Cosmic Philosophy

 Following up Liam's remarks on cosmic philosophy today, this passage (again) from William James's Pragmatism Lecture 1...

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...

I don't think it should make us feel small or diminished, to realize we're a part of this cosmos and that we--unlike so many other parts--know that we are.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1w76csYYs4

"You are here" - That's here, that's home, that's us... "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." Carl Sagan

“To a wise man the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.” Democritus

"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder." Plato

"It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Aristotle

“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself... it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Carl Sagan

The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself. Neil deGrasse Tyson

In the cosmic blink of our present existence, as we stand on this increasingly fragmented pixel, it is worth keeping the Voyager in mind as we find our capacity for perspective constricted by the stranglehold of our cultural moment. It is worth questioning what proportion of the news this year, what imperceptible fraction, was devoted to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded for the landmark detection of gravitational waves — the single most significant astrophysical discovery since Galileo. After centuries of knowing the universe only by sight, only by looking, we can now listen to it and hear echoes of events that took place billions of lightyears away, billions of years ago — events that made the stardust that made us.

I don’t think it is possible to contribute to the present moment in any meaningful way while being wholly engulfed by it. It is only by stepping out of it, by taking a telescopic perspective, that we can then dip back in and do the work which our time asks of us. Maria Popova

Golden record... Golden record goes vinyl... Golden record 2.0... Contact opening... A way of thinking (video interview/transcript)


"Two billion years ago, our ancestors were microbes; a half-billion years ago, fish, a hundred million years ago, something like mice; then million years ago, arboreal apes; and a million years ago, proto-humans puzzling out the taming of fire. Our evolutionary lineage is marked by mastery of change. In our time, the pace is quickening." Pale Blue Dot

“We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.” Cosmos

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
Emily Dickinson

Hannah Arendt in bricks

A tour de bricks in honor of Hannah Arendt on her birthday.
#womeninleadership #ethics #Philosophy
(https://twitter.com/leaderethics/status/1316411823550164993?s=02)

Popper and Kuhn's: Philosophy of Science

Hello everyone! My name is Alayna Hurst and I am presenting to you all either today (or next class) some history about these two men and what they believed about the philosophy of science. I shared some history on each person and what their philosophies are. I wanted to share the videos through here with you all in case you wanted to watch them again or get extra information on these two philosophers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X8Xfl0JdTQ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8cCDtVd5w

I came up with a couple questions that you guys can think about after hearing all of the information or just if you want to put you opinion about what both of these philosophers taught. 

- Do you agree with how Popper laid out his scientific theory? (i.e. the Falsification Principle)

- How do you think these two philosophers ideas coincide? Or how they don't coincide?

This is a link to my powerpoint in case any of you want to look through the information again :)

Hannah Arendt

Speaking of admirable women philosophers (see below)...

LISTEN. WATCH (Recorded October '20). The most interesting philosopher in today's CoPhi lineup, for my money, and by far the one with the most timely and relevant message for this moment when the future of democracy feels so precarious, is Hannah Arendt. She warned us to beware the "terribly and terrifyingly normal" average fellow citizens we'd never suspect of harboring a capacity for sadism and violence. She said:

• “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
• “As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.”
• “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
• “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Origins of Totalitarianism

In other words, Fantasyland is ripe for the picking. There may never in history have been such a concentration of banal, unthinking, uninformed, lonely (isolated, disconnected, paranoid/conspiratorial) people as we find here now.

Paranoid/conspiratorial?

"[T]o a great many Americans, digital communication has already rendered empirical, observable reality beside the point... Many Americans have become so deeply distrustful of one another that whatever happens on Nov. 3, they may refuse to accept the outcome...Combating the deception that has overrun public discourse should be a primary goal of our society. Otherwise, America ends in lies." Farhod Manjoo

Why "lonely"?

Loneliness radically cuts people off from human connection. She defined loneliness as a kind of wilderness where a person feels deserted by all worldliness and human companionship, even when surrounded by others. The word she used in her mother tongue for loneliness was Verlassenheit – a state of being abandoned, or abandon-ness. Loneliness, she argued, is ‘among the most radical and desperate experiences of man’, because in loneliness we are unable to realise our full capacity for action as human beings. When we experience loneliness, we lose the ability to experience anything else; and, in loneliness, we are unable to make new beginnings. --Samantha Rose Hill, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Aeon [and see her FiveBooks recommendations]

But don't overlook the crucial distinction between loneliness and solitude, the latter being indispensable for the independence of thought that enables us to think for ourselves. Sapere Aude, as Arendt's fellow Konigsbergian implored. "We need the private realm of solitude to be alone with ourselves and think."

Let us hope she was right to think a relative few thinking, informed, connected citizens would or could suffice to neutralize their threat. "Under conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not… No more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation."

And, let us hope we can still share and vindicate her confidence in the power of education to resist the anti-democratic tide.

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” 

Love for the "common world," for John Dewey's "continuous human community in which we are a link," is precisely what we should be teaching and learning. Nothing else will save democracy or preserve a habitable planet for the next generations. That's why voting is such a big deal, even for blue voters in red states (and vice versa): it's our most democratic ritual of renewal.


