(Successor site to CoPhilosophy, 2011-2020)
A collaborative search for wisdom, at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond... "The pluralistic form takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of, being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of 'co'"-William James
The Practical Wisdom podcast I produce is not for the faint of heart. Each series of episodes presents a deep dive into a single text from the Greco-Roman wisdom tradition. From time to time, as in the case of this post, it may helpful to pause and collect together all the entries referring to the same piece of classical writing, so that listeners can go back to them at their leisure, listen to them in sequence, and gain a broader appreciation of what they are about.
Today I submit to you a collection of links to my commentary of Epicurus’s famous letter to Menoeceus, in which the founder of the most famous hedonist school of philosophy explains the basics of his doctrines.
Epicurus touches on a wide variety of subjects, including why we should study philosophy, the nature of death and of the gods, the distinctions among different kinds of pleasure, the relationship between pleasure and pain, misconceptions about Epicureanism, determinism, and the notion of free will.
The translation I used is the one by George K. Strodach, published in Being Happy, Penguin, 2020. Here are the links to the pertinent episodes:
On this day in 1796, President George Washington's farewell address was printed in the Daily American Advertiser as an open letter to American citizens. The most famous of all his "speeches," it was never actually spoken; a week after its publication in this Philadelphia newspaper, it was reprinted in papers all over the country.
The address was a collaborative effort that took Washington months to finalize, incorporating the notes that James Madison had prepared four years prior when Washington intended to retire after his first term, as well as numerous edits from Alexander Hamilton and a critique from John Jay. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were accustomed to writing collectively; together they had published the Federalist Papers, 85 newspaper articles published throughout the 13 states to introduce and explain their proposal for a Constitution.
Now only eight years old, the Constitution was in danger, Washington feared, of falling prey to the whims of popular sentiment. In 6,086 words, his address seeks to encourage the nation to respect and maintain the Constitution, warning that a party system — not yet the governmental standard operating procedure — would reduce the nation to infighting. He urged Americans to relinquish their personal or geographical interests for the good of the national interest, warning that "designing men" would try to distract them from their larger common views by highlighting their smaller, local differences. "You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection," he wrote.
Washington also feared interference by foreign governments…
The former vice-president did his Constitutional duty on Jan.6, 2021. That makes him a dutiful public servant, not--surely--a "hero"... unless it's become heroic not to participate in anti-democratic insurrection.
He regards James Buchanan as a hero. One of our past campus speakers viewed the namesake of our top Honors Scholarship very differently:
Hobbes and Machiavelli were not friends of democracy.
Neither was the MTSU alum who is celebrated on our campus with a commemorative plaque, a reading room in the library, and an honors fellowship in his name: James M. Buchanan.
His story, and the threat to American democracy it represents, is dramatically told in Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains, the kindle version of which is currently on sale for $1.99. Everyone connected with MTSU needs to know the story, and the origins of thePolitical Economy Research Institute on our campus.
"James M. Buchanan, economist and author, received the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Grandson of a former governor, he attended Middle Tennessee State Teachers College, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Chicago. Buchanan's emphasis on applying market principles to political choice led to the founding of the subdiscipline of Public Choice, recognized throughout the world. Since 1983, Buchanan has been associated with George Mason University." Marker
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America Nancy MacLean
Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.
In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.
Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy.
Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on ten years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of twentieth-century American self-government.
“To Buchanan, what others described as taxation to advance social justice or the common good was nothing more than a modern version of mob attempts to take by force what the takers had no moral right to: the fruits of another person’s efforts. In his mind, to protect wealth was to protect the individual against a form of legally sanctioned gangsterism.”
“[James M. Buchanan] directed hostility toward college students, public employees, recipients of any kind of government assistance, and liberal intellectuals. His intellectual lineage went back to such bitter establishment opponents of Populism as the social Darwinists Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. The battle between "the oppressed and their oppressors," as one People's Party publication had termed it in 1892, was redefined in his milieu: "the working masses who produce" became businessmen, and "the favored parasites who prey and fatten on the toil of others" became those who gained anything from government without paying proportional income taxes. "The mighty struggle" became one to hamstring the people who refused to stop making claims on government.”
