Delight Springs: What's your philosophy?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

What's your philosophy?

It's Day One in Intro to Philosophy. We'll begin each day with a question (or two) and a quiz, followed by discussion. For starters:

1. What is philosophy? What's your current understanding of the term, the discipline, the mindset? What's it good for?

2. What is your philosophy? Can you (like Sally Brown) put it in a word or phrase? Does your personal philosophy fit on a bumper sticker? Should it?

3. Do you have a favorite philosopher, philosophical book/film/show/musician? Who? Why? Can pop culture be philosophical?

4. Who are you? What are your goals, in this course, in school, and in life? What matters most to you?

5. Socrates said we should question everything and everyone: "the unexamined life is not worth living," "know thyself"... How do you feel about that? Are you prepared to do it?

You can post your answers here, STUDENTS, and comment on others' responses as well. Be civil, and remember that this is an open Internet forum. Non-students are welcome to participate too.

7 comments:

Kron said...: 1. Philosophy..That is a topic I do not know much about. However, I've always seen it as questioning everything around you..why it happens? what purpose does it serve?, etc.

2. My philosophy..I've never really classified my own philosophy. I have always questioned many things, including religion, morality, how things began and how they will end, etc.

3. I personally do not have a favorite philosopher because I do not know many of them.

4. My name is Karen. In this course, I strive to obtain a better understanding of philosophy and how it will help me throughout life. I am a future economist trying to change many things.

5. I agree with Socrates. As stated, I have always questioned things and I believe that people should not just take things for how they are presented by others. Everyone should figure out their own opinions and beliefs on things and not let others determine it.

Thank you! -Karen Banks; January 13, 2011 at 11:37 AM
Andy said...: 1. I know a little about philosophy. Philosophy seems to consist of taking ordinary aspects of life and existence that most people just accept with little thought and question the reasoning or purpose behind them. Everybody should adopt this mindset to help them better evaluate and appreciate their world.

2. I cannot put my entire philosophy into one phrase, but I can give my overall outlook on life's purpose: It is whatever you think it is. One's entire philosophy should never fit on a bumper sticker, but sometimes it is good to just post a short, vague statement. It makes people think.

3. Sufjan Stevens is somebody I look up to. His last album was partially the result of questioning his purpose and role as a musician as well as evaluating his life over the past few years. One lyric from the album really provoked my thinking; at the end of the first track, Sufjan sings "words are futile devices," in the context of a song that attempts to explain how he feels about a good friend. That really made me think about how words by themselves aren't always enough to express how you feel about someone or something. Pop culture is often very philosophical, as it often examines many trivial aspects of life.

4. I am Andrew Crawford Jokerst. My goal in this course is to better learn about multiple philosophical perspectives and come to understand why people think the way they do. My goal in school is to graduate and obtain the experience I need to become an accomplished music producer or sound engineer. My goal in life is to be as content as possible and accomplish everything I want to before I die.

5. I already question pretty much every aspect of my life.; January 14, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Jasmine C. Burke said...: I personally feel like one should question everything to truly find out who they are. If one was to depend on others thoughts only and not question different approaches to examine how they personally feel, one can not say that they are and individual, but merely a shadow in the world!; January 14, 2011 at 1:01 PM
Brad Czock said...: I agree with what Andy said about pop culture. The desire to ask ourselves some of life's biggest questions is just one of many things that make all of us human. In popular culture, musicians are seen as some of the most philosophical people in the world. Just like prof Oliver, I myself enjoy many of the messages sung by the Beatles. I even really enjoy the fact that John and the others made a few songs designed to have no meaning since so many people felt that so many of their songs were written for them personally.; January 16, 2011 at 10:21 PM
Maurice said...: Maurice Miller
1. philosophy is the study of thinking ad understanding what you thought you were thinking.
2.my philosophy is live life, and not merely exist.
3. Dr. King is whom I look up to, because of his philosophy on taking a nonviolence approach to people who don't like makes sense because of the cliche kill meanness with kindness which it works if use properly.
4. I am Maurice Miller. my goal in this course is to have a viewpoint that is broader about the world of philosophy and understand it.
5. I question the theory of is wisdom the true understanding of all know knoweldge?; January 17, 2011 at 2:53 PM
Unknown said...: 1. To me, philosophy is something that makes you question what you've always believed and makes you make your own opinions about things. It makes you take what your parents told you to believe was right and make it your own...if that makes sense.

2. I tend to live by quotes that you can find on MySpace, song lyrics and Psalms. I guess you could call those philosophies. My current favorite is "keep calm and carry on." Basically, it means what it says...keep calm during things that don't matter and just carry on with life. It should definitely be on a bumper sticker, because people out there driving can go crazy over the smallest things, myself included sometimes :/

3. My favorite would have to be Miranda Lambert, a female country singer. She writes most of her own songs, and songwriting comes from the heart. I love her lyrics and she can always put into words what I can never say. She's just someone who I consider real and true to herself and isn't like many other females artists out there. Pop culture can be philosophical...I think anything can be.

