T, 5:40pm

TR, 11:15am

MWF, 11am

MWF, 10am

MWF, 9am

MWF, 8am

Philosophy Club: Update

Daniella, president,
Leo vice-president,
Yaney and Florencia, secretaries.

Congratulations!

Now, you should meet one another. Make some flyers and planning for your first meeting.

The mind or the body?

What do you value more, the mind or the body?

Well, my question is loaded. And Descartes is to blame. Why not seeking a balance between the two?  Here is a nice advice from philosopher/boxer Gordon Marino, professor of Philosophy at St. Olaff College, in a recent piece in the New York Times:

Western philosophy, even before Descartes’ influential case for a mind-body dualism, has been dismissive of the body. Plato — even though he competed as a wrestler — and most of the sages who followed him, taught us to think of our arms and legs as nothing but a poor carriage for the mind. In “Phaedo,” Plato presents his teacher Socrates on his deathbed as a sort of Mr. Spock yearning to be free from the shackles of the flesh so he can really begin thinking seriously. In this account, the body gives rise to desires that will not listen to reason and that becloud our ability to think clearly.

In defense of his hobby, he explains:

And let’s be clear, life is filled with blows. It requires toughness and resiliency. There are few better places than the squared circle to receive concentrated lessons in the dire need to be able to absorb punishment and carry on, “to get off the canvas” and “roll with the punches.” It is little wonder that boxing, more than any other sport, has functioned as a metaphor for life. Aside from the possibilities for self-fulfillment, boxing can also contribute to our moral lives.

(This post is not for comment).

Did you know that the meat you eat contains antibiotics?

From the NYTimes:

Dispensing antibiotics to healthy animals is routine on the large, concentrated farms that now dominate American agriculture. But the practice is increasingly condemned by medical experts who say it contributes to a growing scourge of modern medicine: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including dangerous E. coli strains that account for millions of bladder infections each year, as well as resistant types of salmonella and other microbes.

Why?

As drug-resistant strains of microbes evolve on the farms, they are passed along in meat sold in grocery stores. They can infect people as they handle the uncooked product or when eating, if cooking is not thorough. The dangerous strains can also enter the environment via manure or the clothes of farm workers.

We have a philosophy club going!

 Click here and learn the details.

T 5:40pm

T,R 11:15am

M,W,F 11am

M,W,F 10am

M,W,F 9am

M,W,F 8am

Animals and extintion

I don't think it makes sense to talk about moral values to apply exclusively to humans when the planet is in danger! Here is a list of UN endangered species. How about the tuna?

Here a Times gallery on 10 species near extintion.

I'll close these posts next Wednesday, 10pm.

PHI 2010 T 5:40-8:10pm

PHI 2010 T,R 11:15-12:30pm

PHI 2010 M,W,F, 11-11:50am

PHI 2010 M,W,F, 10-10:50am

PHI 2010 M,W,F, 9-9:50am

PHI 2010 M,W,F, 8-8:50am

Women's untold suffering

Evil has a face: gang-rape in Congo

From the NYTimes: "A mob of Rwandan rebels gang-raped at least 179 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, the United Nations said Monday." The news has been confirmed here and here.*

Evil has a face: man-against-woman brutality, a new weapon of fear. Gang rape is meant to inflict physical and emotional pain and trauma. After a woman is raped numerous times she is tortured. Many are shot in the vagina or penetrated with a machete, sticks, bees, etc (listen to the testimonies in the video).

Women who are raped suffer physical ailments such as bleeding, infection, nausea, sleep and eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction; posttraumatic stress disorder, including nightmares, depression, and paranoia; feelings of fear, anger, helplessness, vulnerability, guilt, self-blame, anxiety, low self esteem, and a deep suspicion of men and sex, which only feeds the sexual myths about women cited above.

In Congo's 10 year civil war, raping has become a prize because it delivers a strategic victory: Safe and soft. Safe, because the raping of women can hardly be compared with face-to-face combat. "Soft" in that there is a perverse pleasure involved; the body of a woman reduced to loot.

Is this appalling violence just about war? How can the identity of a woman become so objectified?

Because rape is considered to bring dishonor to a woman's family and community, there is a culture of silence which aggravates the problem. Humiliation and intimidation of victims by the police, as well as the "embarrassment" of public acknowledgment is common. The culture of silence reinforces the stigma already attached to the victim rather than to the perpetrator, as the dominant perception is that women have generally provoked the abuser to attack. Consequently, many victims are often unwilling to testify about their experiences.** So we get a bizarre combination of a society that stigmatizes rape while harboring rapists.

Can we talk about man's "violence" as a form of cultural perversion? 

We know that the enforcement of violent masculinities come in many forms, their lowest common denominator equates "manliness" with the sanctioned use of aggression, force and violence. This  "manliness" often needs to be renegotiated through the violent subjugation of others, particularly women. So, the question is whether this stereotype of "manliness" actually serves an exploitative

Now, what are your thoughts?

________
*Congo is not alone. Gang-rape has spread to other war-conflict zones in Africa. In Nigeria, rape has become alarming. Rape is used by the police as intimidation. Yet, the authorities pay no attention to these crimes, even when photos of the assaults are shown in a national newspaper, and victims' interviews are broadcast on national television (Akande et al 2005; Amnesty International 2006). In Darfur, Sudan the United Nations has since accused the Janjaweed-Arab militiamen -of abducting and gang-raping thousands of women and girls (Mariner 2004). It is estimated that a third of all women and girls in Sierra Leone were subjected to sexual violence in the Sierra Leone conflict of 1991 and 2002. **The raped woman ends up paying the violence inflicted on her by the abuser, who walks away unharmed. In the end, we get this perverse unending cycle: It's precisely because of rape is such a cultural stigma for a woman that it's used so effectively. Peace woman promotes

Salmonella, eggs and philosophy

Something as simple as eggs reveals a whole socio-economic -and political- structure. From the New York Times:

A half billion eggs have been recalled for possible salmonella infection, but the cause of the problem, at two giant farms in Iowa, has not yet been pinpointed, said Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Many poultry experts suspect that rodents infected with salmonella got into the chicken feed because the infection seems to be inside the eggs.

Isn't the salmonella just a sign of a way of doing business in America?  This is not only about food safety, it is about the sheer size of these Iowa egg-farms. See that only a couple of Iowa producers are involved in the recall of more than 500 million eggs!
(This is not a post for comment).

Become a google friend!

Become a friend of PHI 2010! All you have to do is get an gmail account and add our site.

Hasta pronto...

It was a pleasure to have you in my class. Good luck!

Summer B (M,W,F, 10:25am) Topics for Review, Final Exam

For Topics for Review, Final Exam (Summer B), M,W,F, 10:25am, please, click here. I'll leave the post open for comments, suggestions, questions, etc.