Carlin Romano

the author of America the Philosophical and Critic-at-large of the "Chronicle of Higher Education," is coming to MTSU later this week. He'll be on the radio this afternoon at 5:30 pm on WMOT/89.5 in middle Tennessee (and everywhere, on their podcast).

Carlin Romano

Ursinus College

America the Philosophical

Friday, November 8, 2013

at 5:00 pm,*

College of Education Building,

Room 164

Is America, contrary to popular belief and national stereotype, a vibrantly philosophical civilization, possibly even the greatest of all time? The controversial Chronicle of Higher Education critic-at-large says “Yes”, emphatically. The New York Times said he makes an “ambitious” and “convincing” case.

*He'll be available before and after the talk to sign copies of his book.

Hurry Spring

A wise but frustrated old Red Sox fan once said: baseball breaks your heart. 

It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. 

Then comes the long hard winter. Stories are told, the heart begins to heal, and eventually to hope. For the briefest while, it's only a game.

Bart Giamatti needed to believe something lasts forever. I just need to believe Spring Training will come again. The countdown begins. Up again, old heart.

Hail to the Red Sox. 

Love my dog

J-J Rousseau had his shortcomings, but he did love the most loyal species. That covers a multitude of sins, in my book. It's also why I cut some slack to Schopenhauer, Diogenes, and others whose humanly-deficient  tendencies gained partial canine correction.

A relationship with a dog, too, should not be one of ruler and subject. About the predecessor to Sultan, Rousseau wrote, “My dog himself was my friend, not my slave: we always had the same will, but it was not because he obeyed me.”

Positive change

One of my favorite places, in Murfreesboro TN, lies just down the little hill beyond this point. I finally paused long enough yesterday, in transit, to notice the noble words of commemoration:

"From a tiny acorn grows a majestic oak tree. This place is in honor of Bertha Chrietzberg [OH'y] - conservationist, teacher, mentor, hero, and genuine example of the power each one of us has to make a positive change in the world."

Atheism & Philosophy texts, updated

Coming to MTSU in January

Spring Semester-

Atheism & Philosophy: 

PHIL 3310 – Atheism and Philosophy. This course examines various perspectives on atheism, understood as the belief that no transcendent creator deity exists, and that there are no supernatural causes of natural events. The course compares this belief with familiar alternatives (including theism, agnosticism, and humanism), considers the spiritual significance of atheism, and explores implications for ethics and religion.

Our central theme this semester: the meaning of Atheism

What's the meaning of a godless existence? What gets atheists, humanists, naturalists and other godless folk out of bed in the morning? What reconciles them to belief in life non-eternal? How do they deal with their mortality? What  are their sacred texts, if not the Christian Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, the collected works of L.Ron, ...? Whatare the possible "meanings of life" regarded strictly in its finitude?

Classes will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:40-4:05 pm in James Union Building (JUB) 202 beginning January 16, 2014.

Texts:

• A.C. Grayling, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible ("there is experience also, which is what makes good and its opposite, In both of which humankind seeks to grasp the meaning of things")
• Owen Flanagan, The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World ("Life can be precious and funny. And one doesn't need to embrace fantastical stories—unbecoming to historically mature beings— about our nature and prospects to make it so.")
• Christopher Hitchens, Mortality (“To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?”)
• Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions ("Reality is rough. But it could have been worse. We could have been faced with reality in all its 
  roughness plus a God who made it that way.")
• Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God ("Carl admired James's definition of religion as a 'feeling of being at home in the Universe'... science opens the way to levels of consciousness otherwise inaccessible")

Also recommended:

• Ronald Aronson, Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided ("the number of Americans who find “meaning and value in life 
  without looking to a god" is so great that they would constitute the majority of adults in all but a handful of countries")
• Julian Baggini, Atheism ("it is certainly not the case that only endless activities can be meaningful")
• Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non=believers Guide to the Uses of Religion ("culture might be no less effective than religion in its ability to guide, humanize, and console. One would be able to have meaning unburdened by superstition"
• Ronald Dworkin, Religion Without God ("religion is deeper than God... belief in a god is only one possible manifestation")
• A.C. Grayling, The God Argument: the Case against Religion and for Humanism ("the major reason for the continuance of religious belief in a world which might otherwise have long moved beyond it, is indoctrination of children before they reach the age of reason")
• Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History ("the point is to teach us to live, well and wide awake, in our strange place between meaning and meaninglessness... to understand the schism between humanness and the universe")
• Hitchens, ed., The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-believer ("the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning”-Einstein)

Aunt Fritzi's True Blue

And here's why. Or how.

"I'll be hanging in a classroom one day"

In honor of today's topic in CoPhi, Stanley Cavell and philosophy in the movies...

You are so self-righteous. I mean, we're just people. We're just human beings. You think you're God!
-I gotta model myself after someone.
You just can't live the way you do. It's all so perfect.
-Jesus, what are future generations gonna say about us? My God! You know, someday we're gonna be like him. And he was probably one of the beautiful people, dancing and playing tennis. And now look. This is what happens to us. You know, it's important to have some kind of personal integrity. I'll be hanging in a classroom one day and I wanna make sure when I thin out that I'm... well thought of. Manhattan (1979) 

Postscript-

My new officemate, reminding me to memento mori, carpe diem, & have some integrity before I thin out. pic.twitter.com/pToJk5wf6i

•  Reply 
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To live is an act of courage

Jennifer Michael Hecht on the suicide epidemic in today's military.

Throughout history, artists and writers have depicted “the sorrowful Ajax” because the story is so heartbreaking and so very human. At times, we are all—every one of us—our own worst enemy...

The American Scholar 

Remembering to seek peace

It's an unplanned but pleasing coincidence that the twelfth anniversary of 9.11.01 falls on the same day we'll be entertaining a visitor from the Peace Corps, in CoPhi... and the day after the President announced his intention to give diplomacy and peace a chance in Syria. We must push and celebrate progress where we can.

The scene on the Vandy library lawn this morning:

Coming to MTSU in January

Spring Semester-

Atheism & Philosophy: 

PHIL 3310 – Atheism and Philosophy. This course examines various perspectives on atheism, understood as the belief that no transcendent creator deity exists, and that there are no supernatural causes of natural events. The course compares this belief with familiar alternatives (including theism, agnosticism, and humanism), considers the spiritual significance of atheism, and explores implications for ethics and religion.

Our central theme this semester: the meaning of Atheism

What's the meaning of a godless existence? What gets atheists, humanists, naturalists and other godless folk out of bed in the morning? What reconciles them to belief in life non-eternal? How do they deal with their mortality? What  are their sacred texts, if not the Christian Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, the collected works of L.Ron, ...? What are the possible "meanings of life" regarded strictly in its finitude?

Classes will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:40-4:05 pm in James Union Building (JUB) 202 beginning January 16, 2014.

Possible texts include

• Julian Baggini, Atheism ("it is certainly not the case that only endless activities can be meaningful")
• A.C. Grayling, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible ("there is experience also, which is what makes good and its opposite, In both of which humankind seeks to grasp the meaning of things")
• Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non=believers Guide to the Uses of Religion ("culture might be no less effective than religion in its ability to guide, humanize, and console. One would be able to have meaning unburdened by superstition"
• Christopher Hitchens, Mortality (“To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?”)
• Hitch, ed., The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-believer ("the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning”-Einstein)

For more info, contact Dr. Phil Oliver, phil.oliver@mtsu.edu.