Many thanks, pleasant journey!

My dear ones: It was a real pleasure to have all of you in my class!  

Vivre la philosophie!

:)

FINAL EXAM (link to "Doing Philosophy")

This is the link to our textbook's Website. Click on chapters 5 and 6 and review each section/. It has flash cards, "true" or "false" and multiple choice questions. Test yourself and good luck.

Chapter 6.3 (Fideist arguments)

Kierkegaard’s Leap of Faith: According to Kierkegaard, God needs not be proved because -at best- He would become "probable." He agrees with Tertullian's motto: "I believe because it is absurd." The best solution is to believe by faith. We need St. Paul's definition of faith: Faith is the certainty in things that although one cannot see, yet one believes. The more absurd the predicament, the more intense the faith. What’s important with faith is not "what" one believes but "how" one believes. Kierkegaard defines it as "subjective truth." Counterargument: 1- What if one is wrong? 2- How about the result of blind faith in fundamentalism or fanaticism?

Evidentialism: It holds that not only we need evidence to support our beliefs, but that we have a responsibility to have adequate evidence to avoid unnecessary wrongs to innocent people (Torquemada and Savonarola during the Inquisition are good examples: They had faith in what they were doing, yet, they didn’t have evidence. Same with the kind of religious fundamentalism that Bin Laden defends.

Existentialism: In a world without a God, humans are free and responsible for what they do. We constantly create ourselves in the act of making choices. Life is absurd: There is no single explanation for the way things are.

Chapter 6.2 (Theodicies)

The Ontological Defense: Goodness cannot exist without evil. So a world without evil is impossible. C/A: 1- Lack of evil doesn’t preclude goodness. If it did, there would be no goodness in heaven. Also, there is no evil in heaven.

Knowledge Defense: Knowledge of evil is important (even to understand goodness) and it cannot exist unless there’s evil in the world. C/A: Suppose this is true, then how can one explain the excess of evil? Unnecessary evil is not justified by the knowledge defense. Evil must be necessary for something other than our education. Necessary evil: Evil that is required to prevent further evil or to bring about a greater good.

Free will defense: Evil is necessary for free will. We choose and sometimes we choose evil over good. C/A: 1- A being with free will who always chooses good is logically possible. God is such a being. 2- There’s still much more evil in the world that is necessary. Why is unnecessary evil chosen so often? The theist needs to answer this question. 2- Angels are free and yet they don’t choose evil. Why not?

Ideal Humanity Defense: Evil improves the human race. C/A: There is little evidence that the struggle for survival has improved the human race. One could argue that the advancements we've made in science are not the result of natural evil. Finally, the ideal humanity defense seems to contradict the Christian prionciple that each human is of infinite value.

Character (or soul) building defense: According to philosopher/theologian John Hicks, evil is not wrong for our own sake. C/A: It works both ways, suffering can also debase us. If this is true, then fighting evil becomes wrong (you shouldn’t alleviate a person’s suffering because it’s good for her character).

Chapter 6.1 (Review)

Find a succinct breakdown of some of the most important arguments and counterarguments from 6.1 under Theism.

Cosmological Argument by St. Aquinas: The universe must have a “first cause,” which must spring from an eternal Being. That eternal Being is God. Aquinas is doing 12th century physics. He is trying to demonstrate the existence of God from a series of (cause and effects), i.e., the series must have a beginning = GOD. C/A: In the Big Bang Theory the universe just “happens”. The universe is not caused because time and space begin with the Bing Bang.

Analogical Design Argument: A watch is to a watchmaker as the universe is to God. C/A: 1- John Stuart Mill sees the creation of the universe as evidence against the omnipotence of God. If God needs the universe to accomplish HIS goals, then HE is not omnipotent. 2- One can see the universe an "organism" rather than a machine (where living things come into being through reproduction rather than conscious design).  2- One could cite the evidence of Evolution (i.e. natural selection, speciation, etc).

St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument: If one can conceive of a God (the greatest possible Being), then that God could also exist in reality, but then it would not be the greatest possible Being. So, God must exist in reality. C/A: Following Anselm's argument one could easily justify the “Superman”'s existence (ex. just plug "Superman" wherever you see God in Anselm's proof).

Argument from Miracles: The universe must have been performed by a miracle worker. C/A: Why should God bend its own rules?

