fideism & religion

St. Paul (philosopher, polyglot, founder of Christianity) makes a startling definition in his letter to Hebrews 11:1:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

FAITH cannot be epistemic, and yet, it has a place. philosophy defines epistemology as the study of knowledge and belief is central to it.

Is FAITH plain belief? no. 

FAITH IS MUCH MORE: SOMETHING WHICH MOVES ONE TOWARDS THE FUTURE, i. e., PROVIDING PURPOSE IN LIFE .

the future, by definition is NOT YET, but almost there in one important aspect. BECOMING (DEVENIR).

you're NOT in the NOW cause the now is a flicker between the past and the next. 

what you really are is be-coming. 

faith deals with the bceoming the NOT SEEN YET

the anthropological question is why do we need faith? 

let's bring a few scholars to this discussion.

here's Fideism as discussed by four important philosophers:

Blaise Pascal,
Søren Kierkegaard,
William James,
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 

1. Pascal: For Pascal faith and reason are incommensurable. Here a couple of quotes:

deux excès: exclure la raison, n'admettre que la raison, (neither exclude reason nor solely admit reason)

la foi et la raison ne peuvent pas suivre le même chemin, (faith and reason don't mix)

2. Kierkegaard: 

1. truth lies in the search for an object, not in the object sought. "If God held truth in one hand and the eternal pursuit of it in the other, I choose the second hand." 

2. faith is subjective,  meaning IT IS FOR THE SUBJCT. the subject defines it.

3. William James: James is the founder of Pragmatism, the only American school of philosophy. 

In Will to Believe, James defends what he calls a genuine option, which is a choice between two hypotheses, which the believer regards as "living" (meaningful), "forced" (mutually exclusive), and "momentous" (having important consequences). 

A genuine option is always relative to the perspective of the believer.

see how James and Kierkegaard agree?

4. Wittgenstein's fideism: groups of people use different sprachspiel or "language games". 
Religion is a language game.  

People who talk this language MEAN AND PLAY THE GAME in the language. So, when the skeptic or the atheist press the issue of proof or justification to the theist, they are asking really a question not about reality but about PLAYING THE GAME.

what is doomism? + why you have to fight it

doomism, is, simply put, the idea that we are doomed. 

here the argument in 3 points.

1. There are too many people in the world. (this comes straight from Malthus)

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. (p. 4).

Not true. Many of the most populated countries are in, ready? Europe. Southeast Asia has the same number of people per sq/km than England. 

There is consensus amongst economists that most of the earth's land mass will not become more densely populated than it is today. Why? Because population migrate to the cities.  Over the next 30 years the estimation is that 97% of Europe will be less densely populated. (UNPD 1998a: 96-99, 104-107). 

So?

Malthus was worried about the consequences of the French revolution in terms of availability of food. Remember, this is 18th century Political Economy (a bit of both and thus neither).

If political discontents were blended with the cries of hunger, and a revolution were to take place by the instrumentality of a mob clamouring for want of food, the consequences would be unceasing change and unceasing carnage, the bloody career of which nothing but the establishment of some complete despotism could arrest. (p. 418). 

What are we discussing here: food availability, poverty, population density? These three things are not thesame!(but we have to move on). There was plenty of food and poor distribution of it in France during the French Revolution (Malthus got it wrong). There can be food and not enough money to buy it (deflation), no food and plenty of money (inflation); population density and food distribution coexist (look at China today). Finally, you can eat well or pretty decently and be poor.  

The above argument is a hulling lie. 

2. We're destroying the planet. Homo Sapiens is a destructive force; the planet our enemy.

Isn't Homo Sapiens part of nature? Why separate them as if they're different? Divide and conquer.

And isn't our faculty of reason so far helped us along the way to survive and thrive? Why any different now? It's in our best interest NOT TO -EVER- DESTROY THE VERY PLANET WE LIVE IN. Unless such destruction is just pure hyperbole. 

Doomism keeps coming back in many guises.  It's part and parcel of Homo Sapiens interpretation of doomsday. 

Matter is neither destroyed nor created. Life is a consequence of matter. We're stardust! 

That is not to say the planet has no problems. But they are solvable. And you, the beautiful youth of the world are here to help solve them. 

Get to work!  

3. Bringing children into the world is a mistake. Many of my students really believe (rather been induced to believe) that life will be so awful that procreating is a form murder. 

Just think of Kant's first formulation. Do not to others what you would not like others do to you. 

You're in the world, and enjoy it so far, don't you? Why would you not offer the opportunity of autonomy to someone to come? Clearly, that future being, a Homo Sapiens, would undoubtedly prefer to judge by herself. Here a hypothetic dialogue: Why did I miss my chance?/I thought the world was a mistake./ Why not bring me and leave that decision to me? Autonomy is untransferable. 

