Phil Intakes: April Review

Rules.

April Review

I read some. I rediscovered that I have portable devices and ear buds.

Classic Texts:

Kierkegaard: Rotation of Crops: A Venture in a Theory of Social Prudence-

Crop Rotation is one of the shorter pieces within Part I of Either/Or. It's the aesthete character A's attempt to deal with boredom. A believes that boredom is the root of all evil. Though, we as the reader could start to see that boredom is in fact not a cause, but an effect.

In one of Life's great coincidences, I got a Facebook message from a friend about two hours after I finished rereading The Rotation of Crops. He said that Buddhism wasn't working for him like it once had. So, he was thinking of trying Stoicism. I responded that we should grab a beer, and that I might have some recommended reading for him.

I own the Hong translation of Either/Or. So, I read Crop Rotation from there. However, you can find some pdf versions online.

Podcast:

In Our Time: Averroes

This work is both of a history lesson and a short a philosophical analysis. I enjoyed it a great deal. Averroes' life took place in Muslim Spain right before the Reconquista. The podcast does a good job of describing Averroes' contributions to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Western philosophy.

Audio:

LibriVox: Either/Or

The is not a reading of Kierkegaard's Either/Or, but a reading of David F. Swenson's analysis of that work. I never get tired of trying to figure Kierkegaard out. You might. 

Pop Readings:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2015/jan/18/beginners-guide-voltaire-philosopher-free-speech-tolerance?CMP=share_btn_tw

https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/4/23/15343212/9-questions-for-martha-nussbaum

Nussbaum is a talented philosopher. This is a good read.

https://www.1843magazine.com/story/a-practitioners-guide-to-hedonism


Live Event:

I went to a lecture on Simone de Beauvior which I already wrote about here.


Hopefully, this was a little better than March's.

Phil Intakes: March Review

Rules.

March Review

March was a slow month. I had buried myself in school work and politics.

As I'm writing this in May, I can assure you that April will have more than two entries.

Classic Texts:

Aristotle: Generation and Corruption - 

This is Aristotle at his scientific worst. I'm not saying that there isn't any philosophical importance here, but it's a very boring to read. The Selected Works that I have includes Book I chapters 4 and 5 and Book II chapters 2 through 5.

Most of my knowledge of Aristotle is either metaphysical or ethical. G & C is clearly related to his physics, which I don't have a strong background in. So, I didn't feel that I connected a lot with this work. Perhaps, I should continue reading some more of A's physics work to see if it starts to click.

What G & C does offer is razor sharp distinction between the types of elements how they change, and the relationship of those changes.  "Elements", by the way, here is referring to the classical idea of earth, wind, air, and fire. 

I felt that the subject of G & C might be outdated, but I might reread it. 

Pop Reading:

My girlfriend sent me this great article about a student at Boston University who leads a philosophy group at a women's shelter.*

I always hope that my students find avenues to engage. So, this article illistrates how perople can create meaningful opportunities for themselves..

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/03/24/this-college-student-teaches-philosophy-to-homeless-women-to-help-them-ponder-lifes-great-questions/?utm_term=.ab00a0d2610a&wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1

New rules for "readings"

I've claimed a few times on this blog that I would read a philosophical work, and provide my analysis of that work. Here's an example.

I've decided that I'm not going to do that anymore. Why? Here are the stages of what happened every time. I got excited. I wrote a blog post telling you how excited I was. I would read the first part of the text. I would sit down to write a detailed analysis. I would remember that I don't like writing that much. I don't want to publish a crappy analysis. So, I tortured myself over ever detail of what I was writing. I wanted to keep reading the text, but didn't because I hadn't written the analysis regarding the first part. I would put book down, and walk away.

So, I'll produce no detailed analysis. I can't figure out why I'd assigned myself book reports in the first place.

What I will produce is a short monthly write up of philosophical texts, podcast, journals, and articles that I've imbibed.  That way, my students and friends can get a brief rundown of my philosophical intake.

• New Rules
• Write monthly review of that month's philosophical intake
• include:
• type(s) of source(s)
• name(s) of piece(s)
• a couple of my thoughts on the piece(s)
• that's it
• Return to state of enjoying philosophy
• Rinse
• Repeat

Lee Dems: April Review

April

17th: 8th CD Monthly Meeting

This was to be my first attendance of an 8th Congressional District Monthly Meeting. I really wanted to go to it and the monthly meeting in May before going to my first 8th CD Convention on May 20th. Sadly, I suffered my first defeat of the year to tree pollen, and couldn't make it. Hopefully, I'll be able to make the May 15th meeting before the Convention.

25th: VMFC

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make this meeting either. I had recovered from my allergies for the most part. However, this was the last full week of classes before finals at Nova. So, I was not able to get out of class at a good enough time for me to make it to the committee.

Next month's meeting will be a teleconference.

