On Filial Piety
Mang asked what filial piety is. The Master said, "It is being obedient." Soon after, as Fan Chi was driving him, the Master told him "Mang asked me what filial piety is, and I answer him 'being obedient.'" Fan Chi asked, "What exactly did you mean?" The Master replied, "That parents, when alive, should be served according to ritual; that, when dead, they should be buried according to ritual; and that they should be sacrificed to according to ritual." (Note: "ritual" here is "Li" the idea being of developing meaningful practices that can be seen as embodying what is right. For Confucius there must be a blueprint to be followed).
Ziyou asked what filial piety is. The Master said, "The filial piety of now-a-days means providing nourishment for one's parents. But dogs and horses likewise are able to do something along that line for their own kind. Without reverence, what is there to distinguish the one support given from the other?"
On Goodness
The Master said, "A youth, when at home, should behave well toward his parents, and when abroad, respectfully to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good."
The Master said, "With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I still have joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are a floating cloud."
Zhong gong asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, "When abroad, behave to everyone as if you were receiving an important guest; treat people as if you were assisting at a great sacrifice; do not do to others as you would not wish done to yourself. Thereby you will let no murmuring rise against in public, and none in private. . . ."
On the Chuang Tzu
The Master said, "Riches and honors are what men desire; but if they cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should be let go. Poverty and meanness are what men dislike; but if they cannot be avoided in the proper way, they should not be avoided. If a gentleman abandons virtue, how can he fulfill the requirements of his title? A gentleman not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. Even in moments of haste, and in times of danger, he clings to virtue."
The Master said, "A gentleman, well studied in literature, and abiding by the rules of ritual, will not go very wrong."
"When gentlemen perform well all their duties to their relations, the people are inspired to virtue. When they remain true to their old friends, the people are preserved from irresponsible behavior."
The Master said, "A gentleman points out the admirable qualities of men and does not point out their bad qualities. A petty man does just the opposite."
The Master said, "A gentleman is distressed by his lack of ability, but he is not distressed by men not knowing him."
The Master said, "What the gentleman demands is something of himself. What the petty man demands is something of others."
A gentleman does not wear a deep purple or a puce color, nor in his at-home clothes does he wear red. In warm weather, he wears a single-layered garment, either of coarse or fine texture, but when going out he wears it over another garment. He wears lambskin with a garment of black, fawn with white, and fox with yellow. His fur dressing gown should be long, but with the right sleeve short. His night clothes must be half again as long as his body. When staying at home, he wears thick furs of the fox or the badger. So long as he is not in mourning, he wears all the trimmings of his girdle. . . . He does not wear lamb's fur or a black cap when making a visit of condolence. And on the first day of the month he must put on his court robes and present himself at court.
On Ritual and Music
The Master said, "If a man lacks the human virtues, what has he to do with ritual? If a man lacks the human virtues, what has he to do with music?"
The Master said, "Respectfulness, without the rules of ritual becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, without the rules, becomes timidity; boldness becomes insubordination; straightforwardness becomes rudeness.
The Master said, "It is by the Odes that a man's mind is aroused, by the rules of ritual that his character is established, and by music that he is perfected [finished]. . . ."
Education is, of course, important to Confucius, as one needs to learn the traditions and profit from the wisdom of the past. Government can then be carried on by "moral force," as opposed to requiring military or legal force. As to religion, Confucius does not challenge it, but he doesn't put his hope in it either. His stress is always on living well, which means living properly, here and now and by our own actions.
Which is more important for an orderly state: food, weapons, or a government that one can trust.
On Education
The Master said, "Anyone learning without thought is lost; anyone thinking but not learning is in peril."
The Master said, "Yu, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to realize that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge." The Master said, [I have been] "a transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients. . ."
When the Master went to Wei, Ran Yu acted as driver of his carriage. The Master observed, "How numerous the people are!" Ran Yu asked, "When they are more numerous, what more shall be done for them ?" "Enrich them," was the reply. "And when they have been enriched, what more shall be done?" The Master said, "Instruct them."
On Government
The Master said, "To rule a country of a thousand chariots requires reverent attention to business, sincerity, economy in expenditures, and love for men, as well as the employment of the people only in the right seasons."
The Master said, "If the people are governed by laws and punishment is used to maintain order, they will try to avoid the punishment but have no sense of shame. If they are governed by virtue and rules of propriety [ritual] are used to maintain order, they will have a sense of shame and will become good as well."