Think for yourself.

Midterm Exam Makeup for Honors (Salzburg)

1. What’s Logical Behaviorism’s premise? Bring the “Perfect Pretender” counter to it and explain why it invalidates Behaviorism’s premise.
2. Is Identity Theory a better theory than Logical Behaviorism? Explain your answer.
3. Do you need brains to think? Explain the answer from Functionalism’s perspective.
4. What does it mean to say that the mind is an emergent property of the brain?
5. Suppose Harvey Weinstein invites an aspiring female actress to his apartment and asks her to have sex with him. Does the Hard Determinist believe Weinstein to be responsible for his actions? Is she?
6. Suppose the same scenario as in #5, but now you’re a Libertarian. Is Weinstein responsible for his actions? Is she?
7. What’s the principle of alternate possibilities? Explain it in the case of being 5 minutes late for your Phi 2010 class because of having coffee at McDonald’s
8. What’s the difference between Hard Determinists and Compatibilists?
9. What’s the Libertarian argument from experience?

(a minimum 40 word per question is required). 
send the answers to me via email, with this in the subject: 

Doe, John, Phi 2010 (day) (time), Midterm Exam, Salzburg.

Philosophy of religion, homework 1

1. why is it important to talk about religion today?
2. what do we call a religion?
3. mention the main features of a religion.
4. what did religions provide early societies with?
5. did religions spur civilizations? how?

homework chapter 3 (IAC honors & T, 5:40pm classes)

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Different forms of belief in God

Theism: the belief in the existence of one or more deities, which exist within the universe and yet transcend it. the word "theism" was first coined in the 17th Century to contrast with atheism. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism are all theistic religions.

Monotheism: The view that only one God exists. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all affirm monotheism, and this is the usual conception debated within Western Philosophy. Jews, Christians and Muslims would probably all agree that God is an eternally existent being that exists apart from space and time, who is the creator of the universe, and is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), omnibenevolent (all-good or all-loving) and possibly omnipresent (all-present).

Pantheism: The belief that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe, or that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God. The concept has been discussed as far back as the time of the philosophers of Ancient Greece, including Thales, Parmenides and Heraclitus. Baruch Spinoza also believed in a kind of naturalistic pantheism in which the universe, although unconscious and non-sentient as a whole, is a meaningful focus for mystical fulfillment.

Panentheism: The belief (also known as Monistic Monotheism), similar to Pantheism, that the physical universe is joined to God, but stressing that God is greater than (rather than equivalent to) the universe.

Deism: A form of monotheism in which it is believed that one God exists, but that this God does not intervene in the world, or interfere with human life and the laws of the universe. It posits a non-interventionist creator who permits the universe to run itself according to natural laws. Deism derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience, rather than relying on revelation in sacred scriptures or the testimony of others, and can maybe best be described as a basic belief rather than as a religion in itself. The roots of Deism lie with Heraclitus and Plato, but it was also popular with the natural theologists of 17th Century France and, particularly, Britain, who rejected any special or supposedly supernatural revelation of God.

Pandeism: The belief that God preceded the universe and created it, but is now equivalent to it - a composite of Deism and Pantheism. Panendeism is a composite of Deism and Panentheism. It holds that, while the universe is part of God, it operates according to natural mechanisms without the need for the intervention of a traditional God, somewhat similar to the Native American concept of the all- pervading Great Spirit.

Polytheism: The belief in multiple gods (usually assembled in a pantheon). These gods are often seen as similar to humans (anthropomorphic) in their personality traits, but with additional individual powers, abilities, knowledge or perceptions. Hard Polytheism views the gods as being distinct and separate beings, such as in Ancient Greek Mythology and Hinduism..

Animism: The belief that souls inhabit all or most objects (whether they be animals, vegetables or minerals). Animistic religions generally do not accept a sharp distinction between spirit and matter, and assume that this unification of matter and spirit plays a role in daily life. Early Shintoism was animistic in nature, as are many indigenous African religions.

Atheism: The belief that gods do not exist, or a complete rejection of Theism in any form. Some atheists argue a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities, while others argue for Atheism on philosophical, social or historical grounds. Many atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as Humanism and Naturalism. Atheism may be implicit (someone who has never thought about belief in gods) or explicit (someone who has made an assertion, either weak or strong, regarding their lack of belief in gods).