Argument from Religious Experience: A subjective experience that’s so powerful and unique that the only possible explanation is that it was produced by a supernatural being.  C/A: Hallucinogenics have been used by ancient civilizations as worship experiences to tap into altered states. This kind of experience is internal and vague and not enough to warrant an external source.

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Wiki-leaks: Tragedy or comedy?

Alfredo Triff

If the government knows that the willingness of people to give up rights in order to fight terrorism is proportional to their level of fear, then it’s obvious that we should expect more fear.-- Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 1954

Wiki-leaks has delivered another digital coup. Yet, compared with the previous Iraq Log,¹ these memos -with detailed characterizations of world leaders' behaviors- seem out of a libretto from la commedia dell'arte. We learn that Libya's Qaddafi has vertigo and "cannot travel" without his "voluptuous blonde" nurse from Ukraine. Mr. Putin, is an "alpha dog" who behaves like "Batman," while Medvedev "plays Robin." Sarkozy is referred to as an "emperor with no clothes," "thin-skinned" and "authoritarian." Germany's Angela "teflon" Merkel "avoids risks and is rarely creative," and so on. American diplomats are running for cover (there's much foreign trepidation and Schadenfreude).

 Honoré Daumier, At the Theater, (1860-64). 

Public reactions to the leak are as faithful to the script as you may expect: Politicians of all persuasions portray Wiki-leaks as the monster. Republicans like Palin want to hunt Asange "with the same urgency we pursue Taliban leaders." Fox personality O'Reilly wishes the leakers were executed. Congressman Peter King avers that the website should be declared a foreign terrorist organization (shouldn't these libertarian conservatives distrust government's reach and defend the people's freedom of expression?).

Then, Hilary Clinton's response is -predictably?- surprisingly conservative! Our government feels betrayed, ridiculed. Even some progressive thinkers question Wiki-leaks' ulterior motives. A liberal commentator declares on the radio that "America has lost its credibility." In contrast, journalists all over the world support the mission of the website. They agree that the most insidious effect of our present political and economic crisis is the undermining of public opinion (the press is dying by slow strangulation).²

Keep in mind that politics is a constant struggle among different actors (groups) pursuing conflicting desires on public issues. Then there is power. And right now our military power has become political and one dimensional. This hegemony is the greatest danger. As a political observer has written, "The paradox of American power is that it is too great to be challenged by any other state, yet not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation."^2a It is as if due to a society forcefully laid open by the pressure of globalizing forces, power and politics drift ever further in opposite directions, the system operating beyond itself, its resources become over-extended and it declines as a result.

The Pentagon, Washington, DC.

Politics as "morals"

The individuals portrayed in these cables recall Northrop Frye's Theory of Comedy.³ We're not dealing with heroes, but rather defeated, stereotyped characters. We live in a skewed, absurd world filled with unforeseen danger, social apprehension and hypocrisy, where unscrupulous characters win and the honest lose. Yet, one doesn't get a sense of impending doom but instead, an ordinary this-is-the-way-it-is debriefing. Is this not a bit manipulative? ⁴  

What's going on? Politics is "presented" by politicians as guided by morals, but it's actually a realm of means-to-end, which is why Machiavelli counsels that in politics, one must suspend what's right for what's expedient.⁵ 

Politics as Law
 
Legal experts weigh in: Wiki-leaks has stolen documents, which constitute a criminal act (as if legal arguments cannot be overridden by moral considerations, such as transparency to the public and coherence in foreign policy). As Norman Solomon suggests, "the recent mega-leaks are especially jarring because of the extreme contrasts between the U.S. government's public pretenses and real-life actions." Of course the legal reach gets intractably complicated: there is anonymity, tracking down violations, locating the offender, claiming jurisdiction over such offender (which brings forth geography, problem with mirror siting, etc, etc.).

Is Wiki-leaks not a counterbalance in an environment where the media plays an "opiates of the masses" role, subsidized by political interests? 

