tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41226736809080556302024-02-20T19:26:05.212-05:00philosophizing philosophyCritically Examining the History, Ontology and Epistemology of Philosophy.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-59871833021763402622007-12-19T14:13:00.000-05:002007-12-19T14:38:12.214-05:00How to teach humility?How does one begin to teach humility? To start, live humbly. This would include respecting others, listening, and having patience. The problem is that no matter how humble one may be, there is never a guarantee that those surrounding you are necessarily going to follow suit. Sure, one can try (I say try, cause at least in my experience, one can never live with complete humility) to teach humility by showing humility, that is, by living the example. Living humbly, however, becomes all the more difficult in our comtemporary egotistical social environment where we are encouraged to "flaunt" our skills everywhere from on the playing field, to our clothes, to our resumes. It is always difficult to avoid simply becoming a product of one's environment, yet even if one can see through all the insecure egomaniesm, the environment is going to remain, more or less, the same.<br />How does one preach humility without being a hypocrite? Should one even attempt to teach humility or is it simply something that needs to be learned on one's own? When being/showing/living the humility that one wants to see in the world fails to change our systemically arrogant culture what can one do? Is living humbly sufficient to teach humility?<br />How does one teach humility without teaching submissiveness? How does one teach humility while simultaneously teaching the pragmatism that requires one to stand up for oneself in a world where no one is likely to stand up on your behalf?Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-76149945309211780002007-12-16T17:14:00.000-05:002007-12-16T17:20:41.313-05:00Why do I care?I don't care to Care.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-62964166040458382162007-12-16T16:29:00.000-05:002007-12-16T17:13:04.546-05:00So I often stop to ask myself <em>what the fuck am I really doing with my life?</em> I'm currently working as a campus aide and an aide in this program for kids with serious behavioral problems. I'm also volunteering as a teacher to immigrants studying for their citizenship tests and at this hospice, in addition to just having finished up a TEOFL certification class. On paper it looks like my life is pretty busy, and in terms of time spent staying busy I suppose it's true. However, my work is hardly satisfying, and I often catch myself struggling with the guilt of not being in Africa right now working for the Peace Corps. Moreover, my primary job as a campus aide can hardly be considered an educator, at least in the formal sense. I spend so much of my time simply passing the time in some constructive and some hardly constructive ways. <br />My existential dilemma is that I desperately want to make myself through my work. I want to take pride in my labor. I have no complaints about my current wages yet wages are insufficient. I want more. Marxist alienation festers on all sides. It nags at my self, and I can't help but feel like I'm succumbing to mediocrity as I idle away with visions of a more fulfilling, a more trying tomorrow. <br /><br />So I want to go to Africa once again. This time around, my plan is a bit more refined in that I plan to teach english as a volunteer somewhere south of the Sahara. I know I can't save the world. I know that no matter how many good deeds I may do in Africa, Africa is still going to remain Africa with all it's systemic political diseases intact. Yet that is hardly the point of my plan, neither here nor there.<br /><br />During my last semester at college I was exposed to two radical thinkers on the philosophical and political left: Georgio Agamben and Alain Badiou. Many times, Eske (my professor) would spur us to compare Agamben's notion of a slight alteration with Badiou's insistence upon the necessity of a radical break from the current situation. These two philosophies are hardly mutually exclusive, yet for a long time I couldn't help but lean towards Badiou's insistence on a radical break, particularly in regards to my own personal choices and lifestyle. So I figured going to Africa would do the trick, but when it turned out my trip to Senegal was not to be I realized that I didn't need to go to Africa to find myself or to help others. Fuck, the only thing that was stopping me from already doing both these things here and now was myself. The inertia of my past relationships and passivity when it came to actually living my dreams always seems to impede my deepest callings in life. Yet I need a consolation, so let it come not just in philosophy but in everyday events through which my peebles may be felt in varying degrees.<br /><br />It's all about the little things: Smiling to a stranger, holding the door for someone, listening-yes just listening. No occupation is an exemption from this basic human duty, which if consciously performed becomes the upmost privelege. I never feel so alive as when I'm helping someone. The challenge is adjusting to one's environment just enough, but not too much, as to help someone on their level, and not one's own. Too often I help others simply at my own convenience. Ah, that makes me feel nice I just helped them out. Yet the deepest satisfication necessitates a struggle which can never be predetermined. As long as we know exactly what we have to do to help someone we are cutting them and ourselves short. Only by adapting to their needs as they arise may we share their journey, rather than simply their destination. This is not to say we can ever accompany them all the way, for such is impossible and if attempted actually self-defeating (i.e. overprotective parents). The point is to let them let you know when they need your help, that is, to make oneself as available as possible for aide and consol. <br /><br />We live mighty busy lives, so I suppose the often boring nature of my job can be interpreted as a blessing in disguise. Sometimes I find myself wrapped up in a book, but the vast majority of a time, any opportunity to help someone is a great way to spend my time on the clock. The truth is I need to do a much better job making myself more accessible. I need to communicate more with people who would really appreciate my help. I'm beginning to realize that this job can't just be a means to getting my foot in the door of education, pleasing my parents and myself by staying busy, or simply a paycheck every two weeks. I plan to start looking for anotehr job which will give me more (more like some considering I ain't gettin a lick right now) classroom experience. Thus, while I'm still here I oughta make it count and make someone's day whenever I get the chance. <br /><br />I want my intention to show and I won't know until I see it reflected in those I work with and for, but then again I never did trust apperances so I suppose I'll really never know. All I can really do is be persistant in living my deepest intention.<br /><br />So I'm here, making my mark in some trivial (and I hope some not so trivial ways as well). The slight alteration is all I have for now, yet in every good deed I make a crack in the foundation of the conservative, passive and unconfident intertia of my actions. I so wish I could just run away, but I'm not their, not yet, and I must accept that if I want to stay sane and content. <br /><br />I want to do so much more, but for now I'm just gonna shut up, cause actions speak louder than words, no matter how small they may seem.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-49460965040875474892007-11-11T22:01:00.001-05:002007-11-11T22:26:41.010-05:00Beginning Philosophy in the real worldSo what is philosophy like outside of academia? <br />I've been out of school now for five plus months and I'm still trying to figure this out. I suppose it will always be a work in progress. Trying to live philosophically is never easy in the real world. What I've found, above all else, is that live beyond graduating college is less about choosing to sell out or live the "good life", and more about applying the patience and humility one can learn by studying philosophy in everyday events. In short, it's about looking outside the box and examining as many possibilities as possible. <br />It's about considering, and not necessarily adopting, the most far out ideas on the market. One thing I really regret about my four years at SLU is that a lot of my far left political philosophy was protected in the ivory tower. I never really applied any of those abstract and not so abstract ideas in my work. It was like I was trying to win a war with one almighty charge through the enemies front lines. I idealized and romanticized the Left without even really knowing what it was or is. I read and wrote about some really fascinating ideas but as you can see in many of my entries, eventually I begain to seek practice, for theories are insufficient without application. <br />What I really want to say is that as I've looked through some of my writings from my time at college I am at times downright disgusted at the dogmatic undertones of many of my presumptions. I talk the talk (about the value of self-critcism), yet fail to walk the walk when it comes to applying that same degree of self-criticsm and refusal to resort to metaphysical and rhetorical dogma when it comes to communicating my own ideas. I now want to be a high school teacher. I hope to some day teach philosophy, but for now I would be most content to teach history/social studies. The other night I had a conversation with my father about what kind of a teacher I want to aspire to someday become. My father was worried that I'd be too biased towards the left and (consciously or unconciously) inject that bias into my pupils. I reassured my father that when it came time to grade a paper or in the midst of a classroom discussion I'd make extra efforts to reward those students who while being ideologically opposed to me, clearly communicate and argue their point in a logically convinceing manner would be rewarded by their merits and not their ideology. <br />This got me thinking, however, about a present need I now face to do some hermeneutics unto myself. I need to do some meta-hermeneautics, and investigate the way in which I interpret the world. I need to be more conscious of my cognitive frames. I need to prove my points instead of just stating them. And most of all, I need to make a greater effort at listening to the other side and broadening the scope of whatever dialogue whenever possible. <br />I want to change the world. I want my future students to help me in this endeavor. Yet it is my responsibility to allow them to make whatever decisions for themselves. Thus, I hope to teach them how to spot a fallacy from a mile away. How to maximize the effeciency of their language, and most of all, to develop a passion for learning both as a means and as an end.<br />I'm confident that I can do all these things, but I have to stop assuming that this will all just happen, as if I was destined to be an inspiring teacher. I have a long long way to go, and the best part is, there's no end in sight.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-38997821024185940482007-05-04T16:31:00.002-05:002007-05-10T18:58:42.686-05:00final reflection<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Final Reflection: Letter to myself<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dear future self,</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Praxis, Praxis, Praxis<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t choose between theory and practice, live between the two.<span style=""> </span>Do not live one then the other, live them both together.<span style=""> </span>Let them guide and check one another.<span style=""> </span>Don’t act without thinking.<span style=""> </span>Don’t think without acting.<span style=""> </span>It sounds so easy, but its realization is not necessarily its actualization.<span style=""> </span>I will never know how to live between the two until I am living between the two.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Talk is cheap.<span style=""> </span>Theory is insufficient.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t let philosophy be your exit, let it be your entrance.<span style=""> </span>Share it, use it, adapt it, destroy it, create it.<span style=""> </span>Defend it, not to protect it but to experience a necessary tension for growth.<span style=""> </span>Let the world mold your philosophy.<span style=""> </span>Let your philosophy mold the world.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">Compromise without comprising</i> (Eske Moellegaard)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Most people give up on their dreams, you must live them.<span style=""> </span>Be deliberate and patient with your intentionality.<span style=""> </span>Move through, cut through your environment.<span style=""> </span>Let your environment cut you, almost but not quite as deep as you’ve cut into it.<span style=""> </span>The most subtle asymmetry is the ideal equilibrium.<span style=""> </span>The world can cause both your enlightenment and your insanity.<span style=""> </span>To know the difference you must live between.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To know the difference you must take it with you wherever you go.<span style=""> </span>You must see everywhere the potential for both success and failure.