Infinite details / finite space – Philosophic mutterings

Letter to Philosophy

2007-12-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Philosophy,

Where can I begin? Philosophical inquiry is everywhere – In studies, in interactions, in reading and conversation… I have been formally and informally studying you for the last four years and, although this is my last semester of undergraduate philosophical study, I’m not going to stop studying philosophy. I’m making a reading list to fortify myself against the world of random information and unstructured learning! I’m a bit worried about it actually. I will always ask philosophical questions, but to really delve into ideas, to really pursue “philosophy,” to actually gain true clarity beyond that which contemplation of my immediate experiences bring, I need books and discussions. Discussions require other people who are equally engaged in learning and questioning – discussion is one of the most valuable ways to learn. I thought there were not very many people who liked asking the questions I did. Then a few weeks ago someone initiated my help in stating (restarting) the philosophy club on campus. Suddenly I was surrounded by insightful, ponderous people! I suppose these sorts of groups are natural at institutions dedicated to learning and fairly easy to form. In the “real world” people have lives and jobs and families and the day to day activities of maintaining life and even if they enjoy contemplation, there may be no time to do this – what if I have no time! Laura Rediehs said the other day that, if possible, finding an occupation that pushes you to do the things you truly want, rather than feeling that your occupation prevents you from doing the things you want is an ideal kind of job. It makes me wonder: perhaps I should make philosophical study the main focus of my life…

Philosophy, it’s been good – you’ve really open my mind, as cliché as that sounds, and completely transformed the “me” I assumed I was. Sometimes I talk to other students about the debt I’ve incurred while learning about you but I always come back to the same point: education, particularly the one I’ve gained, cannot be understood or measured or associated with a monetary value. It truly is invaluable. To think how much ideas can change one!

Philosophy, I promise to keep at it. I’m going to plow through my reading list, I’m going to try to find people who enjoy you as I do, and I am going to try to do something that allows me room to be philosophical. Let’s remember, this is just the beginning!

My Philosophical Future

2007-12-21T16:28:00.000-05:00

Philosophy will always be part of my life. I don’t think I can ever stop asking “why.” I like to know how things work, how they are, and I find people and lives, and human associations the most interesting things to consider. Given this I had planned on going to law school as a way of incorporating contemplation, human interaction (and aid) with action (activism). Towards the end of this past semester however, I’ve begun considering alternative possibilities, specifically of continuing to study philosophy. Ironically, when I consider myself in the field of philosophy, I can’t imagine what I could write about, what I could discover. I suddenly revert to thinking everyone else has said it so well, and while I am sure other philosophers will publish incredibly insightful works, I could never possibly do so! I hope, however, that this is only a feeling, similar perhaps to the one I faced at the end of many philosophy courses when asked to assemble my own philosophical conceptions from the many authors we had read. Whether I go to law school, try to get my philosophy PhD (or do something else!), philosophy, or rather, philosophical inquiry (and reflection) are an essential part of my life. True meaning in life comes, I think, from reflection, contemplation, and an attempt to understand things which occur. It may be impossible to know exactly “why” something happened, but the ability to understand one’s own reaction to it and the various effects it has is invaluable and likely the most enriching part of living. Finally, surrounding myself with people who are also inclined to ponder their lives and ask questions in an attempt to bring clarity to their understanding of life, as well as attempting to understand how we should live, is invaluable. I understand philosophical inquiry as the pursuit of constant learning. I don’t think I can ever stop learning, and I know I can never stop asking “why!!”

Preferred Types of Philosophy

2007-12-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

It seems that philosophy in general is about restructure and redefining conceptions. This can be done in any number of ways, historically, analytically, comparatively… etc. I think the kind of philosophy I find most exciting is that which particularly relates to human interaction and our place in the world. Perhaps as a product of embarking upon the activities of deciding what kind of life I will lead, I am particularly interested in questions of “to live the good life.” Elements of this are certainly found across most subfields because, fundamentally, philosophy is about understanding; understanding, for example the ways I perceive objects in the world, affects how I think and live. Perhaps the most comprehensive attempt to discuss “the good life” has been in my political theory courses. The authors employed many different techniques, including a kind of historical conceptualization of human activity, how it has changes and the problems or benefits of those changes, as a way of highlighting certain things about our current conceptions and behaviors.
I am also drawn to continental and Asian philosophy. The implementation of paradox, and the almost poetic way of expressing certain theories enabled authors to get to the heart of what it means to live and the struggles involved. Regardless of geographical style, however, I am most interested in theories that contemplate the questions, “How should I live?” and, “How should we live together?” Where this places me on the philosophical “map,” is interesting. I looked again over my map and realized I had left certain philosophical issues out. Bellow is my original map with a few extra categories thrown in.

A. The self
i. Ethical/Moral Philosophy (in C regarding human interaction and in B regarding the environment)
ii. Existential Philosophy
iii. Philosophy of the Mind
iv. Maybe: Philosophy of the Sages, some philosophy of psychology, some philosophy of religion.
B. The world
i. Philosophy of Science
ii. Epistemology
C. Human Association
i. Political Philosophy
ii. Environmental Philosophy (B as well)
iii. Philosophy of Religion (A and B as well)
D. Tools of understanding:
i. Philosophy of Language
ii. Basic Logic/Reasoning
iii. Second Order Logic (B as well)

I think I am interested in nearly every area on this map!! Probably, however, I would fall mainly in the Human Association category, and also somewhat in the Self category. Understanding these things through language, however, is particularly interesting to me, but I know very little about it.

The Future of Philosophy

2007-12-21T16:23:00.000-05:00

I remember thinking, sometime in the midst of my philosophical studies, that the field of philosophy could not possibly become more complete. As recently as this past semester in Contemporary Political Theory, after each author I read (John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michel Foucault and many others), I could not imagine there was another, more accurate way of understanding human association, human nature or the ways in which individuals might live the “good life.” Yet each subsequent author provided a different but equally insightful theory about human association. and each of these authors has been published in the last one-hundred years.

Perhaps the one of the most significant activities I’ve been required to do at the end of several of my philosophy courses, is write a paper assembling, critiquing and extrapolating elements from various authors I read throughout the course, and form them into my own idea of how the world is, how we can know it, or how we should conduct ourselves within it. This is an overwhelming activity but in the end, one of the most satisfying. While none of the things I extrapolated and reworked into my papers were particularly ingenious, the activity of moving beyond the established philosophical authors to “what I thought,” has encouraged me to believe there is evermore material and possibility for philosophy!

