What would Aristotle say?

There’s Really Only One Way to Stop Students From Cheating

… In every home and every school, we should be inviting kids to think about how cheating is unfair to their friends, how it undercuts efforts to build a just society and how it undermines the quest to become a person of principle.

The heart of integrity is recognizing that the ends don’t justify the means. What we achieve may define our success. How we achieve it determines our character.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/opinion/students-cheating-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Talk, talk, talk! Words, words, words...

[Substack]

We were talking (talking, nota bene) the other day about the limits of language, and William James's sense of the "glimmer and twinkle" of something in "the living act of perception," something that language cannot catch but that honest philosophers must acknowledge. I'll be curious to see if the Existentialists share a similar skepticism towards those who uncritically accept our human ability to know reality verbally. The post-existentialist structuralists, post-structuralists, deconstructionists, theoretical psychoanalysts, Derrideans et al definitely do not. (Or maybe it would be better to say they don't really buy into the idea that "reality" names something nonverbal.) Derrida famously said “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte” ("there is no outside-the-text"), a view James would find laughable. Me too.

I was reminded of this while reading Emily Eakin's new memoir/history of those post-existentialists, The Frenchmen. At the end of chapter 27 she writes of Jacques Lacan (1901-1981):

...he'd scrubbed his work of any residue of biology or Darwin... there were fewer and fewer allusions to the world of things. Lacan had abandoned Earth for the theoretical firmament. [A critic wrote:] '...when I read his work I can't help thinking, 'Words, words, words.'

And at the beginning of chapter 28:

Words, words, words indeed. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a better slogan for the decade [of the fifties in French philosophy]. 

Ha! In 1892 William James had written:

What an awful trade that of professor is—paid to talk, talk, talk! I have seen artists growing pale and sick whilst I talked to them without being able to stop. And I loved them for not being able to love me any better. It would be an awful universe if everything could be converted into words, words, words. --Letters I, Dec 28

And in Pragmatism III (1907) be wrote:

The really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself? The centre of gravity of philosophy must therefore alter its place. The earth of things, long thrown into shadow by the glories of the upper ether, must resume its rights. To shift the emphasis in this way means that philosophic questions will fall to be treated by minds of a less abstractionist type than heretofore, minds more scientific and individualistic in their tone yet not irreligious either. It will be an alteration in 'the seat of authority' that reminds one almost of the protestant reformation.

James loved words too. He just didn't think they crowd out nature and the rest of the unverbalized fields of our experience. As Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So WJ would say to Lacan and his logorrheic peers.

"Cringe" cinema

 We were talking in one of our classes the other day about bad or "cringe" films that are so bad they're "good"... I'm still struggling to grasp the concept. Is this essay on point?

I worship at the altar of trash, by which I mean that I am one of those cinephiles with a fondness for bad movies. Perhaps I am underselling the corpus I have in mind by calling it merely “bad,” and understating my sect’s feeling by calling it merely “fondness.” The movies my fellow-cultists and I most esteem are not just bad but incredibly, impressively terrible—scrambled, technically maladroit, incomprehensible at the level of basic plotting—and we are not just fond but obsessed, digging through piles of bric-a-brac at thrift stores in hope of uncovering forgotten VHS tapes from the eighties, scrolling to neglected corners of YouTube with the goal of alighting on some near-unwatchable monstrosity with thirty-two views and a handful of affronted comments.

But we, too, are discerning; we do not approve of just any bad movie... Neil Breen, New Yorker

Questions Sep 1

 Remember, you don't have to respond directly to my questions (but some of them will be on the exam, so you should in any case look for the texts that address them. If you can come up with relevant comments on your own, or additional discussion questions, please do.

Aristotle's "happiness" is flourishing, a life of virtuous rationality or eudaimonia. He differed sharply from his teacher Plato. See Existential Comics, for instance...

