May 2010 Archives

It is really interesting that we are reading about the logical and physical possibilities of UFO's and so happen there have been rare sightings around the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport/Ft.Snelling area through out the month of May.  

Fryes claim on "being one to know one" is very sujective and I don't know if I really agree with him. But I do believe you have to be able to think, feel, and connect in an unexplainable manner to actually know how someone is feeling. I made this theory in my head when I was younger. When someone ahs lost someone or whatever the situation may be and I have not had an hands on experience within that situation I choose not to say "I know how you feel". Because if I have never experienced the situation how can I possible "know" how you feel. I can hold my own emotion to the situation but never the same as another persons. 

Just got done reading Brian Fay's chapter one on if its true that "it takes one to know one". I believed this statement is somewhat ignorant and after reading Fay my opinion is only reinforced. If it takes one to know one nobody can know anybody. Everyone is different, everyone has their own experiences, perspectives, and upbringings. Although it is true that an upper class white man may not be able to fully understand a lower class minority, to say that the two are completely on different wavelengths, incapable of understanding each other to even a slight degree, is potentially dangerous. As Fay says, it is basically saying that nobody can know anybody. It is a good read and Fay is very good about using real life examples which always help me to understand some of these philosophical works. 

I just finished reading ‘Weird Things’ chaps 1, 2, and 5, lots of info!  Whew!  I guess I knew already that are actions are based on our beliefs.  But, when our beliefs are placed within all the various ways we can get it wrong, well, it is no wonder there are a multitude of ways people go about living their lives.               After chapter five, I am thinking, it is no wonder with all the many ways we can be duped and even fool ourselves… and while there are ways we can do the ‘reality check’ but they aren’t the most reliable unless administered with the full force of scientific discovery… that most of us just take the easy path a little too much of heuristic simplicity.            Do we really understand what is important to us anyway?  Is there a base level of knowledge needed or required?  What I mean to ask is at what point is what we need to know really what is critical for us to have in our hip pocket so we can live and let live?  I am sure that this question is based on my heuristic tendency to simplify.  But it seems that maybe in this complex world we have created we now have to really move beyond the ‘appeal of ignorance’ as Schick and Vaughn have stated.

As I was reading Martin Gardner’s forward I decided to research more about him. I am better able to understand someone’s ideas if I have some contextual background information. (As a side note I think Descartes’ first meditation was about stripping away those contextual properties that limited his work to his own time period.) The first thing I discovered was the Gardner recently passed away (May 22^nd). He had a pretty long life. Made me wonder about the lives of other philosophers. Seems like spending a vast amount of time and energy pondering philosophical questions would take a toll on the human psyche. Is there a high rate of suicide among philosophers? I do not completely trust the accuracy of Wikipedia, but here is the best list of philosopher deaths I could find. Found it interesting very few had the fate that Martin Gardner did. Most either committed suicide or were killed due to their ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_philosophers

If this were a more normal course in epistemology, we might spend the next few weeks exploring possible answers to the kind of global skepticism that Descartes generates in his first meditation. (If this idea appeals to you, you might want to take the class I am teaching in the fall called 'Early Modern European Philosophy.'  In that course we read the rest of the Meditations, learning how Descartes solved his problem and how other thinkers tried to solve or avoid it.)  But I've always found the sort of philosophical problem raised by Descartes rather unengaging. There is a family of problems that have a common abstract form: Since all I really know (or directly experience) is X, how can I claim to know anything about Y? Some examples (with their traditional names):

"The problem of the external world" -- Since the only things I directly experience are my own sensations, and these could be produced by a variety of causes (including some sort of virtual reality machine, as in The Matrix), how can I claim to know anything at all about the world outside my mind? How do I even know that there is a world outside my mind?

"The problem of other minds" -- The only thoughts and feelings I directly experience are my own. The only evidence I have about other people's thoughts and feelings is their behavior (including their verbal behavior). But this evidence is not at all conclusive (people can pretend and lie, I might be fooled by a real-seeming talking doll or robot). So how do I ever know what anyone else is really thinking or feeling? How do I even know that other people have experiences that are in any way similar to mine? How do I know that they have experiences at all? (Descartes writes, near the end of Meditation 2, "If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I have just done, I say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal robots? I judge that they are men. " - Bennett's translation) Perhaps I am the only conscious being in the world, and all the 'people' I meet are really robots (just behavior, no 'inside', no consciousness).