<span style=""> </span>With both forethought and instinct you must swallow the world whole and see how it tastes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Kill the self to become the self,</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Matt Sims</p> <p class="MsoNormal">May 2, 2007</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-61308008020161132272007-05-04T16:31:00.001-05:002007-05-10T18:57:51.751-05:00My philosophical future<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">My Philosophical Future<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My future will be philosophical, there’s no doubt about that.<span style=""> </span>Whether I come back to academia or not I have become conditioned to live philosophically.<span style=""> </span>I will question the unquestioned, most especially my own beliefs, my own actions, to listen to be heard, to take the time to think just for thinking’s sake, to wonder.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I might go back into academia but perhaps not in philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I think I can apply skills developed within and through philosophy to so many other academic and professional focuses, most especially politics, but also environmentalism and law to mention just a few.<span style=""> </span>I could definitely see myself working in either three of these fields, especially a focus at all oriented toward social justice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Can philosophy be its own end? Can going to graduate school just to carve out a career that is often a privilege and rarely a chore really sufficiently philosophical?<span style=""> </span>Is a philosophy professor even necessarily a philosopher? (thanks Eske Moellegaard for introducing a tremendously thought provoking discussion on this question when he visited out metaphilosophy class).<span style=""> </span>I wish.<span style=""> </span>I used to think.<span style=""> </span>I’d love to believe, but sadly, I think not.<span style=""> </span>But is this really all so sad?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Philosophy is simultaneously both a means and an end.<span style=""> </span>I have been for some time quite attracted to the idea of becoming a professor in philosophy, but right now I just don’t know.<span style=""> </span>My concern, and I hope this doesn’t offend anyone who is a philosophy professor, is that academic philosophy, like academia in general, is far to specialized.<span style=""> </span>We’ve discussed at length in class how factionalized the discipline remains with splits between Contintental and Analytic and the ongoing marginalization of such subfields as eastern philosophy, Latin American philosophy, African philosophy, feminist philosophy (essentially anything and everything critical of philosophy from within philosophy).<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to live a life reading, writing, discussing and teaching issues that I have not had some direct experience with myself.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy is much more than books, ideas, and theories.<span style=""> </span>It’s about acting, living and praxis.<span style=""> </span>This is not to say that I can’t do all of this from within academia.<span style=""> </span>In many respects my greatest ambition remains finding a place within academia and radically change it from the inside out.<span style=""> </span>Education is so political.<span style=""> </span>Moreover, I think I could make a good professor or teacher at the high school level.<span style=""> </span>In all likelihood I probably will be back in school at some point down the road, after all, what else do I know.<span style=""> </span>And I guess that’s what I’m trying to say here.<span style=""> </span>School has been my life since before I can remember.<span style=""> </span>I’m so used to structure.<span style=""> </span>Structure is such a paradox. It motivates and demotivates.<span style=""> </span>It guides and it confines.<span style=""> </span>My ambiguity towards all the structure in our educational system inspires me to experience something else, anything else, because if not how will I ever know if this is the pace of life that I’m best suited for.<span style=""> </span>Like I said, I know nothing else, except summer, but unless I want to be homeless, I’ll avoid living in my typical summertime mode.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>My life is and will forever be philosophical.<span style=""> </span>There is no turning back, and like the protagonist in Plato’s allegory of the cave, the shadows on the cave wall can never, at least in my eyes, be real again.<span style=""> </span>I am forever searching for the right balance of truth and value.<span style=""> </span>I will never rest because if there is one thing I know it is that I will never possess my end.<span style=""> </span>Thus, my life is an endless journey as I meander the world and my mind for a little peace of mind, for the ability to sleep tight at night knowing that I did what I could to make the world a better place.<span style=""> </span>I can never just know something for itself.<span style=""> </span>I don’t care if I heard it at a hockey game or read it in Heidegger I want to share that experience with someone, anyone.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy is inherently communicable, because lacking my intentionality to communicate what knowledge would I be inspired to seek, to create.<span style=""> </span>Since communication implies action, <i style="">a knowing how, </i>the maturation of any philosophy requires philosophical experiences.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Philosophy is a part of me.<span style=""> </span>What I have learned in academic philosophy shapes how I will approach and work through any future project whether intellectual, ethical, or even the most mundane task.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy is under my skin.<span style=""> </span>It is the lense through which I perceive the world, and I couldn't be more grateful for the perspectives it has shown me.<br /></p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-27565109091268935092007-05-04T16:18:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:54:10.609-05:00new philosophy map<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">New Philosophy Map<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I see myself as still most connected to ethical and political philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to make a map of the myriad of philosophical subdisciplines because (in addition to lacking the necessary computer skills to arrange such a map in a word document) I feel such a map would necessitate prioritizing different subdisciplines over others.<span style=""> </span>I don’t feel as though I am adequately capable of making such a judgment given my extremely limited experience within philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I definitely have a bias towards the continental and non-western, in great part, because that’s what I’ve been exposed to the most.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to commit a straw man fallacy and attack analytic philosophy for neglecting the context in which they philosophize in, because this probably isn’t even the case in all instances.<span style=""> </span>If I had to make a map I would try as I might to draw connections between <i style="">every </i>philosophical subdiscipline because I think they are all already connected, whether consciously or unconsciously.<span style=""> </span>I hope in the future academic philosophy can make more and more bridges between the disciplines.<span style=""> </span>I also hope, and this is essentially why, I am not drawing a map, is that if any such maps are to be drawn in the future this project should be a collective rather than an individual effort.<span style=""> </span>I am sure getting together philosophers from different subdisciplines to work together on a common project in creating such a map would be filled with considerable drama and frustration yet I would love to see it happen.<span style=""> </span>I’d love to see all of philosophy (if there even was such a thing) to sit down at a single table and philosophize about philosophy itself <i style="">together</i>.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-84407363490293861602007-05-04T16:17:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:20:33.199-05:00reflection essay on philosophical methods<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Reflection on Philosophical Methodologies</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I think I have applied most of these philosophical methodologies in philosophy classes.<span style=""> </span>First off, the logical analysis is a method we employed in various exercises for my reasoning class.<span style=""> </span>The conceptual analysis is something I am doing quite a bit of right now in my European Contemporary Though class through examining such terms as “democracy”, “freedom” and “sovereignty”.<span style=""> </span>I also experience this methodology through some of the Save Our Constitution panel discussions. <span style=""> </span>I took a whole course basically just about the method of deconstruction in the Sociology of Knowledge class I took last semester.<span style=""> </span>Phenomenology and one that is not on here but seems quite similar to phenomenology, “introspection”, is something I have been doing on my own since I was seventeen.<span style=""> </span>It is, in many respects, my self-therapy as I struggle to reflect on my life experiences and the meanings or lack thereof that they so entail.<span style=""> </span>Also, in a class I am taking now, Feminist Philosophies, we were just reading an essay by Iris Marion Young titled <i style="">Menstrual Meditations</i>, where young talks a lot about Heidegger’s methodology of exploring oneself by going into and through and reflecting upon one’s moods.<span style=""> </span>The Philosopher as Public Intellectual is a method that I would like to utilize more often, especially once I am out of school.<span style=""> </span>The example I have given through my article about democracy matters I actually got published a few weeks ago in the hill news.<span style=""> </span>In all, I think I have applied most, if not all, of these methods whether in courses or just in my everyday life.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">A couple methods that I would like to explore in more depth in my own philosophical activities are the philosophy as conversation method and the two respective comparative methods.<span style=""> </span>I believe these two methods could be synthesized in a way as to facilitate a true dialectic between a diversity of philosophical positions.<span style=""> </span>All too often philosophy is only talking to itself.<span style=""> </span>While the comparative methods might still be subject to this problematic I believe the philosophy as conversation method could really serve as useful tool to bridge the gap between the formally philosophical and everyday experiences.<span style=""> </span>The comparative method is one that I in fact employed in my first philosophy class called Humanities which I had in my senior year in high school.<span style=""> </span>I believe this method is most necessary in terms of its political implications.<span style=""> </span>I say this because the current methods of “Identity Politics” have fragmentized and specialized the Left in comparison to the what I would consider the over-specialization of academia.<span style=""> </span>While particular groups on the left such as women’s liberation, civil rights, socialists, gay rights and environmental organizations fight for there own particular ends, they all too often fail to form coalitions as they instead fight (both internally within organization and externally between different movements) for the same resources and media attention.<span style=""> </span>I firmly believe that the Left needs to bridge this gap if it ever hopes to achieve any of its particular goals in a sustainable way.<span style=""> </span>Thus, if I choose to return to academia my work will most surely focus on making these connections and explicit comparisons between different social movements and between different philosophies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I think if there is one method here that most reflects my own philosophical work it would be either phenomenology or deconstruction.<span style=""> </span>As I already mentioned I think I’ve been doing phenomenology for some time now, and I believe in the necessity of looking critically and reflectively first and foremost at one’s own experiences.<span style=""> </span>I believe that the deconstruction and phenomenological method are implicit within one another.<span style=""> </span>If there was anything I learned in Sociology of knowledge it is the reciprocity by which our epistemology is created and legitimized by particular subjectivities with particular intentions (usually power).<span style=""> </span>Only by understanding how one’s own sincere intentions figure into this power struggle can one begin to determine how to change the system.<span style=""> </span>One cannot do this by simple abstraction for there is no view from nowhere.<span style=""> </span>The key is to be honest with oneself and one’s intentionality, for it is my contention that only from within the system may the system ever be altered.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-51592537262913072782007-04-29T19:32:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:50:44.200-05:00Questions, topics, subfields, approaches and methods<p class="MsoNormal">Philosophical angles</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My geographical philosophical preference has definitely changed a lot in four years.