Aristotle-LHP 2. Rec: FL 3-4. HWT Sections 1-3 

In CoPhi it's time again for Aristotle. A couple of years ago I talked about him in the Honors Fall Lecture Series [slideshow*]... and noticed some affinity between Aristotle and Socrates, maybe more than between Socrates and his supposed devotee Plato... (continues)

==

LHP 2

1. What point was Aristotle making when he wrote of swallows and summer? Do you agree?
2. Aristotle was fascinated by what? Are you, also? Or do you agree more with Plato about "true reality"?
3. What philosophical difference between Plato and Aristotle is implied by their body language in The School of Athens (1509-11)? Which Platonic theory did Aristotle reject? Is it disrespectful to contradict your teacher's pet theory? Who would you wish to speak with, if you could be inserted into the scene depicted?
4. What is eudaimonia, and how can we increase our chances of achieving it, and in relation only to what? Do you think you've achieved it?
5. What reliance is completely against the spirit of Aristotle's research? Are there any authorities you always defer to? Why or why not?

FL

5. What did Sir Walter Raleigh help invent (other than cigarettes) that contributed to "Fantasyland" as we know it today? Was he a "stupid git," as the Beatles song says?

6. What was western civilization's first great ad campaign? Does advertising and the constant attempt to sell things to people have a negative impact on life in the USA?

7. What did Sir Francis Bacon say about human opinion and superstition? Do you ever attempt to overcome your own confirmation bias?

8. Which early settlers are typically ignored in the mythic American origin story? Also: what about the early "settlers" who were brought here against their wills and enslaved?

9. What had mostly ended in Europe, but not America, by the 1620s, and what did the Puritans think would happen "any minute now"? Why do you think people keep making this mistake?

HWT

10. What is pratyaksa in classic Indian philosophy, and how does the Upanishads say to seek it? 

11. There is widespread belief in India that the practice of yoga can lead to what? Do you think it can?

12. What is metanoetics, in Japanese philosophy?

13. What does ineffable mean?  Is it possible, though paradoxical, to use words to indicate something you can't put into words?

14. Unlike the west, religion in Japan is typically not about what? And what is it about to you?

==

Aristotle on slavery and the subjugation of women

Aristotle was generally a brilliant ethicist, BUT…

"Aristotle wrote Europe's greatest foundational works of ethics and politics, but only in the context of free Greek males: everyone else was of a lesser nature. This meant women, of course, but also those he categorized as naturally born for enslavement. The way to identify such a person, according to Aristotle, was this: "Someone is . . . a slave by nature if he is capable of becoming the property of another (and for this reason does actually become another's property) and if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself." This last clause was mainly to distinguish enslaved people from non-human animals, who could not even recognize reason when they saw it. With that proviso, the main point here was that you could spot those who were meant to be enslaved from the fact that they were currently enslaved. For them, clearly, "the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just." Aristotle further clarified the situation by comparing enslavement to the equally natural dominance of men over women. Aristotle's "slave nature" theory was used to justify centuries of later exploitation."

— Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell

==

Aristotle on the work of a human being

"If we posit the work of a human being as a certain life, and this is an activity of soul and actions accompanied by reason, the work of a serious person is to do these things well and nobly. …
But, in addition, in a complete life. For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day. And in this way, one day or a short time does not make someone blessed and happy either."

==

"Beyond the reach of social anxiety"

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You wouldn't worry so much about what other people think of you, if you realized how seldom they do."

"...in order to feel social anxiety, you have to believe that other people’s negative opinions of you are worth getting upset about, that it’s really bad if they dislike you and really important to win their approval. Even people  who suffer from severe social anxiety disorder (social phobia) tend to feel “normal” when speaking to children or to their close friends about trivial matters, with a few exceptions. Nevertheless, they feel highly anxious when talking to people they think are very important about subjects they think are very important. If your fundamental worldview, by contrast, assumes that your status in the eyes of others is of negligible importance, then it follows that you should be beyond the reach of social anxiety."