“The same cannot be said of James Buchanan. His impact is still being felt today. For it was Buchanan who guided Pinochet’s team [in Chile] in how to arrange things so that even when the country finally returned to representative institutions, its capitalist class would be all but permanently entrenched in power.”
“Buchanan carried the anti-organized-labor message into his classes, teaching his students that the Wagner Act had licensed “union monopolies” that distorted the wage structure. He used an example involving the state’s labor market, blaming the United Mine Workers of America for the rising unemployment of coal valleys.”
“Buchanan took pride in what he called his academic entrepreneurship. Contributions from corporations such as General Electric and several oil companies and right-wing individuals flowed in, as anti–New Deal foundations provided funds to lure promising graduate students. Before long, the cofounders of the center were able to seize an opportunity to prove their enterprise’s value to the Byrd Organization on the issue that mattered most to its stalwarts in these years: the future of the public schools.”
“Democracy,” the towering African American historian John Hope Franklin observed in the midst of World War II, “is essentially an act of faith.” When that faith is willfully exterminated, we should not be surprised that we reap the whirlwind. The public choice way of thinking, one sage critic warned at the time James Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, is not simply “descriptively inaccurate”—indeed, “a terrible caricature” of how the political process works.”
“But take a longer view—follow the story forward to the second decade of the twenty-first century—and a different picture emerges, one that is both a testament to Buchanan’s intellectual powers and, at the same time, the utterly chilling story of the ideological origins of the single most powerful and least understood threat to democracy today: the attempt by the billionaire-backed radical right to undo democratic governance. For what becomes clear as the story moves forward decade by decade is that a quest that began as a quiet attempt to prevent the state of Virginia from having to meet national democratic standards of fair treatment and equal protection under the law would, some sixty years later, become the veritable opposite of itself: a stealth bid to reverse-engineer all of America, at both the state and the national levels, back to the political economy and oligarchic governance of midcentury Virginia, minus the segregation.”
“Privately, Gordon Tullock and Jim Buchanan discussed the social control function of denying a liberal arts education to young people from lower-income families who had not saved to pay for it. “We may be producing a positively dangerous class situation,” Tullock said, by educating so many working-class youth who would probably not make it into management but might make trouble, having had their sights raised.” ― Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America
"As you get older, you'll realize that a $30,000 watch and a $30 watch both tell the same time. A Gucci wallet and a Target wallet hold the same amount of money. A $10,000,000 house and a $100,000 house host the same loneliness. A Ford will also drive you as far as a Bentley. True happiness is not found in materialistic things, it comes from the love and laughter found with each other. Stay humble… the holes dug for us in the ground are all the same size."
1. What state of mind, belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR, What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned? Was his approach more sensible than Pyrrho's? Do you think it's possible to achieve the state of mind Descartes sought?
2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming? Do you ever think you might be?
3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.") Does that specter seem strange or silly to you?
4. Pascal's best-known book is _____. Do you like his aphoristic style?
5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________. Do you find it persuasive or appealing?
6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______." Do you agree?
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets. Is that right?
Weiner-
Why doesn't Eric "buy" Epicurus's dismissal of death as a worry? Do you agree?
What's the best Montaigne thinks we can do to find truth? Do you think he was trying to build a "tower of certainty"?
How did Montaigne reverse himself on what we learn from philosophizing? But is it really a reversal?
What was Montaigne's experience of his equestrian accident? Do you share his newfound confidence that nature will make dying comfortable and easy? Is this a form of "denial" (notwithstanding his likely disapproval of our culture's form of denial)?
What did Horace say to persuade yourself of? Is that a good idea?
Montaigne's philosophy boils down, says Eric, to trust, surprise, responsibility, and ___? And what other four words sum up his philosophy and way of life?
1. What familiar western distinction is not commonly drawn in Islamic thought?
2. According to Sankara, the appearance of plurality is misleading. Everything is ____.
3. The Islamic concept of unity rules out what key western Enlightenment value, and offers little prospect of adopting modern views on what?
4. What Calvinist-sounding doctrine features heavily in Islamic thought?
5. What deep philosophical assumption, expressed by what phrase, has informed western philosophy for centuries? To what concept did Harry Frankfurt apply it?