<span style=""> </span>I definitely began and continue to love reading European philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I’ve definitely had a fascination with German culture in particular for quite some time, and philosophically what’s not to love about German philosophy with such a rich tradition from Kant to Hegel to Scheler to Husserl to Heidegger to Habermas (gotta love the H’s eh).<span style=""> </span>After taking Latin American philosophy, however, I was struck by the degree of uncritical and pretentious worldview of many of these great philosophers.<span style=""> </span>This is particularly the case with Kant and Hegel.<span style=""> </span>I wish I was able to include in this entry some excerpts from works by Hegel in particular who saw philosophy as coming to a glorious ending in the fatherland.<span style=""> </span>Now, as I’m sure you can gather from reading any of my other entries, is that I have grown aware to some of the overwhelmingly Eurocentric biases inherent in Western philosophy.<span style=""> </span>Neverthless, I remain fascinated by existentialism and western philosophy remains unavoidably my philosophical provenance.<span style=""> </span>This is to say Western philosophy was and is my introduction to philosophy.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>It is also important to realize that Western philosophy is in no way monolithic.<span style=""> </span>I am particularly drawn to the “subversive” voices in the western tradition; Nietzsche, Marx, Merleau-Ponty, the entire feminist tradition, much Latin American philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I love philosophy cause philosophy loves to question.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Turn the world on its head </i>as Hegel once said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Philosophy is my vehicle to revolt, to subvert, to implode the entire western philosophical tradition and as a means to evolutionize the world system.<span style=""> </span>It’s not about strictly speaking political philosophy.<span style=""> </span>It’s all political, whether implicitly or explicitly, conscious or unconscious.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy cannot be understood apart from the political and socio-historical context in which it was created.<span style=""> </span>Created I say, because philosophy is not discovered.<span style=""> </span>To borrow an expression from Baylor Johnson, philosophical Truths (or even truths) are not found lying under rocks.<span style=""> </span>Instead, they sprout from the soil from a combination of the fertility of the soil and climate in addition to a seed.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes this seed is planted after the soil has been tilled into neat rows, but sometimes this seed sprouts from no anthropgenic intentionality.<span style=""> </span>In either case, to grow into what we consider truths they must be validated in the social arena, and thus truths are found in no texts insofar as though text are not read.<span style=""> </span>If a truth is born in the middle of the Amazon and no one is there to see it smell it or taste it then is it really a truth? </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>To be short (for once), I am attracted to any philosophical geographical tradition in which I have had any experience.<span style=""> </span>I am most drawn to <st1:country-region st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">France</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Italy</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>In terms of philosophical subfields I am most drawn to Existentialism, Phenomenology, The Kyoto school (including, of course, Watsuji), Feminist Philosophies, Buddhism, Comparative Philosophy, and anything t’all political.<span style=""> </span>I love reading everything anything deriving in any semblance to the Marxist tradition.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The following are some of favorite philosophical queries:<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><i style="">What is the good life</i> is my quintessential philosophical query.<span style=""> </span>What must I do to <i style="">live</i> the answer to this question?<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><i style="">The problem of Induction</i> pursued from a collective and collaborative position is something I would definitely like to extensively investigate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>What is freedom?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>What is art?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Doest God exist? (and if he/she/it does who created him/her/it?)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Why do we suffer?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Why do people do drugs?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Can a means and an end equivocate?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Can we get smarter? (courtesy of Darren…something, I can’t forget his last name but I think he teaches at the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename st="on">Calgary</st1:placename></st1:place>, which reminds me to mention something.<span style=""> </span>I gotta give <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place> it’s props.<span style=""> </span>In addition to the enlightening mock class I went to taught by Darren, I have three professors this semester from <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and they are three of the best professors I have had while at SLU.<span style=""> </span>So Go all you Canucks (especially the one’s from Vancouver who were resiliently heroic in their double overtime victory over <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Anaheim</st1:city></st1:place> last night).</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Philosophy is my means and my end.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Thus it will take me and be shaped by everywhere I go, everything I see, every conversation I have,<span style=""> </span>and every language I think and/or communicate in.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>My preferences (both in subdisciplines and geographics) have diversified into what I know consider a certain necessity.<span style=""> </span>When a philosophy becomes to narrowly focused it ceases to be philosophy.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">if Philosophy= love of Wisdom</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wisdom necessitates Experience</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Experience necessitates Action </p> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Thus, if Philosophy refuses to Act then it is not Philosophy.</span>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-69461043526509318722007-04-28T15:26:00.000-05:002007-04-28T15:27:55.829-05:00The future of philosophy<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Future of Philosophy<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I am tremendously skeptical of academic philosophy.<span style=""> </span>In a sense it is dying.<span style=""> </span>It can no longer claim to possess or “discover” objective certainties.<span style=""> </span>As Gianni Vattimo asserts, philosophy exists now without “metaphysics”, that is sufficient systems of philosophy which yield “Truths” with a capital T.<span style=""> </span>As Vattimo reminds us, when Nietzsche said “God is dead” he wasn’t just talking about institutionalized religion.<span style=""> </span>He was talking about the death of all objective truths that can be applied universally across all times and all spaces.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I must stress, however, that this does not mean “throwing the baby out with bathwater” and by baby I mean such things as reason, truth (albeit with a lower case t) and objectivity.<span style=""> </span>Many postmodernists and even some feminist philosophers seem to have made this mistake as they plunge into an indecisive and ironic absolute relativism.<span style=""> </span>Eske Moellegaard’s visit to our metaphilosophy class in addition to the writings of Alain Badiou have instilled in me a profound conviction that philosophy can still serve a vital and most necessary function<span style=""> </span>in our present predicament.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy is about seeking the universal.<span style=""> </span>Therefore, philosophy must strive to derive from the universal, that is, from a multiplicity of diverse positions.<span style=""> </span>Just as importantly, it must strive to answer those questions that apply to us all and refuse to be confined to particular, albeit oppressed, positions.<span style=""> </span>The present political and philosophical predicament we are in is commonly refered to as Identity Politics.<span style=""> </span>Women fight for women’s issues, minorities fight for minority issues, gays fight for gay issues.<span style=""> </span>This is not to say that many of such social movements and philosophies are unaware of the interdependence inherit these nexuses of oppression, yet I believe they could be making greater efforts to address the reality that they are all oppressed, and while the reasons and contexts of such oppression may vary greatly at times, the success of any progressive movement rests in solidarity.<span style=""> </span>This means that the left needs to build more and more coalitions between such groups.<span style=""> </span>I believe philosophy can significantly contribute to the materialization of this idealization by acting as both a mediator and active participant.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy must act to bridge these bridges between various social movements, granting focus to the universality of this oppression.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy will not provide a view from nowhere, however, I am firmly convinced that it is capable of a certain “disinterested interest” (Alain Badiou) whereby it can take a step back and provide constructive (and often critical) suggestions for future action.<span style=""> </span>What this all implies of course is that philosophy become more political.<span style=""> </span>More specifically, all of philosophy must become more political not just its still marginalized subdisciplines, such as feminist and Latin American philosophies.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Philosophy must adapt or it will not survive.<span style=""> </span>It must choose to politicize itself, and be honest with itself.<span style=""> </span>Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is wonderfully intoxicating as just about any philosopher could tell you, but this is not sufficient for enacting any change.<span style=""> </span>As Marx once said, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it” (11<sup>th</sup> Thesis on Feuerbach).<span style=""> </span>Contrary to this statement, philosophers have greatly changed the world, albeit in many instances this change has come about by simply impeding or confining progressive social changes.<span style=""> </span>Philosophers have served most indispensable roles in upholding the status quo for as long as philosophy has exists.<span style=""> </span>They have limited our options to the individualism, parlementarianism, and capitalism, but philosophers have also forced us to <i style="">think beyond</i> and herein lies the future mission of philosophy.<span style=""> </span>Philosophy allows for the presence of political and explicitly subversive subdisciplines yet it segregates them and marginalizes them within academia (think feminism and any non-western philosophies).<span style=""> </span>Philosophy must allow the totality of its discipline (if one must call it a discipline) to be transformed into means for progressivism to universalize both its participants and its audience.<span style=""> </span>This obviously requires that philosophy break down the boundaries between analytic and continental, between logical and ethical, and between what is esteemed as logically superior philosophy and what is written off as Heideggarian nonsense.<span style=""> </span>Analytic philosophy has much to offer the discipline, yet it must explicitly politicize itself and actively facilitate the construction of a dialogue between itself and other sub disciplines in philosophy.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I am both optimistic and pessimistic in these prescriptions for philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I am not in academia so I am not fully aware of how complex such internal divisions really are, and thus am unsure of what exactly it will take to transform philosophy before it joins theology on the endangered disciplines list.<span style=""> </span>What I can say is that philosophy has all the tools to actively contribute, and perhaps even lead, the progressive movement through its critical (and especially self-critical abilities, thus humility) and universal orientation by addressing questions that apply to us all.<span style=""> </span>The key will be whether philosophy itself allows these universal addresses to be constructive by all and not just a few elitist philosophers.<span style=""> </span>The future of philosophy is thus ambiguous, yet my faith in its ability to adapt and strive to think both through and beyond our present predicament persists.