Fall '11 student survey

Last Spring I ran a student survey to solicit course suggestions. The consensus result: "Environmental Ethics and native wisdom," coming in January.

So, for those who plan to matriculate at our fair institution (or would like to), here's another opportunity to express yourself. If more than one of these hypothetical courses appeals to you, rank them according to your preference for the Fall 2011 semester.

__ Attention, Information, and Distraction. William James said if you can control your attention you can be happy and free. But many of us lately feel distracted and overwhelmed by information and our "social networks." Can philosophy help? Besides James we'd look at recent perspectives from people like Winifred Gallagher (Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life), Maggie Jackson (Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age), Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants), Steven Johnson (Where Good Ideas Come From), and Jaron Lanier (You Are Not a Gadget).

__ Experimental Ethics. The new "X-Phi" ("experimental philosophy") movement is not really new, empiricists have always sought "data." American philosophy in particular has always emphasized experimentalism. But there has been a noticeable upswing of interest lately, to go with the catchy new name, at the instigation of philosophers like Anthony Appiah (Experiments in Ethics). They wonder about David Hume's claim that you can't get an "ought" from an "is" and are eager to test it. In his new book The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris challenges the Humean view and wonders if science can "determine values." Good question.


__ Experience. How much deference do we owe to other persons' experience when it differs from, or even contradicts, our own? What kind(s) of pluralism should we defend and practice? Can we credit, or at least respect, experiences we've not had ourselves and may even be skeptical about? James's Varieties of Religious Experience, Sagan's Varieties of Scientific Experience, and Emerson's famous essay "Experience" are among the relevant sources. So is your own experience.


__ Childhood and Early Education. Taught this in Fall '08, we read William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals; John Dewey, The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum Harry Brighouse, On Education; Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children; Stephen Law, The War for Children's Minds; and Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood


__ Philosophy of Happiness. Taught this in Fall '09, we read Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness; Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis; Matthieu Ricard, Happiness; Eric Wilson, Against Happiness; Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Happiness Myth; and Steven Cahn, ed., Happiness: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy. 


__ Philosophy and Humor. This course would feature the funny side of philosophy, from Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" and Philosophers' Football sketch (etc.) to Jesus and Mo to Calvin and Hobbes and Woody Allen ("My Apology"), always tempted to peek into the soul of his neighbor. Philosophers have given serious thought to the likes of the Simpsons, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, South Park, and The Onion.So will we, if enough of you vote for this class. We'll also ask: What is the value of approaching Big Questions with a grin? Should we question everything, and laugh at it too? Why is laughter such good medicine?


__ Philosophy and Sports. Many of us spend much too much time and emotional energy on spectator sports, professional and amateur. How much is too much? What does it matter? What's the point of playing, and of watching them play? Is big-time collegiate athletics defensibly "amateur"? Are exorbitant professional salaries justified? Is our continued interest in games a form of infantilism, or a sign of healthy engagement?  And most important of all: how is baseball so clearly superior to football?



__ Humanism and Meaning. This course would resemble the "Atheism & Spirituality" course from last Spring, but this time with even greater attention to the reasons for affirming humanism (naturalism, atheism) rather than for rejecting theism. We'd explore and critique the claim that a humanist worldview is as meaningful to its adherents as theism is to theists, with John Dewey's A Common Faith, Andre Comte-Sponville's Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, Bertrand Russell's "A Free Man's Worship" and "Why I'm Not a Christian," and more recent voices as well. What makes life worth living, for those who do not seek for meaning beyond it?

__ [Your suggestion(s) here].