One of the authors I have read this semester was Hannah Arendt who emphasizes, as a part of her theory, the human capacity for action. Social science in particular, she says, attempts to understand human behavior, not action. That is, statistics and studies are about finding how likely it is that groups of people will behave in certain ways, and tends to ignore the true spontaneity and unpredictability of human interaction, association and the choices individuals make to consciously do something. Arendt emphasizes the endless possibility found in the humanity for action. The world is always changing, allowing for new philosophical inquiries. For example, the rise of technology, or science, and now in particular the issues of the environment and human consumption, provide extremely important fields of philosophical contemplation. The way the world changes and the way people change, and the endlessly changing relationship between people and the world, allows for the possibility of endless philosophical considerations.

Additionally, I think it is unlikely that philosophical questions will be taken over by other disciplines. Philosophy, it seems, provides a very holistic analysis or critique of systems of thought or ways of engaging in the world. At the very minimum there is always room for “philosophy of…” – the ability to critique the very structures of disciplines and always, asking the question “why” at every level of discussion.

If any significant transformation occurs, I think it will pertain to new emerging technologies and the changing ways humans engage with one another, in and with the world, as well as how we understand ourselves in these new relationships.

Particularly, I think that hybrids of fields (for example Asian and Western-continental) might be particularly informative and bring a greater understanding of how we exist, perceive our existence, and should conduct ourselves in the world.

There is much hope left for philosophy! As long as people continue to fundamentally ask “why,” in a way that relates beyond statistics or probabilities, philosophy, pertaining to every part of human existence and action will remain a viable and lively field.

What is Philosophy? - Revisited

2007-12-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

What I originally wrote:
Philosophy is primarily concerned with how we should live. In other words, what is the good, and best, way to structure our society, behave towards one another and the environment, understand the world through science and religion… etc. The starting point for these inquisitions, and what allows determinations of value (that something is good or bad, better or worse), is our emotive capacity – specifically our capacity for empathy, care, duty, responsibility and respect. These emotions, combined with the desire to better our situation, enable us to begin the process of finding out what is, what is good, and how we can achieve that good. The essential element within this, however, and the attribute which makes philosophy an academic discipline, is the application of reason, logic and argument to these questions. The necessary quality of reason and argument enables an intra-personal, or community pursuit of Truth (big ‘T’ or little ‘t’).

If philosophy is about finding truth, then it has a great reflective power. Even if Truths are not found, the process of examining, questioning and arguing brings clarity of thinking and a greater awareness to oneself, the greater community and academics as a whole. One might say philosophy is a proactive reflection on what it is to be human in the world.

I would wholly agree with these statements, but I think philosophy is fundamentally about providing clarity of thinking. Existentialism for example, is of course about how to live, but more basically, it is about what it means to live at all. Philosophy of science, while it is partially about reshaping beliefs which may impact individuals’ behavior, it is about trying to clearly understand the internal assumptions of science, and the implications certain methodologies have. Philosophy is most powerful, or revolutionary, when it steps beyond social/historical paradigms and attempts to examine a system of thought from other perspectives. This is particularly apparent in great social-peace activists like Mahatma Gandhi, or even Friedrich Nietzsche. This past semester in reading many different contemporary political theories, I realized that each author strove to clarify or redefine either common conceptions or historical processes. Although their main goal was to suggest the ways in which humans could best (or most justly) live together, their basic purpose was to clarify perceptions. Clarity of thinking therefore, while certainly essential in determining what a good life is and how to lead it, is, I think the primary purpose of philosophy.

Reflection on Methodologies

2007-12-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

I used logical analysis, which is probably the most structured kind of methodology primary in my reasoning course. It is also useful in conversations (philosophical discussions), but I have not used it often in my other courses.

I find the methods of Conceptual Analysis particularly interesting. I have noticed that many of the authors I have read this semester, particularly in my contemporary political theory class employ this method. I have certainly attempted to do this in many conversations. This method seems to get at the heart of the purpose of philosophy, to bring clarity of understanding and for that reason I find it particularly enlightening.

Deconstruction has been used in nearly every one of my philosophy courses, as well as many psychology courses. When trying to find out “what really is,” it is often necessary to know “why” it is, and that often leads back either, to scientific or socially constructed roots. One of the ways in which I have found this method particularly interesting, was in the course, Philosophy of Science, and the deconstruction of accuracy of scientific knowledge. Additionally, this fall I read Michel Foucault’s Crime and Punish which dramatically altered my awareness of “citizen behavior” and the prevalence and regulation of the state.

I employed the Phenomenological somewhat in writing essays for my creative nonfiction course, but nearly all the authors we read attempted to examine a personal experience from how they were at the moment of the experience, in retrospect, and then as an understanding of both the initial experience and then ones own interpretation of one’s understanding of the experience. When done well, this method can provide incredible insights!

I have never actually written a letter to an editor of a newspaper though I remember reading for my Reasoning course, many letters to the editor which were either very thoughtful or quite incendiary.

I have never engaged in what I would call a platonic dialogue, but I do thoroughly enjoy conversing/discussing/arguing points with people. Often the issues I find myself talking about are not ones I am extremely knowledgeable about and so the conversations usually take the form of mutual learning, rather than an attempt to prove or disprove the other’s points.

I have employed philosophy as explication of meaning in nearly every course I have taken. When writing any kind of paper it is necessary to clearly explain a theory or passage before either critiquing it or comparing it to another theory.

I have done a lot of “comparative-descriptive” papers for my contemporary political theory course this semester. It is an excellent way of showing a full grasp of the material, but it is not nearly as interesting as comparative-constructive.

I find comparative-constructive a fascinating and difficult method, but one of the most important in philosophy. It is a way of bringing further clarity and understanding of human existence, perception, or engagement with one another or the world, and for that reason I find it quite interesting.

I very much like the idea of integrating philosophy with other experiences. While I have never distinctly thought, “I will engage philosophically in this activity and then reflect on it,” I have (and increasingly so), incorporated philosophical analysis of and reflections on situations as and after they occur. I find myself more and more engaged in relating people’s comments or activities to theories or concepts I’ve learned about. This is extremely exciting and very rewarding in that it shows this my philosophical studies have and are “sinking in!”

Explication of Meaning - William Ophuls on Liberalism

2007-12-21T16:18:00.000-05:00

“Because the basic premises of the liberal paradigm are intrinsically self-destructive, it has spawned deep and intractable problems that are propelling us toward political succession toward a fundamental change of regime just as radical as that introduced by Hobbes when he sired modern politics. In brief, the politics of amoral individualism has failed. In consequence, while conserving many of its important features, we now seem obligated to transcend the liberal paradigm.”

This is the primary thesis of William Ophuls’ book, Requiem for Modern Politics. Liberalism is inextricably linked to capitalism. Ophuls explains that because liberal principles are based on economic gains of the individual, as first articulated by Hobbes, all interpersonal conflict is transformed into economic competition. Notions of private (individual or family) responsibility are now shaped in terms of public (government) allocation of resources to each person. What were once communities of cooperation that shared responsibilities of life have fragmented into individuals’ pursuits (and competition) for economic gains. As the individual is exalted, and his/her primary focus becomes only economic gain, communities, once centered in a specific place around shared interests, erode leading both to the destruction of the environment and liberalism as a whole. As individuals detach from community concerns, the state becomes ever larger, detached from the values of human life and ever concerned with power and economic gain leading to a despotic state.

Conceptual Analysis of Hope

2007-12-21T16:17:00.000-05:00

I recently had an extended conversation with someone who characterized “hope” as inherently selfish. He recounted an argument he’d made some time ago that which was inspired by the story of Pandora’s Box. When the box was opened and evil came out into the world, hope also came out. What inspired his inquiry was the question: was hope in the box to counterbalance evil, or is it itself evil?

His premise was that hope was selfish, that it is only referred to or expressed in terms of what one wants. If someone says, “I hope you get better” they really mean, “I’m tired of hearing you cough, I wish you would stop,” or, “I’d rather you didn’t sleep all the time so we could see each other more.” Additionally, he said that hope regarding future circumstances was inherently selfish – a way of expressing something one wants without doing any of the work to get it. In the middle of the night, while trying to cram for an exam one’s procrastinated on, one might say, “I hope I do well on this.” What one really means, he argued, is “Even though I don’t deserve to do well, even though I spent time doing other things when I should have been studying, in my perfect world I will still get a good grade.” My friend argued that if one deserved something, if one had worked for it, than one would “know” and would not need to “hope.”

Additionally, concerning hope for, say the future of relationships, when one says, “I hope it will work out,” this is inauthentic, i.e. the individual knows it will not work but pretends, “hopes,” that it will, or has a lack of desire to really make it work. “Anyway one looks at it,” he said, “Hope is selfish, it’s one of Pandora’s evils.”

I disagree. While I can certainly understand hope as selfish or naïve in the examples he suggested, I think his description misses the essence of what hope truly is. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines hope as the “expectation of something desired; desire combined with expectation.” An essentail part of hope is expectation. One expects something will occur (and also wants that thing to occur). This is hardly naïve.

Fundamentally I think hope is about possibility; it is about the capability of humans to interact, associate, and do significant things. It is about looking to the future, not by assuming improbable, fantastic things will occur, but rather looking forward to the good things that are very likely to occur. The OED also relates hope to a feeling of trust or confidence. It also states that something which gives one hope, is giving a “promise for the future.” Hannah Arendt in her discussion of humans’ capacity for action in her book, The Human Condition, says that action is unrestrained, that it has endless possibilities. It is possibility, combined with promises, which provide the greatest kind of hope. Possibility of good things as well as the likelihood of these things occuring is hope. Hope is a rational, authentic feeling which certainly serves to counterbalance the evils of the world. Withouth the expectation of desireable things, there would only be, either the expectation of undesireable things, or no expectation at all. Either way, it would be an extremely drab existence and certainly one that limited human capacity for action and the ability to do good things. If we could not expect good things which are likely to occur, how could we do them? Hope, therefore, is a necessary trait.

Phenomenological Examination of Poverty

2007-12-21T16:14:00.000-05:00

My family has an interesting relationship to poverty. They’re very “Christian” in their practice of compassion, love and genuine care of other people, particularly those worse off. But in a way, their Christianity in a fairly secular world has shaped their political beliefs to be fairly libertarian. The believe in equal opportunity regarding education for all children and that one’s position in society generally, or specifically, the ability to get a job, should not be determined by factors beyond an individual’s ability to control, for example, race, gender, age etc. However, they believe in small government, in communities dealing with immediate problems and the right, essentially, to live the life, and raise their children in the life, they have determined to be good. I suppose they’re very American in this way.

The existence of poverty, however, complicates this view. Libertarianism tends to assume either that individual families are ideal, and therefore the children born into them are entirely fine, or that if people are worse off, even through no fault of their own, it’s not unfair or unjust, it simply is (See Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia). I’m not certain my parents would go so far as to say that the circumstance of children living in impoverished homes was “just the way it is,” for the Christian compassion they exemplified certainly cared for these people, but there seemed no way for the state to fix the problems that poverty creates without also becoming overly involved in their own lives which they preferred to remain as independent as they were.

This analysis is, of course, long after the fact of my childhood experiences with needy people. The ideological struggle between Christian compassion and do-what-you-can-with-what-you-have-and-if-you-can’t-too bad, were certainly felt in my attempts to understand poverty as a child.

My mother had met Mrs. M and daughter Shauna through church (I think), and had befriended them. My mother and I would occasionally go to their apartment to visit. I remember they had a few cats and there was cat hair matted completely into the entire carpet. My mother brought our vacuum cleaner over one day and to help Mrs. M clean. I didn’t particularly like going over there. They weren’t mean people, but they weren’t very nice. I thought my mom was being so kind by helping Mrs. M out in all these ways, but Mrs. M hardly ever said “thank you.”

When I was about twelve I heard that Shauna had run away and then was placed in foster care somewhere in the Midwest and Mrs. M really wanted to contact her but wasn’t allowed to know where she was. I felt badly for her, but I remember thinking how she never did anything for herself. “She doesn’t even have a job!” I thought.

It wasn’t until I read Jonothan Kozol’s book, Savage Inequalities my junior year of high school that I began to more fully understand the complicated problems of poverty. The book was composed of four case studies of poor American urban school districts that were more like waste-hazard and gang-war zones than schools. Each of the school districts were almost entirely African-American. For the first time I began to really understand the inherent problems of poverty in the United States. Children, though no fault or choice of their own, were born into certain areas and certain families, and immediately left behind, discarded by the broader population. During this year I became a staunch Democrat (my family was Republican due to their libertarian leanings), because I’d heard Democrats cared about education.

My first fall of college I attended a university in Washington, DC and this was my first regular run in with poverty. I was particularly appalled by the publicity of individuals’ pain and need. Daily life for the homeless had no place to hide. The most vulnerable people had no place at all in the world.

This past semester I wrote an essay on my experiences, two and a half years after living in DC, about working in Dalston, England, a poor section of London. I had a four week internship there with a legal aid office there. Most of their clients were quite poor and many were immigrants. Their cases ranged from child custody to attempting to obtain housing for mentally ill individuals, to representing teenage boys for stealing phones. The interactions between myself and Dalston’s residents on the street, as well as through the legal aid office, attempting to help them was very interesting. I worried about the my separation of “me” versus “them,” and because of this, my true intensions for being there. Was I there to help them, was I only there to learn something about what their lives were like, was I looking for why they became who they were and I became who I was, or was I trying to understand in what ways I could really help.

The experience was certainly a positive one and while no dramatic answers to the “why” were revealed beyond what I already knew, poor education, mental illness, bad choices etc., the most meaningful experiences were the personal ones.

I had the opportunity during my third week to attend the trial of a Turkish man accused of robbery. At one point the barrister asked me to hired a translator and obtain a statement from the defendant’s mother who spoke no English. For the first time, after several days of interacting with them, I was able to speak to her. In addition to answering the questions in the statement, she told me all about her life, the way she’d raised her son, the problems they had and what she hoped would be the outcome of this trial. There was nothing fundamentally unique about her story, but the fact that it was her story, that she was telling it to me and revealing her humanity was incredibly moving. For that moment I felt like I was able to move beyond theories about poverty, observations from the street, or routine activities to “help.” It was a real moment between two people.

As I consider what I will do with my life I remember this moment. I want to help people, but I want to do so in a way that does not dichotomize “them” from “me.” By the very nature of “help,” I am not sure that is possible. However, as I continue meeting people, or even, this past fall while volunteering at the local legal aid office, as I speak with people less fortunate than myself, I’ve made a concerted effort to really see them as people, to really identify with them as unique individuals. “To share a moment” is an extremely corny way of saying what I am attempting to articulate, but I think it is fairly accurate. I’m trying, I guess, to get beyond “them” versus “me,” see their humanity and learn from who they are.

Intellectual Autobiography

2007-12-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

Dean Lauer once said that a philosophical life, or philosophic inclinations begin in a wonder of the world. I understand this, both as a wonder of – an awe or fascination, and as a wonder about – a curiosity about the world. I found this description striking and certainly true. This may be what others call a love of learning, or maybe it’s just asking too many questions. But questions are an essential part of this wonder, because they attempt both to satisfy curiosity about the world, but questions also foster a continued wonder of the world. There is always more to know, and more ways to understand it – there are more facts, more theories, more paradigms; there is me, me in the world, the world, others, others in the world, and me amongst it all. Wonder, curiosity, knowledge, can only lead to more questions and more wonder. So where did this all begin?

I have been considering the process of my thought development. Who knows if I focus on the correct instances, or whether it was instances at all that made me who I am. If I assume there were, however, as best as I can tell, wonder began with Christianity and my Dad.

I grew up living Christianity. It was everywhere: children’s Bible stories before bed, prayer before meals, and church on Sundays. This meant that questions such as, why are we here, what is our purpose, how should we live, what is our relationship to ourselves, each other, and the earth, were often discussed. Not only did these questions inform the purpose of our Christian lives, they also sparked in me an awareness and curiosity about myself and the world.

While religion formed the questions, my father incited the curiosity and methodology of wondering. He was always trying to understand things, to know why, for example, a machine behaved as it did, why certain marks appeared on something after use, the mechanics of a sculpture. He always encouraged us to ask similar question, to consider everything around us. He bred in me a desire to know and an ability to observe and analyze critically. My father taught me to ask questions.

In the fall of eleventh grade I took an advanced 20th century literature class in which we read Heart of Darkness, The Stranger, and No Exit to name a few. It was the first time I began thinking abstractly – the first time I was both curious and critical, attempting to understand, not only literary themes, but concepts relevant to human existence. This marked an intellectual awakening of sorts; I was now considering the same questions religion had answered, but this time I was actually asking the questions and considering the possibility that there was no real answer.

Some time my senior year of high school I began to question literally everything. Each part of my life, actions and ideas became one huge WHY? By senior year I had already moved far away from Christianity, finding it incomplete and unsatisfying. It wasn’t until senior year, however, that I realized my lack of faith wasn’t simply a pure choice – that I’d renounced Christianity – but rather, I just didn’t believe; with no rational argument for the existence of god, and no intrinsic, emotional faith, I had really had nothing. This realization further ignited further questions, all essentially coming back to: what is this life all about?

Senior spring of high school I took an advanced Russian Literature course. In the final scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov and Sonya have a conversation, the subject of which I cannot remember. I remember, however, our teacher emphasizing Raskolnikov’s position of reason, and Sonya’s position of faith and that the two, in their final conversation were fundamentally unable to understand the comprehend the other. This trivial instant was when my focus turned entirely to “reason” and rational, logical inquiry as a means of true understanding.

Fall of my freshman year of college read Plato’s Republic in a political theory course. Plato, like Christianity, argued for certain absolutes, his were absolute beauty, justice etc. Plato also emphasized “what ought to be,” in addition to what “is.” At the time I found this extremely compelling, likely, in part, because Plato’s conclusions, while different from Christianity, held onto certain ideas I found familiar, such as the existence of “absolutes,” and his theories about human telos, or potential. This notion of “being all you can be,” doing what you are most suited to, or in some way progressing, gave a kind of meaning to life that was grounded in an individual’s natural potential, in our intrinsic, essence, or nature rather than, as in Christianity, human purpose being god-given.

When I transferred to St. Lawrence the following fall, my knowledge paradigm had been totally fractured and only partially rebuilt with my reading of Plato. When I came to St. Lawrence my field of knowledge was fairly flat, and what began was not a further break down of what I knew, because that had largely already occurred, what began was a building of ideas.

There are too many significant “moments” to recount, so I will attempt to highlight a few particularly significant philosophers who had a fairly significant impact on my intellectual development.

The first is likely David Hume and his arguments concerning cause and effect, as well as his serving as a representative for the question, “how do we know what we know?” Hume first articulated the problems of cause and effect, and induction. He said that all our inferences about cause and effect are inductive, just because we saw something occur in a particular way in the past, does not in any way mean we know it will do so in the future. We can never see the cause, but because we see what we call an “effect,” we study that, assuming there is a cause and that we can know it. Given that this is how we live, and the way in which we engage with the world, it really made me think about this differently. If I ask, “how and why should we believe in cause and effect?” I can also ask, “how can we know what we think we know… how can we know anything at all?” Although I have worked through this and come to several conclusions, many with the aid of other philosophical works, Hume’s criticism of induction was extremely influential.

Friedrich Nietzsche was also particularly significant in that he provided a counter to the suggestion that in the absence of god, there is no purpose, no focus, no life, only despair and moral chaos. But Nietzsche (and what I am left with may not be entirely accurate), said that in the absence of god, this nihilism need not be the case. Rather, there is a will to power, an affirmation of self. Perhaps, similar to Plato, I embraced the idea that purpose was found within the self, that the absence of external powers was not despair but hope.

Martin Heidegger was extremely significant in two ways. First, he positioned human being in relation to death. This relationship or being-toward an absolute end, is what human potential or progress is defined in relation to. Second, and I do not remember if Heidegger mentioned this, but in any case, I have begun also to think of death as the confines, the limitation, that make our lives meaningful. Because they are finite, because they are limited, things must be done, achieved, discovered, realized in a certain amount of time. Perhaps it is, in many ways, what gives our lives meaning. It seems that this may also have been some of what Heidegger was writing about. To acknowledge this finite time and the fact that it is ever decreasing, is to acknowledge we are being unto this inevitable point and this realization, and a correct form of being in this realization, is what it means to live in a right way.

James Ladyman’s book, Understanding Philosophy of Science, changed many ways I understood knowledge, truth, and justification. Particularly in his discussion of Kuhn’s critique of paradigms and the ways knowledge is constructed.

Finally, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, and Alasdair MacIntyre, as discussed in previous submissions, have very much changed the way I understand my self (or the self), within an historical/social context. Both Arendt and MacIntyre’s emphasize narrative of self as essential for a full understanding of self. Both hold to a notion of individual progression, or potentiality. John Rawls was also extremely influential in providing what seems to be the best suggestion of how to achieve a just society. While incomplete, and involving some problems, his notion of abstracting individuals from their individual interests in order to hypothetically understand a system of justice from all perspectives is really fascinating. (see previous post for a more thorough discussion).

I have just begun reading William Ophuls who is an environmental political theorist/philosopher. I’m only part way into the book, but it is very new to me! It is the first environmental philosophy (or anything) I’ve read and I look forward to exploring environmental ideas more thoroughly in the future.

Ethical

2007-11-30T00:23:00.000-05:00

Continuing the discussion of how we know what we know, I think that justice may roughly be defined as “the verified true way to live.” One might argue that this statement implies that there is a definite and absolutely right way to live “the good life,” however, I think that by examining part of Alasdair MacIntyre’s theory from After Virtue, and John Rawls’ theory from, A Theory of Justice (keeping in mind the previous discussion regarding the application of knowledge as the means by which it is verified), will serve to explain what I mean by “the verified true way to live.”

MacIntyre’s central theme in his discussion of how human life should be lived is the theme of the individual as part of a community, both presently and historically, to provide a unified identity or narrative self. This connection to the past, the current community, and the ability to reflect on one’s experience and the motivations that have shaped one’s actions make life intelligible. These relationships also allow for the cultivation of internal goods through the practice of complex, cooperative activities such as the arts, sciences, games, or politics. The pursuit of internal good is a progression of human excellence or a kind of human telos.

There are other elements to MacIntyre’s theory that I do not entirely agree with, but I think his emphasis on relationships to present and past communities as a necessary way of informing one’s own internal good is extremely interesting. For MacIntyre, the greatest fulfillment comes out of human relationships with others and an ability to reflect on those relationships as part of one’s narrative of self.

Now, consider again Arendt’s discussion of action. She also emphasizes that engaged, active, public relationships (similar to MacIntyre’s practices) are the most satisfying/fulfilling parts of life and what make us truly human. Arendt also suggests that action (public speech or cooperative discussion) as a means of discovering truth – the true nature of something (see above discussion in under “Epistemology”). This concept can be correlated with the discovery of what justice (or, the “verified true way to live”) is. Additionally, as I also mentioned above, applying theories to the community to which they refer as a means of verifying their truth applies to theories of justice. When some form of justice is applied in a community and the members of that community assemble (literally or figuratively) to communicate to others how this particular system of justice effects each of them (Arendt: looking at a thing from all perspectives), each one can gain a sense of what this system of justice really is and whether it is “good” – enabling the “true,” or the best way to live.

This system of knowing justice from all perspectives is essentially John Rawls’ theory of the original position.

Rawls, unlike MacIntyre, does not assume that humans have any intrinsic teleological end. But he does assume that each individual has his/her own conception of “the good” and can form a plan to rationally achieve that end. Naturally individuals’ conceptions of the good vary and conflicts arise which have the potential of severely limiting the interests of some while exponentially advancing the interests of others (i.e. an unjust system). Rawls wants to discover a system of justice that would maximize every individual’s ability to achieve his/her good life. Rawls argues that two specific principles of justice would certainly arise if justice could simultaneously be evaluated from every possible perspective. This takes place in the hypothetical original position where individuals are blinded to their own specific goals behind the “veil of ignorance.” This is a way of examining a system of justice from all perspectives and shaping a thing with an understanding from multiple different perspectives. In a way this is what Arendt was talking about: public debate (action) allows for a truer understanding of “what is,” and in this case, “what should/ought to be.”

Although some of Rawls’ theory is problematic, for example the practicality or even possibility of abstracting oneself for ones narrative life/community (to borrow MacIntyre’s terminology). However, the exercise, of being behind the veil of ignorance seems similar to Arendt’s ideas of knowing a thing from all perspectives (which in this case come from each individual who is differently affected).

Furthermore, the justice or principles by which we govern our lives not only represent the best way to mutually and simultaneously advance individuals’ goals, they also serve to foster within society a collective notion of cooperation and a reinforcement that individuals’ positions in society are fair. These principles therefore, provide a kind of justification/reason (or narrative) for why social positions or wealth are as they are. To again borrow MacIntyre’s language, Rawlsian principles help in making our lives intelligible.

Epistemological

2007-11-16T08:44:00.000-05:00

Epistemological.

Knowledge is “justified true belief.”

Written by my, Fall 2005:
“‘Justified true belief is’ a belief is true if it corresponds with reality.” Intuitively this makes sense. We would not say that truth is something which is not real. We would not say “the sun is a rectangular shape” is true because it obviously does not look like a rectangle… But this implies something about what reality is, what belief is and what the relationship between the two is.

How do we know what reality is? Assumed in the initial premises (“knowledge is ‘justified true belief’” and “truth is a belief which corresponds to reality”) is that “reality” defines what is true and what is true defines what is knowledge. But somehow we must know or realize what reality is in order to know what truth and therefore knowledge are.

How we know what we know determines how we know what reality is. If we knew what we knew only through the senses, then “reality” is only the things which having been seen, touched, smelled, heard or tasted can be arranged in our minds to construct a certain practical idea of the world. This would imply that reality and therefore truth cannot be things like God or anything that cannot physically be sensed. This implies by extension that we cannot have knowledge of these things either.

However, if what we know is more than what we know through the senses, if what we know can somehow incorporate intuitive knowledge not based on experience then beliefs of God might be incorporated into reality. Then the “truth” that God exists would correspond to reality and we could have knowledge of God. This, however, illustrates the main problem with the supposition that truth is beliefs which correspond with reality. The problem is that we must have a sort of knowledge first which allows us to understand reality which in turn allows us to know what is true which then lets us know what we can have knowledge of. This is circular; knowledge cannot be the basis of everything from which you are gaining the knowledge…

I wrote this two years ago in Theories of Knowledge and Reality. While the points are interesting, it is missing a key piece of information which I added to my thoughts last fall in Philosophy of Science:

Evidence can be any kind of experience, not just sense experiences. The verification I referred to above involved only looking in the physical or natural world and perceiving through the senses an object and then, assuming one could trust their senses, counting this perception as justification. What I’d like to say is that what is verified and how it is perceived do not necessarily involve only the sense.

In my Philosophy of Science class last fall, a physics professor, Dr. O’Donoghue spoke to us about the conflict, or possible reconciliation of science with religion. She emphasized that when doing an scientific experiment, or reflecting on what we believe, it is important to acknowledge all the evidence whether those are interior experiences relating to a belief in God, or exterior experiences relating to the physical world. I found this incredibly interesting and enlightening. This also addressed another problem which seemed to be that truth must be “objective,” meaning it should be verifiable by more than one person. The problem I had identified between science and religion, or any of-the-world knowledge versus any personal knowledge, was the problem of religion bring a private pursuit based on (internal) belief which validates its answers in personal experience (a relationship with God, prayer etc), versus science being a search for answers about the world (which anyone can see and sense) and gathers evidence (through experiments) which is publicly verifiable (depending on the experiment a layman or another trained scientist can understand it). In science the interpretation of the evidence is, of course (some argue) interpretive, but the evidence itself can be publicly seen, examined, understood, unlike religious “evidence.”

Getting back to my point about verification being the way by which truth is justified, Dr. Odonoghue’s suggestion, that all evidence be taken into account and then verified according to suitable means was a fascinating revelation. If one has a religious experience, it should be verified by speaking with other members of ones religious community to see if they have had similar experiences etc. Verification should suit the evidence and because evidence is not only physical, verification will not always regard the physical (or the senses).

I expanded this idea in my final paper for Philosophy of Science which was on the accuracy of science to verify what it claimed was true. My position essentially said that scientific knowledge is justified by application in the world. But I went on to say that, knowledge, because it is justified true belief, must somehow correlate to “reality” in order for it to be verified. Thus, justification of knowledge is best done through practical application. Abstract theoretical “truths” are not Truth unless they can be applied directly to the community of things they concern. For example, in religion, grand mythical “truths” about God, the end of times, hell and heaven, must be rooted in personally spiritual and community experience. Ethical ideas must be rooted in what benefits the individual as a part of a community, and knowledge of self must be understood in relation to how other people understand you, as a way of gauging how well you act as the person you imagine yourself to be.

Therefore knowledge is the connection between belief and reality. It is the process of verification that relates individual ideas to the broader community. The idea that scientific theories are justified through application or functional ability parallels the way most forms of understanding exist as truth. Therefore, in asserting knowledge as truth, it must be grounded and applied within the domain it concerns, for only then is there hope of approaching certainty.

As a final note, this also relates to Hannah Arendt’s ideas of Action in a public sphere (where we identify who we are and become truly human, as well as an individual) where ideas are discussed and examined from various perspectives. Each person is different and will have varying opinions and perspective (everyone is, one might say, subjective). But when a community combines these perspectives and examines a thing from multiple angles, for example, a system of government, it is possible for each individual to get a greater understanding of the thing. Systems of, for example, government are intangible. But, if you imagine it as a table, and the table is placed in a room, the walls, ceiling and floor of which all have peepholes through which people examine the table. If the different perspectives can be assembled, it is likely the group looking through the peepholes will have a fairly good understanding of what the thing is. Again, it is impossible to abstract out individual perspective from the way we view the world, we cannot “objectify” our mind – there is no such thing. What makes our mind ours, is that it is unique. The next best way, then, to get at the truth of a thing is to verify it through application (for ideas) and amongst other people.

Metaphysical Philosophy

2007-11-16T07:36:00.000-05:00

Metaphysical Views:

Skepticism:
I reject pure skepticism, the idea that nothing is certainly true, or (for example) that humans are possibly just disembodied brains, that the experiences we believe are occurring are only simulated and not real (like the classic Matrix example). I believe that this is irrelevant. Because our existence seems to be “real,” to the degree that our participation in it can effect outcomes, because we can make choices, change our behavior and effect others (or so it seems!), we should assume it is real. To do otherwise would lead to nothing.

Concerning What Is:
My ideas about what is have primarily been influenced by Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition. Her theory makes distinctions between three different categories of human activity which she calls, Labor, Work, and Action. Labor is related to the maintenance of life. It involves constant care of the body, feeding it, bathing it etc. It is cyclical, marked by birth, life and death and all living things are similarly affected in this way. Unlike Work, nothing is produced by Labor, only consumed. Work is a productive process. It has a beginning, middle and end which does not regenerate itself – it is not cyclical. Work produces physical things like buildings or tools. These help people to live. It creates the World (humanly constructed as opposed to the natural world) which creates the space for Labor (in Ancient Greece this was always the private home), and the space for Action (which was a public arena/forum). Humans Act by speaking and doing things in a public arena. It is a demonstration of the self and a forum for common action. Action is not tangible, there are no physical objects associated with it. Its reality comes from the perception of other people. Action without the awareness of others is not action. It exists only between people.

From this theory (which I have only recently read), and from a paper I wrote for Theories of Knowledge and Reality (two years ago), I have separated “reality” into various spheres.

The World:
I. The natural world (nature) is continuous; it is the cyclical biological process of birth, life and death. Nature imposes on everything in the same way, it does not differentiate. Everything that was once alive dies.
II. The physical world is composed of everything made by humans. It is the manipulation of nature and the reforming of it into, for example, buildings and objects. The world serves to hold nature at bay; it is a human attempt to separate ourselves from a purely cyclical process. If not maintained however, the natural world would take over the physical (e.g. buildings collapse and grass and trees grow over).

People:
People are part of the natural world in that they live and die and their bodies are sustained by a cycle of feeding, washing, etc.

Two Aspects:
I. Self: The self is, as a biological creature, an individual who has the capacity for Arendtian Action. This is the ability to make oneself known to others in a public forum (but which includes things like publishing books) through speech and action. Action is what makes us human and fully separates us from pure nature. Through action the self creates and participates in the social.
II. Social: The social are human relationships and the structures which human relationships create. Essential the social on the personal level are relationships between individuals or small groups, and on the greater level are the relationship-structures like religion, morality, systems of rule or power etc. The self operates within these greater relationship-structures, but also creates and shapes them.
III. (Final note: One might say the body, which is subjected to natural processes is distinct from the mind which is involved in interpersonal action, but I do not think this is the case. The process of participation in the social depends on the body – to speak, move, write, hear, see, or read other people. Things are experienced and known both by the body and the mind and there is no way they can be separated.)

Philosophy Map

2007-10-04T22:45:00.000-04:00

The reasoning surrounding my map of philosophy relates to my understanding that the purpose or general goal of doing philosophy lies in finding (or getting closer to) Truth. Given this, I have more or less divided the major areas of philosophy into three ‘levels’ which I think represent the way in which philosophic inquiry approaches (seeks) Truth.

Level I: This kind of philosophy seeks to know what is. The things it seeks to know are a), the self, b), the world and c), the tools (like reason and language) that we use to know these things. The areas I have included:
A. The self
i. Ethical/Moral Philosophy
ii. Existential Philosophy
iii. Maybe: Philosophy of the Sages, some philosophy of psychology, some philosophy of religion.
B. The world
i. Philosophy of Science
ii. Epistemology
C. Tools of understanding
i. Philosophy of Language
ii. Basic Logic/Reasoning
iii. Second Order Logic (which could probably be placed in B as well)

Level II: This is a higher (or more complex) level of philosophy. In this level inquiry begins by knowing or presuming to already know what is. Instead, Level II deals with value claims regarding a), human constructs, i.e. social relations among people, and b), the self in the world. These areas of philosophy are primarily concerned with making value claims as to whether what is, is good or bad, right or wrong, and in what ways they should be changed or modified. (Note: It I had a greater knowledge of how these general areas I’ve listed were broken down into sub-areas, I would be more precise in assigning them to Level I vs. Level II. Hence there will probably to be overlap between the two).
A. Human Constructs
i. Political Philosophy
ii. Philosophy of Religion
iii. African American Philosophy
iv. Maybe: moral/ethical philosophy
B. Self in the World
i. Feminist Philosophy
ii. Taoism/Buddhism
iii. Sage Philosophy
iv. Environmental Philosophy
v. Maybe: Some existential philosophy, some classical (Aristotelian) Greek philosophy, and some philosophy of science.

Level III: I’m not entirely sure what belongs in this level, but I imagine it is where all the different spheres of philosophic inquiry attempt to get reconciled into one coherent worldview. This is again somewhat redundant as epistemological philosophy regarding knowledge also does this, but I do think that at this ‘level’ a more complex examination of knowledge in an attempt to find a greater Truth (and at the very least wisdom!), occurs. Therefore, the only philosophic area I’ve put in this level is metaphilosophy.

Internet Sites

2007-09-13T23:53:00.000-04:00

To begin with: There is SO much philosophy information online. There are quite a few blogs, databases to find articles and books, and philosophy organizations’ web sites. I’ve selected five fairly interesting ones which I came upon by following links listed on the following sites, www.stlawu.edu/library/sp-phil.html and web.stlawu.edu/philosophy.

1. The Philosophical Gourmet Report
(http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/)
This website provides a ranking of various university philosophy departments in the United States from the best to the 99th best. The main page provides links to the advisors who were on the report’s evaluation board. It seems like an interesting idea though I do not know how renowned the Gourmet Report is. However, at the very least it is fun to click the links leading to the advisors’ profile pages. I like reading about their accomplishments and the specific aspects of philosophy they have devoted their lives to.

2. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online (http://www.rep.routledge.com/?authstatuscode=202)
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online has links to many different articles (more than 2000 it says!). There are also book reviews and the viewer can search the site by subject. This appears quite useful and would be extremely interesting to randomly read some of the articles.

3. Erratic Impact: philosophy research
(http://www.erraticimpact.com/)
Erratic Impact is a database which enables someone to find philosophical information in books by history, subject or author. It appears to be affiliated with Yahoo and Amazon, but it would be useful if one were browsing a specific topic.

4. Lemmings
(http://lemmingsblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/apa-report-status-of-women-in.html
This is a blog called Lemmings which is ‘devoted to issues in language, epistemology, metaphysics, and the mind.’ This particular blog, dated April 23, 2007 is a summary report of an APA Committees meeting on the Status of Women (Philosophers) and Inclusiveness. In the blog she lists facts and possible reasons as to why there continues to be far less women in all areas of philosophy (even undergraduate majors!) This is a thoughtful and fairly interesting dialogue. I would like to read more of the posts she has written.

5. FirstSearch PhilosopherIndex Advances Search (http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSPrefs?entityjsdetect=:javascript=true:screensize=large:sessionid=fsapp7-57249-f6k58kky-j3ux6x:entitypagenum=1:0)
This is a database provided as a part of ODY Library’s services. One can use it to find all sorts journal articles and published essays by date, language, subject, author, title, keyword, or many other ways. This kind of search engine is, of course essential when researching a philosophy subject. Besides, the things one comes up with will likely be quite interesting!

Periodicals

2007-09-13T21:48:00.000-04:00

1. Philosophical Quarterly
This journal was begun in 1999 and is published quarterly (four times per year).

This journal seems to publish a range of articles on many different philosophical issues. While there is no statement of purpose or intent, it seems, from glancing at some of the back-issues, to focus on subjects of current interest. For example, each issue had a section for reviews of current philosophic books. However the subjects of the articles were very different, ranging from Hume, to cohabitation theory, to physicalism.

2. Phoenix
This journal did not state how often it was published and I could not find any back-issues in the stacks. However, I think it is published between two and four times a year (based on the current issues on the shelves).

This journal focuses primarily on Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman history and society, ancient philosophy and classical art and architecture. There seems to be a philosophical component in most of the issues. The library does categorize it as ‘Philosophy’ despite philosophy only being a subset of the ancient Greek and Roman era. This issue was, however very interesting!

3. Philosophy Today
This journal is published four times a year and our ODY Library has back-issues from 1966 to the present.

Philosophy Today states that its purpose is to publish essays, reviews and trends of current interest within the philosophy community. This particular periodical had articles titled, “What is a Post-Hegalian Kantian?” and “Heidegger’s ‘Phenomenology of Failure’ in Sein und Zeit”!!

4. Philosophy and Public Affairs
This journal is published four times per year; however, this was another one I could not find back-issues of in the stacks. Because it partially deals with Public Affairs, I checked the government sections as well but found nothing. Perhaps it is a recent acquisition!?

Philosophy and Public Affairs states its purpose as being to provide a philosophic examination of issues of public concern to in order to “contribute to their clarification and to their resolution.” They understand this clarification as occurring in the legal and social spheres as well. This journal is interesting because it may be a more practical, rather than purely theoretical application of philosophy. Additionally, people who are not solely philosophers may be more inclined to read a journal like this than, for example, Philosophy Today.

5. Philosophical Studies
This journal began in 1950 and is published three times per year.

Philosophical Studies is a journal within the analytic philosophical tradition that publishes articles which are intended to be “models of clarity [and] precision in dealing with significant philosophical issues.” These, it mentions, are primarily current issues of interest within the philosophic community.

Reference Books

2007-09-13T21:00:00.000-04:00

1. Audi, Robert, ed. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
(REF B41.C35 1999)

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy is very comprehensive. It contains names of all the primary philosophers. It lists their biographical information, their major works and why they were important. This dictionary defines and explains philosophical movements and their corresponding terms. Within these explanations it frequently suggests other words to look up which may further ones’ understanding. This dictionary is very thorough with succinct information on any philosophic issue.

2. Dancy, Jonathan and Ernest Sosa, A Companion to Epistemology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
(REF BD 161.C637 1992)

This reference is similar to The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, but it is limited to the terms, movements and philosophers of Epistemology. It defines and explains the contexts of specific terms, the history of epistemology, and its relevant books and essays. It also explains the theories in the field and carefully explains the main arguments and which philosophers contributed them.

3. Brown, Stuart, Diané Collinson, and Robert Wilkinson, Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers. London: Routledge, 1996.
(REF B 104.B56 1996)

The Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers is an enormous book. I had no idea there were this many philosophers in only 100 years. It is particularly interesting to read the professional titles of the philosophers. While most are academics in the field of philosophy, many belong to the fields of, for example, sociology, psychology or history. Additionally, almost all of the listed philosophers were Westerns (from Europe, America, and Russia). There some from Asian and the Middle-East and I may have seen one from South Africa, but these were very few by comparison. It would be particularly interesting to know the criteria by which these “philosophers of the twentieth century” were selected. Regardless, it was very interesting to browse through.

4. Grimes, John, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.
(REF B131.G67 1989)

This book, as the title states, is a concise dictionary. It lists Sanskrit symbols (words), the word spelled in the Latin alphabet, and its English translation and meaning. No context for or explanations of the words are provided beyond their translation. I thought it was interesting that this dictionary appeared in the philosophy section. I would have expected it either in the religion or anthropology section as this seems a tool for direct translation or study of original works written in Sanskrit. I have not, however, studied Indian philosophy; if I had, perhaps this book would have been extremely useful!

5. Kohl, Benjamin G., Renaissance Humanism, 1300 – 1550: A Bibliography of Materials in English. New York: Gerland Publishing Inc., 1985.
(REF B778.K55 1985)

I thought Renaissance Humanism, 1300 – 1550: A Bibliography of Materials in English was interesting because it was so specific. As the name suggests, it lists the bibliographic information of relevant people, their works, English translations, and books concerning the Renaissance Humanism movement. This book, therefore, can only serve as a starting point in the study of Renaissance Humanism because it gives no explanation of the movement, terms or philosophers it lists. This book would certainly be useful for studying Renaissance Humanism between 1300 and 1550.

What is Philosophy?

2007-09-07T00:11:00.001-04:00

Philosophy is primarily concerned with how we should live. In other words, what is the good, and best, way to structure our society, behave towards one another and the environment, understand the world through science and religion… etc. The starting point for these inquisitions, and what allows determinations of value (that something is good or bad, better or worse), is our emotive capacity – specifically our capacity for empathy, care, duty, responsibility and respect. These emotions, combined with the desire to better our situation, enable us to begin the process of finding out what is, what is good, and how we can achieve that good. The essential element within this, however, and the attribute which makes philosophy an academic discipline, is the application of reason, logic and argument to these questions. The necessary quality of reason and argument enables an intra-personal, or community pursuit of Truth (big ‘T’ or little ‘t’).

People often assume philosophy is concerned with irrelevant, abstract and impractical ideals. When I told my little brother I was trying to write about what philosophy is, he succinctly told me that 50 percent of doing philosophy is defining itself. I told him he was wrong, that really, philosophy did far more than that! Although this sort of statement reflects a very common perspective, I think that if philosophy is about finding truth, then it has a great reflective power. Even if Truths are not found, the process of examining, questioning and arguing brings clarity of thinking and a greater awareness to oneself, the greater community and academics as a whole. One might say philosophy is a proactive reflection on what it is to be human in the world.

Courses I've Taken

2007-09-06T19:18:00.000-04:00

Reasoning (202) Spring 2005 Laura Rediehs
Theories of Knowledge and Reality (204) Fall 2005 Laura Rediehs
Political Theory (206) Fall 2005 Sandy Hinchman
Ethical Theory (203) Spring 2006 Rob Loftis
Asian Philosophy (223) Spring 2006 Eske Mollaagard
Philosophy of Science (301) Fall 2006 Laura Rediehs
Symbolic Logic (302) Fall 2006 Rob Loftis
Existential Philosophy (327) Fall 2006 Eske Mollaagard
Political Theory Today (342) Fall 2007 Sandy Hinchman
Metaphilosophy (451) Fall 2007 Laura Rediehs

Why I Do Philosophy

2007-09-06T18:28:00.000-04:00

My first formal experience with philosophy was around age 13 when a family friend, who was a philosophy professor, taught an introductory course for a few neighborhood eighth-graders on Plato’s Republic. At the time I had a fair amount of trouble following Plato's arguments, but with a little help I caught on. I found the contents of the Republic very exciting and the exercise of discussing the questions of how we should live fascinating. I had grown up with the answers to these questions being quite straightforward: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, look in the Bible to see what God says, ask God. At the time this seemed dissatisfying. I did not like the resulting answers (many of which seemed arbitrary) or this process of inquiry. The fact that philosophical study suggested that a group of moral individuals could, if not know, at least approach an idea of Truth through reason, was powerful and exciting.

Once I arrived at college, I realized how broad the field of philosophy is; from theories of what is real, to what is ethical, to the study of reason and logic, to the study of politics and human organization… philosophy spans every discipline! But more importantly, as Laura Rediehs said to one of my philosophy classes, doing philosophy teaches flexibility of the mind. Because the discipline of philosophy is built on theories (backed by reason and logic and grounded in experience), a student of philosophy must be able to understand all the opposing theories, points of view, beliefs etc. Philosophy is an exercise, not only in reason and argument, but also in intellectual empathy. Flexibility of the mind is a useful and powerful ability, as well as a great aid in intellectual and personal endeavors.

Finally, I do philosophy because it is what I find most interesting and exciting!