Delight Springs

ultimate deadline

2012-01-28T09:13:00.000-06:00

Lady Philosophy visits Boethius

2012-01-27T05:00:00.001-06:00

deadlines

2012-01-26T17:13:00.000-06:00

The church of what's happenin' NOW

2012-01-26T11:42:00.003-06:00

Alain de Botton has announced plans to build a series of temples for atheists in the UK. The move follows the publication of de Botton’s latest book, Religion for Atheists.

Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land?’ he asks. ‘It’s time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals... You can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective... Even the most convinced atheists tend to speak nicely about religious buildings. They may even feel sad that nothing like them gets built nowadays. But there’s no need to feel nostalgic. Why not just learn from religions and build similarly beautiful and interesting things right now?

Do atheists and humanists need ritual and ceremony, if not an elaborate palace in which to conduct them? Well, could be. Not sure I'll be in the pews for it, but to each her own.

Or, they could just all get together at the station.

"We really should wrap up the whole evil thing..."

2012-01-25T05:55:00.000-06:00

The problem of evil, pain, & suffering, today's topic in CoPhi, is an intense subject. Far too many suffer far too much to find anything funny in it at all. The most seriously disturbing theistic responses are themselves painful to witness. But still...

Good without gods

2012-01-24T07:05:00.000-06:00

A helpful moral primer, posted by David in A&P:

"Part of morality's essence is adopting a plural view..." Exactly. This means tolerating a plurality of views, in addition to recognizing a plurality of moral agents.

Pascal's Wager

2012-01-24T05:00:00.002-06:00

If we run out of God arguments today in A&P, we might want to take a closer look at Pascal's famous wager. (SEP, IEP) I've not yet met a really thoughtful person who endorsed it, but it still has an allure for many. But James didn't like it, and there wasn't much he wasn't willing to like.

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com

2012-01-23T11:02:00.000-06:00

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

So what if faith is quixotic and mad?

2012-01-21T07:08:00.000-06:00

Is there anything at all to be said for fideism? Guess it depends on what you think of Don Quixote.

Faith is indeed quixotic. It is absurd. Let us admit it. Let us concede everything!

Concede everything, and continue believing anyway. That drives many atheists right up the wall. I'm still trying to understand why such a smart and sane guy as Martin Gardner could "admit that faith is a kind of madness" and still embrace it.

Whining Buddhists

2012-01-20T05:56:00.000-06:00

Niall Shanks vs. William Dembski

2012-01-19T16:54:00.000-06:00

I mentioned my late former colleague Niall Shanks in A&P class today. Here's a clip from his 2004 debate with William Dembski, who wrote the paper I also mentioned today on "How to Debate an Atheist-If You Must."

Shanks was brilliant and funny, a strong debater and a good companion over an "ale" or two. His book God, the Devil, and Darwin is terrific. I just wish he'd taken better care of his health.

Stick a Babel Fish in your ear

2012-01-19T12:09:00.003-06:00

"A final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God"-

Outrageous

2012-01-18T16:01:00.000-06:00

I hold in my hands a complimentary copy of "The New Atheism," published by the Southwestern Journal of Theology (Thanks very much, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) and requested at the instigation of an A&P student (Thanks, Dean.)

One section is headlined "Outrageous Quotes by New Atheists," beginning with this one from Dawkins:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Is it outrageous? I think it's outrageous that more theists aren't outraged by the Old Testament.

James & Dewey on "natural piety"

2012-01-17T06:12:00.001-06:00

We're doing the Doubt Quiz today. It might be instructive and amusing to take a look at William James's stab at a similar exercise back in 1904.

Do you believe in personal immortality? "Never keenly; but more strongly as I grow older."

Do you pray? "I cannot possibly pray—I feel foolish and artificial."

What do you mean by 'spirituality'? "Susceptibility to ideals, but with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain amount of 'other worldly' fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or 'taste.'"

What do you mean by a 'religious experience'? "Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more 'home' to one."

James in this quiz exhibits an experientially-inclusive sensibility I've called "global naturalism." It makes room for lots of indulgent personal "fancy" about what some would consider supernaturalism. It's this that distinguishes his form of natural piety from John Dewey's in A Common Faith.

"Home and Away"

2012-01-16T20:19:00.001-06:00

"Amazon Prime" has won me over.

I was listening to Scott Simon on "Morning Edition" Saturday when he tweeted something about his memoir Home and Away, which I'd not previously known of. Impulsively I ordered it, and here I am less than two days later, on MLK Day, just $3 poorer and reading Simon's account of how that horrible day in Memphis in 1968 seared the young author and NPR reporter-to-be in Chicago.

That's in the chapter called "Cubbie Love." Simon mentions King's "creative tension," which I mentioned in my post this morning.

And the book arrived with a bonus: an envelope stuck in the middle, postmarked "Oxford, U.K" and return addressed from "The Queen's College/Oxford." Page notes are scribbled all over it. It's addressed to a reporter at the Globe in Boston.

It looks to be a terrific memoir, and a fine evocation of what Scott Turow calls in his blurb a portrait of "the powerful personal mythology that every dedicated sports fan creates for him or herself." I think I have my topic for the next "Baseball & Literature" conference.

And, I think I'm going to trust more of my impulses from now on.

Moneyball and philosophy

2012-01-14T07:52:00.000-06:00

The moral of this story, for me? You're a loser if you can't enjoy life's passing show and celebrate small victories as they come. Lovely film, sad man.
.

Billy's problem is a version of George Santayana's:

"The problem still remains," argues Henry Samuel Levinson, commenting on Santayana, "how to display suffering's meanness and then transcend it by celebrating 'passing joys and victories in the world.'" DS

Go A's. Go us.

Here we are in the goldfish bowl

2012-01-11T06:34:00.001-06:00

Annie Dillard's descriptions of collective self-consciousness are unmatched. When we're truly awake we know we're in a "goldfish bowl" of mutual shared awareness. Will we waste this opportunity, while the lights are on, or use it well? That's also the challenge of the classroom.

I am sitting here looking at a goldfish bowl and busting my brain. Ich kann nicht anders. I am sitting here, you are sitting there... Here we are...

Philosophy and Addiction - NYTimes.com

2012-01-10T07:03:00.000-06:00

Philosophy and Addiction - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

Following Jesus

2012-01-08T05:00:00.004-06:00

"Jesus" uses twitter purely for information and self-expression. Me too.