27th: Resolution Committee

As I mentioned last month,  Alex had ask me if I was interested in joining the Resolution Committee, and I, of course, was. Alex said that she'd pass my name on, and that I'd be contacted to see if I was a good fit. I almost immediately received an email from 8th Congressional District Chair Margo Horner telling me that she was looking forward to working with me. Apparently, they were desparate, or I'm an amazing fit!

The 27th was our getting to know you/schedule of future meetings meeting. I thought that this would be my third missed meeting of the month, because I had my last full class before the finals with my Intro class. But, the students killed it, and I made it to the meeting.

We all made each others' acquaintances, and went over protocol. Most of the meetings will be in the first half of May.

Atima Omara is chairing the Resolution Committee this year.

29th: Round-table Lunch

One of the cooler things to happen to me all month was a luncheon invite to get to know Delegate Mark Sickles. Alex emailed my saying that Sickles would like some of the Lee Dems newer members to come to a round-table, because he hadn't been able to come to any recent meetings.

Mark Sickles has been the 43rd Districts' Delegate since 2004.

We all met at Fiona's in Kingstowne.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to lowdown on the legislature in Richmond. Plus, I must admit that I like my Delegate.

I had a Reuben.

30th: Opening Day

The biggest fundraiser of the year for the Lee Dems is always Opening Day. There's a big cookout with various long skinny meats and much beer.

It cost $30 to attend. Again, it's a fundraiser.

A lot of office-seekers for the next round of elections stop by, and perform.

The jig last about 3 hours. I, however, had ran (jogged slowly) a 5k in the morning and did some gardening. So, after sitting around for a bit, I didn't feel like moving again. I only made it for the last hour. I missed all the political speeches. I DID get 2 Italian sausages and 3 beers.

Oh, and when I walked around back to the cookout, Dan greeted me with a hearty, "OUTLAW!!!". So, the Lee Dems and I have reached that point in our relationship.

Lee Dems: March Review

March:

2nd: I received an email from Kim Pollard informing me that I've been adding to the Veterans and Military Families Committee (VMFC). This is my first assignment since joining the Lee Dems, and it's an ideal one. Not only am I a veteran, but many members of my family have served in the armed forces. I'll get a better idea of what the committee does when I attend the VMFC meeting later this month.

19th: Precinct Operations Meeting

Ed Joseph went over what the Operations Committee is responsible for and what roles needed to be filled. Operations was short a few precinct captains, teams for early voter registration, and a team for back to school nights.

I volunteered to become Precinct Captain for Kingstowne. The group is already well established, but will still need strong leadership. I'm looking forward to it. What scares me is that I'll have to make cold calls to people who "may" want to become volunteers. The mere thought of it tickles my boundary issues. I'll just have to use it as an opportunity to conquer a flaw.

23rd: Lee Dems Monthly Meeting

Outside of normal business, Delegate Paul Krizek and Senator George Barker came to give us a rundown on what the state Democrats were attempting to do in the Virginia House and Senate.

28th: VMFC & FCDC

VMFC: The Veterans and Military Familes meeting was the highlight of the month for me. Due to my teaching schedule, I showed up a half an hour late. Everyone was very understanding.

The committee's vice-chair, Bruce, was giving keynote speech at Quantico National Cemetery the next day for Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.

Kim will be speaking at the up coming 2017 Virginia Veterans Summit taking place in Chesapeake in June.

Mainly, we all shared our desire for making FCDC as friendly and open to veterans and their families as possible. The committee is new. So, we're still establishing what our outreach and programs will look like.

FCDC: This was a huge meeting with members for every district in the county sending representatives. Lee Dems were well represented.

Multiple candidates for state offices, or their spokespersons, introduced themselves. They ask for our support. None of us are allowed to support candidates in the primary phase. So we mostly just applauded everyone.

We passed our budget unanimously.

There was a bit of contention over a resolution requesting that Gov. McAuliffe to call a special session of the Legislature to vote to end gerrymandering. No one supports gerrymandering, of course. However, some of us thought that it was pointless to put pressure on the Governor when it wouldn't amount to anything since the Republicans in the legislature would just vote "Nay". The "Yeas" carried the day. So, the resolution will be sent, and we'll see what happens.

I was exhausted after working two jobs before coming to the meeting, and I left early.

After the meeting, I received an email from Alex mentioning that their was still an opening for the 8th District Resolution Committee. I responded that I was interested. So, we'll see what comes about from that.

Conclusion:

That's March. Hopefully, I've improved since last month.

I'll try to be quicker, and get April's review out earlier than the 21st of May.

Oddly, I'm enjoying all of this.

SdB panel

I went to a Simone de Beauvior panel discussion over the weekend. The event was at The National Museum of Women in the Arts. The panel consisted of Dr. Susan Suleiman of Harvard, Constance Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, and Dr. Debra Bergoffen of both American University and George Mason University.

I had been really looking forward to the panel, as I hadn't been to any lectures or the like in a while. Justin, a friend from grad school, had mentioned on Facebook that he would be going. I messaged him when I arrived, but sadly he couldn't make it. I then noticed Richard, another friend from grad school , with who I shared most of my classes at Mason. It was good to catch up with him. He had a couple of his students with him. We promised to try to grab a beer sometime soon.