Sarah Bakewell says Montaigne's first answer to the question "How to live?" is: "Don't worry about _____."
What was Montaigne's "near death experience," and what did it teach him?
Montaigne said "my mind will not budge unless _____."
What pragmatic American philosopher was Descartes' "most practical critic"?
(T/F) A.C. Grayling thinks that, because Descartes was so wrong about consciousness and the mind-body problem, he cannot be considered a historically-important philosopher.
What skeptical slogan did Montaigne inscribe on the ceiling of his study?
FL
1. Conspiratorial explanations attempt to make what kinds of connections?
2. What was the Freemasons' grand secret, according to Franklin?
3. What conspiracy did Abe Lincoln allege in his famous "House Divided" speech in 1858?
4. Why did many northerners think the Civil War went badly for them early on?
5. What did the narrator of a popular 1832 work of fiction say about the slaves?
Something to consider when we talk about Descartes...
We had a serious and sober conversation in Environmental Ethics yesterday about the difference between living longer vs. livingbetter, between a life of many years vs. a life of completion and earned satisfaction. I was encouraged by the maturity and wisdom of the young people in the room, whose acceptance of mortality stands in striking contrast to that of futurologist/transhumanistRaymond Kurzweil.
Ray's the guy who pioneered optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology etc., and then went to work for Google to help Larry and Sergei figure out how to conquer aging and the biological restrictions of mortal life. He's the very antithesis, in this regard, of Wendell Berry.
I first became aware of Ray when I read his The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, which audaciously and (we should see now) prematurely, if not ludicrously, predicted that we'd have self-conscious machines "before 2030"... We'll talk about this in CoPhi soon, when we turn to Descartes.
Descartes’s famous dictum “I think, therefore I am” has often been cited as emblematic of Western rationalism. This view interprets Descartes to mean “I think, that is, I can manipulate logic and symbols, therefore I am worthwhile.” But in my view, Descartes was not intending to extol the virtues of rational thought. He was troubled by what has become known as the mind-body problem, the paradox of how mind can arise from non-mind, how thoughts and feelings can arise from the ordinary matter of the brain. Pushing rational skepticism to its limits, his statement really means “I think, that is, there is an undeniable mental phenomenon, some awareness, occurring, therefore all we know for sure is that something—let’s call it I—exists.” Viewed in this way, there is less of a gap than is commonly thought between Descartes and Buddhist notions of consciousness as the primary reality. Before 2030, we will have machines proclaiming Descartes’s dictum. And it won’t seem like a programmed response. The machines will be earnest and convincing. Should we believe them when they claim to be conscious entities with their own volition?
Ask that again when they make that claim. If they do.
At least Ray has inspired entertaining films like Her, Ex Machina, Transcendence...
But his desperate quest to "live long enough to live forever"-- see the Wired Magazine feature story on Ray,wherein it was revealed that he'd daily been popping upwards of 200 pill supplements and downing oceans of green tea every day in hopes of beating the Reaper (lately he's cut back to just 90)-- really does look sad and shallow, alongside the mature view we've explored in The World-Ending Fire and that I was gratified to hear echoed by my fellow mortals in class yesterday.
==
The World Is Waiting to Be Discovered. Take a Walk.
…Study after study after study have proved what we feel, intuitively, in our gut: Walking is good for us. Beneficial for our joints and muscles; astute at relieving tension, reducing anxiety and depression; a boon to creativity, likely; slows the aging process, maybe; excellent at prying our screens from our face, definitely. Shane O'Mara, a professor of experimental brain research in Dublin, has called walking a "superpower," claiming that walking, and only walking, unlocks specific parts of our brains, places that bequeath happiness and health.
I have no beef with any of this, but I believe we have it backward. We are asking what we can get out of a walk, rather than what a walk can get out of us. This might seem like a small distinction, a matter of semantics. But when we begin to think of walking in terms of the latter, we change the way we navigate and experience — literally and figuratively — the world around us... nyt
REPORTERS: When you've selected the essay(s) in Question Everything you plan to present, please tell us their titles in the comments section below.
