Midterm report presentations

Here's the sign-up sheet. We've begun... We're scheduled to begin presentations on Feb.13 but if anyone would like to volunteer to go earlier (the 6th or the 11th) that would be great. Might even earn you a base or two on the scorecard.

Indicate your date/topic preference(s) in the comments' space below (include your section #); select from the listed philosophers or from something in one of the recommended texts on reserve at the library circulation desk--Fantasyland (FL), How the World Thinks (HWT), Question Everything (QE). They, and other recommended texts, are on reserve at the circulation desk. You can check them out. Select a topic not already selected by a classmate in your section.

Your presentation should be about ten minutes, plus discussion. You can do a powerpoint if you wish, you can show a short video clip, OR NOT. If you're comfortable speaking from notes, from an outline or a prepared text, OR just extemporaneously, that's fine. (But just in case it's a fine day when you're scheduled to present, be prepared to take the class outside. Don't tie yourself too tightly to powerpoint etc. Have a Plan B.)

Give us a discussion question or two, and lead the discussion. We'll schedule no more than three presentations per class (so if three requests in your section have already been placed, on a given date, select another). 

You can record your presentation in the library's MakerSpace if you wish, and show us the recording... but you will still need to be present to answer questions and lead discussion on your assigned presentation day. 

And you can use the MakerSpace practice booth to prepare, as well. 

Also: consider making an appointment with the Writing Center for help in smoothing your presentation. And remember that your personal librarian (Rachel.Kirk@mtsu.edu) is standing by to assist.

"Rubric"--give us ten good minutes of relevant talk about your subject, beginning from the premise that your audience knows only what we've been assigned to read about it in our required texts. Do a bit of additional research to tell us something we wouldn't have read there. If you do that, and get us talking, you'll get all 25 available points.

This should be a fun assignment. Learning in general should be fun. If it's not, you're doing it wrong.

FEB

6 Marcus Aurelius - #6 Tyler R.

Augustine-

Boethius-

Aquinas- #6 Anon. #7 Zach S.

FL 9-10 or HWT 9-10-

11 Machiavelli - #5 Aaron M., Marshay Jones (or Darwin). #6 Josh S. #6 Joey F.

Hobbes- #5 Bailey H.  #6 Jessica L. #7 Chris G

FL 11-12 or HWT 11-13-

Something in QE Part I - What does it mean to be human?-

13 Montaigne-

Descartes- #6 Ryan M. #7 Nate G.

Pascal- #5 McKinsley S. #6 Anon.  #7 Lindsey F.

FL 13-14 or HWT 14-15-

18 Spinoza- #5 Nadia Briseno. # 6 Blake W. #7 Ariyanna S

Locke- #5 Nadia Jones. #6 Anslee B. #7 Isaiah B.

FL 15-16 or HWT 16-17-

Something in QE Part I - What does it mean to be human?- #5 Parker R. #6 Conner N. #7 Nick L.

20 Berkeley- #5 Devin W. #7 Carter W.

Leibniz- #5 Lilian M. #6 Hayden S. #7 Lorelei C.

Hume- #5 Valencia B. #6 Benji W

Rousseau- #6 Edwin Pena #7 Keyleigh A

FL 17-18 or HWT 18-19- #6 Aubrey J.

25 Kant- #5 Mallory S. #6 MacKenzie McD. #7 Emalee

Bentham- #5 Hoang T. #6 Henry H.  #7 Caitlyn W.

Hegel- #_ Juan B. #6 Nergiz J. #7 John D.

Schopenhauer- #5 Abby W. #6 Briley C. #7 Koathar A

FL 19-20 or HWT 20-22-

27 J.S. Mill- #6 Patrick S.

Charles Darwin & evolution- #5 Nathen w. #6 Charles M. #7 Jonathan Dopp

Kierkegaard- #5 Nate H. #6 Derienono S. #7 Nicholas L.

Karl Marx and revolutionary socialism- #5 "Anon" (Daniel W?) #6 Holland K. #7 Claire M.

FL 21-22 or HWT 23-24-

MAR

4 William James- #5 Grace A. #7 Emma S.

Nietzsche- #5 Will P. #6 Serenity F. #7 Daniel S.

FL 23-24 or HWT 25-26-

Something in QE Part III - Can we believe our eyes?- #5 Cameron W. #6 Amir S. #7 Maddison C.