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald J. Robertson

 

* 

AristotleFriendship (1).pptx from Osopher

Aristotle at Existential Comics... Aristotle in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)... The moral and intellectual virtues listed...

 

Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall

Aristotle "developed a sophisticated, humane program for becoming a happy person, and it remains valid to this day. Aristotle provides everything you need to avoid the realization of the dying protagonist of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), that he has wasted much of his life scaling the social ladder, and putting self-interest above compassion and community values, all the while married to a woman he dislikes. Facing his imminent death, he hates his closest family members, who won't even talk to him about it. Aristotelian ethics encompass everything modern thinkers associate with subjective happiness: self-realization, finding "a meaning," and the "flow" of creative involvement with life, or "positive emotion." 1 

This book presents Aristotle's time-honored ethics in contemporary language. It applies Aristotle's lessons to several practical real-life challenges: decision-making, writing a job application, communicating in an interview, using Aristotle's chart of Virtues and Vices to analyze your own character, resisting temptation, and choosing friends and partners. 

Wherever you are in life, Aristotle's ideas can make you happier. Few philosophers, mystics, psychologists, or sociologists have ever done much more than restate his fundamental perceptions. But he stated them first, better, more clearly, and in a more holistic way than anyone subsequently. 

Each part of his prescription for being happy relates to a different phase of human life, but also intersects with all the others. Becoming subjectively happy as an individual, Aristotle insisted, is your unique and momentous responsibility. It is also a great gift—it is within most people's power, regardless of their circumstances, to decide to become happier…"

— Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall

"How should we address you?"

 I've gotten that question from a couple of students. And occasionally I don't get the question before being addressed a bit over-familiarly, prematurely.

Dr. Oliver, or Professor, are appropriate... at least at this stage of our relationship. 

Just FYI. One less trivial thing to wonder about. Philosophy begins in wonder, but not about that sort of thing. ;)

If you're sick...

 or for whatever other reason cannot attend class...

No need to notify me in advance that you'll miss class... 

And no need to ask "What did I miss?" Just check the syllabus (or "NEXT")  and the recording (unless we went outside).

When you miss, go ahead and post your comments/questions about the day's reading assignments. You can claim bases on the scorecard for that on the next day's scorecard when you come back to class.

Beyond words

Following up an interesting discussion we had on Tuesday In section 1  (I think ) about the limits of language. Words are great, on this view, but they do not capture or convey the totality of feeling associated with human perceptual experience. Sometimes, as the Old saying goes, “you’ve just got to be there.”

William James:

“Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession condemns him to this industry, but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy. His formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs seen outside the instrument; they lack the depth, the motion, the vitality. In the religious sphere, in particular, the belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience.” VRE 

Remember to look for each class date's Questions

 Scroll down to find Thursday's (Questions Aug 27). Post your questions and comments about the day's assigned readings PRIOR to class. Three will let you "touch 'em all" and come home to score (and shade each leg of the diamond).

'Declaring Independence' by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historia...

Declaring Independence by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Edward J. Lawson was MTSU’s freshman summer read... If you read it, what are your thoughts? Share them in the comments space below (and claim a base on the scorecard for doing so).

MTSU 2026 Convocation, Sat Aug 22, featuring Edward J. Larson (his address begins at 38 minutes):

https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/h5VycNXH7bgkAv6afvGOOsaDDk8g7wPw/playlists/7483/media/1041788?showtabssearch=true

Independence matters...

https://youtu.be/CCAvLejq19Y?is=G-5Ssui5LIuXslH_

“The self-evident truths of 1776 hover over our national divisions—as inspiring ideals, as measures of how far we still must come, as the hypocrisy of slaveholders, as intrusions on local traditions. The revolutionary politics of 1776 turned from securing the rights of Englishmen to establishing the authority of an independent nation. The battlefields of 1776 cast the military mold for the war years to come and gave us an enduring symbol of gritty determination in the actions of Washington’s depleted forces at Trenton and Princeton.

