how much happiness?

check this interesting article in the NYTimes.

The danger — particularly for a society as rich as ours — is making pleasure the central focus in the pursuit of a happy life. This is done explicitly in some versions of utilitarian ethics, which regard happiness as simply the maximal accumulation of pleasurable experiences. But pleasures themselves often induce a desire for their repetition and intensification, and without moderation from a reflective mind, they can marginalize the work that lies at the core of true happiness.

i bring up the subject because how it relates with the broader issue of morality.

reporting animal cruelty is now cosidered "terrorism"

read this article in the new york times.

exploring the roots of animal cruelty is important in our discussion of ethics. this week, i'll publish a post for comment touching upon this difficult topic.

2010 catena malbec, picasso's les demoiselles d'avignon and the nature of aesthetic judgments (post for comment)

atRifF

hi kids. last friday, we had an interesting discussion. judgments are "statements about." there are many different kinds of judgments: scientific, moral, aesthetic, etc. let's revise what they do.

1- scientific judgments are about the nature of reality.

2- moral judgments refer to the nature of actions.

3- aesthetic judgments are about the nature taste.

we briefly touched upon 2 & 3.

i wanted to stress the salience of these judgments by talking about food. then about art. le't take a look a these two statements: 1- "i hate this wine." 2- "this wine tastes awful." 

the difference between the two is that 1- is a subjective judgment. one is talking about one's experience. with 2- there is a difference. one is making a judgment about s state of affairs, i.e, the juice.

suppose john doesn't know much about wine and makes a judgment of type 2- about this wine, a moderately-priced malbec from argentina. this is an excellent wine for the price (what i mean is comparing price and taste). this is the consensus of people that understand wine.

& what's in the taste? when you sip the juice you get nuanced complexity of spice, tobacco and plum, all balanced with a finish of soft, supple tannins and good length.

so, how are we to treat john's 2- kind of judgment? let's say that john is wrong. he doesn't know enough about wines to make that call (remember that in 2- he's talking about the juice).

what john is doing is committing a fallacy of taking his subjective reaction to the juice as an objective property of the juice.  but they are not the same. much less coming from a person that's not educated in wine tasting.

the same goes with art. talking about art is not that simple. for example, suppose paul has no knowledge of modern art. he visits MoMA and looks at picasso's famous 1907 painting les demoiselles d'avignon. john says: "this painting by picasso sucks!"

pablo picasso's demoiselles d'avignon, 1907

again, there's a difference between,

a- "i hate this painting"
b- "this painting by picasso sucks"

ok, let's agree that catena malbec 2010 can be experienced in a substantially different manner than picasso's painting. nonetheless, there is a way to apply a similar criteria to the one used above.

a- is totally ok.
b- is more problematic.

consensus: the reason is that one has to understand cubism to properly critique it. this is not your regular realist rendition of a 1907 paris whorehouse. paul doesn't understand the conventions of modern art. he doesn't know, for instance that picasso has deliberately changed the way artists depict, thus becoming a catalyst for modern twentieth-century art.  the general consensus of art historians, critics, artists is that this is a landmark.

actual properties: to examine demoiselles d'avignon properly one has to wear cubist glasses. why? because there is a shift in perspective here. picasso is not painting "as a realist". he had already left that behind, as in this: 

yo, picasso, 1901

the young painter was absorbing influences. the piece above has a kind of spanish impressionist flavor.  the painting from 1907 is breaking with all that.  

so, it's not only about consensus. we need an additional "harder" criteria. which is why i talked a little bit about the painting's properties.  

of course, there is always the question, what if art historians are wrong? could they not be?

yes, they could. but it's more difficult to disregard the consensus' weight than paul's uninformed claim. don't you think?


(to be continued)

What's next with the paper?

I've been discussing the development of the paper with each class:

These are general observations:

1- Thesis: "In this paper I'll defend the idea that" "In this paper I will argue in favor of..."
2- Avoid long wordy paragraphs that go nowhere. Go straight to the point.
3- Don't try to overreach yourself. It's better to discuss a couple of points than pretend to cover the entire subject matter.
4- Avoid sounding bombastic, "I will analyze" instead of "I will logically analyze."

I'd like to have two-and-a-half pages, this Thursday (for T,R 9:50am class), Friday (for MWF 11-1:50am class) and next Tuesday for (T 5:40pm class). 