Politics as comedy

One should resist looking at this as a showdown between good and evil. It's too simple. True, at one local level, some people feel they have to oppose an unjust and secretive system -while others feel betrayed by it. At a more systemic level, Wiki-leaks transcends the issue of freedom of expression vs. national security.⁶ Like any organism, whatever comes its way, the system tries to adapt. In this case, the balance lies between two opposite hypothesis: The Slippery Slope and the Weimar Hypothesis. In the first scenario, the government trims some rights, which raises little alarm at the time (e.g., Guantanamo and torture under G.W. Bush's reign). Then a few other rights are curtailed (wiretapping, public coercion against opposing the wars, etc). Soon, more rights are lost and gradually the entire institutional structure on which democracy rests tumbles down the slope with nobody able to stop it. In the second hypothesis, we resemble the Weimar Republic of the 1920's, which lost its legitimacy and opened the door to a tyrannical government due to its woefully insufficient responses to major public needs.

Let's not ignore that Internet technology offers the potential for more liberating forms of social organization. Capitalism and Marxism are predicated on the belief in technological progress and its potential for social improvement (unfortunately, far from fostering social change, technological developments are generally absorbed by the system and actually reinforce existing social structures). Communication and information have two sides. They provide a collection of "facts" but at the same time they become a tool for social management.

Isn't information a form of cultural and political domination?

Facebook Ad (2009).

What if Wiki-leaks presents a way for the system to purge itself in order to find an ideal equilibrium between its internal and external pressures? First, the leak is received as an unexpected, undesired event. Then we get all sort of reactions: surprise, incongruity, conflict, and the aftereffect of opposite expectations. It's all in synch with the part!

What if the leak's unmitigated public attention works in favor of the American policies the leak denounces?

Some have already observe that, compared with their American counterparts, the tone of the Arab leaders on the Iran problem (as it appears in the memos) "seems pretty jingoistic." David Rothkopf writes in The Financial Times that the Wiki-leaks information shows "the formidable courage and capabilities of many US diplomats." As you may expect from comedy's ethos, the memos already have the redeeming effect of producing more happiness than suffering. The endless repetition of the cables in all the major papers of the world ensure the desired mirroring didactic effect.

Let's wait and see how the initial shock gives way to a more optimistic assessment. The system will end up in a better place than it started at. Whether that's "really" better is another thing.
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¹Actually, this dump is no Pentagon Papers either. What makes this event different is the new technology. At the moment of publishing this post, one cannot access the Wiki-leaks link. Has the site been hacked? The New York Times link seemed the best second choice. ² The inference is not that citizens ought to refuse to sacrifice individual freedom on behalf of measures proposed in the name of national security, but rather that any sacrifice should be made knowingly, with full consciousness of what is being given up, and why. It should always be necessary to make a positive case for any limitation upon individual freedom, and also for the specific method to be employed in administering the limitation. By viewing these dangerous possibilities in advance, we can reasonably hope to prevent or mitigate their occurrence. The picture projected is what might happen, not what must happen. ^2a Sebastian Mallaby, "A Mockery in the Eyes of the World," Washington Post, January 31, 1999, B5.  ³Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, Four Essays (Princeton University Press, 2000).  ⁴ Spanish El País follows the New York Times style of parading the different memos on its global front page. French Le Monde (in French style) presents a photo-series ridiculing world leaders. Wiki-leaks can be seen as a unique phenomenon of the digital era. The most dramatic moment in Wiki-leaks' short history is when the site revealed the so called Iraq War Logs, detailing information that the American people didn't know: 109,032 deaths in Iraq (comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). ⁵In other words, "moral pathos resides in a situation, not where the end justifies the means, but where the end dictates means of a type which renders both the wholly good and the wholly evil superfluous."  Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision, (Princeton University Press, 2004) p. 87. ⁶ Most intelligence experts agree that these memos are not "NOT DIS" information, which would be really compromising.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Of course, we always have to come back to good explanations!

Human evolution

Animal evolution

Natural selection

Some quick notes on "religion"

You could see religion as a sort of complex system, with myths, moral & symbolic codes, codified worship behaviors (i.e., rituals), and creation-and-destruction narratives. Religions are extremely successful because they give purpose, and meaning to life.    
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From the point of view of belief:

Theism, is the belief that some sort of personal God exists and HE is involved with the universe.
Agnosticism: The truth about certain religious claims, is unknowable.
Deism: There is a God but this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles.
Monotheism: The belief that there is only one God.
Pantheism: God is the summation of the all universe. God = Nature.
Transtheism: A system of philosophy which is neither theistic, nor atheistic. Paul Tillich writes:

The courage to take meaninglessness into itself presupposes a relation to the ground of being which we have called "absolute faith." It is without a special content, yet it is not without content. The content of absolute faith is the "god above God." Absolute faith and its consequence, the courage that takes the radical doubt, the doubt about God, into itself, transcends the theistic idea of God.