6 EXAM 1

Spring Break

18 Russell- #5 Brady M. #6 Ethan Klein.  #7 Mackenna M.

Sartre- #7 Angelo

Simone de Beauvoir- #5 Darvon H. #6 Emmanuel J.

Camus- #5 Sophia. #6 Taniya B. #7 Lore C.

FL 25-26 or HWT 27-28- #6 Kripa S. 

20 Wittgenstein- #5 William P. #6 Kal I. 

Hannah Arendt- #5 Jadyn Cortes. #6 Adam S. #7 Sidney S.

FL 27-28-

Something in QE Part IV - Should speech be free?- #5 Inas I

Something in QE Part V - What is happiness?- #6 Liz E. #7 Alexzander P.

25 John Rawls- #5 John G. #6 Jackson P. #7 Aedan D.

Alan Turing- #5 Larry Lehmann. #6 Troy R.

Peter Singer- #6 Samantha Johnson. #7 Autumn

FL 29-32- #5 Ben S.

Mindless confirmation

"…Of Kennedy's confirmation, Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) said to his colleagues: "It's truly astounding that the Senate stands on the brink of confirming Mr. Kennedy to lead America's public health agencies. And if the Senate weren't gripped in this soon-to-be infamous period of total capitulation, I don't think this nominee would have made it as far as a hearing…. If I'd told you a couple of years ago, 'There's a guy who's been nominated to run public health nationwide. His job will be to protect American families from death and disease. He's going to run the whole public health system: Medicare, Medicaid, the C[enters] for D[isease] C[ontrol and Prevention], the N[ational] I[nstitutes of] H[ealth]—all of it. He'll decide how we protect the country from infectious disease, he'll set the rules for every hospital in the country, he'll decide what healthcare and medicines get covered by Medicare, he'll manage our response in the event of a pandemic.' And then I told you,… 'Well,... there are a few concerns about this nominee. First of all, zero relevant experience. He's a trial lawyer, a politician from a famous family. No medical or scientific background, he's never run a hospital or a health system or anything like that. Second of all… he's said some pretty wild stuff about public health, over and over and over again, like: he proposed that Covid-19 might be 'ethnically targeted' to spare Jews. Ethnically targeted to spare Jews. He said Lyme disease was a military bioweapon. For years he's been persuading American families against routine childhood immunizations. He's compared the work of the CDC to 'Nazi death camps.'... If a couple of years ago I told you all that, and I told you that the Senate was about to put America's health in this man's hands, you'd probably tell me the Senate has lost its mind."
All the Senate Republicans but McConnell voted to confirm Kennedy..."

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-13-2025?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Horrifying

The sixty-first Munich Security Conference, the world’s leading forum for talking about international security policy, took place from February 14 to February 16 this year. Begun in 1963, it was designed to be an independent venue for experts and policymakers to discuss the most pressing security issues around the globe.

At the conference on Friday, February 14, Vice President J.D. Vance launched what The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour called “a brutal ideological assault” against Europe, attacking the values the United States used to share with Europe but which Vance and the other members of the Trump administration are now working to destroy.

Vance and MAGA Christian nationalists reject the principles of secular democracy and instead align with leaders like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. They claim that the equal rights central to democracy undermine nations by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. They want to see an end to the immigration that they believe weakens a nation's people, and for government to reinforce traditional religious and patriarchal values.

Vance attacked current European values and warned that the crisis for the region was not external actors like Russia or China, but rather “the threat from within.” He accused Europe of censoring free speech, but it was clear—especially coming from the representative of a regime that has erased great swaths of public knowledge because it objects to words like “gender”—that what he really objected to was restrictions on the speech of far-right ideologues.

After the rise and fall of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Germany banned Nazi propaganda and set limits on hate speech, banning attacks on people based on racial, national, religious, or ethnic background, as these forms of speech are central to fascism and similar ideologies. That hampers the ability of Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to recruit before upcoming elections on February 23.

After calling for Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” Vance threw his weight behind AfD. He broke protocol to refuse a meeting with current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and instead broke a taboo in German politics by meeting with the leader of AfD Trump called Vance’s speech “very brilliant.”

Bill Kristol of The Bulwark posted: “It's heartening that today the leaders of the two major parties in Germany are unequivocally anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. It's horrifying that today the president and vice-president of the United States of America are not.” German defense minister Boris Pistorius called Vance’s speech “unacceptable,” and on Saturday, Scholz said: “Never again fascism, never again, racism, never again aggressive war…. [T]oday’s democracies in Germany and Europe are founded on the historic awareness and realization that democracies can be destroyed by radical anti-democrats.”