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-13084767345145320482007-04-28T15:24:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:52:01.835-05:00Revisiting the becoming of my philosophy<p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><br /><o:p></o:p></b></p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: georgia;">Revisiting the becoming of my philosophy</span><p class="MsoNormal">My philosophical thought has undergone significant and at times radical developments during my four years at SLU.<span style=""> </span><i style=""><span style=""> </span></i>.<span style=""> </span>My philosophy has evolved in to one that certainly regards all three sub-areas of philosophy as necessarily interconnected.<span style=""> </span>As I read through one of my main papers for Theories of Knowledge and Reality, which I took during the fall semester of my sophomore year I am fascinated by both the common threads and discontinuities in my philosophical development.<span style=""> </span>The title of this paper is <i style="">I Am</i>, which when I first saw as I was looking through all my old coursework I scowled at and thought wow did I have it wrong or what then.<span style=""> </span>As I discuss in my posts on epistemology and most especially metaphysics, my understanding of reality has greatly shifted away from essences and towards a relational ontology.<span style=""> </span>Reading this paper after writing it over 2 years ago has taught me, once again, that I should not judge a book by its cover.<span style=""> </span>One paragraph was particularly striking and most profoundly and surpisingly in line with some of the relation ontology that I philosophize about and through today:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><i style="">All ideas are interpreted in relation to other ideas.<span style=""> </span>By changing or abolishing the meaning of a certain term, for instance black, one would have to proportionally amend the definition for white.<span style=""> </span>Simply imagine how one would consider good, lacking the existence of a bad or evil.<span style=""> </span>Could we then just live in some kind of a utopia?<span style=""> </span>I beg to differ in that our entire system of reasoning is dependent on associations and contradictions with other terms, and by removing or adjusting but a single term, one would subsequently alter the entire framework of reasoning for all the terms’ meanings are interdependent on one another.<span style=""> </span>Just the concept of nothingness seems inexpressible in our present reality as there is always something to occupy one’s senses </i>(I had yet to encounter Buddhism at this point)<i style="">.<span style=""> </span>Therefore, there are dreams, but their existence is dependent not only on a real world, but also on a subject who in fact does the dreaming.<span style=""> </span>Lacking reality would be like lacking white and then trying to define black, for clearly their meanings are interdependent.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">This notion of interdependence and the relational foundation of both metaphysics and epistemology definitely corresponds with the main vein of my current philosophizing.<span style=""> </span>Moreover, I was particularly excited to read <i style="">by removing or adjusting but a single term, one would subsequently alter the entire framework of reasoning for all the terms’ meanings are interdependent on one another</i> in that it is this slight and subtle but powerful adjustment that I have read about and consent to in many respects in the work of Georgio Agamben in his book, <i style="">The Coming Community.</i><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">On the other hand, throughout this paper I seek to defend the self in a way that I would never attempt today in that I see the self as Descartes did as a rational essence which checks and is supreme to our bodily sensations.<span style=""> </span>My last sentence concludes <i style="">Highlight the characteristics that separate you from the crowd and find your essence, make yourself what you were meant to be, what you yearn to be, what you may die to be. </i><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>While I continue to believe that our individual self-reflection and particular critical analysis of reality is valuable to epistemology, I no longer consent to the notion of metaphysical essences.<span style=""> </span>I continue to struggle through this process of finding myself, and while much of this exploration involves working through these problems on my own, through Eastern and feminist philosophies I have also learned to turn back to the social, and make the double negation as Watsuji so advocated, when trying to <i style="">find myself</i>.<span style=""> </span>Two years ago I definitely saw philosophy as a vehicle to escape problems of the everyday world.<span style=""> </span>In comparison to the big questions of philosophy, everything else just seemed so trivial.<span style=""> </span>I think I have now discovered that in order to ever find myself I must do it both as an individual and as a member of society which requires <i style="">going through rather than around</i> the social arena.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">My philosophy is no longer about transcending reality through philosophy, because even if I still wanted to I severely doubt I could.<span style=""> </span>My notions of authenticity have greatly evolved from an existentialist one (I’m particularly thinking here of Heidegger and Sartre, such Sartre's notion of <span style="font-style: italic;">others as hell</span>) of being distinct from others towards an authenticity that while unique can only exist and derives more satisfication from accepting this existence within a broader social nexus.<span style=""> </span>Ethically, Watsuji and Badiou have revolutionized my understanding that to be ethical is not to avoid evil or even to push it to another place, but to confront it head on, to go through it, to learn from it, and never to really defeat it in any ultimate sense but rather to illuminate the good through one’s actions.<span style=""> </span>According to Watsuji, “He who cannot experience badness, cannot achieve goodness” (Watsuji-Ethics).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It was also fascinating to read over one of the first philosophical papers I’ve ever written.<span style=""> </span>The one I looked at was from my introduction to philosophy class about Boethius’ <i style="">Consolation of Philosophy</i> and titled <i style="">Without Evil There is No Good.</i><span style=""> </span>As I read through this paper I chuckle to myself as I remember how brilliant I thought this idea that good and evil are relationally dependent was at the time.<span style=""> </span>It’s really quite commonsensical but I suppose that’s one continuity throughout my philosophy, in that, I try to examine and articulate the most simple elements in our world in order to show them in a new light.<span style=""> </span>One objection that I now have to this paper is that while hinting at an ethical relational ontology it first of all isn’t very practical as it provides nothing to try and actually address the problem of evil in its lived context.<span style=""> </span>Secondly, I essentialized evil and goodness as if they were truly polar opposites, while implicitly they existed interdepently in my argument there seems to be the claim that they originated in two distinct places with two distinct essences.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">After reading through some more of my early writings, which I denote as prior to my semester abroad in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Austria</st1:place></st1:country-region> (spring semester sophomore year), I am pleasantly surprised that many of the ideas I had then I continue to defend today.<span style=""> </span>Prior to actually reading through these papers I assumed that I had come light years in my philosophical development in only 2 years, yet I now see that this is most unfounded.<span style=""> </span>This empirical exercise has taught me, yet again, the value of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and learning that while Western philosophy may over-emphasize the individual it also has many profound and applicable insights into metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.<span style=""> </span>This exercise has inspired me to promise to myself to go back and read everything I’ve ever written for all my philosophy classes at some point.<span style=""> </span>There’s so much I can learn from myself about myself. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">My philosophical certainties have dissolved and solidified over and over again in the course of the last four years.<span style=""> </span>However, I honestly believe I have now found a more or less solid philosophical foundation upon which I hope to construct and live a truly fruitful life.<span style=""> </span>Metaphysically, I believe in the interdependence Watsuji talked so much about in Japanese society.<span style=""> </span>My conviction in this interdependence is the result of my experiences within relationships just as much as my exclusion from them.<span style=""> </span>I live in a certain void.<span style=""> </span>I don’t feel at all really a part of the St. Lawrence community, and while I have many friends from many walks of life, I am skeptical that all my relationships are truly reciprocal and open.<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, I see the potentiality of such transparently interdependent relationships in every aspect of my life.<span style=""> </span>Moreover, even when the relationship fails to be reciprocal, a slave is not a slave without a master just as a master is not a master without a slave.<span style=""> </span>This interdependence is always already operating, however, a realization of this operation changes the operation and spurs the development of a certain balance where all parties can live in authentic appreciation of all and with all of their relations. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Epistemologically I believe there persists a dire need to breakthrough and transcend the dichotomy between absolutism and relativism.<span style=""> </span>This necessitates, first and foremost, transcending the objective-subjective dichotomy.<span style=""> </span><i style="">The myth of objectivity</i> strives for power through a façade of truth.<span style=""> </span>In a sense, I believe in the inversion of this myth, that is, affording the opportunity for a myriad of subjectivities to sit down at a table, whereby their very participation wields a considerable degree of power.<span style=""> </span>Yet in this ideal situation the intentionality of the epistemic process is truth rather than power.<span style=""> </span>To allow for this process to actually materialize in real life, however, I stress the necessity of many of these long silenced marginalized voices to be allowed seats at the table.<span style=""> </span>How this will actually come about I am not sure and because this is a philosophical blog and not a sociological one about social movements I will not get into my ideas of transforming this epistemic process.<span style=""> </span>The one point I must stress, yet again, is that, to borrow a line from the women’s liberation movement, <i style="">The personal is political</i>, and this applies to CEOs as well as single mothers on welfare.<span style=""> </span>What I mean is that our subjective experiences and the values that they necessarily entail cannot be separated from the epistemic and political process and the epistemic and political processes cannot be separated either.<span style=""> </span>As Francis Bacon said long ago, <i style="">Knowledge is Power</i>.<span style=""> </span>Now what one actually does with that power is the key question that all knowledge producers should be ethically compelled to ask themselves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Ethically, I believe in the realization and actualization of the metaphysical interdependence so stressed in the writings of Watsuji Tetsuro, in addition to other Eastern thinkers.<span style=""> </span>I believe, more than any other field in philosophy, the most progress I have made in both theory and practice during my four years at SLU has been in the realm of ethics.<span style=""> </span>Despite the fact that as mentioned earlier in this post I am skeptical of the reciprocity in all of my lived relationships, I am most aware of my ethical insufficiencies.<span style=""> </span>I struggle with even, what most would consider the most trivial of ethical decisions on a daily basis.<span style=""> </span>Often, I am paralyzed by my hyper-conscious analysis of such situations and fail to act according to my authentic convictions.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=""> </span>I struggle with my own moral development every day yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.<span style=""> </span>“My people” have not been oppressed, but rather my provenance is one of slave holders, bigots, racists, sexists, and self-righteous and hypocritical liberals.<span style=""> </span>I am not above good and evil.<span style=""> </span>I am within good and evil, and I shall never leave it.<span style=""> </span>I sincerely doubt I will ever achieve a Buddhist enlightenment, but even if I did, I would be a Boddhisatva and never leave the pain and suffering of this world until I could share my enlightenment with all living beings, even those beyond the formal realm of humanity.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It is comical to reflect upon my once proud ambitions to be an “ethicist”.