This should include, revised title, revised introduction, your position, your opponent's position and about one or two paragraphs into the discussion. 

The paper is to be sent to my email address: atriff@mdc.edu

Please, in addition to your name, specify class & time. for example:

Philosophy Paper, John Doe, Phi 2010 MWF 11am

Format: Times New Roman, 12 point font. Double spaced. Spell and Grammar checked  

same sex marriage is the thing!

for those of you who picked same sex marriage as a paper topic.

how the justices could rule.

if you are interested in our discussions

become a google friend of miami bourbaki! all you have to do is click the "join this site" bar on top of the google members box.

the transgender issue

the article in the new york times about the 6 yr old transgender boy.

it's a social issue, with transgender camps for gender-variant children & their families.

my answers to some of your comments about the gita

as usual, i need to find a better space of reflection. here it goes:

1- i agree with specific points made by veronica, lars, geoffrey, ninie and carolina. for them the truth is sort of "already inside." the words in the gita just propitiate a rediscovery. valerie took the discussion home when she talked about our dharma (duty) to engage action and stop dithering.
martin's point of action "in the moment" rings true. the essence of bushido is to die everyday. knowing this "readiness" in action is the essence of dharma.

2- regarding jose's point about the gita advocating moral relativism:

if relativism means that there's no right and wrong (it's all relative), or that right and wrong is relative to history, culture, self, etc, this is NOT what YOGA stipulates. the three yogas: bhakti, karma and jnana refer to a clear path of righteousness, i.e., thinking, living and knowing the good. a path surprisingly close (save the immense meditation component in YOGA) to aristotle's idea of arete. in this realm there is a clear right and wrong. as you know the regulation principle is ahimsa.

it's here that manny was referring to this "getting better" without reaching a limit (of perfection?). if i understood correctly he saw this "getting better" as a tension. why? the move is one of gradual improvement. how could one become the best one can be without the tribulations of change?

krishna's point is a metaphor for action (the sort that becomes "sovereign" by taking one's action off the economy of means-to-end). to vinicious i'd say: there is nothing utilitarian in the path of action put forth in the gita.

what's confusing is krishna's counsel to fight now, justified with reasons as high and supervenient as the ONE itself. but take the perspective of BRAHMAN for a second:  is there right and wrong in this heights of causation?  as more and more layers of history are added we literally witness how becoming "becomes." up there is just undifferentiated oneness. at the level of BRAHMAN, predator and prey are the same. how else can you explain ONEness with words?

3- fabio's interesting twist of krishna as "evil man whispering" reminds me of descartes' evil genius (malin génie) in his Méditations sur la philosophie (a very readable book in french by the way). i take the point because it makes for a great discussion.

surprise: the devil doesn't have to come back from gehenna. veronica's point is that evil dwells within oneself!

first outside: how do we deal with an external malin génie? well, the world is full of them: from wall street, to politicians, to religious leaders. from misguided parents, to pseudo friends, to stupid teachers. in fact, to really problematize fabio's point we'd have to factor the possibility that the evil genius is no genius. if by "genius" one has an edge, then misleading me just "for the sport" is as ignorant as me buying into it. there must be a better "genius" than that. the devil feels victorious to the degree that he really persuades me. so, convincing takes two.

keep in mind: ignorance is a two way street.

descartes' genius is worthy of his name because he plays for the sake of truth (truly on the other side). he knows what he believes. he also wants me to believe a lie. 

is arjuna that naïve? i advance three possibilities?

1- arjuna pretends to argue, i.e, "play along" and try to "fool" the genius (i.e., he's not trying to find out truth, but to argue as a devil's advocate). does arjuna really cares for truth?

2- arjuna argues in good faith until either he or krishna "win." let's call this option "socrates' hope."

the third one is weird, but here is goes,

3- arjuna inadvertently fools himself by fooling the genius. here they both lose: krishna, because he's not appearing "as good" anymore (how could he, if arjuna is not falling for his "angel of light" routine? remember, this is all a matter of perception!), arjuna, because he forfeits the opportunity to extract a formidable lesson, winning the truth from the devil himself! this is more than dr. faustus ever bargained for.

now let's go inside: arjuna knows what has to be done. he only needs a push, this is what we call a volition. but the reason buttressing the volition needs to be argued successfully. that's why philosophy has been presented as midwife for truth, what socrates called maieutics.

can one lie to oneself? indeed, this is the "bad faith" (la mauvaise foi) which sartre defined as "a lie to oneself, on condition that we distinguish the lie to oneself from lying in general". why?

according to sartre, the liar, in order to complete his task, must maintain complete lucidity about some truth that he possesses. one cannot lie without possessing some personal truth, and lying is different than simply being in error.