Vance and the Trump administration have the support of billionaire Elon Musk in their attempt to shift the globe toward the rejection of democracy in favor of far-right authoritarianism. David Ingram and Bruna Horvath of NBC News reported today that Musk has “encouraged right-wing political movements, policies and administrations in at least 18 countries in a global push to slash immigration and curtail regulation of business.”

HCR...

Henry & Richard

It's the birthday of historian and philosopher Henry Adams, born in Boston, Massachusetts (1838). He was the grandson of John Quincy Adams and the great-grandson of John Adams, and wrote several books on American history, including the nine-volume History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (1889-91).

He's best known for his dark and pessimistic autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams (1918). He said he felt more at home in 17th- and 18th-century America than he did in 20th-century America. He wrote that most Americans he had encountered "had no time for thought; they saw, and could see, nothing beyond their day's work; their attitude to the universe outside them was that of the deep-sea fish."*

It's the birthday of novelist Richard Ford, born in Jackson, Mississippi (1944). Ford has spent most of his adult life moving from city to city with his wife. He's lived in 14 states, as well as France and Mexico. At one point, he divided his time between a townhouse on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a house in Montana, and a plantation house in Mississippi. He said: "The really central thing is that, no matter where I move, I always write and I'm married to the same girl. All that other stuff is just filigree."

His first novels featured tormented characters, and his wife told him to try writing a book about somebody happy for a change. So he wrote about a normal, likeable guy named Frank Bascombe, who gives up a career as a fiction writer to write for a sports magazine. He wrote about 150 pages and showed them to his editor, who told him to throw the book away. But he decided to ignore his editor and finish the book, which he called The Sportswriter (1986), and it was his first big success. He wrote two more novels about Frank Bascombe, both of them successful: Independence Day (1995), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and The Lay of the Land (2006).

WA

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-sunday-february-95e?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

==

*William James wrote a remarkable letter to Adams in his terminal summer of 1910...

"...The "second law" is wholly irrelevant to "history"—save that it sets a terminus—for history is the course of things before that terminus, and all that the second law says is that, whatever the history, it must invest itself between that initial maximum and that terminal minimum of difference in energy-level. As the great irrigation-reservoir empties itself, the whole question for us is that of the distribution of its effects, of which rills to guide it into; and the size of the rills has nothing to do with their significance. Human cerebration is the most important rill we know of, and both the "capacity" and the "intensity" factor thereof may be treated as infinitesimal. Yet the filling of such rills would be cheaply bought by the waste of whole sums spent in getting a little of the down-flowing torrent to enter them. Just so of human institutions—their value has in strict theory nothing whatever to do with their energy-budget—being wholly a question of the form the energy flows through. Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the penultimate state might be the millennium—in other words a state in which a minimum of difference of energy-level might have its exchanges so skillfully canalisés that a maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result. In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I am so happy and perfect that I can stand it no longer." You don't believe this and I don't say I do. But I can find nothing in "Energetik" to conflict with its possibility. You seem to me not to discriminate, but to treat quantity and distribution of energy as if they formed one question..." 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38091/38091-h/38091-h.htm#page_344

“Disaster” close to home

"…the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is a blow to the agricultural sector: USAID buys about $2 billion in agricultural products from U.S. farmers every year. It has also supported funding for research at state universities like the University of Tennessee, the University of Missouri, and the University of Louisiana.

Cuts to indirect spending in grants from the National Institutes of Health will also hit hard across the country, and states where Trump won more than 55% of the 2024 vote are no exception. Former college president Michael Nietzel noted in Forbes that Texas stands to lose more than $300 million; Ohio, more than $170 million; and Tennessee, Missouri, and Florida, more than $130 million apiece. These losses will cause thousands of layoffs and, as the Association of American Medical Colleges said, "diminish the nation's research capacity, slow scientific progress and deprive patients, families and communities across the country of new treatments, diagnostics and preventive interventions."

Trump said Wednesday he wanted to shutter the Department of Education immediately, calling it "a big con job." That Department provides grants for schools in low-income communities as well as money for educating students with special needs: eight of the ten states receiving the most federal money for their K–12 schools are dominated by Republicans.

Trump has called the Federal Emergency Management Agency a "disaster" and said states should handle natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and tornadoes on their own. But states do not have the resilience they need for such short-term emergencies. Once again, while all states receive FEMA money, Republican-dominated states get slightly more of that money than Democratic-dominated states do..."