Before the panel kicked off, the ladies gave brief lectures involving their expertise on de Beauvior.

Suleiman kicked things off. She mainly spoke about de Beauvoir's novel The Mandarins. I found the lecture to be fascinating, because I have only experienced de Beauvoir as a philosopher.  Suleiman did a fab job of mapping out the connections between the fictional characters of the novel and the real people in de Beauvoir's life that they were inspired by.  I think that I'll try to get my hands on a copy, and give it a go.

Borde and Malovany-Chevallier have recently, relatively speaking, released a new translation of de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. As an American who can barely stammer through English, I have nothing but respect for translators. So, it was enlightening to hear them discuss to challenges of their undertaking.

Bringing up the rear, Bergoffen explained a bit of de Beauvoir's philosophy. This was the section I was most familiar with. Richard had taken one of Begoffen's classes while she was still teaching at Mason. He loved it. I never got to take her.

After the lectures, all the ladies came back out on stage together for the panel. There was a good back and forth with the audience. The questions mostly involved the nature of the translation, how de Beauvoir's ideas matched or failed to match up with current feminism, and her personal and professional relationships. Everything was overwhelmingly positive. No one brought up anything negative about de Beauvoir including her history of statutory rape. I thought that it was worth bringing up since the topic of de Beauvoir's work to bring the sexual assault of women to the forefront. No one else did, and I didn't feel like breaking the vibe. So, I didn't bring it up to the panel.

When the panel had concluded, I approached Dr. Bergoffen. I was wearing my George Mason t-shirt, and I was glad to see that it made her happy. I ask her if de Beauvoir ever answered for her habit of sleeping with underage students? She said that de Beauvoir absolutely refused to even admit that what she did was wrong at all. Bergoffen added that in their letters to each other that de Beauvoir and Sartre could be awful in how they spoke of other people. I was glad the Dr. Bergoffen found this as disturbing as I did.

I hit the road after that. It was an excellent event.

Despite her moral failings, I do find de Beauvoir, and her philosophy, worthy of study.

The Test of Euthyphro

Below are the "Tensions" that I received from answering the Euthyphro test on Philosophyexperiments.com.

I allow my PHI 102 students to do a write-up about their results for extra-credit. They have explain the tensions they got, tell me whether or not they already knew about the tensions, and how they can attempt to grow past them. I don't allow them to critique the test, even though there is room for it. I want them to work on themselves. Most students already know how to discredit something they don't want to face.

My tensions were brought about by my trying to imagine a logically possible God.

The test is amusing. Plus, we can all grow from analyzing the inconsistencies in our beliefs.


"

Talking with God - Analysis

You responded that there are moral standards independent of God's will. This response has been given by 47% of the 71970 people who have completed this activity to date.
Tensions
If you look in the right-column, you'll find an explanation of what is meant by the term "tension".
We have identified 2 tensions in your responses, which represents a tension quotient of 25% (where lower is better). The average tension quotient for this activity is 69%.
Note: Since you do not believe that God exists, you should read the analysis below as referring to your archetypal construction of God rather than God.
Tension 1 (potential): God has freedom of will
You claimed that God has freedom of will, in that he is at liberty to exercise his power in any way he chooses. However, assuming that it is morally wrong to command what is evil, then God cannot command people to do what he knows to be morally wrong unless you accept that God is capable of immorality (which it is possible you do, since you do not think God is omnibenevolent).
Tension 2: God can obligate?
You claimed that there are moral standards independent of God's will. This claim sits uneasily with the widely held belief that any being that counts as God must have the ability to obligate through its commands: in other words, that it is necessarily morally wrong to disobey a command given by God. This view suggests at the very least that some aspect of morality flows from God. Although there is no logical inconsistency in conceiving of a God whose comamands do not obligate (see note, above, about "tensions"), it would nevertheless be a rather strange or unusual conception of God. One possible way of resolving this tension is to argue that while there are independent moral standards, it is also true that some of God's commands impose obligations. This is the position held by Christian philosopher of religion, Richard Swinburne, for example.
God and Stringency
Your concept of God has been judged by this test to be non-stringent. This indicates you think that God possesses only few of the characteristics traditionally associated with the God of the Abrahamic tradition (i.e., omnipotence, freedom of will, omnibenevolence, etc). As a result, this test will likely have judged your tension quotient to be relatively low. However, this is bought at the expense of a certain specificity in your concept of God. This brings its own problems. By stripping God of many of the traditional attributes of Godliness, it is possible to avoid some of the difficulties one tends to run into when considering whether "the good" and "the just" are loved by God because they are good and just, or whether they are good and just because they are loved by God. However, this comes at a cost, since the question which then arises is whether the entity you're left with is worthy of the designation "God". The trouble is it isn't at all clear that it is. "