Agnosticism: The belief that the nature and existence of gods is unknown and cannot ever be known or proven. Technically, this position is strong agnosticism: in popular usage, an agnostic may just be someone who takes no position, pro or con, on the existence of gods, or who has not yet been able to decide, or who suspends judgment due to lack of evidence one way or the other (weak agnosticism). The earliest professed agnostic was Protagoras, although the term itself, which literally means "without knowledge", was not coined until the 1880s by T. H. Huxley (1825 - 1895).

triff's "dominican" okra stew with plantain dumplings

still life with magazine and italian amaro, photo by RI

moi learned this Dominican recipe in NY, during my years as cook at Apollo95 @ 95 & broadway.

ingredients:
1 to 1-1/2 pound of meat cubes for stew (the pieces should be about an inch diameter), okra, onion, garlic powder, salt, pepper, fresh rosemary, fresh lemon peel, 2 cloves, ground cinnamon (a pinch), coarsely chopped (ad lib), chopped green pepper (ad lib), coarsely chopped onions, 1 little can of cento, or flora peeled tomatoes, dollop of white wine, chicken stock ad. lib. (if you don't make stock like I do, buy a box of good brand of unsalted chicken stock)

marinating the meat:
cut stew all the meat into 1 inch cubes,
salt/pepper it,
add abundant garlic powder,
finely chopped rosemary,
lemon peel (thinly chopped),
put the meat in a bowl with all the above ingredients & let it sit for an hour.

preparation: wash and cut the heads of the pods (u do this to let the liquid permeate the pod, mmm) and slice them into 1/2 inch rounds. pour a good dollop of olive oil into a heavy pot or dutch oven, set to medium high. sauté the okra for 7 minutes and get them out the pot into a bowl. add more oil, bring on the heat to medium high again. add the meat, turning them until they are browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. lower heat to medium, add the onions and peppers and sauté until soft and translucent. put back the okra, pour some white wine (nothing old & musty, please) in the mix, add the peeled tomatoes (with your hands, squeeze the tomatoes into the mix along with the tomato juice. now you're set. bring to a steady simmer.

plantains dumplings: cut the plantains in pieces (leave the peel on!). put plantains in a heavy saucepan with enough water to cover. bring to a rolling boil. lower to heat to medium and simmer covered until the plantains are tender and peeking out of the peel, about 10 minutes. when cool enough to handle but still warm, peel, place in a large bowl and mash together with the
triffian secret (thinly chop rosemary, sage, fresh ginger & orange peel plus a dash of cinnamon)
scoop out one tablespoon of mashed plantain and shape into 1-inch balls.

add the dumplings into the stew and allow them to sink a bit into the mix without breaking them!

voilá! 😅

is there a math for relationships?

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vegetarians are less healthy than carnivores?

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philosophy paper sample

"how am i doing in triff's class?" (grade criteria, spring 2021)

here's my syllabus criteria:

exams: 40% of the final grade. 

grades here are letters A,B,C, D (D for "failing," F for "no show"). 

this is a qualitative (not quantitative) average. "A" for example is a ratio between 90-100, not a precise numeral. 

homeworks: 20% of final grade. 

i have set homeworks to show percentage. yet, here's what you need to know. 60% for example is the max. number of homeworks i've set for this miniterm. if you have 70% you have actually the max. number of points in that category, which is 25 points.

attendance: 20% of final grade. 

if you have 100% attendance that is equivalent to 20 points of the final grade. if you have 80% that's 16 points. 

final paper: that's 20 points. 

go back now to your grade center and look at your grades. 

suppose John Doe has 100% attendance (in the end), a B in the midtermexam and 7 homeworks. 

that means: 20 + B (about 84 points = 16.8) + 20. 

that means you got 56.8 points toward your final grade (with room for 40 more points to be had). 

Ok?

spiderwebs think!!

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topics for review, exam 3, honors classes wolfson

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link to your textbook,
you should bring your own scantrons: #888-P or #882-E 
if any of you need me to take a test to ACCESS, please send me an email to remind me. 

Karen Uhlenbeck wins the Abel Prize in Mathematics!

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found this proof from my math days,

trans and de-transitioning

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slavery + reversal of social roles

1. we had a nice talk today. we started with david's point of looking at slavery from the past, in a different theater of operations. i concurred. but that's not a conversation about ethics (which is the discussion of what makes an action right, etc). rather, we're talking about anthropology/history/social evolution.

true, in first century AD 60% of the roman population was made up of slaves (not racial, rather geopolitical, i.e., whether you're a roman or not). so this is a different predicament from, say 19th century america. many plebeians offered to become domestic slaves during roman times. why? they had a better chance of surviving than just being homeless in the streets of rome.

rothschild made a nuanced point about slavery, after which i recommended reading frederick douglass's memoirs.

karl marx, for instance would argue that slavery was a necessary step in the march of history ("necessary" here means it is caused by a previous socio/economic cause).

this brings the following point in favor of social evolution: what made slavery disappear around 500 AD? not a decree from a consortium of european states. it was a social supervinient phenomenon!

here marx has a good point: the old relations of production just changed! in other words, slavery wasn't economically viable anymore. we see this happening again in the 19th century america. no doubt it's industrial capitalism that erodes the old system in the south. the civil war is not the cause of the eradication of slavery but the effect of this paradigm change.

