Saturday, February 6, 2010

“Carroll & Schneider moving from BPA to "need" in draft philosophy - Seattle Post Intelligencer” plus 3 more

“Carroll & Schneider moving from BPA to "need" in draft philosophy - Seattle Post Intelligencer” plus 3 more

Carroll & Schneider moving from BPA to "need" in draft philosophy - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Posted: 06 Feb 2010 12:14 PM PST

Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan - Philosophy, Explanation, Summary - Associated Content

Posted: 06 Feb 2010 07:35 AM PST

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In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argues that the state of nature is the worst possible way in which people could live. Because there is no higher authority to protect and enforce rights, and no guarantee that anything we own will be permanently ours, people are constantly under threat from other people. If A decides to pick an apple off of a tree, then B may decide to take it. A will have to fight with B merely to maintain ownership over an apple, as well as anything else she owns. Even more frightening is that B might decide to band together with other people to take A's apple. A is outnumbered and therefore will be defeated. However, when B's band manages to take away A's apple, they will no longer act as a team working together. They will begin to fight among themselves over the apple and the conflict will go on and on. Given that this conflict is over one simple possession, it is unavoidable that people will constantly be at war with one another over territory, possessions, and even spouses. There is no room for peace and never any time to pursue leisurely activities like art, music, or education.

Hobbes also argues that every person is equal to every other person. In the conception of equality to which most westerners are accustomed, this means that everyone has basically equal rights and equality. Hobbes's understanding of equality, however, is much different and turns out to only make the state of war in the state of nature worse. In the Hobbesian state of nature, every person is equal because each of us is equally vulnerable. We all have to sleep at some point, which means that when someone wants to rob us of our possessions, they simply must wait until we go to sleep or become otherwise distracted. There is little opportunity for a single person to become consistently stronger than everyone else and thus be able to defend their property or become an enforcer of others' property rights. Even a very strong, very intelligent person would still have to take care of basic bodily functions like sleep,which not only leaves everyone at constant risk, but eliminates any opportunity for a few strong people to rebalance power

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Portland State roundtable to discuss the ethics of eating animals - Oregonian

Posted: 06 Feb 2010 01:33 PM PST

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By Carrie Sturrock, Special to The Oregonia...

February 06, 2010, 1:32PM
Is it sustainable to eat meat? That's a question a lot of carnivores, myself included, ask as food choices become increasingly political and complex. Acknowledging that, Portland State University is hosting a roundtable discussion called "Eating Animals." A panel of experts in philosophy, law and gastronomy will explore the question, "We are animals who must eat, but should we eat animals?"

The university is billing it as a "lively discussion of what is increasingly being recognized as one of the most vexing . . . issues of our time." The panel includes Kathy Hessler with the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark College, Camas Davis with the Portland Meat Collective and Ramona Ilea, a philosophy professor at Pacific University.

The event, which is free and open to the public, takes place Thursday, Feb.11 at 7 p.m. in the Smith Memorial Student Union, room 238 (1825 S.W.Broadway, Portland) at Portland State University.
-Carrie Sturrock

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Can philosophy save us? - The Guardian

Posted: 06 Feb 2010 02:06 AM PST

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Our culture – the media and the broader populace – is obsessed with the economy. And since Lehman Brothers went kablooey in September 2008, our fascination has gone to a deeper level. Googling the word "business" gets a scarcely feasible 1.6 billion hits. "Economics" gets 92 million. (Weirdly, "Gordon Brown is a moron" returns almost 60 million. I don't know what that signifies.)

And this is fine: money is important, we all need jobs; redundancy is awful. I wouldn't dismiss that in any way. But should economic and attendant political matters be given so much weight? Is this the highest ambition of human beings, to attain or hold on to material wealth and power? Should we not have matured beyond that after four billion years of slow evolution from simple-celled prokaryotes to homo sapiens? Should we not have reached the point where higher matters concern us? Matters such as pondering the mysteries of life. The nature of the self. Dreams and consciousness. Language and thought. The search for a fundamental truth to it all.

Why is there virtually no mainstream news or debate about the deeper questions of existence? Will we ever see Anna Botting announcing that 72% of people suffer from an existential malaise? Jeremy Paxman aggressively asking a stuttering minister why, shockingly, three-quarters of us have never sought to attain enlightenment. A News at Ten report on new research suggesting life is a collective dream out of which we "wake" at the moment of death. The odd contemplative gem sparkles in the dull firmament of mass culture – Radio 4's wonderful In Our Time and Moral Maze, Alain de Botton's lively, accessible primers – but they are few.

Surely there is more to the only self-aware creature in existence than jobs and money, and even other important matters such as healthcare, education and the social fabric. We need to reverse the Cartesian maxim and create a society defined by "I am, therefore I think." Besides, most people say they're sick of hearing about the recession/economy. So why not ease back on that (and lay off the vacuous celebrity rubbish while we're at it) and discuss philosophical matters instead?

I'd even introduce it to schools. Perhaps not to exam level – indeed, part of the point of philosophy is that it makes exams somewhat redundant – but it should be taught to children each day, from an early age. I don't mean religion, folklore, mythology or eastern esoterica, valid subjects of study though these are. I mean the western tradition of philosophical enquiry, defined as "the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge or conduct".

A good grounding in philosophy can impart an immeasurable gift: the ability to think clearly, rationally, precisely and imaginatively. More than that: it imbues you with a profound instinct to think. Contemplation becomes reflexive, like breathing. Philosophy makes you question everything, mull it over and come to your own conclusions. It cautions that those conclusions may not be valid, and to always be open to amendment. It provides the intellectual building blocks of reason, patience, divergence, dialectic and curiosity. And it instils a sense of wonder at just about everything: from great existential questions about the nature of reality and our place in it, to ethics and aesthetics, to something as simple but fundamental as: who am I?

For both adults and children, philosophy is a balm, a consolation, an instrument and an inspiration. And who knows, it may even give all our economic woes the perspective they sorely need.

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