Their creator wants to know "why the scare quotes? That really is Jesus!"

@JandMo I tell my students J & M are just 2 guys. Don't want any inquisitions or fatwas here in middle Tennessee!

"Beginning of Infinity"

2012-01-07T08:10:00.000-06:00

Where does infinity begin? I don't know what that question means, but I have been enjoying David Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity. He has harsh words for classical Empiricism (as do we Radical Empiricists) and other species of "bad philosophy" that by his reckoning deny the possibility of progress. And he offers a charming revery featuring Socrates himself.

Ron Paul's 15 Most Extreme Positions | Mother Jones

2012-01-06T06:11:00.000-06:00

He's a crank, but evidently so is a huge chunk of the electorate. So we do have to pay attention to

Ron Paul's 15 Most Extreme Positions | Mother Jones:

'via Blog this'

Most salient to me are his disgraceful repudiation of public action on behalf of civil & human rights and the environment:

Believes that climate change is no big deal and the Environmental Protection Agency is unnecessary. Most environmental problems can be addressed by enforcing private-property rights. Paul also thinks that interstate issues such as air pollution are best dealt with through compacts between states.
Would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964because it was a "massive violation of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of a free society."

Barry Goldwater was wrong. Extremism in defense of liberty is a vice.

"I wake up"

2012-01-04T05:51:00.001-06:00

Has anyone before Winifred Gallagher ever thought to mention Keith Richards and William James in the same sentence?

...when Keith Richards is asked how he feels when he emerges on-stage to confront a hundred thousand screaming fans, he says simply, “I wake up."

...In life's best moments, whether we're writing a book or a letter, making love or dinner, that's how we are, too: awake, focused, rapt.

Chiropractic: An Indefensible Profession - Skeptical Health : Skeptical Health

2012-01-03T10:39:00.000-06:00

This is a strong but slanted indictment. I'm skeptical too, but a healing profession is truly "indefensible" only if no one can plausibly claim to have benefited from its therapeutic ministrations. Some of my best friends are chiropractors, one in particular, and she has too many defenders to ignore.

Chiropractic: An Indefensible Profession - Skeptical Health : Skeptical Health:

'via Blog this'

Sisyphus squared

2011-12-28T18:05:00.000-06:00

Must we still imagine him happy?

Merry Cosmic Christmas

2011-12-24T09:24:00.001-06:00

For Carl, Darwin's insight that life evolved over the eons through natural selection was not just better science than Genesis, it also afforded a deeper, more satisfying spiritual experience...

Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com

2011-12-20T07:36:00.002-06:00

Louise Antony edited one of the texts we'll be reading in "Atheism & Philosophy," beginning in January. We'll probably add The Hitch, too.

Meanwhile, here's a stocking stuffer: The Atheist's Guide to Christmas.

Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

almost free

2011-12-18T09:07:00.000-06:00

In other words: It's 9 am Sunday, I've been grading for hours already this morning, and I'm taking a break.

Hitch alive

2011-12-16T08:35:00.000-06:00

Sifting through my personal archives for a fitting Hitchens tribute, on this sad morning of his demise, I come across a dawn post from October 2010 titled alive:

We talked about the varieties of humanism yesterday.

I really like the version that sees humanism fundamentally as an expression of the love of life.

Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails.

This sentiment was given unexpected voice recently by Michael Gerson, George Bush’s old speechwriter, writing of Christopher Hitchens’ joie de vivre and his special talent for friendship.

In earlier times, without derision or irony, this would have been called “humanism,” a delight in all things human — in wit and wine and good company and conversation and fine writing and debate of large issues. Hitchens’s joy and juice put many believers of my acquaintance to shame — people for whom religion has become a bloodless substitute for life. “The glory of God,” said St. Irenaeus, “is man fully alive.” Hitchens would hate the quote, but he proves the claim.

I don’t think Hitch hates the quote. I don’t. The best humanists are fully alive, as Hitch seems to be in these sadly dwindling days of his cancerous physical decline. Glorious days.

The days, as Emerson said, are Gods.

"What Is College For?"

2011-12-15T09:17:00.001-06:00

It's for "opening up to new dimensions," both in and out of the classroom.

Students readily accept the alleged wisdom that their most important learning at college takes place outside the classroom. Many faculty members — thinking of their labs, libraries or studies — would agree. But the truth is that, for both students and faculty members, the classroom is precisely where the most important learning occurs.

Gary Gutting, "The Stone"

And if you missed it: Simon Blackburn, "Of Hume and Bondage"

Alvin Plantinga’s New Book on God and Science - NYTimes.com

2011-12-14T08:34:00.001-06:00

Alvin Plantinga’s New Book on God and Science - NYTimes.com:

Mr. Plantinga readily admits that he has no proof that God exists. But he also thinks that doesn’t matter.

Probably doesn't.

'via Blog this'

"On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"

2011-12-13T06:51:00.000-06:00

We're talking about this great essay today in the last James tutorial of the semester.

The Humanist Community Project | From the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard

2011-12-12T15:52:00.000-06:00

The Humanist Community Project | From the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard:

Greg Epstein apparently aims to gather a herd of independent minds. "Humanist community" may not be a flat contradiction in terms, but it definitely rubs against the grain for some. Most un-churched humanists don't want a church, but a stronger sense of solidarity (or at least a greater awareness of their numbers) might be just what they need.

'via Blog this'

Why are we here?

2011-12-08T09:25:00.000-06:00

The question I always ask myself at staff and committee meetings.

Thanks for finding this, Zachary.

working on treadmills

2011-12-06T05:00:00.002-06:00

Now here's a metaphor for you, for the absurdity of modern life in the corporate/consumer world. Move over, Sisyphus! Most of my academic staff and committee meetings feel like treadmilling too. But it is a good idea, if you have to be trapped in a rectangle surrounded by suits, to move. Must we imagine these people happy?

experiencing and remembering

2011-12-05T06:58:00.000-06:00

Speaking of Daniel Kahneman and akrasia...

The real "School of Athens"

2011-12-01T06:54:00.000-06:00

Robert found this. I love it!

Nietzsche Family Circus

2011-11-30T06:04:00.000-06:00

Whitney posted this from the Nietzsche Family Circus. There's more.

