Calvin gets existential

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.

More CoPhi comics

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

a hunger for philosophy

Existentialcomix


Logicomix 5-6, PW -128
1. (Entracte) What philosophical confusion does Aeschylus suggest to Apostolos?

2. What was Russell's vision of heaven?


3. What did young Wittgenstein say to Russell (at their first meeting)about facts and certainty, and (later) about mathematical reality? What does Russell later say about the habit of analyzing everything? What part of himself did he say Wittgenstein brought to the surface?

4. In what did Russell find "redemption" from the fear of dying? How did it affect his interest in the philosophy of mathematics? What "immunized" him against nationalistic war-mongering? What did war teach Russell about language? What does it (finally) teach Wittgenstein about meaning? What does he tell Russell is the "real issue" beyond thought and language?

5. (Ch.6) What did Russell fear would be the outcome of the collapse of the pre-war world's values? Why did he dislike Wittgenstein's view that logic results only in tautologies? What unexpected joy had philosophy not prepared Russell for?

6. What did the Vienna Circle credit Russell with helping to make possible? Who pointed out to him his "failure"? What will there "always be"? How did Wittgenstein think the Vienna Circle misunderstood him? What was its "tragic final act"?

7. How does Russell characterize his stance towards doubt and certainty? What does he conclude about "Leibniz's dream"? What is the message of his "cautionary tale"? What position does he come to share with Wittgenstein?

8. What, according to Christos, is "our prime hope for peace, democracy, and freedom"?


9. Heidegger said he was a ___________ like his teacher Husserl, but most consider him an ____________ like Sartre. His invented term for persons was _______, or "there-Being."

10. Jean-Paul Sartre said ______ precedes ________, leaving us free to invent ourselves. Those who deny their freedom are guilty of ___ _____.

11. Simone de Beauvoir opened up a new wave of ________ that questioned philosophy's commitment to women's freedom. She wrote __________, one of the most influential books of the 20th century.

12. (T/F) "One must consider Sisyphus happy," according to Albert Camus.

13. According to Postmodernists, _______ no longer exists.

14. ___ ___ philosophy shows a continuing need and hunger for philosophy.

The point, Calvin (and Calvin)... the point is to live.

Calvin

It was a terrific day of Intro classes, with Nhu on Groundhog Day (here's Phil claiming to be a God), Nicholas on Star Wars, Spurgeon on Calvin, and lots of Einstein, Spinoza, Berkeley, & Leibniz. (That bio about Leibniz's jealous rivalry with Spinoza I mentioned is Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic.)

Here's my favorite Calvin:

I'm afraid I just can't get behind any theology that claims kids enter the world in a state of depravity, or that we all  deserve eternal damnation and unrelenting torment for expressing the very nature we supposedly were endowed with by our creator, or that the original "sinfulness" of long-gone ancestors is an ineradicable and permanent stain.

Such ideas can be engaged philosophically, but not by appeal to the putatively unchallengable authority of a pre-scientific, demonstrably errant, multiple-anonymous-contributor text.

One more thing, while I'm wound up, and before I cool down: global warming is not just an Al Gore fantasy.

Frank Pajares

For years, Frank Pajares of Emory University maintained the best unofficial William James site on the web. And so it comes as a huge sadness to learn, belatedly, that Professor Pajares passed away earlier this year. I never met him in person, though he was kind enough to post news of my James book's publication a few years ago. His whimsical personality was evident. Like me, he loved Calvin and Hobbes. Like me, he would have appreciated someone observing in connection with his own passing what James observed of Emerson's:

The pathos of death is this, that when the days of one's life are ended, those days that were so crowded with business and felt so heavy in their passing, what remains of one in memory should usually be so slight a thing. The phantom of an attitude, the echo of a certain mode of thought, a few pages of print, some invention, or some victory we gained in a brief critical hour, are all that can survive the best of us. It is as if the whole of a man's significance had now shrunk...into a mere musical note or phrase suggestive of his singularity — happy are those whose singularity gives a note so clear as to be victorious over the inevitable pity of such a diminution and abridgement.

Good-bye, Professor. Thank you.

wanna bet?

"If there is a God," said Blaise Pascal, "He is infinitely incomprehensible. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake to decide the question? How, therefore, shall Christians be blamed for not being able to give reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which reason cannot be given?

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it.

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are in the game. Which will you choose then?

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God exists.

If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.

Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. Labour to convince yourself, not by accumulating proofs of God, but by weakening your passions. The people who know the road which you would follow and are healed of the ills of which you would be healed. They began by acting in every way as if they believed, by taking holy water, having masses said, and so on. This will naturally make you believe and will stultify you. This way leads you to faith, let me tell you that it will lessen the passions which are your stumbling-blocks. Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others?

Objection. Those who hope for salvation have happiness in that; but they have as a counterpoise the fear of hell.

Reply. Who has most reason to fear hell: he who is in ignorance whether there is a hell, and who is certain of damnation if there is; or he who certainly believes there is a hell and hopes to be saved if there is?" -Squashed philosophers

The real Calvin, btw, was dour, God-fearing, and convinced that salvation is beyond the gambler's calculations. Thomas Hobbes, an atheist, said life in a state of nature must have been "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Our Calvin's wager seems the better bet, seems to me: Dad's a proven provider.

Calvin, Twit of the Year

The Calvin I like (& his pal Hobbes) express my feelings about Bad Calvin, who despite having said that newborn infants deserve eternal damnation seems to be enjoying an appalling "revival" among young people who think their only "spiritual" options range from mega-smiley Pastor Osteen to the long dead Dark Lord of TULIP (that's "Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints," for those fortunate enough to have escaped that particular form of child abuse.)

When will we have the sense to recognize the value of philosophy, and share it with our kids, before they're so miserably "saved" by the Prophets of doom?

But you gotta love this:

[Calvin] stressed total depravity — the idea that human beings are completely sinful, and can't do anything to earn God's favor. That's a relief to many students who've grown up in church, said Kevin... [wait for it] Twit, who oversees the Reformed University Fellowship at Belmont. Calvinism gives them permission to fail.

"They've been trying to live by their own will power — to be fired up for Jesus. By the time they got to college, they are worn out," Twit said.

Worn out by bad theology. Tell me about it.

School's out!

We got no class, And we got no princip(les)/(als)...

No more pencils, No more books, No more teacher's dirty looks

Out for summer, Out 'til fall, We might not come back at all... Alice Cooper

Oh sure they will. But May is nearly over, which means that my May experiment of posting to blogs old and new every day, come what may, is probably out for summer too. Teachers' dirty looks don't compare to kids' when they want a ride to the pool (etc.) ,- and anyway I've got my priorities straight. Like Calvin and Hobbes, we're about to rediscover just how busy summer can be. But May sure has been fun this year.