4. I am Alex...and there's a lot behind that short little name. I'm a simple yet complicated small town girl. I'm easy going, but I can be up tight sometimes. My goals in life are to graduate on time with a degree in English so I can teach high school English and coach high school cheerleading. I want to have a huge family, 4 or 5 kids, and live happily ever after with my best friend and love. I want to come out of this course with a better view on life and the world I live in and have a better understanding of my own opinions. People matter most to me in life. When I care about someone, I go hard. I'll do whatever it takes to help them, even if it means breaking my own heart along the way. God, cheerleading and baseball are on the top priority list as well...

5. I'm not really sure how I feel about Socrates...but I do know that in order to get the most out of life, you do have to know yourself and know what you want and what's best for YOU, not everyone else. You have to do what makes you happy, even if you're hated for it. These days, I don't consider myself "prepared" for anything...I just deal with deck I'm dealt.; January 17, 2011 at 6:16 PM
Samuel A. (015) said...: 1.) What is philosophy?
Philosophy is the study and discussion of human knowledge and experience.

2.) What is your philosophy?
I believe we have only one shot at life. I don't believe in a heaven or hell as concepts occurring after death. I believe heaven and hell exist here on Earth, all around us. I believe we have a duty to help others and work toward cooperation as an entire human population, not divided.

3.) Favorite philosopher / philosophical book/film/musican/show
My favorite film is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Humans' relationship with technology, extraterrestrial life, evolution, and others are themes that are addressed in the the film. It was through this film that I first heard of Friedrich Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Many critics and fans have seen 2001 as an allegory to the novel by the German philosopher.

4.) Who are you? Goals- in this class, school, and in life? What matters most to you?
I am just a guy trying to figure where I want to be in the next five years. My goals in this class, and in school... are to get as much out of this as possible, philosophy is an interesting subject to me and I hope I come out with a wider breadth of knowledge and a better understanding of the many schools and ideologies. In school,I want to push my self academically and socially as well. Meet new people, learn new things, be active. In life-- I just want to live an interesting life. travel, write, experience, grow, mature, make mistakes.

5.) 5. Socrates said we should question everything and everyone: "the unexamined life is not worth living," "know thyself"... How do you feel about that? Are you prepared to do it?
Yes. That is the reason I wanted to take this course. I believe I will learn a lot more about myself then I thought I had previously known.; January 18, 2011 at 12:30 AM

The real you

The only real "you" is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new... when you know for sure that your separate ego is a fiction, you actually feel yourself as the whole process and pattern of life.” Alan Watts

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." Carl Sagan

A net for catching days

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” Annie Dillard, The Writing Life... Popova on Dillard

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” Vita Sackville-West

“I’m a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away. I see it happen all the time. Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place. This doesn’t mean I produce much out of the two hours. Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don’t think any of that was time wasted. Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well. And the fact is if you don’t sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won’t be sitting there.” Flannery O'Connor

Updike on waiting for inspiration

When asked in 1978 about his writing process, Updike said, “I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them, you will never write again.”

After the birth of his third child, he had rented an office above a restaurant in Ipswich, and spent several hours each morning writing there. Throughout his 50-year career, he remained devoted to that schedule, writing about three pages every morning after breakfast, sometimes more if things were going well. He said: “Back when I started, our best writers spent long periods brooding in silence. Then they’d publish a big book and go quiet again for another five years. I decided to run a different kind of shop.” WA

Baseball by John Updike

It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not—those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball's
spotlight swivels your way,
and the chatter around you falls still,
and the mothers on the sidelines,
your own among them, hold their breaths,
and you whiff on a terrible pitch
or in the infield achieve
something with the ball so
ridiculous you blush for years.
It's easy to do. Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right,
beginning with baseball.

"Baseball" by John Updike, from Endpoint. © Knopf, 2009

"Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu"

Image result for john updike poem baseball

Walking

“Every morning," reported his friend Miles Malleson, "Bertie [Russell] would go for an hour’s walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction." Gymnasiums of the Mind

Bertrand Russell, levine | Illustration, Bertrand, Bertrand russell

"...from his university days he would walk at least 20 miles every Sunday, and recounts how some of his peers at Cambridge walked much more." The Connection Between Walking and Thinking

"...thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals. After all those years of walking to work out other things, it made sense to come back to work close to home, in Thoreau’s sense, and to think about walking.

Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts." Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust... On a childhood of reading and wandering

The Joys of Walking

Montaigne's garden

"I want death to find me planting my cabbages, not concerned about IT or - still less- my unfinished garden" Montaigne

(I would always have a man to be doing, and, as much as in him lies, to extend and spin out the offices of life; and then let death take me planting my cabbages, indifferent to him, and still less of my gardens not being finished.)