(in case you want to talk, say it here. comments are open). 

the evolutionary aspect of morality

in class i've been stressing the importance of evolutionary biology and its importance for society. here's an interesting angle: 

A four-dimensional scheme for social behavior that is shaped by interlocking brain processes: (1) caring (rooted in attachment to kin and kith and care for their well-being), (2) recognition of others’ psychological states (rooted in the benefits of predicting the behavior of others), (3) problem-solving in a social context (e.g., how we should distribute scarce goods, settle land disputes; how we should punish the miscreants), and (4) learning social practices (by positive and negative reinforcement, by imitation, by trial and error, by various kinds of conditioning, and by analogy).

is infinity even or odd?

from the math section of the new york times: 

I explained that infinity is neither even nor odd.  It’s not a number in the usual sense, and it doesn’t obey the rules of arithmetic.  All sorts of contradictions would follow if it did.  For instance, “if infinity were odd, 2 times infinity would be even.  But both are infinity!  So the whole idea of odd and even does not make sense for infinity.”

 if imagining infinity is not crazy, what is?

the discussion we've been having in class

fresh from the new york times: can science explain consciousness?

We trust science because its claims are based on experience. But experience itself is a subjective reality that seems to elude the objectivity of scientific understanding. We know that our experiences—of seeing red, feeling pain, falling in love and so forth—depend on physical systems like the brain that science can, in principle, exhaustively explain. But it’s hard to make sense of the idea that experiences themselves could be physical. No doubt experiences correlate with objective physical facts, but, as subjective phenomena, how could they be such facts? When I feel intense pain, scientists may be able to observe brain-events that cause my pain, but they cannot observe the very pain that I feel. What science can observe is public and objective; what I feel is private and subjective.

then, there's the speculative question, What’s to say that future scientific developments won’t allow us to understand how experiences can be entirely physical?

let's have the introduction to the paper ready for next week

Some tips:

1- Write a clear and concise opening sentence. In philosophy papers, the opening sentence should not be cliché, and it should not be making a general statement about philosophy. The majority of philosophy papers are making an argument, so start your first paragraph with the phrase: "In this paper, I will argue that..." This opening sentence is also known as your thesis statement, which is a statement that summarizes your main argument or purpose for writing the paper.

2-  Write a brief description of all the main points you will make in your philosophy essay. Your essay will probably have about two or three main points that are being used to prove your argument. Write about a sentence for each point in your introduction.

3- You want to explain the opposing POV. If you are pro-life, this is the time to explain which argument of the pro-choice debate you will tackle. You don't have to argue yet. This is just an introduction. Your job is to advance what is going to happen so far (it can be changed later if you want). In other words, you are giving the reader a taste of what you will do later. 

4-  Proofread the opening paragraphs. Make sure your introduction clearly explains the points you make in your paper.

i've read most of your proposals, now move on

i'm almost done. what transpires is ok. you have chosen a topic and your position in it. what i need now is the following.

1- having a position is just the beginning. remember that your espousing a position is as good as your ability to defended it against a counter-position. philosophy is parrying.
2- when looking for sources find sources "for" and "against" your view.

3- i've had some students turning a hand-written page to me. threw them away. not acceptable.

so now, move on. let's write an introduction and more on to the body of the paper.

are you free to shop?

The reason Target can snoop on our shopping habits is that, over the past two decades, the science of habit formation has become a major field of research in neurology and psychology departments at hundreds of major medical centers and universities, as well as inside extremely well financed corporate labs (...) One study from Duke University estimated that habits, rather than conscious decision-making, shape 45 percent of the choices we make every day, and recent discoveries have begun to change everything from the way we think about dieting to how doctors conceive treatments for anxiety, depression and addictions.

in Miami Bourbaki.

UPDATE:: paper length, and tentative schedule

the paper will be 1,500 words. that is, about 4 pages, double space, 12 p. new roman typeface.
MLA format.

as you know a paper cannot be done in a week. neither you (nor I) will be able to read and approve so much work to-andñ-fro. so, this is a tentative schedule:

1- this coming week i get your proposals. 