Drawing together the eloquence of Jefferson and the insistence of Paine, the strategies of generals and the audacious tactics of armies on the move, and the powerful political movement that transformed colonies into states, this history of 1776 is a leading scholar’s distillation of the pivotal events we must reckon with two hundred and fifty years after the nation’s birth.“ g’r

Questions Aug 27

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS, or indeed any of them. They're here to prompt your own reflections. If you can access this without my questions, feel free. 

Questions pertaining to the assigned reading will normally be posted prior to each class.That's where you should always share your thoughts, in the comments space below each day's post (at least three relevant comments/questions/observations per class, so you can shade the whole diamond on the scorecard when you come to class, and thus receive full participation credit for that date... more than that gets you extra credit). You can also respond to your own questions(s) or your classmates' posted comments. Respond not merely with the authors' textual statements but also with your own thoughts & reflections.) 25 exam questions will pertain to the required texts. Additional bonus questions pertaining to the recommended texts will also appear.

LHP

1. Socrates saw himself as a what? Do you think such a person is valuable to a community? Can you think of anyone in our time who fills that role?
2. What kind of conversation was a success, for Socrates, and what did he mean by wisdom?
3. What made Socrates wise and unusual? Do you think he was wrong about writing? In whose writing does "Socrates" appear?
4. What theory is Plato's story of the cave connected with? What was his name for a perfect exemplar of anything (such as a circle)? Do you think some or all humans are naturally, in some allegorical sense, stuck in a cave? Do you think we need to conceive Ideas of perfection in order to pursue improvement in life effectively? (For instance, can you become a better person without having a perfectly formed notion of what a "perfect person" would be?)
5. What was Plato's profoundly un-democratic view of how the state should resemble the mind (as he understood it)? Would you want to live in Plato's Republic?
6. What was Socrates' "annoying" response to the jury that, by narrow vote, sentenced him to death? Do you think it was courageous? What would you have said, in his situation?

What did Socrates say his inner voice told him? Do you think "inner voice" is literal?

Weiner

1. "Philosopher" means what? Philosophy was what, in ancient Athens? (Introduction) 
2. What did Camus say is the one truly serious philosophical problem? Do you agree?
3. What did Marcus Aurelius need, at dawn, to remind himself of? (And ask me about his morning mantra, which I daily remind myself of. UPDATE: Turns out it wasn't Marcus, but a 19th century American named Elbert Hubbard, whose morning mantra* has been falsely attributed to the Stoic emperor.)
4. What was the first question young Needleman experienced? Have you experienced it? Do you think it is a good question? How do you answer it?
5. What kinds of questions most interested Socrates?
6. The Socratic dialogues consisted of what kinds of conversations? Do you enjoy participating in such conversations?
7. What did Socrates say about the unexamined life? What corollaries does Weiner propose? Do you think Socrates was wrong?

Plato's Euthyphro:

...EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.

SOCRATES: Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others? What do you say?

EUTHYPHRO: We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.

SOCRATES: We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

EUTHYPHRO: I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.

SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain...

Trial and death of Socrates:Plato's Apology, Crito, and Phaedo

...Having thus brought his subject to a conclusion, Socrates proposes to bathe himself, in order not to trouble others to wash his dead body. Crito thereupon asks if he has any commands to give, and especially how he would be buried, to which he, with his usual cheerfulness, makes answer, "Just as you please, if only you can catch me;" and then, smiling, he reminds them that after death he shall be no longer with them, and begs the others of the party to be sureties to Crito for his absence from the body, as they had been before bound for his presence before his judges.

