A few months ago, prior to picking up researching Transformative Experiences, I made a list of the philosophical questions I had. Here is a list, with a key of abbreviations at the end: How can the study of C improve people’s lives? Why is C so interesting? What is the life of a person? What’s a person? Are all subjects persons? Do all points in … Continue reading Some Philosophical Questions
One day when I was grading reading responses, I thought over half the class didn’t read. We’re near the end of the term, and this seems to be a common assumption among people in instructional roles in universities anyhow. But, to avoid throwing out accusations without sufficient evidence, I acted instead on the assumption that a lot of students just didn’t understand the reading. Turns … Continue reading Don’t Assume Students Don’t Read
Interesting article on extended cognition and feminism here. I came to figure out why e-cog seems to come with so much ethical baggage for a theory about how to understand cognition. I’m satisfied. The main point, that dualism and its descendants are really only plausible with a certain privileged position in the world. Elisabeth and Amo wrote at the same time as Descartes and couldn’t shake … Continue reading Re: Extended cognition and feminism
I’ve been posting about my TAing intro philosophy. (Part One, Part Two, Part Three) As the class is approaching the first exam. I made a list of questions, which I realized is a fairly useful list of basic questions on a few major philosophical topics, so I’m posting it here. *Logic* What is a valid argument? A sound argument? What kinds of things can be true? How do … Continue reading Some Study Notes for Intro Philosophy
Previous Posts: Week 1, Week 2. In week 3, the class turned to argumentation. This again left me a fair bit of freedom, since the skill is broad and will be useful for the whole quarter (and in general). On the other hand, I had to run this section six times (instead of my usual three) since two people were out of town, so I made … Continue reading TAing Intro Philosophy Pt. 3
Last week I continued running sections for introduction to philosophy. We had, in theory, read Bertrand Russell’s “The Value of Philosophy.” I say “in theory” because in reality when I asked my students who had done the reading, not many people raised their hands. Turns out the bookstore hadn’t actually gotten the book in, yet. No problem, though, really, since I put the important text in … Continue reading TAing Intro Philosophy Pt. 2
There’s two parts to looking at the world. The looking and the world. Most fields of inquiry fix their way of looking and go out in search of the world. Philosophy (at least some of it) instead turns to the way we’re looking at it. Take for example the role of acetylcholine in the brain. If you ask “Why is that ACh there?” the organic … Continue reading On the Two Parts of Empirical Knowledge
Brett Kavanaugh is being considered for a position on the Supreme Court of the United States. He’s also been accused of sexual assault. This information has been all over social media lately, and there seems to be, as there often is, a fundamental disagreement behind the arguments. On the surface, we see basic support versus opposition of the man. There are some straightforward statements of … Continue reading How sure you need to be depends on what you’re doing (Or: As usual I think social media discussions are missing a more fundamental disagreement, this time about a SCOTUS nominee)
Someone said or did something controversial. Then, private companies decided not to let the person use their platforms anymore. (Or they deleted a few posts or whatever.) Not too long after, the person (or their followers) make an appeal to freedom of speech. Something like “[Company] is violating [person]’s free speech!” with “and that’s bad” implicit at the end. In response, people who don’t like … Continue reading Freedom of speech does not end at the First Amendment
I somewhat recently relearned the importance of a lot of work in epistemology (philosophy of knowledge). Sometimes arguing another round about skepticism can feel divorced from the world. But there are in fact plenty of skeptics running around causing trouble. They pose questions about, well pretty much everything, especially including the sources of our knowledge themselves. Now, as I have mentioned, I am not a … Continue reading Defence Against Conspiracy Theories Undermining All of Our Beliefs
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