Calvin gets existential

2011-11-29T06:51:00.000-06:00

I suggested Woody Allen as a more accessible version of Camus, in class yesterday; but maybe Calvin's even better. Thanks for posting this, Derrick.

Herman's coming to town

2011-11-28T10:36:00.000-06:00

Herman Cain's coming to my campus, but (our administration assures us) not as a campaigning politician.

This event was scheduled as a student-oriented, educational session before Mr. Cain declared his candidacy. His appearance on Dec. 1, therefore, will not be political in nature but rather will focus on his experience as a businessman and entrepreneur.

"Therefore"? Hahahaha.

New Intro to Philosophy text?

2011-11-27T15:38:00.001-06:00

I've been trying to replace the late Robert Solomon's A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy for a long time in the course formerly known as Intro which I've started calling "CoPhi" instead (short for the pluralistic collaborative form of "CoPhilosophy" William James advocated).

It packs philosophy's story into an extremely concise and accessible package, without sacrificing too much precision or honesty. But Passion's nearly fifteen years old, and I'd like to try something a little fresher.

So far, I have yet to find a worthy successor. But Nigel Warburton's A Little History of Philosophy looks promising. (Sample pages)

My concern is the new book may be just a little too light and breezy. Its ideal reader, I think, would be a motivated high schooler encountering philosophy for the first time. Will it strike our college students as beneath them? Will they read it? (Always a question, nowadays, whatever the text.)

I would supplement it with an intellectual biography or two. How to Live, perhaps. Or Courtier and Heretic. Or maybe bring back Logicomix, which went over well last year. Or stick with Doubt and Passion.

Change is a good thing, but it's never good to fix what ain't broken. This'll be a tough call.

Atheism & Philosophy

2011-11-27T15:10:00.000-06:00

Spring Semester 2012-

PHIL 4800-003 Readings in Philosophy:

Atheism & Philosophy

With special emphasis on ethics, and how atheists, agnostics, humanists and other deity-deniers establish a personal sense of right and wrong.

Were all other things, gods and men and starry heavens, blotted out from this universe, and were there left but one rock with two loving souls upon it, that rock would have as thoroughly moral a constitution as any possible world which the eternities and immensities could harbor. It would be a tragic constitution, because the rock's inhabitants would die. But while they lived, there would be real good thing and real bad things in the universe; there would be obligations, claims, and expectations; obediences, refusals, and disappointments; compunctions, and longings for harmony to come again, and inward peace of conscience when it was restored; there would, in short, be a moral life, whose active energy would have no limit but the intensity of interest in each other with which the hero and heroine might be endowed. We, on this terrestrial globe, so far as the visible facts go, are just like the inhabitants of such a rock. Whether a God exist, or whether no God exist, in yon blue heaven above us bent, we form at any rate an ethical republic here below. And the first reflection which this leads to is that ethics have as genuine and real a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well as theism does.

-William James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life”

Was James right? We’ll see. The course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:40 – 4:05, in James Union Building room 202.

Readings will include

· Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

· Anthony, Philosophers Without Gods

· Blackford, Fifty Voices of Disbelief

· Harris, The Moral Landscape

For more information contact Dr. Oliver, poliver@mtsu.edu

"New Courses"

2011-11-21T06:09:00.000-06:00

I went back to visit our curriculum committee again Friday afternoon. The results this time were quicker and happier than back in April. PHILOSOPHY 3160, "Philosophy of Happiness," now enjoys a permanent designation and place in the university's course catalog:

Thiscourse examines the concept of human happiness and its application in everydayliving, as discussed since antiquity by philosophers, psychologists, writers,spiritualleaders, and contributors to popularculture.

Likewise for PHIL 3310, "Atheism and Philosophy":

This course examines various philosophicalperspectives on atheism, understood as the belief that no transcendent creator deity exists, and thatthere are no supernatural causes of natural events. The coursecompares and contrasts this belief with familiar alternatives (includingtheism, agnosticism, and humanism), considers the spiritual significance ofatheism, and explores implicationsfor ethics and religion.

goals & sacred grounds

2011-11-20T11:47:00.000-06:00

There's a nice story about the reigning queen of coffee, a Salvadoran and former Nashvillian named Aida Battle, in the current edition of the New Yorker ("Sacred Grounds," Nov. 21). It comes with a bonus cartoon on p.95, reminding us that life is what happens while we're making other plans.

Dog's best friend

2011-11-17T21:50:00.000-06:00

The touching story of Tarra and Bella, of Hohenwald TN:

Evolutionary biology for beginners

2011-11-16T08:50:00.001-06:00

For students in search of a good science primer, Richard Dawkins' Magic of Reality lays it out straight, simple, and pretty. "Neither supernatural or a trick, quite simply wonderful and real. Wonderful because real."

Here are others. Here's the great PBS Evolution series, and here's the BBC's Darwin. Here's an old post on theistic evolution.

Like it or not, it's everybody's story.

squirrel philosophy

2011-11-16T05:00:00.003-06:00

"I tell this trivial anecdote of the squirrel because it is a peculiarly simple example of the pragmatic method." William James

Frazz

Ron Bombardi

2011-11-15T05:00:00.004-06:00

Very nice profile piece in the Honors College Fall magazine (p.43) by my colleague Ron Bombardi. Handsome photo too.

When John Adams wrote his beloved Abigail in 1780, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy,” he understood the pursuit of philosophy to encompass what we should today call the natural and social sciences. English usage has since changed; disciplinary boundaries have been declared, funded, and institutionalized. Yet, as I see the role of philosophy in contemporary American education, the spirit of Adams’s aspiration remains central to our own, for we too recognize that there are two educations: one that “should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.” The tenor of my own teaching is grounded in this fundamental principle, that liberation of the intellect is essential to human flourishing. Intellectual freedom is, in my view, tantamount to the practice of sound scholarship—that is, to maintaining rigorous habits of organized skepticism and reasoned consensus in all collective endeavor. (Continues...)

"there is grandeur in this view of life"

2011-11-14T06:36:00.001-06:00

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death,[i] the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

"The Greatest Show on Earth": Dawkins on Darwin

Postscript. How appalling, on the very day of this post, to read a student's comment on the class blog that

If we evolved from animals it would have taken a human procreate with an animal to creat what we now know as human.