<span style=""> </span>In hindsight, to think that I could be the judge and decider of others’ ethical dilemmas seems absolutely absurd(then again perhaps I still do not really know what, in fact, an ethicist does).<span style=""> </span>Just as I mentioned in the paragraph (and post) addressing my views on epistemology, I don’t believe there is any objective view from nowhere that is capable of judging appropriately on any ethical matters.<span style=""> </span>Sure, there are people who can give their input and suggestions in such matters, but the choice rests on the individual in all such choices.<span style=""> </span>As Sartre once said, “Man is condemned to be free”, and as Nietzsche once said, “God is dead”.<span style=""> </span>These statements express a certain ambiguity as both blessings and curses.<span style=""> </span>The key is to accept the “thrownness” (Heidegger, <i style="">Sein und Zeit</i>) of one’s situation and accept individual responsibility for one’s ethics.<span style=""> </span>We must begin by looking in ourselves, and through ourselves, examine the relations with our society that have so constructed this self.<span style=""> </span>We are not individuals in a vacuum.<span style=""> </span>We were and continue to be made, to be socially constructed to believe certain things and live in a certain way, yet the construction of ourselves requires our own personal consent.<span style=""> </span>It is in our power, at all times, to reject or accept what our community deems ethical.<span style=""> </span>The key is to realize that whatever the consequences may be of this choice, it is fundamentally a choice.<span style=""> </span>It is our choice.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In our chains lies our freedom.<span style=""> </span>In social construction lies social deconstruction and reconstruction.<span style=""> </span>We are made and we can be unmade.<span style=""> </span>This process begins with the individual but does not end until the multiplicity of our relations are transformed to be equally cognizant of the power of volition which they all necessarily wield.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In all, I believe my philosophy can be refined down to: humility, interdependence and faith in one’s power to choose.<span style=""> </span>I call this last aspect “faith” because it is precisely that and can only be that, that is, until it is actualized.<span style=""> </span>We can never know until we live it, but we can live it at any time, wherein lies our salvation.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-5575817159110505602007-04-28T15:20:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:16:19.753-05:00Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #3 Philosopher as Public IntellectualI had this article published in the Hill News a couple months ago, and while it is in no way explicitly philosophical, I believe it's core message is the encouragement of critical thought and action in regards to our current political situation.<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">What is Democracy Matters?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>We are not advocating Communism or Socialism (We aren’t even just Democrats).<span style=""> </span>We are not trying to restrict your free speech (unless you think that rich people deserve a greater voice than the rest of us).<span style=""> </span>We are not even advocating any significant tax increases (full public funding for federal elections would only cost about $10 a person).<span style=""> </span>The truth is Democracy Matters is a <i style="">non-partisan </i>student organization trying to get money out of politics.<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t matter if you are a Democratic or a Republican to even be competitive in any political race at the state and especially the federal level you have to either raise or have a shit ton of money.<span style=""> </span>Just look at any politician out there today and you’ll find that either they come from a lot of money, such as our current president, or they have to make a lot of money, or at the very least have a lot of friends with money in order to run for office.<span style=""> </span>Even politicians who don’t come from a lot of money, such as Barack Obama, are forced to alter their principles in order to work within the system.<span style=""> </span>In his latest book, <i style="">The Audacity of Hope,</i> Obama candidly admits, “I know that as a consequence of my fund raising I become more like the wealthy donors I met.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>The way clean elections works is actually quite simple.<span style=""> </span>To make sure that candidates who will be using these public funds to run their campaigns aren’t just any bum off the street, candidates are required to get signatures from people who will support their candidacy.<span style=""> </span>The catch is each person who signs has to give the candidate $5 (or 10$ in <st1:state st="on">Connecticut</st1:state>, because well it is <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Connecticut</st1:place></st1:state>) to demonstrate their sincere support for the candidate.<span style=""> </span>After a certain number of signatures have been collected (depending on the state), the candidate becomes eligible for public vouchers (not just cash, so you actually know where your taxes are going) to run his or her campaign.<span style=""> </span>This system puts values, issues and people at the center of politics rather than money.<span style=""> </span>It allows for candidates outside of the Republican and Democratic parties to have an opportunity to compete at all elections, thus it gives the American people more of a choice in politics (no longer will we be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils as the 2004 presidential election (Bush vs. Kerry) was so tragically depicted).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Campaign finance reform has been proposed since Thomas Jefferson once warned of the dangers of corporate corruption in politics all the way back at the dawn of our nation’s history.<span style=""> </span>Following the Watergate Scandal, our country realized that power and money was corrupting politicians and that something ought to be done in order to reform our system, thus in 1976 <i style="">The Federal Election Campaign Act </i>was passed and the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) was established.<span style=""> </span>While trying to convince the public of the perception of corruption in politics the FEC established public disclosure of all campaign contributions and set the first limits to campaign contributions.<span style=""> </span>While this initial set of reforms did set up a system which publicly funded presidential races congress didn’t think it was a good idea to restrict the money they themselves accepted from lobbyists.<span style=""> </span>Following the Supreme Court case of <i style="">Buckely vs. Valeo</i> later in 1976 which declared money as equivalent to free speech, congressmen (and women) were given free reign to accept however much money they might want from any corporations.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Ever since 1976 numerous reforms have been made to clean up this system but with minimal success.<span style=""> </span>Individual and group campaign contributions (<i style="">Hard money)</i> have been limited, but this has not deterred corporations from heavily influencing politicians through “Bundling” which is when a<span style=""> </span>individuals collect their money and are able to give considerable donations to candidates.<span style=""> </span>Another popular method to financially influence politicians is through unlimited donations given to political parties, and thus indirectly funneled to candidates (<i style="">Soft money)</i>.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>During the last Presidential election George W. Bush and John Kerry raised respectively <span style="color:black;">$367,228,801 and $328,479,245 (<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/">www.opensecrets.org</a>).<span style=""> </span>In 2008 experts predict the total contribution to presidential candidates to top $1 billion!<span style=""> </span>So what can we do about it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><span style=""> </span>Corporations give money to all politicians and in return (the corporations are paying for something after all) these politicians are sure to keep such corporate interests in consideration when leading our country.<span style=""> </span>For example Pharmaceutical and Health Products Industries gave more than $90 million dollars to political candidates between 1989 and 2003 (and as is the general trend, these companies give money to both Republicans and Democrats at the same time in order to secure that whoever gets elected, their corporate interests are represented).<span style=""> </span>So is it any wonder that despite the fact that we are one of the richest countries, our government does nothing to prevent us from paying the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, and 65 million Americans lack prescription drug coverage (www.democracymatters.org). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color:black;">The situation is not as bleak as it may seem.<span style=""> </span><i style="">There is hope!</i> To find this hope one need only to look to such states as <st1:state st="on">Arizona</st1:state>, <st1:state st="on">Maine</st1:state>, and <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Connecticut</st1:place></st1:state>, who all have full public financing for all state offices.<span style=""> </span>Furthermore, <st1:state st="on">Vermont</st1:state> (governor and lieutenant governor), North Caroline (judiciary, yes even judges are still influenced by corporations in most other states), <st1:state st="on">New Mexico</st1:state> (legislator), <st1:state st="on">New Jersey</st1:state>, in addition to the municipal governments of <st1:city st="on">Alburquerque</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">NM</st1:state>, and <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Portland</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">OR</st1:state></st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>Ask anyone from <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">Arizona</st1:state></st1:place> and they’ll tell you that their governor, Janet Napolitano, who was elected and reelected on public money, is no ordinary governor.<span style=""> </span>While most politicians will only talk to you if you are in their country club or are willing to significantly donate to their campaign, Governor Napolitano (the first women governor of <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Arizona</st1:place></st1:state>) is famous for sitting down and talking to any citizen who has a question or concern.<span style=""> </span>Isn’t this how democracy is supposed to work?<span style=""> </span>We live in a republic, where politicians are supposed to be <i style="">public</i> (not corporate) servants.<span style=""> </span>As citizens we pay taxes to pay their salaries, so shouldn’t they be held accountable to us.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color:black;">In <st1:state st="on">New York</st1:state>, Governor Eliot Spitzer laid out in his State of <st1:state st="on">State</st1:state> address his full support for a full public campaign finance system in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Citizen Action of New York</i> is leading the way and Democracy Matters Chapters throughout <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>, including SLU, are actively fighting to make this ideal a reality.<span style=""> </span>We hope to accomplish this goal by talking to local politicians such as Assemblymen Darrel J. Aubertine, attending <st1:placename st="on">New York</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">State</st1:placetype> lobby day on April 9<sup>th</sup> in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Albany</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>We also plan on making educating the SLU community about the benefits and future of clean elections through a panel discussion with members of Democracy Matters, various campus organizations and/or professors. <span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color:black;">I must again stress that we are a <i style="">non-partisan </i>organization.<span style=""> </span>Campaign finance reform is not about any particular political issues but rather an umbrella issue which encompasses all issues currently marginalized by the role of money in politics.<span style=""> </span>We are not against business in this country, we just want to keep business out of politics, and let people run our government rather than money.<span style=""> </span>If any of this appeals to you, if you are sick of what politics has become in this country, and if you’d like to see democracy in action feel free to attend our weekly meetings on the third floor of the student center (room 333) on Tuesday nights at 6.<span style=""> </span></span></p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-22185503838001069772007-04-28T15:18:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:28:09.375-05:00Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #2 : Phenomenology<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Phenomenology<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What is work?<span style=""> </span>What is laziness?<span style=""> </span>I am often plagued by these questions because I cannot avoid them.