“The Philosophy of Terry - Salon” plus 3 more |
- The Philosophy of Terry - Salon
- How Obama Betrays Reverend King's Philosophy of Nonviolence - Democratic Underground.com
- Using the iCalendar File - Colorado College News
- Frontiers of philosophy - Columbia Spectator
| The Philosophy of Terry - Salon Posted: 27 Jan 2010 08:01 AM PST Each of us has a brain: a soft, convoluted mass of matter located in the skullcap that controls and coordinates mental and physical actions. It causes us to reflect, realize, re-do, and run. And it never shuts off; it simply waits for direction, from itself. My brain is amazing. So I gave it a name: Terry. Terry has been with me forever. Terry told me a long time ago that I enjoy lying on the couch in the fetal position, oatmeal cookies, and hugs from my mom. He mentioned that my hair definitely looks best cut short and that nobody really believes I'm a natural blonde. Terry is responsible for my fondest memories and the production and storage of them. Terry remembers where I left my car keys. Terry contains 100,000,000 cells and weighs about 3 pounds. Terry recently told me that I should definitely pursue higher education and thought a Masters degree was definitely the way to go. Terry told me that I was wasting my time in Vancouver. Terry also said that my Bachelor of Fine Arts was actually a "Bachelor of F*@#-all" and that people don't take you seriously with those letters after your name. Terry said that a Masters degree implies you are Master of something, and that definitely sounds cool. Terry said that I wasn't getting any younger and that 30 was never the new 19. Terry then noticed that the phone never rings, my pants are getting quite tight, I have extremely large pores, and that I no longer have the ability to hold my alcohol. Terry said I made a fool of myself at the pub last night. Terry laughed so hard root beer shot out his Primary somatic sensory cortex when I told him this joke: What do you call an agnostic crossed with a dyslexic? Someone who lies awake all night wondering if there's a dog. Terry lay awake all night last night wondering if he was god. Today Terry went over a few possible career choices with me. He said I could never be a doctor or nurse because I have no bedside manner. He pooh-poohed the idea of manual labour (weak Trapezius and Gracilis muscles), and scoffed when I mentioned my interest in the service industry ("But you hate people", he said). Terry said that I'm a decent writer and that I don't really have a lot of other options because I'm not really good at anything else (except perhaps bowling). He said a Masters in Creative Writing shouldn't be too difficult for me and offered to help me cheat on exams. Then Terry said to get off my ass and do something about it- because he's losing about 9,000 neurons a day. Terry warned that I better not start smoking or sniffing glue because then he'll lose up to 30 times more neurons. Then I'll really be screwed. Terry then said that I should really consider getting a tasteful lower back tattoo. And I always listen to Terry. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| How Obama Betrays Reverend King's Philosophy of Nonviolence - Democratic Underground.com Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:04 AM PST http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23732 How Obama Betrays Reverend King's Philosophy of Nonviolence Each year, many remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work on behalf of civil rights. Yet the most fundamental piece of his philosophical legacy, his rejection of the utility and morality of violence between individuals and nations, remains at best ignorantly obscured or at worst actively suppressed. In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Rev. King wrote that "it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice." When President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace prize some in the peace movement noted the irony of awarding such a prize to a man overseeing multiple wars and hundreds of military bases around the world. What was most horrifying about Obama being awarded the peace prize was the content of his acceptance speech in which he defended the utility and morality of violence and war. Rather than merely ignoring the legacy of peacemakers before him, Obama used the speech as a full-frontal assault on the very philosophical tenets of nonviolence advocated by Gandhi and Rev. King. On December 10, 2009, Obama followed in the footsteps of so many believers in war before him: letting out a cry for peace while loading his guns. In his Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech Obama said, "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes," said Obama. "There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified." Later in his speech Obama stated plainly that "the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace." Rev. King directly assailed those who proffered words of peace and love while they showered their enemies with bullets and bombs. "Many men cry 'Peace! Peace!' but they refuse to do the things that make for peace," wrote Rev. King. Summing up the philosophical tenet underwriting nonviolent direct action King continued: "One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal." In short, peace is both the means as well as the end. <edit> The history Obama recognizes, however, is that cruel, blood-soaked fable of American Exceptionalism. Rev. King saw through this fraudulent cloak of Divine American Right when he observed, on April 4, 1967, that it was the United States that is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Rev. King was not being hyperbolic. He merely fulfilled the call of justice to look beyond national heritage and to honestly assess the actions of his country. And so his heart and mind followed our nation's long trail of blood; he simply opened his eyes to the way in which his own nation's military which was rapidly destroying human life in Vietnam—one million civilians; to the way in which it had killed more than two million civilians killed in the Korean war (American Foreign Relations, Clifford, 2000), and tens of thousands of civilians destroyed in bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. more... Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Using the iCalendar File - Colorado College News Posted: 27 Jan 2010 11:50 AM PST Lecture: "Testimony, Incredulity, and the Power of Ignorance"Professor Lorraine Code, distinguished research professor emerita of philosophy at York University (Toronto), will speak as part of the philosophy department's 2009-10 colloquium series. Code specializes in feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge. She is the author of "What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge" (Cornell, 1991) and more recently, "Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location" (Oxford, 2006). Code was recently named the Distinguished Woman Philosopher for 2009 by the U.S. Society for Women in Philosophy. Sponsored by the department of philosophy and the Lewis Fund for Philosophy. Location: Jerome P. McHugh Student Commons, above Preserve; in the Western Ridge Housing Complex, 1090 N. Cascade Ave. (map) Tickets: free This event is open to the general public. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Frontiers of philosophy - Columbia Spectator Posted: 26 Jan 2010 07:08 PM PST "Even professional scientists," Albert Einstein remarked, "seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest." When he said this in 1944, he was referring to a type of "independence created by philosophical insight" that scientists should consider diving into more often. It's also been a wonder to me why academic institutions, including Columbia, separate the sciences from philosophy as strictly distinct disciplines, when both sides could actually grow more intellectually by communicating and overlapping a little more. Just last week, I was chatting with a friend about the theory of knowledge at a café near campus. About fifteen minutes into the conversation, two guys with thick-rimmed glasses came up to us and said, "I heard you saying something about artificial intelligence. Do you mind if we join you?" Indeed, we were talking about how the creation of the computer changed the way we perceive and know the world, but we weren't necessarily fishing for dates that night. "We're neuroscientists," one of them said. A few years ago, I would have responded with something along the lines of, "How fascinating," and pretended to text someone to avoid an awkward silence. But the reality of casually interacting with a scientist was one I rarely encounter here. So instead of taking out my cell phone, I answered, "If you're a neuroscientist, you must believe that the mind and body are the same thing. But did you ever wonder whether they aren't?" When the other science guy revealed that all of his passwords are "Descartes," after the philosopher who claimed that the mind and body are separate substances, the four of us went on to have one of the most fruitful conversations I've ever had. It's really a shame that we couldn't repeat this sort of thing in a seminar where such a dialogue would be worthy of a solid A for all of us. While Columbia's philosophy department offers courses titled "Darwin" and "Philosophy of Science," students taking them are not required to supplement this kind of study with any science lectures and labs. From what I've heard from Columbia College students, the core classes like "Frontiers of Science" and "Contemporary Civilization" have little to do with each other. Engineers, too, are busy doing problem sets that might test one's knowledge on the theory of relativity, but not on Einstein's philosophical essays (yes, there are several). You might argue that the general requirements at these undergraduate institutions already attempt to nurture our minds with a variety of subjects. And I personally think that Barnard's "Nine Ways of Knowing" does a good job broadening our interests (although I disagree that there are only nine ways of knowing). But what if a school consciously decided to enrich the overlaps between seemingly opposite subjects like philosophy and the sciences? On top of possible new lectures like "Philosophical Logic and the Birth of the Computer," "Are Constants Really Constants?" and "Existentialism and Quantum Mechanics," to name a few, there should be small seminars where people in different majors are deliberately chosen to discuss things together for an hour or two every week. That way, they can start to spend more time with each other and possibly assist each other in further research. People might be inspired to think in completely new ways that would shift the current intellectual paradigm. And in all probability, several successful teams and couples will come out of this experience. Who knows? When I attended the commencement ceremony for the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia last year, I remember University President Lee Bollinger saying to the young engineers that they have more to teach "us" non-engineers than "we" have to teach them. He's right: it's probably easier for a scientist to pass a philosophy course than for a philosopher to ace a physics exam. But, as Einstein said, "It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher." The exam scores may prove the system unfair, but there are no correct answers to most philosophical problems anyway. So perhaps it is really the philosophers that need to teach engineers that even when things look as clear as "2+2=4," there is always room for more questioning, examining, and, most important of all, wondering. Yurina Ko is a Barnard College junior majoring in philosophy. She is a senior editor of the Columbia Political Review. 2+2=5 runs alternate Wednesdays. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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