I try to stay out of the student blog-comments space but this was too much. I had to reply,

WHAT?! Please tell me you're joking, or at least that you're not repeating something you think you heard in a biology or other science class. Such statements are so fundamentally misinformed, so embarrassing, I don't know whether to laugh first or cry. But I strongly advise getting hold of a biology primer and reading carefully. You and I and every human share common ancestry with all living things. That's simply a fact.

luminous spaceship earth

2011-11-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

The video captures in equal measure the wonders of the physical planet — including the dancing auroras of both hemispheres — and the impressive luminosity of humanity in the midst of its fossil-fueled growth spurt. It is indeed a “very small stage in a vast cosmic arena,” as Carl Sagan wrote in 1994. But the stage is getting pretty populated... Andrew Revkin

Transcript | Holding Life Consciously with Arthur Zajonc [OnBeing.org]

2011-11-13T16:15:00.000-06:00

Transcript | Holding Life Consciously with Arthur Zajonc [OnBeing.org]: "the contemplative traditions have been extraordinarily successful it seems to me in cultivating attention, and attention is one of the most precious entities the human mind has to offer the world. If we can attend to something in a sustained way, especially in a learning context, it's much to our advantage. The other, you know, big gain is if there's emotional balance, and this is another set of practices which are …"

'via Blog this'

Happy Sagan Day!

2011-11-09T06:25:00.001-06:00

It's his birthday, and groups from Australia to Alaska are planning star parties, astronomy lectures, science fairs, teacher workshops and more to say thanks to Dr. Sagan and bring his work to the next generation of "star stuff."

My longtime view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts: the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but [the Jefferson Bible] was an inspiring document." Carl Sagan

The clip above is from Cosmos episode 10, "The Edge of Forever"

"Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson"

2011-11-06T19:46:00.001-06:00

Just saw the finale of the premier local performance of this amazing show this afternoon. Every American (especially every Tennessean) should see it. Every Nashvillian should have seen it. I'll never look at a $20 bill the same way again. The "inspired discussion" among audience and cast afterwards was, well, inspiring.

As Santayana said, if we don't learn from our history (Trail of Tears, bank crises, the American culture of "want" and grab, and the culture of political "change" and disappointment et al) we're doomed to repeat it. Have been repeating it. "Populism, yeah yeah!"

TPA

2011-11-04T06:44:00.001-05:00

No, not the Parent-Teacher Ass'n (TPA)... the Tennessee Philosophical Association, holding its annual meeting tonight and tomorrow at Vanderbilt. The personal highlight for me: a reunion with old grad school pals, coming to town to pay tribute to our old Prof Jeffrey Tlumak.

Tonight's keynote address is from LSU Prof John Whittaker, asking "what it costs philosophy to take religious belief seriously."*

It's all free and open to the public, come as you are and stay for the free food and drink afterwards (and pick up easy extra credit, CoPhi and SOL students).

*Abstract: Judeo-Christian religion – and indeed, most any religion – is defenseless when its critics focus on the literalism of its exponents and the mythical character of its sacred stories. This target is too easy to criticize, and it is beneath the dignity of philosophy to concentrate on this naïve form of belief. To take religion at its best, philosophers must pay attention to faith’s insistence that it is not knowledge in the ordinary sense, that all descriptions of the divine are anthropomorphic, that its principles can be reasonable without being evidentially or argumentatively justified, that its wisdom is therapeutic and not cognitive, that its truths are not objectively determinable but discernible in new forms of understanding, that its trust is open-ended, and that the “objects” of this trust are wholly unknowable mysteries. To take these aspects of religion seriously requires nothing less than the overthrow of standard models of epistemology. With respect to these narrow models of epistemology, the wisdom of faith is a form of “not-knowing.”

Does not knowing become deep and profound when "hyphenated"?

NaNoWriMo

2011-11-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

A post for Immanuel, among others:

Ready to write your novel? Sign up here.

At NaNoWriMo, we provide the support, encouragement, and good old-fashioned kick in the pants you need to write the rough draft of your novel in November.

I'm such an inveterate editor, always revising as I go (and then revising the revisions), that trying to crank out so many unexamined words so quickly would make me crazy. (Crazy in a good way, though, possibly?) And, I have all these papers to grade.

Older Daughter did it last year and says she's doing it again. Her lament on the way to school this morning: "I just want to go home and write!" Good for her. "Quantity over quality" is the goal of a first draft, she says. I have a hard time committing to that, myself. Maybe next year? Or next month when nobody's looking?

Atheism & Philosophy

2011-11-01T05:00:00.001-05:00

SpringSemester 2012-

PHIL4800-003 Readings in Philosophy:

Atheism & Philosophy

Withspecial emphasis on ethics, and howatheists, agnostics, humanists and other deity-deniers establish a personalsense of right and wrong.

We, on this terrestrial globe,so far as the visible facts go, are just like the inhabitants of such a rock. Whether a God exist, or whether no Godexist, in yon blue heaven above us bent, we form at any rate an ethicalrepublic here below. And the first reflection which this leads to is that ethics have as genuine and real a footholdin a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe wherethere is a God as well. "The religion of humanity" affords abasis for ethics as well as theism does.

-William James, “The MoralPhilosopher and the Moral Life”

WasJames right? We’ll see. The course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:40 –4:05, in James Union Building room 202.

Readingswill include

· Baggini, Atheism:A Very Short Introduction

· Anthony, Philosophers Without Gods

· Blackford, FiftyVoices of Disbelief

· Harris, TheMoral Landscape

Formore information contact Dr. Oliver, poliver@mtsu.edu

"Happiest Man in the World"

2011-10-31T05:00:00.003-05:00

No, not me on Friday night after the last out of the 2011 World Series, but Matthieu Ricard (despite his "1,000 disclaimers"). He was just featured on "On Being" (the radio show formerly known as "Speaking of Faith") with Krista Tippett. We read him in SOL last month. A wise man, combining the best of science and humane spirit.

...we are all part of one family. That's not just a nice, naive image; either we are all losers or all winners in terms of survival. Now we can't say it makes sense for just one nation to be powerful, rich, and so forth. If the whole world is starving, we'll create immense wars and difficulty. And the environment can only be a chance national solution. So hopefully, evolution wouldn't take hold quickly enough so that altruistic behavior become — not just seemingly altruistic behavior, which is selfishness in disguise...
True altruism is a genuine consideration for all sentient beings, whether they are your tribe, your relatives, your own gene lines — forget about that, it has now to be concern for all that lives. (Full transcript)

tomorrow night

2011-10-28T08:06:00.000-05:00

Deja vu, all over again.