"The problem of induction" -- All our predictions of what will happen in the future are based on our experience of the past. We assume that the regularities we have found in our experience so far will continue into the future, that the laws of nature will not change drastically overnight, for example. But what entitles us to make this assumption? The fact that things have been a certain way up until now does not prove that they will continue to be so. How do we even know that the sun will come up tomorrow?

OK. Enough examples. All these problems (and more like them) have been discussed at great length by modern philosophers. But, as I said at the outset, I have never been able to sustain much interest in them. They are all theoretical problems, not practical problems. No sane person doubts that we do know the sorts of things that these skeptical arguments are supposed to call into question. Even the philosophers who claim that these problems cannot be solved aren't skeptics in any practical sense. (They live and love and trust and hope much the way non-philosophers do.) For the most part I share the sentiment expressed by the great Scottish philosopher David Hume in the following passage (from his Treatise of Human Nature, 1739): "Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther. "  The question, "How do you know you are not living in the Matrix?" strikes me in just this way.  It is interesting as a sort of puzzle, but I don't for a minute think that I might actually be in such a predicament.

But there are practical problems about knowledge, too. Lately I have been thinking about a set of problems I like to call "citizen's epistemology." The central question is this: How can citizens in a society like ours come to know what they need to know in order to play the role they are supposed to play in a democratic society? As citizens we are supposed to choose representatives who will pursue policies that promote our interests and our values. (More ambitious theories of democracy might give us more demanding roles to play, but at least we ought to try to be reasonably well informed voters.) How can we hope to do this in a world saturated (as it seems to me) with lies and 'spin' and propaganda?

Part of the problem is that we get almost all of our information about public affairs (and, more generally, about what is happening in the world outside our direct experience) from the mass media. But we may reasonably wonder how reliable these media are. Even if we are not, strictly speaking, trapped inside a virtual reality like the folks in the Matrix, maybe we are largely trapped inside a view of the world provided for us by the mass media. Maybe our ideas about what is real and who is telling the truth are systematically distorted, because so much of our information comes from sources who have a vested interest in shaping our perceptions to serve their interests (or the interests of their owners).

(Click on the "Continue reading" link below to read an article by Frank Rich of the New York Times that explores this idea. See what you think.

Want more? Here's a link to an article from the left wing magazine "Counterpunch" making a similar argument: http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp09132003.html )

Another part of the problem comes from the sort of psychological tendencies described in Chapter 5 of How To Think About Weird Things (part of the next assignment for this class).  Even if the media presented a reasonably 'fair and balanced' picture of the world, all of us would be interpreting that picture through our own set of filters.  Confirmation bias, availability heuristic, seeing what we expect to see, etc. etc.would all be operating as we construct our understanding of the world -- leaving us trapped, to some extent, inside the 'matrix' of our own assumptions, prejudices and expectations.  I was recently reminded of an old song by Paul Simon, "The Boxer",  that makes the point quite simply:  "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."  So even if it's hard to take the problem of global (or completely general) skepticism seriously, there are plenty of more specific sorts of skepticism that seem to me to be quite real and serious.  We'll be looking mostly at these more practical problems going forward.

Hi everyone,

My name is Nick, I'm a philosophy major, and I am graduating in August.  I love to think deeply about questions with unknown answers, as I think this creates the most interesting and challenging way to view the world around us.

This summer I'll be working two jobs and taking two classes.  My other class is Business Law.  I'm taking that course because I have been thinking of going to law school after Metro State and want to see if I like studying law enough to do it for three more years.

I look forward to a semester full of deep thinking and opportunities to learn a lot on this very interesting subject.  If anybody has any questions about the philosophy program here at Metro State through a student's perspective, I'd be happy to answer them. 

Thanks,

Nick 

 

My name is Jerry. I am married, have 2 daughters (1 in college, the other a junior in high school). Most of my work experience has been in the IT field - Database Administration and programming. I am currently a college instructor teaching mostly computer programming and sometimes psychology. This was the first summer I was not teaching a course so I thought why not take a course.

 

I found reading the meditations to be interesting but hard to follow at times. In the first meditation he says he cannot rely on his senses because they have deceived him at least once, but then later on he uses them to illustrate examples for why we should believe what he says or to make an analogy to support his line of reasoning.