After he had bathed, and taken leave of his children and the women of his family the officer of the Eleven comes in to intimate to him that it is now time to drink the poison. Crito urges a little delay, as the sun had not yet set; but Socrates refuses to make himself ridiculous by showing such a fondness for life. The man who is to administer the poison is therefore sent for; and on his holding out the cup, Socrates, neither trembling nor changing color or countenance at all, but, as he was wont, looking steadfastly at the man, asked if he might make a libation to any one; and being told that no more poison than enough had been mixed, he simply prayed that his departure from this to another world might be happy, and then drank off the poison, readily and calmly. His friends, who had hitherto with difficulty restrained themselves, could no longer control the outward expressions of grief, to which Socrates said, "What are you doing, my friends? I, for this reason, chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind; for I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet, therefore, and bear up."

When he had walked about for a while his legs began to grow heavy, so he lay down on his back; and his body, from the feet upward, gradually grew cold and stiff. His last words were, "Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it."

"This," concludes Phædo, "was the end of our friend—a man, as we may say, the best of all his time, that we have known, and, moreover, the most wise and just." Phaedo

Phaedo audio...

==

*"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." -Elbert Hubbard, probably... and not Marcus Aurelius, though the Internet seems to think otherwise. Don't confuse him with looney L. Ron...

And check out:

Virtual tour, map, & glossary of Ancient Athens

"Rescuing Socrates"

Socrates documentaries, podcasts

• 
  

Rec-

HWT

1. What's one of the great unexplained wonders of human history?
2. Do you agree that we cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand others?
3. What was Descartes's "still pertinent" conclusion?
4. Why did the Buddha think speculation about ultimate reality was fruitless? 
5. What aspects of western thought have most influenced global philosophy?
6. What do Africans not have, according to Kwame Appiah?

FL

1. What statement by Karl Rove began to "crystallize" Fantasyland, in Kurt Andersen's mind?

2. What are half of Americans "absolutely certain" about? What do a quarter believe about vaccines?

3. What is Andersen trying to do with this book?

 

More from The School of Life

  

==

In class on Opening Day I was asked if I could summarize my philosophy in a word or phrase like Sally Brown, who finally decides her philosophy is simply "No!"

I should have said Yes! The word is meliorism (closely related, in my philosophy as in WJ's, to possibility):

 Meliorism:

 

"...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.

It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism..." Pragmatism by William James

Philosophy Bites, Nihilism vs. Meliorism

Nigel Warburton’s podcast, a good supplement to his Little History of Philosophy (which we are reading): https://philosophybites.com/

If you search the site for "definitions of philosophy" this comes up... including an episode from 2010 that asks numerous contemporary philosophers What is Philosophy? No two answers are the same. Philosophers do tend to think for themselves. The good ones, though, do not think by themselves. They converse and collaborate. They're Co-Philosophers, like we aim to be in this course.

My own definition of philosophy, beyond the etymological/literal "love of wisdom," is William James's: "an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly," and to live in the light of that clarity.

And my own personal philosophy, if reduced to a word, is decidedly not Sally Brown's "No!" That's too much like deep pessimism or even nihilism.

No, the word I'd choose is: meliorism. You'll hear it again. 

It rejects pure optimism and deep pessimism alike. It means trying to make things better. And it comes from, guess who... "Willie" James (as one of mty old Vandy mentors familiarly called my favorite philosopher who's been dead but not gone for 116+ years now. In Pragmatism-"a new name for some old ways of thinking" dedicated 

To the Memory of John Stuart Mill

from whom I first learned the pragmatic openness of mind
and whom my fancy likes to picture as our leader were he alive to-day.

he writes:

...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.

It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism...

Me too.

 

 

Introductions

Let’s introduce ourselves, CoPhilosophers of Fall ‘26 (and MTSU class of 2030). 

Go to the comments space below and tell us who you are, why you’re here, how you’d summarize your personal philosophy of "life, the universe, and everything" (but be less concise than "42"), & anything else you’d care to share. Include your section number,  1, 2 or 3 (940, 1 PM, 240 respectively).