___________
2.  another interesting point concerning patriarchy, which i took from my tuesday night class is this: what if we flip the existing social hierarchy from patriarchy to matriarchy? 

you ready? very little would change. the mother now has financial power, while the father takes care of the child. the mother now incarnates what man used to be, yet we feel no big overall change.

it's like commutativity in math: the order of factors doesn't change the product. we have the same moral norms: incest is wrong, adultery is wrong, breaking promises is wrong, killing is wrong, stealing is wrong, disrespecting the elders is wrong, etc. family would still be paramount since we need family cohesion for cultural flourishing. why? the paramount cultural value is survival, i.e., LIFE.

see?

so, patriarchy -as social development- is not the result of some obscure cabal of evil elders trying to exploit women into submission. that's bunk. whatever we do in our milieu is already predetermined by our culture.

meanings of "patriarchy"

yesterday, Mark made a couple of points in our 11am class about patriarchy. i asked him: "what do you mean by patriarchy?"

the reason is that there's a difference between 1. patriarchy as a social system, in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, etc. most pre-modern and modern systems exhibit a patriarchal model (though there are isolated models of matriarchy though, the amazons in greece, in germania during roman times, in tibet, etc). 

and,

2. patriarchy, the ideology, which uses the model above to explain and justify this dominance attributing it to inherent natural differences between men and women.

clearly these are different things. for example, the traditionalist can support 1, and reject 2.

patriarchy in 1. is a social and cultural product, partially a result of differences between the sexes, but also as a result of conventional roles emerging in the theater of culture. patriarchy as social system is resilient in the legal, political, religious, and economic organization of many thriving cultures of today's third world. 

it works. we're here.

as per patriarchy as a social system traditionalism is neutral. both patriarchy (and matriarchy as social developments) are fine as long as they prove to be beneficial in the theater of operations of the group.

3. another point touched in the class was this: can traditions change? of course they change!

but they have to change slowly and incrementally BY THEMSELVES, not by force from the top. 

example: the religious orthodoxy in the USSR didn't really change with the bolshevik revolution in 1917. that was a sudden imposition from the top under communism! 70 years may seem a lot, but not in tradition/time. today, russia is more religious than it was before communism! 

lesson here? traditions don't change by force or decree.  

in defense of traditionalism

1. traditionalism defends natural and social selection. it avoids the NOW and instead looks at the PAST.

the NOW can only be understood in relationship with the past.

the NOW is just TOO UNRETENTIVE to prove itself.

2. traditionalists believe that each generation inherits the experience and culture of its ancestors through convention, precedent that each individual is able to pass this knowledge down to their descendants.
 
3. the traditionalist motto? "the individual is foolish; the species is wise."

4. traditionalists have no agenda other than preservation of the best experience, knowledge, and understanding of human success within its milieu and pass it on to the next generation.

the traditionalist view of divorce

5% were unhappy in their relationship soon after the baby was born. just under a third of these then split up. of the majority who stayed together, only 7% percent (of the 5 percent, so that’s 0.3 percent of the total sample) were still unhappy by the time their child was aged 11, whereas 68% said they were now happy (see figure above).

problems with divorce of americans over 50,
almost half of american families experience poverty after divorce,
long term effects of divorce on children,

from this article:

Unhappiness is, thankfully, much rarer than people imagine. It affects just one in 20 parents with newborns. Unhappiness is usually temporary. Staying unhappy is incredibly rare. Just one in every 400 parents in the entire study was unhappy at both time points, soon after their child was born and then again when their child was 11. Furthermore, we found that the small minority of married parents who suspect their relationship is on the brink have a similar breakup rate—just under 30 percent—as couples who do not think they are on the brink. That’s not the case for cohabiting parents with newborn children, who, regardless of how secure or insecure they are in their relationship, are more likely than married parents to split up during the next 10 years.

what does that mean? divorce is overrated, an abnormal's new normal. 

topics for Midterm exam, spring 19, honors (wolfson campus)

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click here for your textbook exercises and tests. 