Dumbledore as philosopher

2011-10-26T06:25:00.001-05:00

We had excellent midterm report presentations in Co-Phi yesterday. Asiyah, Hannah, Allie, and Katie collaborated on Harry Potter & Philosophy, and Amanda did Sex in the City. Only one of us had issues with Harry, whose creator-- herself the creator of Albus Dumbledore-- is certainly a philosopher. I'm glad he (not Aristotle) ran Hogwarts. The quote my daughter the Slytherin gave me hangs above my desk:

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one remembers to turn on the light.

Not sure my mind is organized or Socratic enough to share the wise old wizard's view of death as just an adventure waiting to happen, but I'm trying.

Here was my brief and bleary post after returning from the midnight screening of the last film.

But, Amanda: Carrie Bradshaw as philosopher? I'll have to think some more about that. Liked your report, though.

mystical intoxication

2011-10-25T11:21:00.000-05:00

Do humanists need a chaplain?

2011-10-20T06:33:00.000-05:00

Or a church? Or even a community center?

P."Zed" Myers thinks not, emphatically, but at Harvard they've got one, namely Greg Epstein. [HarvardHumanist's YouTube Channel] They've been debating the whole concept of humanist communitarianism on Twitter (#humanistcommunity).

Myers notwithstanding, I've often heard humanists, atheists, and secularists of various other stripes express regret at not enjoying the conviviality and "fellowship" available to church-based religionists. Some of us have the Church of Baseball, of course; but for others Epstein is pushing to create something more like a community of non-believers. He's been hosting talks, not quite sermons, in service of that goal. Jennifer Hecht gave one recently:

moral holidays

2011-10-17T10:07:00.000-05:00

ecstasy

2011-10-17T09:53:00.000-05:00

"The peace of rationality may be sought through ecstasy when logic fails." William James

Go Cards!

The meaning of life

2011-10-13T06:49:00.002-05:00

(Also known as the "secret of happiness")...

A student in CoPhi yesterday posted the lyrics of a vulgar song by the old punk band The Dictators, purporting to express the meaning of life. I found it a bit reductive. Here's a more expansive view, from the conclusion of Bertrand Russell's 1930 Conquest of Happiness:

The happy man or woman is

a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found.

The "secret" is this:

Let your interests be as wide as possible , and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Maybe. But maybe those other Brits were onto something too:

Well, it’s nothing special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Fundamentally that's all the same advice, isn’t it? Someone should put it in a song.

"Global Perspectives on the Holocaust"

2011-10-12T05:00:00.001-05:00

The annual Holocaust Studies Symposium is back on our campus next week, Oct. 19-22. Here's this year's program... and here was my notice of the excellent conference two years ago.

Organized in 1988, the Middle Tennessee State University Holocaust Studies Committee's original mission was to encourage the study of the Holocaust at Middle Tennessee State University and in the mid-South. Since that time the committee's mission evolved to:
disseminate greater understanding of and knowledge about the Holocaust from an inter-disciplinary and bi-gender perspective;
serve as a bulwark against the spread of Holocaust denial and antisemitism, as well against racial, religious and ethnic hatred;
memorialize the lives and suffering of all people persecuted during the Holocaust. These include but are not limited to Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, Hitler’s political opponents, people of African descent, Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups, and persons with physical or mental disabilities
raise awareness in both the academic community and the general public that genocidal hate did not end in 1945 by disseminating information about other genocides, past and present.

Santayana on the meaning of life

2011-10-11T06:33:00.000-05:00

In SOL today we're reading Bertrtand Russell on the "causes of happiness." Foremost among them, for him, was the constant courting of "zest" in life. This led me to consider William James on "what makes a life significant" and "the solid meaning of life"... and that, to their contemporary George Santayana. There is no cure for birth and death, Santayana said, save to enjoy the interval.

As Older Daughter would say: "True dat."

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

2011-10-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

Every day is doomsday. Steve Jobs at Stanford, 2005:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. commencement address

Reasons for Reason - NYTimes.com

2011-10-06T06:32:00.002-05:00

Finding common currency is not so easy these days, but as David Hume said: there, not in a narrow and sterile concept of "reason," is ultimately where our values abide. So we'd best keep looking, and had best not constrict our "reason" either.

Hume’s point, in alluding to what he also sometimes called “the principle of humanity” was that the ideal of civility requires us to find common currency with those with whom we must discuss practical matters...

Reasons for Reason - NYTimes.com:

"A gathering of stone-related links"...

'via Blog this'

How Yoga Won the West - NYTimes.com

2011-10-04T05:00:00.004-05:00

More philosophy in the Sunday paper:

When the Hindu sage Vivekananda made his way to America over a century ago,

The Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James was fascinated by the 31-year-old Indian and quoted at length from Vivekananda’s writings in his seminal work, “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”
“A very nice man! A very nice man!” Vivekananda reported after his first meeting with James, who called his new friend “an honor to humanity.”
The novelist Gertrude Stein, then a student of James’s at Radcliffe, reportedly attended Vivekananda’s 1896 talk at Harvard — which so wowed the college’s graybeards that they offered him the chairmanship of Eastern philosophy. He declined, noting his vows as a monk.

How Yoga Won the West - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

The Swerve

2011-10-03T06:45:00.003-05:00

Excellent review in yesterday's Times by Montaigne biographer Sarah Bakewell, on a new account of ancient atomism in Lucretius (and before him Democritus and Epicurus)...

The Swerve - How the World Became Modern - By Stephen Greenblatt - Book Review - NYTimes.com:

“What human beings can and should do is to conquer their fears, accept the fact that they themselves and all the things they encounter are transitory, and embrace the beauty and the pleasure of the world.”

Montaigne, too, was a fan of ancient atomism. He scooped Nietzsche on eternal recurrence:

“Since the movements of the atoms are so varied, it is not unbelievable that the atoms once came together in this way, or that in the future they will come together like this again, giving birth to another Montaigne.”

In a separate review, Dwight Garner finds a Woody Allen angle and adds that for Lucretius

“there is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design.” Religious fear, Lucretius thought, long before there was a Christopher Hitchens, warps human life... living a full life include[s] friendship and philanthropy and fundamental happiness.

As for the atomism itself,

the philosopher George Santayana would call this “the greatest thought that mankind has ever hit upon.”