And I think that Descartes' conclusion of 'I think therefore I am' is ultimately not very well founded, but I think that Descartes goes about as far as one can go in doubting things without going insane (or becoming a madman, as he would put it). If an evil demon were really totally deceiving us all the time (or we were really hooked up to the Matrix, or we were just in one long dream, or...), then we probably wouldn't know we were ever being deceived, and our own thinking that we were being deceived would just be another part of the demon's deception!

I had received an email commenting on my earlier posting.  I would rather post my response to the blog, however, thanks for your comments.            My post was an opening salvo, getting my feet wet with the first class discussion/blog.  I agree that getting down to the brass tacks is the meat of philosophy.  I find enjoyment in the speculation on abstract thoughts.   Sometimes in tangential thinking we find new ways that are relevant and practical to our everyday life.  I do emphasize ‘relevant and practical’, I search for meaning in the practical use of philosophy as it applies to my everyday life.           As far as whether dreams are reality and reality is a dream, a fun and interesting turn of phrase that gets one thinking.  How do you define ‘dream’?  Does Descartes even attempt to define what he means by a dream?  In scientific terms it is an active brain function that is measurable during REM sleep.  Dream analysis has been used in psychology as a way to understand neurosis.  Some see messages in dreams.  Some define a dream as what one wishes they will one day do.   Descartes lived in a different time, he did not have the tools of science.  He had been in a time still under threat of the inquisition and supreme church rule, albeit reformation was under way.  Descartes made some pretty bold steps to free the mind from the grip of church doctrine and open the door to objective thought and reason.           If by dream you mean the illusions that we live within that are inevitable with limited objective knowledge and our personal filter of perception, now there is some real meat to talk about.  This is why relativism is such an important concept to discuss.  If opinion is seen as just as valid as objective knowledge then the veneer of illusion becomes plywood.  If enough deception is painted as truth the plywood/illusion is built into sturdy homes where people feel safe to believe in and live within.          I believe Descartes may have been speaking to illusions of what is real when he spoke of dreams.  If we all lived in his day we would be heavily influenced by the superstitions of the church.  If a veneer of illusion was peeled back and say someone like Copernicus speculated that the Earth was not the center of the universe and Galileo saw the moons of Jupiter, well blasphemy!  Descartes saw the truth in these discoveries and wanted to peel away all those veneers of illusion, albeit a very tuff proposition for anyone.

My name is Ed Amey.  I am a philosophy major and will graduate this fall. 

On to discussion of Descartes.  I really like his give and take about dreams in the first mediatation, and I think the viewing of the matrix only adds to the questions about what is real and what is imagined.  Is anyone less certain about what is real in light of the meditations and the movie?

I have often wondered after waking up from a particularly realistic dream if it was tied to reality somehow, or in some different dimension.  For instance, dreaming you won the lotto then trying to remember the winning numbers but you cant (If you could remember, would you win?), or many other dreams which return as deja vu later in real life (if this is truly real life that is):).

This would be a great classroom discussion but as we can't do that in this format, any discussion or comments would be appreciated!

Looking forward to sharing ideas with you all.

Ed

I finally got the book by Fay, and just finished reading the introduction.  I read the relationship between hegemony and framework as the following.  Framework is a perspective, a sensibility, on how you look at the world.  He is saying that this framework is developed from re-enforcement by dominant social and political groups within a society.  This may lead us to problems in deciphering our understanding of another society- as he states "takes one to know one".

I think it is possible to have universal ethical beliefs- we need to ask the right questions.  I think it would be sad if no one could judge another group on their rightmess or wrongness of action.  Many examples come to mind.  Although I think we need to be mindfull of asking the right questions in order not to judge another society by our own standards, it may be possible.  One example to illustrate this point comes to mind.  I think that a universal standard that could be agreed upon is that all socieies place value on taking care of their young.  Our own framework developed through hegemony believes this at all costs.  It is re-enforced through societal norms and laws.  However, there have been other socities that have practiced infanticide.  We as a society may look at this in opposition to the universal we thought we agreed upon.  In deeper reflection, they are caring for their young as often times this is done to take care of the children they already have.  Just a thought that proceded from this first read. 

That's one thing I've never particularly understood about the seeming dueling Descartes.  Between his willingness to delve into the question of existence; and on the opposite side, how he squares that with an unquestioning faith in a specific god.  It seems that he derives so much of his belief system squarely from his own thinking, which is based in Christianity.  I'm not sure if I'm correct here, but it always struck me that he was locked into the Christian faith regardless of any philosophical thoughts that may run counter to that.