If you're doing a report presentation on one (or more) of the QE essays, note that you may be able to find the one you're looking for in the Times archive. Just get the title and author from the table of contents below, and search for it in the archive.
It was on this day in 1787that the United States Constitution was signed by delegates at the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention. The war with Britain had officially ended back in 1783, but the new American government was in shambles. More than 10 years earlier, the Second Continental Congress had created the Articles of Confederation to outline the rights of the federal government. But after British rule, the Americans were hesitant to put power in the hands of a central authority, so the United States had no president or other main leader, just a president of Congress. To make things worse, the Second Continental Congress had tasked each of the 13 colonies with creating their own systems of government, and the colonies did such a good job that the states' governments ended up far more powerful than the central government...
If your name is not here and you don't have a preference (or if your preferences were already taken), I'll assign your report topic & date by Monday the 16th.
Everyone will do a midterm report presentation (and later a final report presentation.)
We'll do two or three 10 minute presentations per class (each followed by a few minutes of discussion). Tell us something about your topic that we won't have read in our assigned texts, and prompt us with a discussion question or two. Indicate your first and second choices in the comments space below, beginning Sep 10.
Fantasyland (FL), How the World Thinks, (HWT), Question Everything (QE), and Night Vision (NV) are available for 3-day checkout at the Walker Library circulation desk. Also, many of the QE essays are available online at the NYTimes.
First come, first served.
If you're presenting on a nice Fall day, consider taking us outside. Try not to rely on powerpoint (etc.) technology (but if you do, post a link to the presentation on our site in advance.)
SEP 19
Montaigne
Something in FL ch 13-14 or HWT 14-15 - #H1 Coven Gallers
Hope you enjoyed Library Day. We'll get started catching up today.
Midterm report presentations begin next time.
Former vice-president (and target of the murderous Jan.6 mob) Mike Pence is on campus today, 3 pm in the Tucker Theater. #H3, you can be excused to attendif you post a summary of what he says and share a photo from the event.
LHP
1. What did Machiavelli say a leader needs to have? Do you agree? Is it important to you for our leaders to be reliably honest, with exceptions only for instances of national security and the nation's best interests?
2. Machiavelli's philosophy is described as being "rooted" in what? Does your own experience confirm his appraisal of human nature and what's "realistic"?
3. The idea that leaders should rule by fear is based on what view of human nature? Do you respond more positively to politicians who appeal to pessimism and fear, or to those who appeal to hope?
4. Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes? Do you think your neighbors would threaten your survival if they could get away with it?
5. What fear influenced Hobbes' writings? Do any particular fears influence your political opinions?
6. Hobbes did not believe in the existence of what? Do you? Why or why not?
HWT 1. How do eastern and western philosophies differ in their approach to things, and what is ma? Which do you find more appealing?
2. An interest in what is much more developed in eastern thought? Do you share it?
3. What is dukkha?
4. What is Sakura?
5. What takes the place of religion in China? Do you know people here who have found religion-substitutes?
6. Chinese thought does not distinguish between natural and ____, focusing on what?
7. What is the famous story of Zhuangzi? What's your reaction to it?
8. The Japanese fascination with robots reflects what traditional view? Are you similarly fascinated?
FL
1. What was Arthur C. Clarke's 3d law regarding technology, and what's its converse?
2. What was the original "alternative medicine" and what is its "upside"?
3. What national craze of the 1830s relied on a "totally bogus extrapolation"?
4. Who was Mary Baker Eddy and what are her followers misleadingly called?
5. Who was Dr. William A. Rockefeller?
6. What did Mark Twain say about history?
7. How was the California Gold Rush an "inflection point" in how Americans thought about reality?
8. What did de Tocqueville say was "the chief or secondary motive in everything Americans do"?
Niccolo Machiavelli (in From Humanism to Hobbes by Quentin Skinner)
Calvin sounds like (Thomas) Hobbes describing the state of nature. Hobbes (the tiger) behaves like Machiavelli's Prince. (And check out Hobbes, Machiavelli & others in Existential Comics...)
Thomas Hobbes (in "The Dream of Enlightenment" by Anthony Gottlieb)