Well, maybe... 'til Darwin had the best idea ever.

'via Blog this'

I wonder why

2011-10-02T07:45:00.001-05:00

Found it!

We just had a bunch of old family VHS tapes converted to DVD, and the other night watched Older Daughter's first four birthdays. The highlight, for me, was her singing a clever song called "I Wonder Why." I couldn't remember where she'd gotten that song, and it's been bugging me since. I just found it:

Faster than light, slower than "belief"

2011-09-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of Bertrand Russell, whose Conquest of Happiness we're about to begin reading in SOL... and of Carl Sagan, who opposed fashionable nonsense but was wide open to extraordinary evidence and intoxicated by the natural wonder of our world:

Faster than light story highlights the difference between science and religion | Science | guardian.co.uk:

Faster than light story highlights the difference between science and religion | Science | guardian.co.uk:

'via Blog this'

More CoPhi comics

2011-09-28T22:44:00.001-05:00

Love these exam day funnies, courtesy of Earl and Hicham...

Exam day advice

2011-09-28T06:29:00.000-05:00

Here’s the best test-prep advice I can pass along:

If you want really to do your best in an examination, fling away the book the day before, say to yourself, “I won’t waste another minute on this miserable thing, and I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.” Say this sincerely, and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method permanently. William James, “Gospel of Relaxation“

If you’ve been up all night cramming, in other words, good luck. You’ll need it. But if you’ve been diligent, have steeped yourself in the subject all semester long, and either went out to play or to an early bed last night, your luck will be the residue of design. You’ll do fine.

But don’t try too hard to relax.

It is needless to say that that is not the way to do it. The way to do it, paradoxical as it may seem, is genuinely not to care whether you are doing it or not.

Care tomorrow. Today, just show up and do your best.

Hegel was not a Cubs fan

2011-09-27T05:50:00.000-05:00

Probably not a Cards fan either. But I hit upon a fun new way of trying to explain Hegel yesterday in Co-Phi, inspired by an essay on 19th century St. Louis Hegelians Henry Brokmeyer and W.T. Harris:

Hegel’s progressive unfolding [of rational consciousness, geist, Utimate Reality] thrived on conflict, what Hegel’s popularizers (but rarely Hegel himself) referred to as “thesis and antithesis.” Hegel stuck to lofty abstractions like Being (thesis), Nothing (antithesis) and Becoming (synthesis.) Henry Brokmeyer, not so much. His unimpeachably practical list of theses and antitheses encompassed nearly every aspect of American life: religion vs. science, abolitionism vs. slavery, St. Louis vs. Chicago.

It just so happens that St. Louis defeated Chicago on Sunday to keep their flickering MLB postseason hopes alive. What could be the "world-historical" significance of that? Or of the fact that the lowly Astros knocked the Cards off last night, dropping the Braves' magic number to 2?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: none at all. But I still like Hegel's largest message, as reported by the authors of our Co-Phi text. "We're all in this together." I wonder if they came to that after a hit of nitrous? Or after reading "On Some Hegelisms"...

"The interest of history is detached from individuals." Squashed Hegel

Atheist spirituality

2011-09-22T05:00:00.001-05:00

And snark. More Co-Phi comics...

Funny, Hicham, but next time I teach "Atheism & Spirituality" I'll again be debunking the notion that atheists don't believe anything (or have any content for their pamphlets). For instance, check out Andre Comte-Sponville's Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.

This coming Spring semester, btw, I'll be teaching "Atheism & Ethics"...

Seigenthalers

2011-09-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

John & John Jr., together on our campus on Tuesday. John Sr. is one of my heroes. He's visited my classes in the past, maybe again...

A funny collaboration

2011-09-21T06:12:00.000-05:00

Students have been putting up some funny graphics on our new in-house collaborative course website, CoPhilosophy. They're vindication enough for me, if I'd needed any, for our masthead quote:

The pluralistic form takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of, being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of 'co'-William James

Here's a small sample. Keep 'em coming, folks.

Jameses

2011-09-20T17:57:00.000-05:00

A new blog is devoted to exploring the correspondence between brothers William and Henry James. The Philosopher and The Master, toe to toe (or pen to pen). Should be fun to follow.

A sample post:

9/07/2011

Wm to H'ry, July 15, 1865. Age: 23

"No words, but only savage inarticulate cries can express the gorgeous loveliness of the walk I have been taking....How often my dear old Harry wd. I have given every thing to have you by my side to enjoy the magnificent landscape of this region."
W^m seems to be feeling better. The plea for H'ry's company is a motif that runs through the entire correspondence. Though he claims that words can't express the loveliness of his walk, much of the letter sets out to achieve just that. The return address reads "Original Seat of Garden of Eden."

Lonely, but feeling adventurous

More perspective

2011-09-19T12:14:00.001-05:00

This evokes for me the same feeling Carl Sagan was trying to awaken, from further out: a sense of ourselves as voyagers on Starship Earth, a single species hugging a fraction of a dot, with the solar winds in our sails.

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica.

Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars of our galaxy. Raw data was downloaded from;
The Gateway To Astronaut Photography of Earth "http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/mrf.htm ". Virtualdub was used to create the final movie. You can see more beautiful images of our universe at: http://infinity-imagined.tumblr.com/

As Jerry Coyne comments, "This should give you a 'spiritual' experience." Amen. Pass the plate, NASA.

Who moved my wallpaper?

2011-09-16T05:00:00.001-05:00

Kat did, replacing the desktop image in our classroom with a clever scene involving pious fish who can't imagine anyone but a God stooping to care for their fishbowl.

She's right, mine was a bit blurry. After all, it was taken from a distance of 3.7 billion miles.

It's really Carl Sagan's adjoining text, though, more than the image of a miniscule fraction of a dot, that's meant to convey clarity. So let me restore my sense of perspective, mine and Matthew Beckler's, here and now.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam... Pale Blue Dot

The Vulcan way

2011-09-15T05:00:00.013-05:00

Lots of interesting group discussions in Intro yesterday, pertaining to Aristotle and Stoics and Skeptics and African and indigenous American philosophies.

Some wondered how Aristotle could speak so earnestly of living a life of virtue and at the same time, without irony, defend the Athenian institution of slavery. Same question arises much closer to home with Mr. Jefferson. ("All men are created equal," right? And women.) Can we let either of them off the moral hook, on the grounds that they were simply products of their time and place? Can we excuse ourselves, when a later age calls us to account for who knows what?