Who am I, why am I here? Here’s an interview I gave recently:

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

==

I consider myself a philosopher in the peripatetic tradition, at least in the ambulatory sense: Like teachers and students at Aristotle's Lyceum, I prefer the outdoors and generally would rather roam than sit (at least on the nicer days). I agree with Kierkegaard, who said he'd walked himself into his best thoughts; and Nietzsche, who said the best thoughts are conceived while walking; and Emerson, who said walking is a gymnasium of the mind. So I look forward to getting us all out of our classroom and onto the grounds of our Lyceum at MTSU, when the weather allows.

This is me, with Nell and Pita (who we brought home with us from the humane shelter in 2018):

==

So, shall we hit the ground running? And not say, like Douglas Adams's jaded bowl of petunias in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, "Oh no, not again!"

==

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?

… Students need to write well enough to have a sense of which A.I. text suggestions to accept and which to reject, she said. Ms. Maxwell also insisted that creativity in writing would persist, because people would still want to express their personal voice and style.

To that end, companies like Grammarly, Google and OpenAI are creating so-called Socratic versions of their chatbots, sold to schools as writing helpers that will guide students through assignments without doing the work for them...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/student-writing-essays-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Debate start dates

“My undergraduates open their free will essays the same way every term: "The problem of free will has been debated since time immemorial." It hasn't. Socrates never mentions it. It isn't in Plato or Aristotle. Not because they missed it — because they had no concept of will for it to be free or unfree. The thing you assume is the most basic fact about being a person turns out to have a start date.“

 https://substack.com/@davidjfrost/note/c-320219158?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Applied Philosophy Lyceum: Oct 2, 5 pm, COE 164

The Digital Cave

Reading, Thinking, and Dwelling in the Age of the Algorithm

An Applied Philosophy Talk by John Kaag

Abstract

We live in an era of industrial-scale shadow-play. The map of reality is no longer drawn from our own experience but projected by algorithms designed to keep us looking at a particular kind of wall. This talk argues that the oldest resources in the philosophical canon offer the most precise diagnosis of our newest predicament. Plato's cave anticipates the architecture of the feed—with one grim perversion: his prisoners at least shared a wall, while the algorithm builds a bespoke cavern for each of us. The Buddhist vocabulary of maya, tanha, and upadana describes with uncanny accuracy the mechanics of craving, clinging, and curated selfhood that the infinite scroll exploits. And Heidegger's account of Enframing—read alongside his catastrophic biography, which cannot be waved away—explains how attention itself became “standing reserve,” a resource to be extracted.

The talk concludes with the question increasingly posed to our machines: why is talking to a large language model so strange? The answer reveals a schism between information and meaning, between the calculative synthesis at which AI excels and the meditative, embodied, abductive thinking that a life—with something at stake—alone makes possible. Philosophy's task has not changed since the cave: to make us suspicious of the reality that appears most obvious, and to recover the gritty practices that might let us turn our heads, a few degrees, toward the light.

About the Speaker

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of three widely acclaimed books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: American Philosophy: A Love Story, Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are, and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life. These books were named NPR Best Books of the Year and New York Times Editors' Choice selections.

His work bridges American pragmatism, intellectual history, ethics, and the philosophy of technology, and he writes regularly for general audiences on why philosophy still matters for everyday life.

Canada internship opportunity

We encourage students to consider applying for the Fulbright Canada-Mitacs Globalink Internship Program for Summer 2027.

Interested students should contact Laura.Clippard@mtsu.edu.

Program Information:
https://www.fulbright.ca/programs/undergraduate-students/fulbright-canada-mitacs-globalink-program

This prestigious program offers U.S. undergraduate students the opportunity to undertake a 10 to 12-week research internship with Canadian university faculty across a variety of academic disciplines, from science and engineering to the humanities and social sciences. Previous research experience is required, but students from all majors are welcome to apply.