you should bring your own scantrons: #888-P or #882-E 

if any of you need me to take a test to ACCESS, please send me an email to remind me. 

student assistants, all phi 2010 classes, spring 2019

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some general recommendations about our second assignment.

it's all good, but,

1- many of you simply took the already submitted proposal and added a point to it. but that creates a problem. while in the proposal you could be as general as you wanted, this second assignment required specificity. so, be mindful that if you simply added one point to your already submitted proposal to save time, your thesis argument is going to suffer in terms of cogency. of course this could be solved as we plow ahead.
2- I'm detecting the following pattern, your second point sort of begs the question on the first. take social media, point 1 says social media "helps people connect," while point 2 states that social media "is a great way to communicate." both these points say the same thing. so, WATCH FOR HIDDEN REDUNDANCIES.
3- counters look a bit sloppy, quickly rendered, poorly researched and argued. and this is factoring that you have not started researching yet. 
4- regarding counters, it's a NO-NO to interject your thesis view in the counter's paragraph, or belittle, misrepresent or use ad hominem against the counter in your theses paragraphs. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU WIN ARGUMENTS IN PHILOSOPHY. please, use the best possible counterarguments you can find. research your counters!
5- pay attention to your title, the title is a useful hook for the reader. here is a good advice. 
6- you want to keep a 65/35% ratio of argument vs. citation. I NEED YOUR VOICE IN THIS PAPER. and here comes the issue of plagiarism. this is my advice: if you like a paragraph from the internet, what you need to do is to READ IT AND DIGEST IT, write it down several times until the paragraph is rendered IN YOUR OWN VOICE. only then you can present it to a reader.

HONOR CLASSES, after reading your second assignment I find the following issues...

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same sex marriage counterarguments

10 traditionalist arguments against same-sex marriage,

support for same-sex marriage isn't unanimous (538 polls), 

Argument: Same-sex marriage critics believe marriage has a purpose, i.e., the procreation and the formation of the nuclear family.

Marriage in the traditional perspective becomes:

1. a framework for raising children, and
2. a legal order to constitute the family unit of parents and children.
3. the nuclear family is the ideal family unit and bedrock of society, 
because 1-3
4. the State has a vested interest in the stability of heterosexual relationships for the sake of their children, while having no such interest in the stability of same-sex partnerships.

revolutions in science

1543 – The transition in cosmology from a Ptolemaic to Copernican cosmology.

1543 – The acceptance of the work of Andreas Vesalius, whose work De humani corporis fabrica corrected the numerous errors in the previously-held system created by Galen.

1687 – The transition in mechanics from Aristotelian mechanics to classical mechanics.

1783 – The acceptance of Lavoisier's theory of chemical reactions and combustion in place of
phlogiston theory, known as the chemical revolution.

1790s – The transition in optics from geometrical optics to physical optics with Augustin-Jean Fresnel's wave theory.

1826 – The discovery of hyperbolic geometry by Nikolai Lobachevsky.

1859 – The revolution in evolution from transmutation theory to goal-directed change to Charles Darwin's natural selection.

1880 - The germ theory of disease began overtaking Galen's miasma theory.

1905 – The development of quantum mechanics, which replaced classical mechanics at microscopic scales.

1887 to 1905 – The transition from the luminiferous aether present in space to electromagnetic radiation in space/time.

1919 – The transition between the worldview of Newtonian gravity and general relativity.

1964 - The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation leads to the big bang theory being accepted over the steady state theory in cosmology.

1965 - The acceptance of plate tectonics as the explanation for large-scale geologic changes.

1974 - The November Revolution, with the discovery of the J/psi meson, and the acceptance of the existence of quarks and the Standard Model of particle physics.

behavioral dispositions and pre determinism

watch this video by B. F. Skinner,

watch this video by Sam Harris,

think of the following dispositions towards & against...

a. foods (veggies vs. non-veggies), carnivorous, pescatarian, vegan, paleo),

b. football, soccer, basketball, swimming, baseball, tennis, chess, etc
c. given personality traits, extrovert, introvert,aggressive, agreeable, fun, exotic, etc,
d. painting, animation, sculpture, performance, etc
e. ballet, modern dance, folk,
f. movies: horror, war, thrillers, drama, comedy,
g. music: rock, metal, country, hip-hop, rap, classical,
h. favorite subjects: math, science, poetry, languages, psychology, medicine, veterinary sciences, etc.

WHY ONE NOT THE OTHER, WHY BOTH? THINK.

second assignment, philosophy paper: how to start the discussion in 4 paragraphs (all classes)

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philosophy paper: who are your critics?

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ethics of duty, chapter 6

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topics for your philosophy paper (all phi2010 classes)

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