<span style=""> </span>I have to work, but I suppose the key is simply finding something that I actually enjoy working at.<span style=""> </span>The fact remains that what I work at determines the degree to which what I do is perceived as work.<span style=""> </span>For the purpose of this exercise I will confine my attention to academic work in philosophy.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I am getting mixed messages.<span style=""> </span>In one ear, I hear approval.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Continue studying philosophy.<span style=""> </span>Keep working at it.<span style=""> </span>Everyone must find there own niche and perhaps philosophy is yours.<span style=""> </span>You are spending exorbitant amounts of time reading, writing, discussing and contemplating.<span style=""> </span>The skills you are developing through your work in philosophy refine your writing and clarify your ideas.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps most importantly, working through such challenging ideas helps you work through your own life experiences.<span style=""> </span>Thus, the work you are doing is not confined to academia or any future career.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In the other ear I am scolded with disapproval.<span style=""> </span>You enjoy reading philosophy way too much.<span style=""> </span>You escape into your books, your theories, your abstractions.<span style=""> </span>You don’t do anything with your philosophy besides talking the ears off of whatever poor soul who’s willing to give you a minute of his or her time.<span style=""> </span>You interpret everything from a far, but real work requires getting your hands dirty.<span style=""> </span>Your futile attempts at philosophizing are receptive to receiving new ideas, but wherein lies the reciprocity in your work.<span style=""> </span>Where’s the praxis?<span style=""> </span>How will you ever know if what you know is really true if you never actually apply it to the real world.<span style=""> </span>Thus, your current work is insufficient even if your ends are confined to the epistemological.<span style=""> </span>You can’t even know for the sake of knowing by reading, talking and writing about books alone.<span style=""> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Most importantly, however, is what kind of a job are you going to get working with philosophy?<span style=""> </span>Sure, you enjoy philosophizing today, but how do you expect to make a living once you are out of school.<span style=""> </span>You are living the life of luxury, of bourgeoisie meditation.<span style=""> </span>Your work is not really work.<span style=""> </span>You’re not being challenged cause you don’t want to be challenged.<span style=""> </span>No one can touch you or even really communicate with you in your ivory tower with all your big words and profound insights.<span style=""> </span>If you really had a work ethic you wouldn’t worry so much about your grades or your ideas, but rather you’d concentrate on your actions, on making a ripple in the pond.<span style=""> </span>Working requires working through something.<span style=""> </span>It requires falling down and learning to get back up again.<span style=""> </span>Does philosophy make you fall?<span style=""> </span>If a philosopher speaks a falsehood in the middle of the woods and no one is there to hear him or her or understand him or her is that falsehood really uttered?<span style=""> </span>Can that philosopher learn from his or her mistakes?<span style=""> </span>Is isolated self-motivation sufficient for a good work ethic or must we all be prodded at some point or another by a master?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I am lazy.<span style=""> </span>I am afraid to apply my philosophy because I am afraid I will fail and my philosophical foundations, my horizons, will come crashing down.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know what I could do without them, and thus I fear their potential void.<span style=""> </span>On the other hand, I am working through these ideas through my everyday experiences.<span style=""> </span>I struggle each and every day to try as I might to reconcile all the contradictions between my theories and my practices.<span style=""> </span>I am so hypocritical, yet so aware of my hypocrisy.<span style=""> </span>This is both a blessing and a curse.<span style=""> </span>It plagues me and saves me.<span style=""> </span>Just being aware of the fact that I am aware of, if only some of, my own inconsistencies liberates me from the confines of any predetermined probabilities.<span style=""> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">I am what I will be willing to work to will myself to become.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I feel as though it is a privilege to be writing this.<span style=""> </span>It gives me the sense that I am being productive and at the same time reflective.<span style=""> </span>It kills two birds with one stone, yet the question remains will this continue, <i style="">can </i>this continue once I leave school? <span style=""> </span>I don’t know and I won’t know until I am out in the real world trying to apply all this philosophy that has been bubbling up in my consciousness.<span style=""> </span>In the end, I am so grateful for my time at school.<span style=""> </span>I have found my work ethic in academia, but I refuse to confine it to that.<span style=""> </span>I have discovered that it’s not about some inherit intelligence, but rather about motivation.<span style=""> </span>I have found that I can motivate myself.<span style=""> </span>My only concern is choosing a truly worthwhile project to work on.<span style=""> </span>My means and ends are reflections of each other.<span style=""> </span>What I mean by this is that my work ethic will by and large be determined by how I perceive the goals of whatever project I happen to be engaged in just as the way I work at this project, that is, the authenticity of my intentionality (which only I can really know) will by and large determine the success or failure of any such project.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The truth is I cannot wait to get out into the “real world” and apply my philosophies.<span style=""> </span>The plurality of my theories maintains a necessary albeit ambiguous tension in which a judgment has never been made yet is simultaneously already always made.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to take sides, but I want to take action.<span style=""> </span>I know this will require some compromises in my ideology and that is fine, but I guess my concern is that I will fall into one camp and cease being self-critical.<span style=""> </span>The book is never closed.<span style=""> </span>To work is to, first and foremost, work on oneself within oneself.<span style=""> </span>To constantly examine and reexamine why one does what one does.<span style=""> </span>To strive to be as honest with oneself as one possibly can. Such is never easy.<span style=""> </span>It can even drive you insane with hyperconsciousness and self-induced alienation (like everything else, there is a time and a place for philosophy, know when this time and place is requires trial and error, thus pissing of one’s friends with your “constructive criticism” is unavoidable at least in my experience).<span style=""> </span>Once again, it all comes down to motivation and inspiration.<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Philosophy inspires me to see my ends and means as one in the same</span>.<span style=""> </span>Thus, I work both for the ends of a salary, social acceptance, a sense of moral responsibility, and for the means of enjoying the present and struggling through it not as some sacrifice for a future benefit but because the struggle is what defines me.<span style=""> </span>Only the struggle can give meaning to my life in the present.<span style=""> </span>Try as I might I am unable to deceive myself on this point, so I work and work to give meaning through the transcendence within the immanence in my everyday life.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-23296681563583615312007-04-28T15:16:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:15:58.957-05:00Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #1 Logical Analysis of an Argument<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Logical Analysis<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">P1:<span style=""> </span>old people shouldn’t be allowed to drive</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">T1</b>:<span style=""> </span>neither should any dangerous driver, regardless of age</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">P3:<span style=""> </span>bill would restrict all old drivers even one’s that are excellent drives</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P4:<span style=""> </span>It’s no more credible to say that elderly citizens are poor drivers than saying that all young people are good drivers</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">P5:<span style=""> </span>avoid driving on high ways</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P6:<span style=""> </span>avoid driving during traffic</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P7:<span style=""> </span>just drive locally</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P8:<span style=""> </span>avoid driving under the influence of drugs and or alcohol</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P9:<span style=""> </span>not often given to distractions of loud music</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P10:<span style=""> </span>avoid talking on cellphones when driving</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P12:<span style=""> </span>avoid driving at night</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P13: don’t go 85 mph</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">T2</b>:<span style=""> </span>Seniors are more cautious drivers</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">P11:<span style=""> </span>The proposed requirments would impose rules for everyone regardless of ability.<span style=""> </span>I’m reluctant to classify everybody in the same boat and restrict these folks</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">P14:<span style=""> </span>Accidents involving seniors involve more serious<span style=""> </span>injuries</p> <p class="MsoNormal">P15:<span style=""> </span>Seniors more prone to injury</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">T3</b>:<span style=""> </span>Not cause and effect but simply attributable to the effect that seniors are more prone to injury</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">T4</b>:<span style=""> </span>Threatening to remove or restrict driving privileges is very stressful to the elderly.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This argument contained a number of fallacies, and while I cannot identify the specific kind of fallacies committed in this argument I can show you where they can be found.<span style=""> </span>The first thesis or conclusion is a perfectly sound point, yet it fails to address the question of whether or not all seniors should <i style="">unconditionally</i> be allowed to drive.<span style=""> </span>The proposed new rules would only restrict driving privileges to those seniors who failed eye exams not to all seniors indiscriminately, which consequently and resolutely refutes the third premise.<span style=""> </span>The fourth premise is a particular kind of fallacy the name of which I have on the tip of my tongue but can’t quite recall.<span style=""> </span>This statement serves as a distraction from the real argument at hand, that being whether all seniors, including those with failing health, should be allowed to drive and instead seeks to divert the readers attention to the well-documented poor driving records of many youths.<span style=""> </span>Premises five through 13 could all be refuted on the grounds of each statements unsoundness.<span style=""> </span>They are all hasty generalizations (ha I finally remembered the name of a fallacy) in that they overgeneralize stereotypes and take them as facts.<span style=""> </span>Despite the unsoundness of these premises, their conclusion in thesis two can be deemed valid in that if these premises were true they could logically lead to the statement that seniors are more cautious drivers.<span style=""> </span>I believe this statement implies that seniors are better than young drivers or perhaps the author means they are better than all drivers.<span style=""> </span>In any case the ambiguity of this phrasing can leave one wondering who seniors are really better than when it comes to driving.<span style=""> </span>Premise eleven is absolutely ludicrous.<span style=""> </span>What’s the matter with grouping everyone together and giving them all an equal opportunity to prove their driving merit.<span style=""> </span>While premises fourteen and fifteen are both sound the conclusion is not valid as it fails to address other attributes of seniors that might contribute to the fact that seniors suffer more serious injuries when involved in accidents.<span style=""> </span>The last statement may be true but it doesn’t hold well in an argument<span style=""> </span>as seniors’ stress is an insufficient condition to avoid testing their eye sight to secure that only healthy seeing seniors are on the roads. </p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-12749000667651780172007-04-28T15:14:00.000-05:002007-04-28T15:16:21.867-05:00my intellectual/philosophical journey<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">My Intellectual Journey <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style=""> </span></b>How did I come to think the way I do?