Phi 2010 HONORS : October 2023

Monday, October 30, 2023

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Homework #6 (Capítulo 5) PHI 2010 HONORS, 2024

1. Briefly state the following views concerning free will (p. 253):

a) Hard determinism.

b) Incompatibilism.

c) Indeterminism.

d) Compatibilism.

e) Libertarianism.

Now, contrast a) with b), d), and e)

2. I know it's too early (and you may switch sides), but which view do you feel has more explanatory power (always look for "detractors")?

3. Briefly state Baron d'Holbach's argument?

4. Why is William James' Indeterminism problematic?

5. Explain the Compatibilist "could do otherwise argument. Do you find it plausible? Explain.

6. Does belief in free will matter? (p. 262)

7. What's van Inwagen argument in favor of free will?

8. Explain Benjamin Libet's argument against free will. (p. 266)

9. What is Jean Paul Sarttre's idea of profound (or radical) freedom? (p. 271, 272)

10. Look at the key terms on p. 277 (important definitions).

11. Imagina por un momento un sistema carcelario predeterminista tipo Clockwork Orange.

¿Cual sería el método para rehabilitar al criminal? ¿Crees que serían "recidivistas"? Y si lo fueran ¿qué hacer entonces?

Aquí una conferencia interesante del neurólogo y profesor de Stanford Robert Sapolsky que me mandó Isabella. En ella lidia con el difícil tópico de la depresión. ¿Creen que Sapolsky es predeterminista?

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Final paper (How to argue a point)

click here for assignment sample: how to argue a point.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Homework, Chapter 5

Pincha aquí.

Friday, October 20, 2023

This is the list of my confirmed student assistants (¡muchas gracias!)

Manuel Martinez,

Andrea Terrero,

Gabriel Gamez,

Aliane Castillo-Diaz,

Paola Cuba Alvarez.

Jesús Galarza.

Final paper's process

El final paper es acaso la parte más importante de mi clase. Me enorgullece la técnica que he desarrollado con años de enseñanza y feedback de mis estudiantes.

Este es el proceso:

1. first draft of the paper (noviembre 13)

2. second draft of the paper (IN CLASS ASSIGNMENT (diciembre 4)

between 1. and 2. there are these recommendations.

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Aquí tienen mi receta de hummus (bueno, de mi abuela)

click here for more info,

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Cosensus to Best Consensus (from Impetus to Newtons Second Law

Look at my diagram above. See the concentric circles? we have INFO, Consensus and Best Consensus.

How do we get there? Through a process of iteration, the previous consensus is improved by the new one.

What is the best consensus of inertia right before Newton's Second Law?

Before Newton, the accepted law was Aristotle's Impetus Theory. Let's start with this.

INFO

1. Aristotle (Fourth Century BC): distinguished between "natural motion" (such as objects falling due to gravity) and "violent motion" (caused by external forces). Natural motion was thought to be due to the tendency of objects to reach their natural place (e.g., heavy objects falling down).

What's the problem? The impetus theory lacked a clear concept of Inertia:

Objects were thought to naturally come to rest without a sustained force.

Jean Buridan: Professor at the University of Paris Aristotle's theory was improved during the Middle Ages). What is Impetus? The impetus theory, developed by medieval scholars like Jean Buridan, attempted to explain projectile motion and address the deficiencies in Aristotelian physics. It posited that an object in motion had an internal "impetus" imparted by the force that set it in motion, which would gradually dissipate, causing the object to slow down and stop.

CONSENSUS

Buridan's formula: impetus = weight x velocity

Problem: By discounting the possibility of any resistance either due to a contrary inclination to move in any opposite direction or due to any external resistance, he concluded their impetus was therefore not corrupted by any resistance. So, the problem is that impetus theory lacked the mathematical rigor to describe motion quantitatively.

ITERATION: So by the year 1614, Kepler introduces the concept of inertia in this book.

BEST CONSENSUS: Now, by 1687, we finally get to Newton's Second Law!

As you can see, consensus doesn't mean truth. Many instances of consensus have led nowhere. Some forms of consensus, like the one above, lead to a happy ending.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Paper proposal sample (next Thursday, october 17)

1- Heading (in Times New Roman, point 12). Left hand side: write your name (last name first), "Philosophy Paper Proposal."
2- Write the title in bold letters, middle alignment.
3- The first paragraph has your thesis, followed by a brief explanation supporting it. The second paragraph has the counter thesis and contains a brief explanation supporting it. So and so depends of your paper topic, i.e., Me too critics, Pro-choice advocates, Climate skeptic advocates, etc.

4- Try to mimic this model. This is how you learn to be clear and succinct.

______________________________________________

Rodriguez, Juan
Philosophy Paper Proposal

Phi 2010 Honors

Even with factory farms, animals should be protected against abuse

In this paper, I try to prove that animals being raised in factory farms in America deserve a better treatment. My argument shows the public health risks associated with unregulated factory farming, while stressing that animal cruelty is ethically wrong.

So and So advocates disagree by stating that our present regulations are necessary to offer much needed food products at competitive market prices.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Homework #5 (chapter 4) 2024

Section 4.1 p. 223

#1, #3, #4

Is property dualism a better theory than Descartes' dualism? Explain.

#4 p. 224

Section 4. 2 p. 229

Section 4. 3 p. 233

#1, #3, #4,

Section 4. 4, p. 241

#1, #2,

Section 4. 4 p. 245

#1, #4,

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Law of Unintended Consequences (due to the limits of our knowledge)

The complexity of society supervenes on individuals and societies (of societies) supervene on societies.

The reason for supervenience is that we cannot stop messing things up. In economics, history, and system theory, this is known as Law of Unintended Consequences (Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in economics in the link's page's second paragraph).

Here are some examples from History:

*Spain's discovery of the New World and gold actually made Spanish mercantilism stronger (more money, more mismanagement), which made for more war (England, France, etc.), which ended up depleting the very sources of wealth. Spain became poorer and weaker.

*Antibiotics are one of the significant medical advances, but their overprescription has resulted in the development of antibiotic-resistant diseases.

*The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia announces a new era of human equality and progress. Instead, it brings the horrors of the gulag labor camps and the purges of the 1930s under Stalin. *The discovery of nuclear fission, crucial for nuclear power, simultaneously became the main ingredient for the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

*More recently, Germany’s "green" policies. In 2000, Germany passed a major green initiative Promulgated by a Socialist-Green coalition government. It forced providers to purchase renewable energy at exorbitant fixed prices and feed that power through their grids for twenty years. In 2011, stubborn Angela Merkel doubled down and shut down eight reactors in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima disaster (which was caused by a tsunami –a threat Germany isn’t exposed to!)😅 "Green power" is so unreliable that Germany is constructing four new coal plants to replace the nuclear energy it has taken offline. And most of these coal-fired facilities lignite! which is strip-mined and emits nearly 35% more carbon dioxide than hard coal!

Here are some additional variables to the Law of Unintended Consequences:

There are so many variables:

1- Ignorance! We can't tell the distant future.

2- Errors in our models (remember induction?) What worked in the past doesn't have to apply to the current situation.

3- Immediate interests override long-term interests (it's called short-termism). Though someone's long-termism may be someone else's short-termism!

4- Basic values that may require or prohibit specific actions even if the long-term result might be unfavorable (these long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in basic values).

5- Self-defeating prophecy, or the fear of some consequence, which drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs; thus, the non-occurrence of the problem is not anticipated.

This is also known as the Munchausen paradox.

6- Grupthink is definitely a candidate.