2- a week after the mid term i need the introduction and one page from the paper body.

3- the week after quiz #2 i need a 2 page draft.

4- a week before the final i need a possible first draft of the paper, or 3 pages into it. 

why are mental states non-physical?

for the T 5:40pm class. eimelech expressed that the idea of a "non-physical property" doesn't make much sense. i felt that i wasn't clear enough in my defense.

why should we accept the idea of a non-physical property in this case?

neither the qualitative content (how they feel) or their aboutness (intentionality) of mental states are knowable from a third person point-of-view. so, we have this bizarre predicament that we can know all the physical and functional properties of a mental state (as we've seen with the neuro siences and AI) without knowing "what's like to have it" or "what it is about."

the conclusion that the property is non-physical seems unavoidable.

here is one example, from erwin schrödinger (1887-1961), the famous physicist: 

The sensation of color cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so.

not satisfied yet? i understand. these hypothesis are complicated. contrasting them can take the course of a semester (as when you sign for a "philosophy of mind" course). the purpose of this course is to introduce these ideas.  

paper proposal deadine

the proposal for a paper should be written this week and handed to me next monday (or tuesday for TR classes).

It consists of one or two paragraphs describing:

1. tentative title and topic (remember you have three topics to pic from),
2. your position (pro or con),
3. a tentative bibliography, sources, etc.

at the top of the proposal, write down your name & class/time.

thought experiment

some of you have brought the issue of thought experiment in class.

why do we need them?

1- to challenge the prevailing status quo (which includes activities such as correcting misinformation (or misapprehension), 
2- to identify flaws in argument(s) presented, 
3- to preserve (for the long-term) objectively established fact, and 
4- to refute specific assertions that some particular thing is permissible, forbidden, known, believed, possible, or necessary); 
5- to extrapolate beyond (or interpolate within) the boundaries of already established fact; 
6- to predict and forecast the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable future; explain the past; the retrodiction, postdiction and hind-casting of the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable past; 
7- to facilitate decision making, choice and strategy selection; solve problems, and generate ideas; 
8- to move current (often insoluble) problems into another, more helpful and more productive problem space (e.g., see functional fixedness); 
9- to attribute causation, preventability, blame and responsibility for specific outcomes; 
10- to assess culpability and compensatory damages in social and legal contexts; 
11- to ensure the repeat of past success; 
12- to examine the extent to which past events might have occurred differently. 
13- to ensure the (future) avoidance of past failures.

string theory

a great site discussing string theory.

the brain

check out this site explaining how the brain works.

T,R 9:50am class

T 5:40pm class

MWF, 11am class

is atheism a religion? (first post for comment)

take a look at this interesting discussion from the n y times debate section.

the news is that atheists now have a church (figure, if theists have then, why not the other side?).

let's frame the issue: atheists are on the rise (theists too, but that has always been the norm through the ages). also, we shouldn't presuppose that philosophers are atheists.

here is gary gutting writes from the philosopher's agnostic corner:

On the one hand, religions express perennial human impulses and aspirations that cannot plausibly be rejected out of hand as foolish or delusional.  The idea that there is simply nothing worthwhile in religion is as unlikely as the idea that there is nothing worthwhile in poetry, art, philosophy or science.  On the other hand, taken at their literal word, many religious claims are at best unjustified and at worst absurd or repugnant.  There may be deep truths in religions, but these may well not be the truths that the religions themselves officially proclaim.

to problematize the issue, then he adds:

Atheism may be intellectually viable, but it requires its own arguments and can’t merely cite the lack of decisive evidence for religion.  Further, unless atheists themselves have a clearly superior case for their denial of theistic religion, then agnosticism (doubting both religion and atheism) remains a viable alternative.  The no-arguments argument for atheism fails.

this moving paragraph comes from an atheist:

The atheist is free to concentrate on the fate of this world — whether that means visiting a friend in a hospital or advocating for tougher gun control laws — without trying to square things with an unseen overlord in the next. Atheists do not want to deny religious believers the comfort of their faith. We do want our fellow citizens to respect our deeply held conviction that the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth.

assignment: read the nytimes discussion (there are 6 different takes).

what is your idea? elaborate a minimum 150-word comment and post it with your name at the bottom. this is the first post/comment assignment of the semester. the deadline for posting your comment is friday february 1 @ 11pm.   

debate, part 2

take a look at this new york times editorial. 

it has 6 responses to the issue of the gun controversy. read the synopsis. the issue here is not prohibition. this discussion is more nuanced.

i advance some points:

1- second amendment to the constitution and its history.
2- the downside (social price) to pay. 
3- there are approximate 300 million guns in circulation in the US alone.
4- take a look at the so called scholarly commentaries to the discussion (click here and scroll down). this is the discussion judges have when they read and write opinions. (by the way take a look at the difference between majority opinion and dissenting opinion). 

as you can see this discussion boils down to how we discuss personal freedoms (civil liberties). what are the limits of personal freedom?

_____________

we could try a debate in class. some student volunteers to read the different takes & pick one he/she feels comfortable with. this is the position he/she will defend.

i'd like to be able to do this as an exercise in class next wednesday, depending. it would be good to have at least three or four different points of view.

of course, i'll moderate the debate. 

how to win a point

we need to learn how to discuss and win a point.

T is a topic,
our opponent makes a point P to defend T.

try to establish that P is not relevant for T.

* is P contradictory? if P is contradictory it cannot be relevant. P is contradictory when affirms what it denies. sometimes this is not obvious.

ex. "killing is wrong," but "killing is self defense is not wrong."
if killing is wrong, then killing in self defense is wrong, since killing in self-defense is an example of killing. 

finding contradictions is the best way to defeat your opponent and with a little training it can be done easily.   

* is P necessary? if it's not, you're already proving lack of relevance. we already talked about this.

* is P circular? P being circular means that P is redundant. for example, a text being "true" because it's "sacred." something being true "because one is sure of it".

* is P fallacious? there are many fallacies.   if one can establish that P is fallacious one has shown that P is irrelevant to T.

infinite universe?

today we talked about the possibility of an infinite universe @ T,R 9:50am class.

my tentative response was perlmutter and schmidt's hypothesis: the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

is the universe "infinite?" not in time. U has a beginning, it's ± 13.7 billions years old.

do you mean infinite in the amount of matter? if U has "Z" particles they then each particle can be counted (provided one has enough time to do it). 

next, infinite spatially?

if it keeps expanding you would think that it keeps reaching "more of" something. 

space has to be defined as a distance between 2 points. without points "to breach" there is no space.

*but this widening of U is measured in time.
*if U reaches X a limit "L" then it stops expanding. there is always a ∆L of expansion.
*but then U is the container of space, which is... space! that is to say, U is being defined as the expanding of space then it's the expanding of itself, which is kind of circular. 

if U has a L, then presumably, U cannot be infinite. some hypotheses point in this direction (even a quadrillion, 10¹⁵ years, is a small infinitesimal of "evermore").

we need a phi 2010 club

there is always a place for philosophers to chill. this is the philosophy club. it's yours, but you have to create it.

submit your name here if you think you are philosophy material.

1- you love disagreeing with your parents and friends about politics and religion. you are basically a curious animal.
2- your boyfriend/girlfriend is in awe of your verbal skills (perhaps the relationship hinges on this point).
3- you don't hate math (or any science for that matter). you're careful characterizing people and situations.
4- your power of abstraction is patent (as you often find yourself lost in public places -or aimlessly driving for no reason).
4- you either wear glasses or are attracted by people who wear them.
5- 1-4 doesn't make you any nerdier or weirder. in any case, don't mind people calling you names (they wished they had your skills).

by the way, 1-5 is in jest.

if you're interested. write down your name here. we'll pick president, vice, treasurer and secretary. 

what's philosophy? (for now)

welcome all.

my classes are a bit unorthodox.

for example, the class rudiments: homework revision, strict. "home," not 10 minute-before-triff-class. "work," give it time. be patient.
 
class participartion: mandatory. talk or die. you're never wrong, students are young by definition (a 60 y old student is young in my book). let's put it this way. you're lucky: if there is a time to be wrong this is the time. i'm with you.

from the git-go you need to learn to build arguments and debate them.
why? beliefs work in synch with structural propositions. you do what you think. we have to get into the thinking to modify the doing.

what's an argument? a nugget, a treasure. you have to learn how to build it.

in class we analyze arguments and proceed to take them apart. this is what i call problematizing.

philosophy is a problematizing activity.

this is the phi 2010 blog for all my classes, please follow it