HCR

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-15-2025?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Happy (almost) Valentine's Day

Philosophy & Love
Eros In Plato
The erotic side of Socratic philosophy

In a brief and very plain dialogue with Agathon in Plato’s Symposium, Socrates asks Agathon whether eros (= passionate love) is the sort of thing which is “of something” or “of nothing.” Agathon answers, “Yes, indeed it is [of something].” This is a most remarkable answer, because Agathon is sure about the existence of an object of erotic love, without yet knowing what that object, that ‘something’, is. But this, in sum and in substance, gives the very character of eros – namely, to be sure about the existence of its object, without yet knowing what that object is. Socrates continues, “Guard this [eros] by yourself, by remembering whatever.” The guarding is necessary apparently because the eros might easily depart, which implies that eros as Agathon presents it is not a permanent acquisition. Further, Socrates ordering Agathon to guard it ‘by’ himself, instead of ‘in’ himself, implies that eros does not dwell in Agathon as a desire or emotion of his soul. In fact, Eros is later described as a “great daimon” – an intermediary between men and gods. Also, what does Socrates mean by ‘remembering whatever’? How can one remember what he does not yet know? The only way he can ‘remember’ here is if he never forgets, for one moment, that he does not yet know ‘whatever’ the object of desire is.

Socrates now asks Agathon if eros desires and loves its object or not; and, further, whether it is in having or in not having the object that one desires and loves it. Socrates argues that it is necessary that desire depends entirely on lack, and that to continue, eros thus does not ever ‘have’ its object. Socrates summarizes the object of erotic desire as that which is not at hand and that which is not present and that which it does not have and that which it itself is not... (continues)

==

 

 

 

 

The School of Life on Love

“The world is sick for a surprisingly modest-sounding reason: we don’t understand love – and yet we are rather convinced that we do. We talk a lot of love of course, but generally in terms of a dizzying rapture lasting a few months focused on someone’s beauty, intelligence and strength. The most convincing discussion of love in the West came from Jesus of Nazareth, which has been unfortunate, given how easy it is to overlook everything he had to say once you don’t ‘believe’...”

PODCAST: Plato's Symposium
In Our Time Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Plato's Symposium, one of the Greek philosopher's most celebrated works. Written in the 4th century BC, it is a dialogue set at a dinner party attended by a number of prominent ancient Athenians, including the philosopher Socrates and the playwright Aristophanes. Each of the guests speaks of Eros, or erotic love. This fictional discussion of the nature of love, how and why it arises and what it means to be in love, has had a significant influence on later thinkers, and is the origin of the modern notion of Platonic love.

==

LOVE
This essay focuses on personal love, or the love of particular persons as such. Part of the philosophical task in understanding personal love is to distinguish the various kinds of personal love. For example, the way in which I love my wife is seemingly very different from the way I love my mother, my child, and my friend. This task has typically proceeded hand-in-hand with philosophical analyses of these kinds of personal love, analyses that in part respond to various puzzles about love. Can love be justified? If so, how? What is the value of personal love? What impact does love have on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved? (SEP, continues)

==

Pascal #5... and sharing slideshows

 #5 McKinsley S's Blaise Pascal presentation...

==

If those of you who do slide presentations want to send them to me to post, please do so at least a day before class. 

Or bring it on a thumb drive. 

Or become an author on the site and post it yourself.

But remember, you do not have to do a slideshow. On nice days, if we get them again, I'd rather you just take us outdoors and talk to us.

Movie and Pizza, courtesty Middle East Center

Dr. Kari Neely of the World Languages and Literatures Department will give a ten-minute introduction to the film before screening the movie. 

Questions FEB 13

Happy (almost) Valentines Day. Bring goodies to share, for a base on the scorecard.

Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LHP 11-12. Weiner 14. Rec: FL 13-14. HWT 14-15.

PRESENTATIONS: 

• Descartes- #7 Nate G.
• Pascal- #5 McKinsley S. #7 Lindsey F.

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-

1. Why doesn't Eric "buy" Epicurus's dismissal of death as a worry? Do you agree?
2.  What's the best Montaigne thinks we can do to find truth? Do you think he was trying to build a "tower of certainty"?
3. How did Montaigne reverse himself on what we learn from philosophizing? But is it really a reversal?
4. 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)?
5. What did Horace say to persuade yourself of? Is that a good idea?
6. 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?

(See more Montaigne bonus questions below*)

Montaigne's tower

HWT

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?