Fideism: It maintains that faith is independent of reason. Tertulian's Credo quia absurdum.

Big Bang (please, watch these videos)

Part 2 here.

What is the age of the universe? The best available measurements as of 2010 suggest that the initial conditions occurred between 13.3 and 13.9 billion years ago.

What caused the BB? Remember: The question doesn't make much sense. It's meaningless. However, it's still logically possible to imagine that the universe is caused.
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Here you have the evidence for BB in 10 minutes!

Cosmogonical myths

Mesopotamian cosmogony:  The basic feature of Mesopotamian cosmology was the firmament, or vault of heaven, that created a dry space above the Earth. The Earth was a disk, and the firmament rested on the Earth around its edge – as was obvious to any Mesopotamian scanning the horizon. Beneath the Earth were the waters of the abyss. The Earth had some thickness as was obvious from digging and from caves. Within the thickness of the Earth-disk was the underworld.

Sumer: Nammu the mother of all. Nammu creates an (heaven) and ki (earth). An, the sky, is a hard metallic shell lies on the earth, ki. The union of an and ki produce Enlil, the god of air, wind, and storm. Enlil lifts an away from ki, filling the space in which humans live. The space is filled with lil (atmosphere). The brighter parts of the lil form the sun, moon, and stars. Enlil also creates all living things. He also invents all the tools used by man and teaches him to use them. But it isn’t Enlil that creates man; it is his son Enki.

Babylon: But there are two kinds of water: fresh, deified in Apsu (male), and salt, deified in Tiamat (female). They call into being a whole genealogy of gods. The new gods were noisy and Apsu complains that he gets no rest either by day or night. This is significant since the gods are still existing in the primordial waters; sun, moon, and earth have not yet been created. This shows that the Babylonians were not aware that day was caused by the sun. They thought of day and night as fundamental and the sun as a mere marker of day. Apsu proposes to kill off the children gods that he and Tiamat have produced. But the gods take measures to prevent this and kill first Apsu and then Tiamat. The latter is accomplished by Marduk who is then the chief god. He splits Tiamat’s body in two ‘like and oyster’.

Ancient Israel: It is referred to as the “Preistly” or “P” account. It is very close to the Babylonian account and was probably learned by the Hebrew priests during Jewish captivity in Mesopotamia. It begins with a formless void of water. Yaweh’s spirit (i.e. breath, like Enlil the air) moves over the waters. He creates night and day; before creating the Sun, just as in the Babylonian myth. He creates the firmament that separates the waters and creates the Earth. He brings forth vegetation first and then produces the Sun, Moon, and stars. After creating all the other living things he makes man and woman and tells them to multiply and dominate the Earth.

Egypt: The Egyptian world view was dominated by the Sun and the Nile. For the Egyptians godhood was flexible. Kings and noblemen could become gods. Even the common people could be immortal. Gods, people, animals, and the natural world were suffused with the same kind of life force. The cosmos emerged from primeval waters, just as in the Mesopotamian myths. It was hollowed out of the abyss, Nun. This was no doubt suggested by the way high ground reappeared, rising from the water as the Nile’s floodtide receded. The primeval waters were held back by an arched living female figure Nut, as shown in figure 3, instead of a metallic firmament; Or in some accounts by a cow or a shell.

Greek: The world began with chaos. Gaia, mother Earth, arose from the chaos. She gives birth Uranos. Uranos is the sky and holds back the chaos. As in the Babylonian myth, there is a revolt among the gods and Zeus becomes the chief god. In the Greek mythology the gods are just humans writ large. They live on Mount Olympus and engage in power struggles and intrigue and sex. As in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions, different gods are benefactors and protectors of different cities.

I will close this week's post Monday @ 10pm.

Americans don't save

The problem is here.

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Confucius' Analects (Excerpts)

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?"

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.

A new edition of Philo-Symposium

Man and political animality.

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