Then there are the extreme skeptics Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus and their followers. (Can a skeptic really be a "follower," btw? Nowadays you can join the Skeptics Society. Should you?) How can the refusal to believe anything at all be therapeutic? Well, JMH says theirs was the philosophy of "no"... so maybe Sally Brown could explain it to us? She's not the most serene Stoic, but she does seem to enjoy not committing to any particular philosophical conclusion.

Interesting discussions surrounding indigenous American and African philosophy, too. Are we all related ("mitakuye oyasin"), and all a part of nature? Are we humans entitled to assert "dominion" over the rest of creation? Is personhood an "achievement"? How can a living soul split and reincarnate?

Most saliently, people in both classes were scratching their heads trying to understand why the old Greek & Roman Stoics insisted that "emotions are irrational judgments that make us frustrated and unhappy," and why both they and the Buddha counselled: "Minimize your desires and you will minimize your suffering."

I understand their consternation. The Vulcan way seems awfully cold. Can you really "live long and prosper" if you "form only limited attachments"? As Jonathan Haidt has written,

When life is unpredictable and dangerous (as it was for Stoic philosophers, living under capricious Roman emperors), it might be foolish to seek happiness by controlling one’s external world. But now it is not… to cut off all attachments, "to shun the pleasures of sensuality and triumph in an effort to escape the pains of loss and defeat” is an overreaction.

Not many of us are likely ever to have to deal with a crazed homicidal Emperor, as Seneca did. But what if you found yourself at "Windows on the World" in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the glorious morning of 9/11/01? Might Stoicism help you decide how to dispose of your last free moment on Earth?

Or what if you got a bad medical prognosis? This is something to premeditate, as did the Stoics.

In any case, detachment from conditions beyond one's control is only half the story for Stoical Vulcans. Their philosophy of IDIC urges "infinite diversity from infinite combinations."

Isn't that illogical, Captain? Maybe. But it's the way of our world at its best, so far as I can tell.

"Brave thinking about truth"

2011-09-14T06:11:00.001-05:00

Jennifer Hecht says "brave thinking about the truth" was the secret to happiness, for the old Greeks. They thought contemplation would "transform us and let us taste what there is to taste of transcendence."

“Transcendence” is a $4 word best approached in hyphenated stages-- trans-end-dance-- meaning simply, on Peter Ackroyd’s reading of the "Plato Papers,"

the ability to move beyond the end, otherwise called the dance of death.

So the Greeks tried to think bravely about life and death, and to make the best of things in the interval. My favorites are Aristotle and Epicurus.

To everything a season

2011-09-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

Former New York Mayor Giuliani read from Ecclesiastes at the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan yesterday.

To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;

A time to kill, and
a time to heal...

As always, these wise words again offered some small measure of consolation (bordering on resignation). Mr. Giuliani attributed them to God. Jennifer Hecht points out that their author was in fact a Hellenized Jew of the 3d century BCE named Koheleth, who "doubted every aspect of religion."

But what else is new? As my colleague Rabbi Rami Shapiro says, not only is Judaism without belief in God possible, but he's seen it done. Himself.

The existence of “Judaism” only requires people willing to fill the meme “Judaism” with ideas that matter to them, demand that their ideas are somehow “Jewish,” and then spend their lives arguing in defense of them. This can even be done—and I am a prime example—when you know the entire enterprise is a literary creation fashioned and refashioned by thousands of Jews over millennia.

A time to believe, a time to doubt, a time to think, a time to play...

A Failure of Happiness

2011-09-11T20:22:00.004-05:00

Sad tale in the Times magazine today.

He was studying philosophy because philosophers were the only people who could change the world... he wanted to know how people planned to find happiness... He was writing a book on the philosophical roots of happiness, wrote an essay on "flow." He wanted to teach the science and philosophy of happiness to audiences online.

And then, he took his own life.

Did Job silence God?

2011-09-09T05:51:00.000-05:00

For the record, to clarify a point from Jack Miles' God: a biography that Jennifer Hecht repeats in Doubt: a history, their claim is that God's speech from the whirlwind is His last appearance in the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament, as Cody reminded us in H1, is another story. "And a voice from heaven said..." (Matthew 3:17) "And a voice came from heaven..." (Mark 1:11) Still, there's something decidedly transitory, insubstantial and second-hand about those later scriptures, compared to the Deity's remarkable and extended appearance on stage in Job. Jack Miles:

A view common to nearly all commentators on the Book of Job is that, one way or another, the Lord has reduced Job to virtual silence. Unnoticed is the fact that from the end of the Book of Job to the end of the Tanakh, God never speaks again. His speech from the whirlwind is, in effect, his last will and testament.

A lighter look at the suffering of Job

2011-09-08T06:29:00.000-05:00

More on Job and the p of e...

And some more links on this topic:

Job & Ecclesiastes (check out "Mr. Deity" on the time before time began, at this link)... More on Leibnizian theodicy...some slides, including Simon Blackburn's notorious dorm analogy... the Berenstain Bears face the Big Question (and almost face the p of e)... How nice is God, after all?

The problem of good

2011-09-07T05:00:00.001-05:00

Jesus and Mo are right: there is a lot of good in the world, along with the pain and suffering highlighted by the philosophical problem of evil.

"Whatever." That's not usually regarded, in philosophy, as a conclusive refutation.

But at some point you have to stop arguing and consult your heart, on this question of how much human suffering is too much to lay at the feet of Divine Perfection.

Bertrand Russell's heart, head, and wit led him to this incredulous question:

Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists?

What do you think?

Dr. Happiness's "Objective Happiness Quiz"

2011-09-05T10:35:00.001-05:00

A diversion for your Labor Day... just don't let the quiz results ruin your happy holiday! "Don't take the results too seriously. This is meant to be a fun way of learning how you can become happier..."

Ed Diener, aka “Dr. Happiness” is a leading researcher in positive psychology who coined the expression “subjective well-being” or SWB as the aspect of happiness that can be empirically measured. He argues for a strong genetic component to happiness, and has amassed some compelling data showing that external conditions do little to change one’s happiness...

Diener was noted in a recent NewYork Times opinion piece ("Happiness, Philosophy and Science") as a pioneer in the new science of happiness. Take his quiz here.