I did a little outside reasearch to the problem in which I was writing about a day or so ago and discovered the following.  Rene Descartes does address the skepticism about believing in an outside world.  He later, after his argument about the existence of God in the 3rd and 5th meditations, states that a benevolent God would not deceive him.  He states that the perceptions he gets are not willed to him and that God would not deceive him into falsely perceiving them.  And that supports the exsistence of an outside world.  I have not fully finished reading about this.  This is the quick short answer that I found through a couple different sources.  Just wanted to share in case this was vexing anyone else as it was me.  Comments are welcome.

Hi, I'm Jason,

Third semester at Metro with a major in Individualized Studies focusing on Labor issues, should be finishing in December. 

Between Kara's post, Paul's post and the readings, I was thinking quite a bit about existence.  I am personally coming to the conclusion that everything is inevitably 'a dream.' 

In relation to the coffee I currently have sitting on my desk, although it may exist in whatever the/a 'grand plane' may be, it only really has to exist in my thinking for it to exist (to me, which is really the only existence that we could understand).  Further over, even if it were a dream to me that the coffee exists, that coffee still exists to me. 

Even if something exists in a sleeping dream it still has an effect on my actions and my existence.  If you are in a fight or flight sequence in a sleeping dream, it still effects your body.  Hence, I don't understand why 'real life' should be considered any differently.

Continuing this line of reasoning, if I fully believe in the lack of existence of that cup of coffee, there would be no way in which I could interpret that cup of coffee being on my desk.

Jason 

Just finished reading Descartes' first two meditations.  Initial thoughts on summary are- "I think therefore I am".  That is the big revelation that is reached after all the back and forth questioning.  Are we supposed to believe that non-thinking things, or less thinking things don't exist unless we perceive them?  Or humans of diminished capacity cease to exist - unless there is a thinking thing able to recognize their exsistence?  As I stated, I just finished this reading and maybe more meditation myself would bring about clarity.  However- if anyone has insight into this dilemma feel free to comment.  However, I did enjoy his strategy at breaking down and questioning to gain certainty in knowledge.  I do think it important for people in general be more proactive in discovering their own beliefs.   

 I would like to start off with a comment, sorry if it is a bit winded.            I enjoyed seeing The Matrix, especially with reading the Descartes Meditations as background with the question of dreams and reality.  The Matrix is an excellent choice to introduce the philosophical question of what is reality.  I know I have had some quite vivid dreams that I would swear were seeming quite real, but, I did wake up and my lifelong reality set back in.               You really can’t escape the fact that there is a continuity of awareness in the reality of daily life that is not seen in dreams.   And if the argument is that the day in day out living is not real… well then try out an alternative… “To be or not to be – that is the question: … The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?”  Was Shakespeare a contemporary of Descartes?               With all due respect to Descartes, while life is pretty darn complex and there is plenty I wish were just a dream, a little skepticism goes a long way, and a lot of skepticism can get you hung up a bit on philosophizing about some pretty strange and unbelievable things.  And while there may be fun in this, at the end of the day your still living your own reality.               I agree there are some pretty unbelievable things of life, but give it a day or two, if you can, you will know whether it is real or not.  Somehow reality, if it is significant enough, will sink in.  If there is any doubt, then, drink the water and eat the food of your dreams and see how long that sustains your being.               Just some thoughts.

Hi,

   My name is Mindia Fillie. This is my 2nd to last semester at Metro State and I plan to purse a grad school. I am a mother of two children. The area that I am majoring in is Legal Studies. I enjoy going to the movies, going shopping and spending time with my family. I am a very simple person and love to meet new people. Well talk to everyone later Thanks Mindia Fillie

With regard to pages 1-8 in Fay's book, would someone be able to discuss the terms 'framework' and 'hegemony'? On the bottom of page 2, the writer says changing from one framework to another cannot be rationally justified. I guess I do not have a good enough understanding of the term 'framework' to understand why one cannot change.

Hi-  my name is Kara H and I am studying philosophy at Metro.  Hope to finish with a degree this upcoming fall.  This should be an interesting class in content.  It is my first completely web based class.  I look forward to working with all of you in this blogging assignment.  Should make for an interesting summer. 

Hey guys, my name is Ross and I transferred to Metro State from Inver Hills last fall after getting my Associate of Arts degree. I'm majoring in philosophy and am trying to figure out what I want to do with my life after I get my BA. I am looking forward to this epistemology-like course, and I'm excited that our first assignment involves watching The Matrix (good movie)!