Originally published 10.22.20

==

Arendt thought philosophers should give more attention to natality, the natural complement of mortality.

The two central features of action are freedom and plurality. By freedom... Arendt means the capacity to begin, to start something new, to do the unexpected, with which all human beings are endowed by virtue of being born. Action as the realization of freedom is therefore rooted in natality, in the fact that each birth represents a new beginning and the introduction of novelty in the world.

...by acting individuals re-enact the miracle of beginning inherent in their birth. For Arendt, the beginning that each of us represents by virtue of being born is actualized every time we act, that is, every time we begin something new. As she puts it: “the new beginning inherent in birth can make itself felt in the world only because the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting ” (HC, 9).

...“It is in the nature of beginning” — she claims — “that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have happened before. This character of startling unexpectedness is inherent in all beginnings … The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely improbable. And this again is possible only because each man is unique, so that with each birth something uniquely new comes into the world ” SEP

Expect the unexpected. That's wisdom. 

Admirable women philosophers

For #WomensHistoryMonth, we asked nine authors to tell us about a female philosopher they admire and why - find out who they picked on the OUPblog.

This is just a small selection of women who have made great contributions to philosophy: who do you admire? https://t.co/w9pOnrJzBZ
(https://twitter.com/OUPPhilosophy/status/1374009240310870018?s=02)

Questions March 25

Wittgestein, Arendt, Popper & Kuhn, Foot & Thomson-LH 34-37, FL 27-28, HWT- Concluding Thoughts

• 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

HWT

• Is globalism and the decline or amalgamation of national traditions in philosophy and culture a good thing? 320
• Is metaphysical agnosticism and "way-seeking" better than standard western "truth-seeking"? Must we choose between them? 324
• Is "nature as much in silicon and steel  as it is in sand and sea"? 326
• Is Pragmatism's "emphasis on what works" better suited to America than more traditional philosophies that assert truth-as-correspondence to reality etc.? 331
• Is philosophy continuous with literature and poetry, or should it be? 334
• If there cannot be a view from nowhere, can there still be views from everywhere? 338

DQ

• Should we be silent about things we can't prove? Should philosophy concern itself with more than understanding the logic of language?
• Do you use language as a pictorial medium, a tool for managing social relationships and expressing our thoughts and feelings, or what?
• Are ordinary people capable of great evil? Are you? How can we be sure that a Holocaust will never happen again? What will you teach your children about that?
• If the government attempted to round up, detain, and deport millions of Latinos and Muslims, how would you respond
• Is "the banality of evil" relevant to our time?
• [DQs on Popper & Kuhn, Foot & Thomson, FL, AP]
• 
  

	thinkPhilosophy (@tPhilosophia)
4/15/17, 1:44 AM "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" - Wittgenstein's *Tractatus*: ow.ly/ClvRr #phil

	thinkPhilosophy (@tPhilosophia)
4/14/17, 7:09 PM Wittgenstein on problems translating language, computer science, and artificial intelligence. slate.com/articles/life/…

	Ray Monk (@Raymodraco)
11/8/17, 7:40 AM The video of my Turing/Wittgenstein lecture has now been posted & can be found here: britishwittgensteinsociety.org/event/eighteen…

	Philosophy Matters (@PhilosophyMttrs)
4/10/19, 3:30 PM Thomas Kuhn Wasn't So Bad ... buff.ly/2IpZf10

• April 26 is the birthday of the man who said, “Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open”: Ludwig Wittgenstein (books by this author), born in Vienna in 1889. He was described by his colleague Bertrand Russell as “the most perfect example I have known of genius as traditionally conceived: passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.” He was the youngest of nine children; three of his brothers committed suicide. 

Wittgenstein was born into one of the richest families in Austro-Hungary, but he later gave away his inheritance to his siblings, and also to an assortment of Austrian writers and artists, including Rainer Maria Rilke. He once said that the study of philosophy rescued him from nine years of loneliness and wanting to die, yet he tried to leave philosophy several times and pursue another line of work, including serving in the army during World War I, working as a porter at a London hospital, and teaching elementary school. He also considered careers in psychiatry and architecture — going so far as to design and build a house for his sister, which she never liked very much 

Wittgenstein was particularly interested in language. He wrote: “The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” And, “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.” -Writer's Almanac

• “The world is everything that is the case.” 
• “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.”
• “I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another.”
• “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
• “A nothing will serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said.”
• “A logical picture of facts is a thought.”
• “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

• What do we see when we observe the above figure? What we see in the above figure, of course, is dependent upon that with which we are familiar. Those who are not acquainted with the shape and form of a rabbit but are with that of a duck will see only a duck--and vice versa... When we normally speak of seeing in our everyday language-game, we are not inclined to say, "I see the picture as a duck," but rather we simply say, "I see a duck."
• “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”
• “If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.”
• “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.” 
• “I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another.” 
• “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
• “A nothing will serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said.”

==

• “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
• “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”
• “The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
• It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us-the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.” 

	New Republic (@NewRepublic)
4/15/17, 7:00 AM Hannah Arendt's writings warn us that danger comes when people no longer care if something is true or not. bit.ly/2pieugo pic.twitter.com/j8Io2VanwA