Oh me, Oh life!

Enjoy and add some of your favorite Transcendentalist works to the mix!

Oh me! Oh Life!

Author: What Whitman

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring, 

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish, 

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) 

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd, 

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, 

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, 

The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me, O life? 

Answer. 

That you are here-that life exists and identity, 

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

"True" Grit

Recently a friend sent me this article listed in The New York Times that takes on the question of the role or relationship of character and success in our schools. If I remember correctly, our good friend Mr. Artistotle liked to say that true character emerges through the practice and embodiment of good habits of mind. These habits are linked to our actions, perceptions and even thoughts so a noble sense of character is not judged merely by your actions but by the values embodied in your being in the world.

In a time where standardized test scores, quantitative achievement measures and merit based pay pressures run rampant in our schools, some are daring to argue something vaguely familiar to that notion - that the truer measurement of success cannot be found on paper but in the amount of "grit" a student shows in life. Life is tough, learning is hard, there's no happy morning song for that - but maybe if you can show a little bit of real toughness, you may have a chance to make it after all...

I'm curious to see what you make of this - Enjoy!

Article NY Times: Click Here

Philosophy 2.0

Terms and Conditions:

- Pragmatism and Naturalism

Basically, this is the view that nothing SUPERnatural exists. So, no gods, no ghosts, no life-forces, etc. Usually this is taken to entail that everything can, at least in theory, be explained by science.

- Determinism

This is the view that everything that happens is fully determined by prior events and by the relevant laws of nature. A nice metaphor is this: according to determinism, if the universe were to be 'rolled back' (like a video tape) to some point in the past, and then set in motion again, everything would happen _exactly_ the way it did the first time around.

Most people would assume that determinism rules out free will. But this is actually controversial. Quite a few philosophers (including Joe, I think) believe that FW is _compatible_ with determinism. That view is called 'compatibilism' (great name, huh?). Compatibilists think that although everything is determined (including our actions), some of our actions are nevertheless free. Basically the idea is that your action is free if it is determined by _your own desires_.

- Logical Positivism

A philosophical position which had its heyday in the early 20th century. The LP'ists (including Carnap, Neurath, Schlick; and a bit later, Ayer) disliked metaphysics and thought philosophers should stop doing it. The job of philosophy, they thought, was to do a bit of conceptual ground-clearing, and then get out of the way so that scientists could get to work. They proposed a criterion by which to sort propositions into _meaningful_ (and thus worth pursuing) and _meaningless_ (and thus not worth pursuing). The criterion was whether the proposition could be _verified_, or tested. Since a proposition like 'God loves humanity', for example, can't be tested, the LP'ists judged it to be literally meaningless, or devoid of cognitive content. Such propositions might be meaningful in a broader sense -- emotionally or artistically, perhaps -- but the LP'ists were only interested in figuring out which propositions had a content which could be specified, and not just in those which people found stirring or interesting in some way. They had no problem with poetry, for example, so long as everyone understood that poets aren't in the business of trying to express truths about the world.

LP'ism is pretty much abandoned at this point. You may sometimes hear people in the Humanities outside philosophy claim that all analytic philosophers are LP'ists. Do not believe them. Anyone who's read any analytic philosophy from the last 30-40 years knows that it is neck-deep in metaphysics. The LP'ists would've hated it!

What next???

- Critical Pedagogy

- Hermeneutics

- Post-Structuralism

- Functionalism

... add more as they come to you!

M.G's Naturalism

Upon reflection:

M.G. would like to add that there are some naturalists (M.G.) who are agnostic about the existence of supernatural entities.  We think of naturalism more humbly, as the idea that we don't need to posit the existence of supernatural entities in order to make sense of our experience, or to figure out what we ought to believe, value or do.  Putting it that way also doesn't reduce all explanation or value commitments to science.  However, in my own thinking, I like to reserve the term 'agnostic,' for those who are still perturbed by the question about whether or not reality includes a supernatural realm, and who still seek the answer to that question.  So in that sense, my kind of naturalism is really a kind of atheism, since for all intents and purposes we act as if there is no supernatural realm.  In fact, as Julian Baggini explains in his excellent "A Very Short Introduction to Atheism," this is the only kind of atheism that is intellectually honest.  Most atheists, if pressed, will admit that there is no good way to prove the non-existence of anything, including gods and demons, so really our position comes down to all the ways in which life can be reasonable and valuable without participating in supernaturalism. 

