wicked and miserable? 53
• What does it mean to say there are no atheists in foxholes? Is it true? 54
• Was Rousseau right about inequality and private property? 55
• Should philosophy be taught to children, so as to become thinking adults? 57
• Should children "yield to the commands of other people"? 61
• Should parents "let the child wail"?
• Are Rousseau and Kant right about the true definition of freedom? 62
• Is Rousseau right about desire? 65
• Did Rousseau's abandonment of his children discredit his thoughts on child-rearing? 69 Or show him to be a hypocrite for saying no task in the world is more important than raising a child properly? 72

Mar17

I Am An American Philosopher: Phil Oliver – Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

https://american-philosophy.org/i-am-an-american-philosopher-interview-series/i-am-an-american-philosopher-phil-oliver/

Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment

 

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

It's Fred Rogers's birthday (1928). He said: When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/the-writers-almanac-for-friday-march-20-2026/

Questions MAR 24

Presentations: #1 Rawls-Savannah, David; Singer-Dakota. #2-Trolley Problem (Philipa Foot)-Chenoa. ANYBODY ELSE? If not, we're done with midterm report presentations. 

1. What did John Rawls call the thought experiment he believed would yield fair and just principles, and what was its primary device?

2. Under what circumstances would Rawls' theory permit huge inequalities of wealth between people?

3. What was the Imitation Game, and who devised a thought experiment to oppose it?

4. What, according to Searle, is involved in truly understanding something?

5. How do some philosophers think we might use computers to achieve immortality?

6. What does Peter Singer say we should sacrifice, to help stranger

7. Why did Singer first become famous?

8. How does Singer represent the best tradition in philosophy?

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

The Trolley Problem

Posted for Chenoa:

 

Interdisciplinary Minor Fair today, 11-1 in the Peck Hall courtyard

 

Philosophy Classes - Fall 2026

• PHIL 1030 – Introduction to Philosophy 3 credit hours Basic philosophical problems suggested by everyday experience integrated into a coherent philosophy of life through comparison with solutions offered by prominent philosophers. 

• PHIL 2110 – Elementary Logic & Critical Thinking Principles of deductive and inductive reasoning, problem solving, and the analysis of arguments in everyday language.  Dr. Slack 

• PHIL 3150 - Ethics Examines major ethical theories, the moral nature of human beings, and the meaning of good and right and applies ethical theories to resolving moral problems in personal and professional lives.  Dr. Johnson, Mr. Easley 

• PHIL 3170 - Ethics and Computing Technology Exposes students to the fundamentals of ethical theory and familiarizes them with some of the practical, ethical, and legal issues with which they would have to deal as computer scientists.  Dr. Johnson 

• PHIL 3690 – Social Philosophy The main problems of social philosophy are surveyed: the distinctive nature of social reality and the nature of social knowledge and how they relate to value theory.  Dr. Slack

• PHIL 4010 – History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy The development of philosophical thought from Thales to Occam. Offered fall only. Dr. Newman 

• PHIL 4200 – Existentialism The nature, significance, and application of the teachings of several outstanding existential thinkers. Dr. Oliver  - T/Th 4:20-5:45 pm, HONORS BLDG #117*

• PHIL 4250 – Philosophy of Gender Examines major work in contemporary feminist philosophy and feminist theory, with particular emphasis on the relation of sex and gender, feminist accounts of inquiry, feminist ethical issues, and feminist aesthetics.  Dr. Magada-Ward 

• PHIL 4500 – Philosophy of Science The methods, problems, and presuppositions of scientific inquiry. TBA 

*PHIL 4200-Existentialism Texts Fall '26

Required

• Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger,... - 978-1590518892
• Mariana Allesandri, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods - 978-0691242699
• Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept - 978-0062009302
• tba

Recommended

• Todd May, A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe - 978-0226421049
• Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters - 978-0691154503
• Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife - 978-0190469177
• Soren Kierkegaard, tba
• William James, What Makes a Life Significant; Is Life Worth Living; On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings; tba
• tba

Lyceum Apr 17

 

Questions MAR 19

Presentations-

Ayer - #2 Truett  

         Camus - #2 Caleb

         Sartre - #2 - Ava

Wittgenstein - #2 Johnathane #3 Shaun, Kiersten

Popper & Kuhn - #1 Graham W

 

 

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?

Why Grow Up: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age by Susan Neiman (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

1. Thoreau was among the first western philosophers to do what? How does this make him like Marcus Aurelius? Is that good, philosophically?
2. What's the difference between wilderness and wildness? Is it good to be wild, in the Thoreauvian sense? Are you wild that way?
3. What was Thoreau's view of the rationalism-empiricism debate, and the reliability of the senses? Do you agree with him?
4. What's another way Thoreau is like Marcus, and how is he like Socrates? Do you "vacillate" too?
5. 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

1. 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

The Beginning

It's my sister's birthday, I sent her this little extra shot of hope...

In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark, Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. She argues that, despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility, it is an inevitability, and the nature of that change is determined by who participates and how.

The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation has happened in so many disparate arenas, and within a longer arc of history, the scale of that change is seldom recognized.

While the backlash of white nationalist authoritarianism, Manosphere misogyny, and justifications for callousness, selfishness, economic inequality, and environmental destruction collectively drive individualism and isolation, the elements of this new world are related in their vision of more inclusion, equality, interconnection. This new vision embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, and indigenous and non-Western ideas, particularly Buddhism, as well as breakthroughs in the life sciences and neuroscience, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world. G'r

Fwd: Declaration of Independence reading for tomorrow

UPDATE: Thanks, #H2, for braving the cold and reminding us all that American democracy was once worth fighting for, and still is.

==

ATTN: #H2. Prof. Sayward promises "it will be sunny and not snowing!" (Today's scheduled presentations in #2 will be postponed until Thursday.)

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Phil Oliver <poliver.mtsu@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: Declaration of Independence reading for tomorrow
To: Amy Sayward <Amy.Sayward@mtsu.edu>

Thanks, Amy. I'll remind them to bundle up, looks like it's not gonna be very Springy tomorrow. 🥶

Phil

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 10:09 AM Amy Sayward <Amy.Sayward@mtsu.edu> wrote:

Dear Phil:

Thanks again for having your class read the Declaration of Independence as part of our Evacuation Day celebration tomorrow on the Honors Lawn at 1pm.

I'm attaching what those pages will look like—nothing too challenging to read, but students will get their part ahead of time (before they get to the podium) so that they don't have to be nervous.  We may have other people who also read, or one or more of your students might read 2 parts.

Let me know if you have any questions—otherwise I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, when it will be sunny and not snowing!

Sincerely,

Amy

“Rationalists”

Child's Play

"…Scott Alexander is one of the leading proponents of rationalism, which is—depending on whom you ask—either a major intellectual movement or a nerdy Bay Area subculture or a small network of friend groups and polycules. Rationalists believe that the way most people understand the world is hopelessly muddled, and that to reach the truth you have to abandon all existing modes of knowledge acquisition and start again from scratch. The method they landed on for rebuilding all of human knowledge is Bayes's theorem, a formula invented by an eighteenth-century English minister that is used in statistics to work out conditional probabilities. In the mid-Aughts, armed with the theorem, the rationalists discovered ["discovered"] that humanity is in jeopardy of a rogue superintelligent AI wiping out all life on the planet. This has been their overriding concern ever since…"

https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee