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