For me, there is considerable overlap between that kind of naturalism and pragmatism, because of the pragmatists' narrative of the intelligent organism going through periods of suffering and enjoyment, and learning how to adapt its habits and its environment in order to suffer less and enjoy more.  (This is not an ad for vulgar consumerism; Thoreau and the Buddha were right to point out that satisfying a craving only makes it grow stronger, which is a kind of suffering.)  It is only with that organic scenario in mind that the Philosophy 101 definition of pragmatism, as a theory of truth, makes sense: an idea is true if it works. 

A Little Light Reading...

Here are posts of suggested readings and videos for interesting philosophical fodder:

<><><><>Movies<><><><>

Born into Brothels - touching look into the lives of a group of children

The Wild Wacky White's of West Virginia - Philosophy of Hillbillies?

 The Razor's Edge (Bill Murray version); can't remember who I mentioned this too but it was very formative for me when I was in college - of course you have to read the book too!

<><><><>Books (for children or adults)<><><><>

The Robots Rebellion by Keith Stanovich - He is one of the most widely sighted researchers in Human decision making and the book is the foundation of my position during some of our discussions about Free Will, Memes and Self-Determination

More on Robots:

          

1) August 2011 issue of National Geographic (the one with the Spirit Bear) Cool article on Robots

2) Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox - especially the part about the daydream of the Contemporary Courtyard Garden with Artificial Insects ("with eyes compounded  of luminescent diodes whizzing through the air")

Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, by Pierre Hadot (not the book we talked about at Mendham, but a wonderful collection of Hadot's essays).

<><><><>Youtube, or TED, or other short videos<><><><>

Tim Minchin's animated movie "Storm"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U&feature=related

Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk "My stroke of insight". A neuroscientist describes a stroke she had that inhibited her analytic brain-regions and gave her zen-like experiences of presence, flow, and unity with the world http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

              Keeping the inner child alive!

Baby laughing at paper ripping http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Taylor Mali (teacher poet) performs his "Undivided Attention"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1MHVqAWGmI   and "What Teachers Make"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU 

<><><><>Useful Websites<><><><>

The IAPC is on Facebook for those of you who use it. Let me know if you prefer that photos of you don't get posted on its page.

goodreads.com - it's a place to log the books you read, and, if you want, rate them and write short or long reviews about them; but the best part is social networking: you can see what your friends/family are reading and how they respond to what they read.  I love seeing what my colleagues, friends and family are reading and often start conversations about it.

<><><><>Articles and Essays <><><><>

Paul Lockhart "A Mathematician's Lament" http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

              

NYTimes editorial page, about the usefulness of studying math:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/opinion/how-to-fix-our-math-education.html

Nell Noddings: "The New Outspoken Atheism and Education," Harvard Ed Review - http://www.hepg.org/her/abstract/653 again, I can't remember who I recommended this to, but remember it was at lunch.  The best answer I've read yet to the question, should we teach religion in public schools?

<><><><>Music <><><><>

John Adams: "The Wounddresser," setting of Walt Whitman's poem about being a nurse during the civil war - one of my all-time favorites - get the recording with tenor Sanford Sylvan.

John Adams: "The Death of Klinghoffer," controversial opera about the notorious terrorist hijacking of the cruise ship, and maybe my favorite opera ever; includes "Chorus of the Exiled Palestinians" and "Chorus of the Exiled Jews"

P4C. com

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Philosophy of Wisecracks

When all else fails, you gotta laugh... or at least snicker! There may be a million and one ways to philosophize about humour, yet we seem to focus on the stuff o' seriousness. Not in this edition! Your mission: Share philosophical ways of cracking yourself (and hopefully us!) up. Here are some tasty starters... 

                                                                  The Ethicator!

Institute of Philosophy

Meaning vs Cheese?

Some great videos:

•                Monty Python's Philosopher's World Cup

•                Monty Python's "The Philosophers' Song"