Ji Kang Zi asked Confucius about government, saying, "What do you say to killing those who are unprincipled [i.e., the immoral] for the good of those who are principled?" Confucius replied, "Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your obvious desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass: the grass is bound to bend when the wind blows across it."
Zigong asked about government. The Master said, "The requisites of government are that there be sufficient food, sufficient military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler." Zigong said, "If one had to dispense with one of those three, which should be given up first?" "The military equipment, " said the Master. Zigong again asked, "If on had to dispense with one of the two remaining, which should be given up?" The Master answered, "Give up the food. From of old, death has always been the lot of men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, they cannot stand."
On Religion
Someone asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. The Master said, "I do not know. Anyone who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the kingdom as to look on this," and he pointed to the palm of his hand.
Zilu asked about serving the ghosts of the dead. The Master said, "Until you are able to serve men, how can you serve their ghosts?" When Zilu ventured to ask about death, the answer was: "While you do not know life, how can you [hope to] know about death?"
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Knowledge surplus?
I published something recently about knowledge surplus. By the way, you're more than welcome to leave a comment, or become a friend of Bourbaki.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
How important is the brain (or memory)?
I found this article in Esquire about the story of Henry Molaison a man who, after brain surgery could not have new memories:
When a surgeon cut into Henry Molaison's skull to treat him for epilepsy, he inadvertently created the most important brain-research subject of our time — a man who could no longer remember, who taught us everything we know about memory. Six decades later, another daring researcher is cutting into Henry's brain. Another revolution in brain science is about to begin.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Personal Identity
Chapter 4 discusses human iddentity. First we have to understand what's the idea. Identity comes from the root id, idem (again and again).
Let's complicate things a bit: What sort of things are you and I and other human people?
For instance, are we made up entirely of matter, just as stones are, or partly or wholly of something else? And if we are made of matter, what matter is it? (Just the matter that makes up our bodies, or might we be larger or smaller than our bodies?) Where, in other words, do our spatial boundaries lie? More fundamentally, what fixes those boundaries? Are we substances - that is, independent beings—or is each of us a state or an aspect of something else, or perhaps some sort of process or event?
Generally speaking, we take identity to be that what makes you unique as an individual and different from others. Let's take a look at some views:
Animalism is the idea that you are your body. If we are "animals," we have the persistence conditions of animals. And animals appear to persist by virtue of some sort of brute physical continuity. So Animalism seems to imply a somatic version of you.
Careful! Being a person however is only a temporary property. A person is the kind of entity that has the moral right to make its own life-choices, to live its life without (unprovoked) interference from others. In general PERSON = an entity that has the moral right of self-determination.
The problem with animalism is that there seems to be something more fluid within the body that, for a variety of reasons can hate hie/her body. This brings us to the transgender issue and transgender-related topics.
Locke disagrees with Animalism. For Locke, ous identity lies in something more fluid. In fact, the problem begins with Biblical texts asserting that we will have the same body at the Resurrection as we did in this life. Locke explicitly tells us that the case of the prince and the cobbler shows us the resolution of the problem of the resurrection. The case is one in which the soul of the prince with all of its princely thoughts is transferred from the body of the prince to the body of the cobbler, the cobbler's soul having departed. The result of this exchange, is that the prince still consider himself the prince, even though he finds himself in an altogether new body. Locke's distinction between man and person makes it possible for the same person to show up in a different body at the resurrection and yet still be the same person. Locke focuses on the prince with all his princely thoughts because, on his view, it is consciousness which is crucial to the reward and punishment which is to be meted out at the Last Judgment.
The Soul Theory:
To say that one has a soul, acording to the Soul Theory is to say that the basis for one's memories and feelings and desires -the whole basis for one's personality- is made possible by an entity known as the soul. The idea here is that even if one loses this memory or that, or even if one's personality changes, that which underlies these things -- the soul -- remains unchanged and as such provides the basis for saying that it is the same person over time.
One counterargument against the Sopul Theory is Leibniz's King of China:
Leibniz asks if we would be willing to have our souls switched into the body of Bill Gates (to update the example) if it meant that all of the "pins" were switched (so Bill Gates' pins are put into your pincushion and your pins are put into his pincushion). By Soul Theory, you would become very rich, even though you would have all of the memories and desires of Bill Gates. Leibniz thinks that no one would agree to this switch, proving that no one finds it intuitive that "same soul" is a sufficient condition for personal identity.