I believe, in truth, that it is those terrible ceremonies and preparations wherewith we set it out, that more terrify us than the thing itself... we seem dead and buried already. … Happy is the death that deprives us of leisure for preparing such ceremonials.

Montaigne on death & the art of living

Fossils in the making

“If you could forget mortality... You could really believe that time is circular, and not linear and progressive as our culture is bent on proving. Seen in geological perspective, we are fossils in the making, to be buried and eventually exposed again for the puzzlement of creatures of later eras. Seen in either geological or biological terms, we don't warrant attention as individuals. One of us doesn't differ that much from another, each generation repeats its parents, the works we build to outlast us are not much more enduring than anthills, and much less so than coral reefs.Here everything returns upon itself, repeats and renews itself, and present can hardly be told from past.” Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

Winterton C. Curtis

My first landlord was an old zoologist at the University of Missouri named Winterton Curtis (1875-1965). He was one of the scientific experts not allowed to testify at the Scopes Trial in Dayton TN in 1925. My parents (and I) rented rooms from him in his home on Westmount in Columbia Missouri while Dad attended Veterinary school at Mizzou in the early '60s, and later maintained a cordial friendship with him. He used to visit when I was a kid and pull dollar bills from my ears. Dad thought that must be why I was always so fascinated by the concept of evolution.

Dr. Curtis wrote, in 1921,

The humanistic philosophy of life, which flowered in Greece and which has blossomed again, is not the crude materialistic desire to eat, drink, and be merry. It is a spiritual joy in living and a confidence in the future, which makes this life a thing worthwhile. The otherworldliness of the Middle Ages does not satisfy the spiritual demands of modern times. Science and Human Affairs From the Viewpoint of Biology

Of the Scopes Trial itself, he wrote of the 1925 Dayton Tennessee spectacle:

The courtroom audience impressed me as honest country folk in jeans and calico. “Boobs" perhaps, as judged by Mencken, and holding all the prejudices of backwoods Christian orthodoxy, but nevertheless a significant section of the backbone of democracy in the U.S.A. They came to see their idol “the Great Commoner” and champion of the people meet the challenge to their faith. They left bewildered but with their beliefs unchanged despite the manhandling of their idol by the “Infidel” from Chicago.... A Defense Expert's Impressions of the Scopes Trial

Image result for evolutionary progress caricature

Requiescat in pace, Dr. C.

A selective evolutionary bibliography:

Michael Boulter, Darwin's Garden: Down House & the Origin of Species

Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr, Darwin: A Graphic Biography

Matthew Chapman, Trials of the Monkey (Darwin's great-great...grandson comes to Dayton TN)

Winteron C. Curtis, "A Defense Expert's Impressions of the Scopes Trial" from D-Days at Dayton: Fundamentalism vs Evolution at Dayton, Tennessee (1956)

----"A damned-yankee professor in Little Dixie" (1957)

----Science and Human Affairs From the Viewpoint of Biology (1921)

Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist

----Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution

John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy

Randall Fuller, The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation

Adam Gopnik, Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life

Jay Hosler, Sandwalk Adventures (a graphic novel)

Philip Kitcher, Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith

Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

Loyal Rue, Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution

Rebecca Stott, Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists

Hanne Strager, A Modest Genius: The story of Darwin's life and how his ideas changed everything

Emma Townshend, Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-Changing Theory of Evolution

And don't overlook the compendious website Darwin online.

Darwin discussion questions, quotes etc. here.

...but I'll be your friend. “The thing I remember best about successful people I've met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they're doing and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they're doing, and they love it in front of others.” Mr. Rogers, echoing Mr. Vonnegut (above), also said “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” ― Fred Rogers

My Favorite Philosophers

Couldn't pick just five.

1. William James
2. John Stuart Mill
3. John Dewey
4. David Hume
5. Michel de Montaigne
6. Bertrand Russell
7. Ralph Waldo Emerson/Henry David Thoreau (a tie, and a couple)
8. Aristotle (mostly because he contradicts Plato)

Where are the women? Up until relatively recently, they weren't invited into the conversation. But I'm doing my homework. Thanks to Jennifer Michael Hecht's wonderful Doubt: A History, I know the names of some 19th century women who'd likely have become favorites of mine and many others, in a better world: Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Annie Besant, Ernestine Rose, Etta Semple, Helen Hamilton Gardener...

	Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton)
Why ‘Earthrise’ Matters thebookoflife.org/why-earthrise-…

	Five Books (@five_books)
The 'father of science fiction' HG Wells suffered terribly from class anxiety. Huxley and Woolf thought him 'vulgar' buff.ly/2fFgzOs == Five books on... Free will... Pragmatism... Socrates... Stoicism... other philosophy... & everything else

Delight Springs

Thursday, January 13, 2011

What's your philosophy?

7 comments:

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“We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an Afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.-his last speech, April '07

You've got to be kind

The real you

A net for catching days

Updike on waiting for inspiration

Baseball by John Updike

Walking

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