Hi my name is Tammy.  Sorry I am joining late.  I thought I registered for a class that met my goal 6 requirement but that wasn't the case so here I am.  I have never studied Philosphy before so I am looking forward to a new and interesting class. 

I have my AAS degree in accounting and now to advance in my career it has come clear to me that I need my BS.  I work full-time at Center for Diagnostic Imaging in the accounting department. 

Now the best part about my life my family.  I am married and have three wonderful children.  They are 11, 4, and 18 months.  They make my life interesting and fun everyday.  I play beach volleyball and I love the Twins. 

 

 

Hi, my name is Curtis B. This is my 5th semester at Metro State since transferring from Inver Hills C.C. I am a Computer Science major, and I hope to graduate next year. I work full-time as a web developer during the daytime, downtown St. Paul.

I did take a Philosophy course about 10 years ago when I was fresh out of high school, and I didn't care for it. I'm optimistic that it was just the wrong time and place for me and that this semester will be an entirely different experience.

Hey, my name is Jonathan Stickney, at my second semester here at Metropolitan State. After previously earning Associate degrees in Business Management I came to Metropolitan State to pursue a Bachelors Degree and hope to finish up next year sometime. Philosophy caught my eye and had always been interested in the discipline. I look forward to this class a great deal.

Hi all!

     O.K. so you see how brief I can be (my last post).  I am new to this blogging thing… yup, I have no face on face book either.  While many around me do, I am pretty sure I won’t.  But, I am a little afraid to be left behind. 

     I am older, my boys have grown up to have their own families now, and I am back to school to finish something that was started long ago.  I am in First College with my liberal arts focus on a study of what is creativity and how can it be stimulated.  If all goes well I will finish my BA program next spring (2011).

     Knowledge, what it is and how we get it, if we get it, has always interested me.   I have been a pretty self driven kind of learner (there is a lot more to learn than school can give us) finding information, texts, gaining knowledge and then applying it when you need it has been my mode of operation.  However, I will say that being back at school also has exposed me to other points of view and new (to me) concepts which I find very refreshing.

     I have been looking forward to taking this class for some time now… so let the fun begin.

Just checking in and checking out the blog site.

Hello Fellow Classmates~My name is Raynette but my friends call me Ray. I am very excited to be apart of the Metro State family of intellectuals. Currently, I am a Sophomore working toward my B.A. in Philosophy while raising two teenage sons. That's the easy part, the difficulty begins when I have to convince the boys that listening to Metallica is not the sure fire way to understand philosophical inquiry. The good thing is, my 16 year old and I will graduate at the same time, that is, if he focuses on schoolwork and not schoolgirls. After completing this program, my plans are to head to graduate school, finish graduate school and begin a career in Post Secondary Education. Yep, I want to teach others how they too can love to study knowledge and become philosophers. I wish to stay in school until retirement age or beyond, wish me luck!

Hello everyone,

Hello!! My name is Gwendolyn I am completing my AA@SPC today as well as starting my summer classes@Metro. I am very excited about all of my classes this semester as well as my education at Metro State. I am familiar with online classes and those online classes that utilize outside websites but never one that is ran as a blog. This will be interesting for me.

You have found your way to the class blog for PHIL 303 Principles of Inquiry.  Post your thoughts.  Do it now!

-Tom

PS.  Perhaps it would be helpful if we each introduced ourselves to the class.  I'll start.  My name is Tom Atchison.  I have two teenage sons and live in south Minneapolis in a house we just bought last summer.  I've been teaching philosophy for about 30 years now.   I started at Metro about 20 years ago as a community faculty, but was hired a couple of years ago as a full time resident faculty. (My previous full time job was at Hamline.)  Now I have to 'publish or perish' so I can get tenure!  Don't be surprised if I ruthlessly turn this class into a forum for my research!  When I started teaching this class about five years ago, I was content to 'cover' the standard topics in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). These are mostly extremely abstract and theoretical topics with no obvious connection to the concerns of non-philosophers.  (You could start reading this article to get a flavor of what I mean.)  But I've become more and more interested in the idea that there should be such a thing as "practical epistemology" -- a study of knowledge that could actually make a difference to people who are not professional philosophers.  We'll see if I can make that work.  Maybe you'd like to help?