The text makes an interesting point, the soul doesn't explain anything that you wouldn't know by looking at people's behavior. That is to say, what we call "soul" is generally the character of the individual.
Let's complicate things a bit: What sort of things are you and I and other human people?
For instance, are we made up entirely of matter, just as stones are, or partly or wholly of something else? And if we are made of matter, what matter is it? (Just the matter that makes up our bodies, or might we be larger or smaller than our bodies?) Where, in other words, do our spatial boundaries lie? More fundamentally, what fixes those boundaries? Are we substances - that is, independent beings—or is each of us a state or an aspect of something else, or perhaps some sort of process or event?
Generally speaking, we take identity to be that what makes you unique as an individual and different from others. Let's take a look at some views:
Animalism is the idea that you are your body. If we are "animals," we have the persistence conditions of animals. And animals appear to persist by virtue of some sort of brute physical continuity. So Animalism seems to imply a somatic version of you.
Careful! Being a person however is only a temporary property. A person is the kind of entity that has the moral right to make its own life-choices, to live its life without (unprovoked) interference from others. In general PERSON = an entity that has the moral right of self-determination.
The problem with animalism is that there seems to be something more fluid within the body that, for a variety of reasons can hate hie/her body. This brings us to the transgender issue and transgender-related topics.
Locke disagrees with Animalism. For Locke, ous identity lies in something more fluid. In fact, the problem begins with Biblical texts asserting that we will have the same body at the Resurrection as we did in this life. Locke explicitly tells us that the case of the prince and the cobbler shows us the resolution of the problem of the resurrection. The case is one in which the soul of the prince with all of its princely thoughts is transferred from the body of the prince to the body of the cobbler, the cobbler's soul having departed. The result of this exchange, is that the prince still consider himself the prince, even though he finds himself in an altogether new body. Locke's distinction between man and person makes it possible for the same person to show up in a different body at the resurrection and yet still be the same person. Locke focuses on the prince with all his princely thoughts because, on his view, it is consciousness which is crucial to the reward and punishment which is to be meted out at the Last Judgment.
To say that one has a soul, acording to the Soul Theory is to say that the basis for one's memories and feelings and desires -the whole basis for one's personality- is made possible by an entity known as the soul. The idea here is that even if one loses this memory or that, or even if one's personality changes, that which underlies these things -- the soul -- remains unchanged and as such provides the basis for saying that it is the same person over time.
One counterargument against the Sopul Theory is Leibniz's King of China:
Leibniz asks if we would be willing to have our souls switched into the body of Bill Gates (to update the example) if it meant that all of the "pins" were switched (so Bill Gates' pins are put into your pincushion and your pins are put into his pincushion). By Soul Theory, you would become very rich, even though you would have all of the memories and desires of Bill Gates. Leibniz thinks that no one would agree to this switch, proving that no one finds it intuitive that "same soul" is a sufficient condition for personal identity.
The text makes an interesting point, the soul doesn't explain anything that you wouldn't know by looking at people's behavior. That is to say, what we call "soul" is generally the character of the individual.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Philosophy Club (minutes)
Philosophy Club's feedback #1, here. As you can see on the Dali-like poster above, future meetings of the club will take place in room 1565.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Is there free will?
The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free will can be divided into two questions:
1. Is determinism true?
2. Does free will exist?
(Keep reading here)
Philosophy of Mind, part 2
We had left at the point of Functionalism and the counterarguments leveled against it.
A theory that tries to avoid the reductionism of Identity Theory and Behaviorism is Property Dualism, which is a form of "non-reductive physicalism." Property Dualism relies on the idea of emergence.
Emergence involves a layered view of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity and each corresponding to its own special science. Some philosophers hold that emergent properties causally interact with more fundamental levels, while others maintain that higher-order properties simply supervene over lower levels without direct causal interaction. For example: Water has a new property when Hydrogen H and Oxygen O combine to form H2O (water). The emergence of the transparent liquid emerges would not have been predicted by understanding hydrogen and oxygen as a gas. This is analogous to physical properties of the brain giving rise to mental states.*
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*Recall that intentionality is the capacity of mental states to be directed towards (about) or be in relation with something in the external world. This about-ness (or of-ness) of mental states entails that they have contents.