Key Details:

• Application Deadline: September 16, 2026
• Reference Submission Deadline: September 23, 2026

Program Overview:

• Duration: 10 to 12 weeks, with internships beginning between May and July 2027
• Location: Canadian universities
• Experience: Engage in advanced research projects while exploring cultural, social, and recreational opportunities in Canada

Eligibility Requirements:

• Must be currently enrolled as an undergraduate at a U.S. university
• Must be a U.S. citizen with a valid U.S. passport
• Must have one to three semesters remaining in their undergraduate program as of Fall 2027 (Meaning graduation in Fall 2027, Spring 2028 or Fall 2028)
• A competitive GPA of 3.8 or higher is recommended

Program Benefits:

• Join the prestigious Fulbright network
• Gain access to top research facilities in Canada
• Obtain valuable international experience
• Develop academic research and professional skills
• Receive a grant of up to CAD $9,000

A

gain, interested students should email Laura.Clippard@mtsu.edu.

We encourage students to take advantage of this unique opportunity to expand your academic and professional horizons.

Warm regards,

Laura Clippard
Undergraduate Fellowships Director

What is Philosophy For?

William James:

...I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds. You know the same of me. And yet I confess to a certain tremor at the audacity of the enterprise which I am about to begin. For the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos... Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use... Pragmatism (1907)

Addicted to study

School starts in a week. Time to celebrate one of the more positive addictions.

“…As obvious as this may seem, it typically goes unsaid: to be a student is ... to study. Students are not clients; they are not consumers; they are not users who can be “captured” by outcomes, indicators, or throughputs. Experts recognize this fact, yet study is not a main theme or even a topic in the shelf of books I have on recent debates. Few philosophical arguments about the future of the university analyze what it means to study. 

So before we go any further, let the first idea of this book be the idea of study. What, this humanities professor asks, does the word student mean? In the academic field of higher education, students are the subject matter for vast research. But philosophers often examine what seems obvious, and, to me, this idea of study especially has the power to help reorient the research university. Framing the idea of study means making explicit a goal that exceeds our current practices. 

Framing the idea of study does not mean offering an empirical account of what students today “do.” Rather, it is an attempt to identify the ideas that may guide them. With some irony, I’ll try to outline the idea of study by exploring the words student and study as documented by the Oxford English Dictionary, which emerged from the philological research of great humanities scholars. 

So let me link, or turn to, the 1989 version of the Oxford English Dictionary, conveniently available to students and faculty online. student, n. 1. A person who is engaged in or addicted to study. 2. a. A person who is undergoing a course of study and instruction at a university or other place of higher education or technical training. Also const. of, in (a subject); often with defining word prefixed, as art student, law student, medical student...”

— What Could a University Be?: Revolutionary Ideas for the Future (On Campus) by Robert B. Gibbs

"Please be engaged"

A note from Amy Sayward of Project Democracy:

This fall will include elections for important local, state, and federal offices, including Tennessee's Governor and U.S. Representatives in Congress.  Please be engaged in this civic process... 

• Monday, October 5^th is the last day to register in Tennessee for the fall election.

• Wednesday, October 14^th is the first day of early voting in Tennessee.

• Thursday, October 29^th is the last day of early voting in Tennessee.

• Tuesday, November 3^rd is election day.

 

MTSU's American Democracy Project stands by to assist you in all things voting.  Students can find voter registration information for all 50 states on our website: https://amerdem.mtsu.edu/vote/

 

We also offer class presentations of 15-55 minutes about the voter registration and voting processes; simply email Amy.Sayward@mtsu.edu.

 

Additionally, we will be hosting voter registration drives across campus during September and October to register students and provide information about the upcoming election, including the three Tennessee Constitutional amendments that are on the ballot.

Sincerely, 

Amy Sayward

Amy L. Sayward, Ph.D.

American Democracy Project for Civic Learning

MTSU Box 267, Honors College 221

Middle Tennessee State University

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

(615) 904-8241