* BONUS QUESTIONS 

Also recommended: (How to Live, ch1); LISTEN Sarah Bakewell on Michel de Montaigne (PB); A.C. Grayling on Descartes' Cogito (PB); WATCH Montaigne(SoL); Descartes (HI)

• 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?

Feb 10 

==

Will machines ever say "I think, therefore I am"?

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. living better, 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/transhumanist Raymond 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

Born on the same day…

"…It's the birthday of Charles Darwin, born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England (1809). He was only 22 years old when he set sail for Patagonia on a surveying expedition of the HMS Beagle, working as an assistant to the captain. Darwin brought with him a book called Principles of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell, which suggested that the Earth was millions of years old.

During the five-year trip, Darwin got a chance to explore the Galapagos Islands. These islands were spaced far enough apart that the animals on them had evolved over time into different species. He collected all the evidence that he would need to construct his theories of evolution.

The journey was the only time Darwin ever left England. It took him a long time to publish his findings, mainly because he was afraid of being attacked as an atheist. But about 20 years later, he published his book On the Origin of Species (1859), the year before Abraham Lincoln was elected president..."

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-wednesday-3ac?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

It’s Abe’s birthday too

"…The idea of a small government that serves the needs of a few wealthy people, Lincoln warned in his era, is "the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent."

HCR 

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-11-2025?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Descartes - “In ordinary life, that’s not a way to behave”

Meditations on First Philosophy
by René Descartes

Read expert recommendations

"René Descartes is a superb writer who, in his first Meditation (which is the one I'm recommending) takes skepticism—which is an unwillingness to assume anything, a philosophical stance where you question everything—about as far as it can go. Meditationsis written as if he is going through a process in real time, he's imagining himself sitting by a fire taking all the thoughts that he's had in his past, the different ways of acquiring information, cross-questioning himself about whether he could have been deceived about any of those, and employing what's come to be known as 'Cartesian Doubt'. It's not taking as true anythingabout which there is the slightest possible doubt. In ordinary life, that's not a way to behave." Read more...

Key Philosophical Texts in the Western Canon

Nigel Warburton, Philosopher

https://fivebooks.com/people/books-by-rene-descartes/

Evolutionary humanism

Today marks the 216th birthday of Charles Darwin. For us, it's a day to reflect on Darwin's underpinning values – his humanism – and to recognise what was once considered radicalism has become common sense to most people today. DarwinDay

Our most noble attribute

#DarwinDay salutations! Today is a fantastic day to contemplate the profound effect that Charles Darwin has had on the entire world. It's astonishingly to think that so few people have so radically changed how we view humanity, and for the better, too.

(Not just dogs)

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Happy Darwin Day-Feb 12

It's a day to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin…

https://darwinday.org/educate/

https://youtu.be/JOk_0mUT_JU?si=ccVIlRdHCf6PsJQp

Theory of Evolution: How did Darwin come up with it? - BBC News

https://youtu.be/JOk_0mUT_JU?si=ccVIlRdHCf6PsJQp

Texts

 The recommended texts are on reserve at the library's first floor circulation desk.

REQUIRED:

• Nigel Warburton, LITTLE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY [full text linked in sidebar]
• Susan Neiman, WHY GROW UP: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age
• John Kaag, SICK SOULS, HEALTHY MINDS: How William James Can Save Your Life
• Eric Weiner, THE SOCRATES EXPRESS: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers

(The ones you'll need right away: Warburton & Weiner... and of the recommended, Andersen and Baggini. Feel free to get audio and/or etext versions if you prefer.)

RECOMMENDED (and available for 3-day checkout at the library, on reserve): 

• Kurt Andersen, FANTASYLAND: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
• Julian Baggini, HOW THE WORLD THINKS: A global history of philosophy
• John Kaag & J. van Belle, BE NOT AFRAID OF LIFE: In the Words of William James
• Robert Richardson, THREE ROADS BACK: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives
• Kieran Setiya, LIFE IS HARD: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way

   

Questions Feb 11

[Catch up from last time: Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas]. Machiavelli, Hobbes-LHP 9-10. Rec: FL 11-12. HWT 11-13 

PRESENTATIONS: 

• Machiavelli - #5 Aaron M., Marshay Jones (or Darwin). #6 Josh S. #? Joey F.
• Hobbes- #5 Bailey H.  #6 Jessica L. #7 Chris G

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"?

Feb 8 

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)