John Adams in Tennessee

2011-08-31T06:02:00.000-05:00

Stopped in at the Walker Library yesterday, at Middle Tennessee State University, to check out the visiting "John Adams Unbound" exhibition. Don't miss it if you're in Murfreesboro, it'll only be there through September. Adams used to be a relatively unsung revolutionary hero, but David McCullough, HBO, and PBS have chipped away at his obscurity.

Another side of Adams was a bit misrepresented by the religion panel, though, which played up his Unitarianism and portrayed him as a more-or-less conventionally pious pilgrim. In fact, as Jennifer Hecht points out in Doubt: A History, he was a doubter and a skeptic both before and after his affiliation with the Unitarians. Just like me.

As President he declared: "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation." And as for those who would ban questioning the Bible's allegedly divine origins? "I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind."

You hear that, Rick & Michelle? Probably not.

MTSU Convocation

2011-08-29T17:18:00.000-05:00

We're back, and this time we're "true blue."

Listening is an act

2011-08-28T15:33:00.002-05:00

And it's a good one. Dave Isay is on campus this afternoon, talking about his StoryCorps project to get more of us listening attentively and respectfully to one another. His book Listening in an Act of Love was the summer Freshman Read. (It sure beats the Vanderbilt offering my friend from there was telling me about yesterday at the Sounds game, the late Peter Gomes' preciously self-important Good Life.

We'll talk about Listening soon, classes begin tomorrow. Time always begins on opening day. Play ball!

Confessions of an Ex-Moralist - NYTimes.com

2011-08-25T13:25:00.000-05:00

Joel Marks is wrong, but in interesting and provocative ways. I wonder if he's read "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" by William James. There the view is ably defended that although (as Marks suggests) the full set of competing human desires is socially unsustainable, our objective aspirations in morality and ethics remain wholly tenable.

Confessions of an Ex-Moralist - NYTimes.com

Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

2011-08-20T14:22:00.001-05:00

Was excited to tune in to NPR's "Science Friday" yesterday and hear old friend Michael Sims discussing his Story of Charlotte's Web... even more excited to learn that he's working on a book about Thoreau and Walden. It'll be great. Can't wait.
Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

What Makes Us Happy? - Magazine - The Atlantic

2011-08-18T10:55:00.000-05:00

What Makes Us Happy? - Magazine - The Atlantic

David Deutsch And The Beginning of Infinity | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

2011-08-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

David Deutsch And The Beginning of Infinity | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

The Poetry And Philosophy Of Troubled Times | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

2011-08-12T14:42:00.003-05:00

You don't often hear a poet and a philosopher on the radio. And at the same time? A first.

Billy Collins can make even a bleak future (past, present) sound inviting. How does he do that?

THE FUTURE

When I finally arrive there—

and it will take many days and nights—

I would like to believe others will be waiting

and might even want to know how it was.

So I will reminisce about a particular sky

or a woman in a white bathrobe

or the time I visited a narrow strait

where a famous naval battle had taken place.

Then I will spread out on a table

a large map of my world

and explain to the people of the future

in their pale garments what it was like—

how mountains rose between the valleys

and this was called geography,

how boats loaded with cargo plied the rivers

and this was known as commerce,

how the people from this pink area

crossed over into this light-green area

and set fires and killed whoever they found

and this was called history—

and they will listen, mild-eyed and silent,

as more of them arrive to join the circle

like ripples moving toward,

not away from, a stone tossed into a pond

New Yorker

The Poetry And Philosophy Of Troubled Times | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

The Transformation of Michele Bachmann : The New Yorker

2011-08-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

A profile of the goofball candidate from Anoka.

This would be laughably, parodically entertaining, if only so many "serious" pundits weren't calling her a serious candidate. And now comes the goofball candidate from Texas. Maybe they'll split the goofball vote. But wait, what about the goofball candidate from Wasilla?

The Transformation of Michele Bachmann : The New Yorker

Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker

2011-08-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Terrific piece by James Wood, including Philip Kitcher on the message Plato's "Euthyphro" should convey to those who think you can't be good without God (this "turns morality into God's plaything") and Tom Nagel counseling that we should "approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." Wood's comment on Nagel: that's "cold comfort in the middle of the night."

Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker

Evolution on the radio

2011-08-08T11:57:00.001-05:00

Dan Dennett was on the radio ("What Does Evolution Want?"), rejecting Simon Conway Morris's claim that human-type intelligence is inevitable and insisting on the limits of science, in a rebroadcast of "To the Best of Our Knowledge" yesterday. (Also on TTBOOK, "Waiting for the Apocalypse": send it to anyone who seriously proposes your serious consideration of "Revelations.")

What are some important questions that are beyond the scope of science?
What should we do? All the ethical questions are outside of science. They’re the province of philosophy and particularly the province of a political process, where we try to get everybody to sit down and talk about what we ought to do. Science isn’t about what we ought to do. Science can tell you how we got to where we are in our moral thinking - how our moral attitudes evolved, both biologically and culturally. But once science has done that, we have to sit down and figure out what we ought to do.

He's clearly rejecting the Moral Landscape position Sam Harris has been defending, embracing a position associated with his old rival Stephen Jay Gould.

Did the tape of evolution play an utterly contingent tune when it played us? Hard to believe there's anything inevitable about our species, but it would be nice to think that intelligence in the universe is more than a fluke. And nicer to think that more of it is likely.

Listen, too, for Ken Miller's invocation of Carl Sagan in defense of varieties of evolutionary possibility. Good show.

Another good rebroadcast yesterday: Anthony Appiah, the cosmopolitan ethicist and experimental philosopher, on Krista Tippett's On Being. He's a pluralist's pluralist, such a sane voice in these crazy times.

More Sunday cycling

2011-08-07T16:39:00.000-05:00

Another pleasant Sunday morning bike ride from birds'-eye perspective through the neighborhood, this time looping the Richland Creek greenway & McCabe golf course, the girls' old tee-ball fields, Nashville State (where I taught briefly many years ago), Hillwood High School... 12 miles in an hour, threading the rain. Didn't realize so many of my neighbors had pools. We need more common ground.

<a href="http://www.mapmywalk.com/routes/view/44990044">iMapMyFITNESS: Aug 7, 2011 11:58 AM</a> and more walks in Nashville, TN on MapMyWALK. <a href="http://www.mapmywalk.com">Find walk</a>