<span style=""> </span>How did I come to see the world as I do?<span style=""> </span>I often reflect on these questions, and my reflection takes me back to roots of my intellectual journey in my childhood.<span style=""> </span>Both of my parents went to graduate school and both of them love to read and talk about what they read.<span style=""> </span>My intellectual roots are surely found in my introduction to books at an early age.<span style=""> </span>I’d love to be read to as a young child, yet actually learning how to read was significantly less pleasurable.<span style=""> </span>I struggled mightily through about 3<sup>rd</sup> grade.<span style=""> </span>I was easily frustrated as I yearned for everything to come easily.<span style=""> </span>Once I had finally yearned how to read I still saw myself as stupid.<span style=""> </span>I can remember in 5<sup>th</sup> grade being the “snack time monitor”.<span style=""> </span>Every day at 10:15 I’d announce to the class that it was snack time.<span style=""> </span>I enjoyed this role, this identity, yet whenever I tried to contribute to any group projects (such as a stock market project we had over a two month period) I was denied a voice.<span style=""> </span>I was told time and time again by my classmates to leave the real work to them and just worry about letting everyone know when it was snack time. The funny thing is after 5<sup>th</sup> grade came middle school and in middle school we got letter grades for the first time.<span style=""> </span>It was then that I began to see that many of those same kids who had called me stupid were actually getting much worse grades than myself.<span style=""> </span>I began to see that just because I didn’t have the loudest voice didn’t mean that I didn’t have things to say, things that both my teachers and my classmates might actually want to hear.<span style=""> </span>I certainly have more confidence in my intellect today, yet I firmly believe that at least subconsciously this fear of being seen as stupid festers beneath my skin.<span style=""> </span>What really ticks me off is the way so many people, including myself internalize these notions of stupidity and fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby they fail because they feel destined to fail.<span style=""> </span>In most cases I’d say people who call other people stupid are doing so not with any objectively truthful analysis but simply out of their own insecurities.<span style=""> </span>My pushing someone down and standing on their head one feels taller, stronger and better for it.<span style=""> </span>So sad yet so true, no matter how conscious I may be of it I’d be lying if I said I was exempt from this practice.<span style=""> </span>I don’t think anyone’s exempt but to be aware of it is the first step in changing any such behavior.<span style=""> </span>More than anything else the empathy I garnered through my elementary school experience has inspired me to speak out for others in such a position.<span style=""> </span>No one, in my opinion, is ever born stupid.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Despite my newly realized intellectual abilities in middle school I continued to experience a huge degree of the same frustration I once had learning how to read in math.<span style=""> </span>Math still pisses me off to this day because it’s so black or white, right or wrong, with no wiggle room in between.<span style=""> </span>I think that’s what has drawn me to philosophy.<span style=""> </span>It’s a trade off you see.<span style=""> </span>While I am never absolutely wrong, I can never settle.<span style=""> </span>I can never rest because there’s always more work to be done.<span style=""> </span>Only in the last year or so have a realized that philosophy is not ( at least to me) about finding Plato’s forms or knowing the world a priori.<span style=""> </span>It is ironic because my attraction to philosophy was motivated both by my frustration with the true-false duality of mathematics and by my desire to know the truth (as if such <i style="">Truth</i>) was just, as Baylor Johnson might say, hiding under some rock waiting to be found.<span style=""> </span>I saw power in philosophy, in the ability to comprehend what others deemed incomprehensible.<span style=""> </span>It allowed me to prove once and for all that yes I am smarter than you.<span style=""> </span>Thus, my own intellectual insecurity had a lot to do with my decision to major in philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I think I’ve matured a lot since my initial positions at college.<span style=""> </span>I’ve come to understand that no matter how much truth I may find in philosophy, philosophy is not foundational and that other academic disciplines potentially have just as much to over as philosophy.<span style=""> </span>I can’t know the Truth, because there is no truth.<span style=""> </span>As Nietzsche would say there are only interpretations.<span style=""> </span>This realization is most liberating.<span style=""> </span>The problem persists nonetheless as most people continue to cling to this notion of objective truth.<span style=""> </span>Thus the way I feel forced to present myself and my philosophy is in such a way as to stress the imperatives that what I am saying is the Truth and if you disagree then you are wrong.<span style=""> </span>It’s all about arguing.<span style=""> </span>It’s all about power, and what I’m really struggling (this is not to say that I don’t appreciate and at times even enjoy the struggle) with is finding a way to get inside the system in order to change it.<span style=""> </span>To do so requires that I work with and through the rhetoric of binary logic.<span style=""> </span>As an English teacher once told me in high school, <i style="">to break the rules you have to first know the rules</i>.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>What really inspires me is the possibility of revolutionizing my own language in order to find a dialectic between absolutism and relativism.<span style=""> </span>Much of what I am saying now is inspired by the philosophy Gianni Vattimo who illuminates the fact that while many contemporary philosophers reject absolutism in theory but in their own philosophical writing they continue to argue with binary logic.<span style=""> </span>My mission, my question is how to simultaneously change my own self-presentation and discourse and change the way the world discourses with itself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>So let’s get back to the story, that is, the story of how I became philosophical.<span style=""> </span>I was always a day dreamer.<span style=""> </span>I had my head in the clouds throughout middle school, and struggled to focus on the class material.<span style=""> </span>By my last year and a half of high school I was beginning to discover an outlet for all my mind’s seemingly aimless meanderings.<span style=""> </span>I found the golden ticket in books introduced to me by a few wonderful English teachers.<span style=""> </span>I am so grateful to them in hindsight as they showed me that it was ok to learn what I wanted to learn.<span style=""> </span>Of course I still had to be academic about it, but the humanities offered me an opportunity to really pursue my own intellectual development on my own terms.<span style=""> </span>Once I got to college I found that I still needed some intellectual structure but that the freedom of choosing what I wanted to study and when was most liberating and really allowed me to do what I do today.<span style=""> </span>I really crack myself up sometimes.<span style=""> </span>I rebel for the sake of rebelling.<span style=""> </span>For instance, my parents always make me do the dishes at home, but at school I do them completely voluntarily.<span style=""> </span>Not only do I get more done when it’s my own decision to work but it’s just much more enjoyable knowing that you somehow willed yourself to do what you do rather than having to be prodded by some external authority or institution for necessary motivation.<span style=""> </span>Yet I also know that I need structure and that different people learn differently and thus need different degrees of such externally induced structure.<span style=""> </span>What I really like doing now is choosing to be structured, that is, putting myself in a position where I am held accountable both by myself but also by some externality that pushes me like I could never push myself.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>My first really liberating and inspiring philosophical experience came during my February break of my junior year in high school when my teacher gave us all an assignment to attempt some nature writing.<span style=""> </span>We were studying the transcendentalists at the time so in the spirit of Thoreau and Emerson we were instructed to go into a forest or even just our back yards, to be in nature, and to simply write what ever comes to mind.<span style=""> </span>I loved my first taste of feeling completely separated, free from the bonds of societal expectations as I wrote under a tree in the woods behind my house.<span style=""> </span>It was my escape.<span style=""> </span>It made me feel one with the world but at the same time somewhat self-alienated from society.<span style=""> </span>I found that most people in my class really detested the assignment and I felt the complete opposite sentiment.<span style=""> </span>This event really symbolizes what has been my philosophy.<span style=""> </span>Escaping into the ivory tower <i style="">I want to see from above so I can be from above.<span style=""> </span></i>Yet I’ve come to realize that reality can not really be transcended, but I can transcend myself but only by going through myself.<span style=""> </span>I have to be honest with my self.<span style=""> </span>I have to be self-critical.<span style=""> </span>And as I direct my focus inwards I find that I am also projecting this honest and constructive criticism outwards onto my parents, close friends, and most especially society at large.<span style=""> </span>This can and in many cases has been problematic, but I won’t stop trying.<span style=""> </span>As Plato once showed us, once one sees the light there is no turning back.<span style=""> </span>One must go through insanity in order to find saneness.<span style=""> </span>So as I introspect I nag myself to remember that I’m not doing it just for myself, but for the world, because I have to live in the world.<span style=""> </span>There is no escaping it.<span style=""> </span>Thus, I could not live with myself if I avoided this confrontation with myself, because I cannot escape myself, but I can change myself and change the world at the same time.<span style=""> </span>It is not a matter of choosing one or the other but of consciously integrating both into action. </p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-51288813747370824662007-04-28T15:12:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:15:37.612-05:00metaphysical views<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><b style=""><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" >What is</span></b><span style=";font-family:";color:black;" > <b>Metaphysics</b> ?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">There is no fixed nature of reality, and assuming otherwise would be to neglect the ever dynamic ontology of our world. Reality, in my view, constitutes the ever shifting <i>internal </i>arrangement of different parts of reality, yet these parts are throughout the entirety of this shifting process interconnected. I stress that this arrangement is internal in that my philosophy has moved away from the Platonic and Christian tradition that there exists some great creator or perfect Form(s) beyond the reality we perceive everyday. My understanding of metaphysics is now heavily influenced by existential thought, particularly Nietzsche and Sartre, and Buddhist thought. My understanding of Nietzsche has been greatly enhanced through a book by the Italian philosopher/politician Gianni Vattimo, <i>Nihilism and Emancipations</i>. In this work, Vattimo argues that when Nietzsche declared the famous line, “God is dead”, he meant more than God and the Christian Dogma. He meant that all fixed and overarching notions of reality, which he calls the <i>metaphysical</i>, must be abandoned. Thus what Nietzsche truly meant was that replacing one dogma or metaphysic with another (let's say science or economics) fails to solve the problem. These metaphysical illusions of certainty, or <i>horizons, </i>as Nietzsche puts it creates competition between different metaphysics and impedes the potential for a metaphysical collaboration which illuminates the necessary linkages between the diversity of our subjective realities. This necessary and inherent interdependence and interconnectiveness is further supported and inspired by Buddhism which seeks to <i>destroy the self</i> not in any passively nihilistic sense but rather insofar that as long as we perceive the self as an isolated individual ego we will fail to recognize our connections with not only fellow humans but our environment in general. I will return to the Buddhist notion of self later in this section. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">Another strong influence in my own understanding of metaphysics is Walter Mignolo, who writes extensively about what he calls the <i>Colonial Difference</i>. What I think Mignolo does a superb job of showing through his explanation and illumination of the <i>colonial difference</i> is that the realities of Latin America and <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> are not as distinct as is typically assumed. <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> wants to take all the credit for its colonial empires, which laid the foundation for their post-colonial economic oppression of third world countries. The truth remains that <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> was not the center of the world system (to use a term coined by the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein) until after 1492. If it wasn't for the cheap labor and resources of Latin America, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Spain</st1:place></st1:country-region>, to give but one example, never would have become the superpower that it did. The point I'm trying to make here is that the ontology of Latin America and <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> were codependent following 1492. They wouldn't have existed as they did if it wasn't for their relationships with one another. This claim seems commonsensical yet just look at the philosophies of some of the great German philosophers such as Hegel, Kant and Habermas, and you will see that they perceived (and continue to perceive in the case of Habermas) <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place>'s dominance over the rest of the world as an individual accomplishment, as a competition in which they ultimately came out on top. Survival of the fittest arguments neglect that hegemonies rely on legitimating power just as much as accumulating it. Just look at how the Spanish conquistadors and European colonialism ad infinitum alleged that they were saving the natives' souls from barbarism by introducing them to Christianity. Furthermore, the more <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> seeks full credit for its colonial exploits, the more it is able to justify its intellectual and material supremacy of the rest of the world. Continuing headstrong into our post-colonial or post-modern era, by virtue of <i>them </i>being backwards <i>we</i> must save them through economic development. This logic is invalid in that it <i>covers over </i>(Mignolo) Europe's history of dependence on <st1:place st="on">Latin America</st1:place> for the resources and labor necessary to build its empires. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">Perhaps I got a little too much into the history here, but the point I'm trying to make is that cultures hardly ever exist in isolation from one another, especially in 2007. Presupposing otherwise leads to disastrous consequences both in the West's justification for economic exploitation and the clinging to cultural essentialism through both Christian and Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Just as important a realization is that cultures are not monolithic. There is no overarching Christian culture, for instance, that applies to all Christians, and to assume so would be to make a gross over generalization. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">So what is the self? Am I real? Are you real? <span style="font-style: italic;">We are all real not because we are but because we are together</span>. I never would believe this if it wasn't for my philosophical turn towards the East in my spring semester of my junior year when I took both Asian Philosophy and Focus on a Philosopher: Watsuji Tetsuro. According to Watsuji one is not fully human until one sees oneself (and acts as) both an individual and a member of a community, that is, what Watsuji calls <i>Ningen. </i>What is real is the connections and the incessant negotiations <i>between </i>individuality and sociality. “Ningen denotes the unity of these contradictions” (Watsuji, Ethics). Watsuji's notion of self was heavily influenced by Buddhism in that, as already mentioned, Buddhism sees the self as an obstacle so long as this self is perceived as isolated and independent from the greater social whole. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">I look at myself and can't help but scowl in the reflection of my ego's hegemony. Every act's justification must please my self, even if indirectly, before addressing the needs of others. Perhaps merely seeing others and labeling others as others is my problem. They are in me just as I am in them. I think through language and what is language but an attempt to communicate with these others. Why have I been perverted? Must I take full responsibility for this clinging to the individual. Who shall lead the coup but my own volition. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">Above all I must go through my ego for there is no escaping it. Why relieve suffering when you can use it. Go through it , trudge through it, breath it, bleed it, share it, laugh at it, feel it not to feel it. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">To see the true self we must peel back its layers of self-deceit. We must uncover what has been covered over; in our history, in our theory, in our actions. To do both is to live. To die (to not slaughter the ego but to befriend it, to show it that it is not the sun but a planet and a glorious planet indeed) is to be born again in a new light, in a new role. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><span style="color:black;">Perhaps the ego is ironically the source of altruism. According to Emily Dickinson, “The greatest compensation in life is that one cannot help another without also helping oneself”.<span style=""> </span>I personally, do not consider this a compensation but rather an indication of our basic relational ontology.<span style=""> </span>Our self simply cannot exist outside of its relations with other selves.<span style=""> </span>We are like the jewel net of Indra in Buddhism, constantly reflecting the light of other beings, these reflections are in us in our necessary betweenness in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-11718842619874100672007-04-28T15:11:00.001-05:002007-05-10T18:00:44.107-05:00epistemological views<p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><b>What is Epistemology? </b></p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">How do we know what we know? Is it because <i>they</i> tell us so or do we really know? Do we accept truths through a critical evaluation, and in many cases contrary to what society, religion and our parents tell us?<br /></p><p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">Much of the philosophical tradition in the West constitutes a revolution from the dogmatic “truths” of cultural traditions and political hegemonies. Some examples of this are evident in Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau and Marx. As Hegel once said philosophy ought to turn the world on its head and infuse a healthy skepticism towards all cultural norms. This idea of individual epistemic transcendence has permeated philosophy since Plato's allegory of the caves, yet knowing as an individual has never been sufficient not even for Plato. The greatest epistemic challenge, in my mind, is applying and sharing that knowledge in and with one's community, and furthermore individually and collectively facilitating dialogue that is epistemologically beneficial between different communities How does one avoid appearing as a crazed lunatic? How can one communicate knowledge? </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">According to Walter Mignolo, “To answer the question we must question the question”. I apply this assertion to epistemology in that in order to solve the problem of induction whereby one subjective truth can be extended and generalized into an objective truth, we must question the basic premise of epistemology in the Western tradition and that is that knowledge ought to be pursued individually rather than socially. The logic of this argument has some truth to it in that only by separating oneself from a community may one ever hope to objectively analyze that community in order for one's analysis to avoid being skewed by emotional biases. The problem with this logic is that there is a prescription necessarily encoded into every description. What I mean is that we pursue knowledge for a reason, for an end, whether to satisfy our own curiosity, for a pay check, or for a political reason just to mention a few of our unavoidable connections to what we study and why. A lot of my academic focus this past year has been devoted to debunking this <i>myth of objectivity </i>through such classes as Sociology of Knowledge and Feminist Philosophies. My experience studying feminist epistemologies and the reading by Bernstein in Metaphilosophy about cutting through the Objectivism-Relativism dichotomy has made me comfortable with accepting something like what Lorraine Code terms a <i>mitigated relativism</i> (Code, <i>Taking Subjectivity into Account)</i>. In addition, Vattimo (who I mentioned in my entry on metaphysics) has further articulated this idea that epistemology ought to be more about collaboration, albeit a critical one, than competition. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I believe that we ought to strive for objectivity and never be content with epistemic or cultural relativism. When I say I support relativism I say this for a very necessary and contingent reason, that is, <span style="font-style: italic;">I support relativism insofar as it facilitates dialogue</span> rather than being content with one's individual truth and/or one's cultures truth. I consent with Vattimo's argument that an epistemology based on consensus is a constant work in progress and requires a great deal of patience to pursue. We must learn to live with uncertainty. We must learn, as many feminist philosophers argue, to approach learning on a case by case basis through an explicit awareness of the spatio-temporal context. As Lynn Hankinson Nelson argues in her work <i>Epistemological Communities</i>, “your knowing or our knowing depends on our knowing- for some `we'” (Nelson, 124). To know more about our world we must critically consider why we seek to know in the first place. Moreover, by allowing more people to play significant roles in the production of knowledge we are expanding and creating a dialogue in and between epistemological communities. Just think, even when we are learning about something for a job for a salary how often is the fruit of that labor not just for oneself but to support one's family. At first glance many of us seek knowledge for apparently selfish reasons, for money, for power, for fame, but underneath our veil of individualism lies social relationships that constitute our most essential ontology. Thus, when we seek to know let's take a moment to consider for whom we are knowing for. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">Approaching epistemology within the context of its production requires an awareness of the political motivations and contexts inherent in all knowledge production. Knowledge is not pursued for some neutral end, for some general fascination with the accumulation of knowledge, but rather “Traditional epistemology has a concealed political purpose: to support the dominant elite” (Addelson- <i>Knower/Doers and Their Moral Problems</i>). <span style="font-style: italic;">Philosophy must show itself for what it is if it ever hopes to become what it is not</span>. What I mean by this is that if philosophy is going to serve the critical role that I think we have assumed it to play (at least since Hegel) we must be aware of elitist complicity so prevalent in professional philosophy in addition to all academia. Even feminist philosophies, which almost universally perceive themselves as subversive of patriarchal and hegemonic traditions, can often find themselves hiding out in their ivory towers as they are unconscious of their complicity to the status quo. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">Philosophy is far too theoretical in my opinion. I just read a fascinating work by Kathryn Pryne Addelson called <i>Knower/Doers and Their Moral Problems</i> which addresses this issue from a feminist perspective. I am also persuaded to pursue this argument from Vattimo, who argues that philosophy needs to stop holding out the hope that it will someday return to its foundationalist throne and instead open up to dialogue with such other disciplines such as but in now way limited to sociology. The question we should ask ourselves as philosophers is not whether we can defend our knowledge claims with abstract conceptual analysis or even “rational argumentation”, but how our knowledge claims can be and are implemented in the social world. Besides pumping up one's ego and gaining one professional prestige, it is my view that, <span style="font-style: italic;">a philosophical work has absolutely no real value unless it actually has an impact on the world</span>. Thus I consent to Addelson's assertions that philosophy should move toward, “Taking knowledge as a dynamic process, not as a product to be justified, as traditional epistemologies have done” (Addelson, 268-269). To do this will require that philosophers get their heads out of their books and get their hands dirty. It will require philosophers to empirically verify the applications of their knowledge claims in the social arena. It will require philosophers to engage in dialogue with more than just other philosophers. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">What it comes down to is that we cannot know alone and even together knowing is never a finished project. Philosophy, in the western tradition, while time and time again assuming to have unlocked the ultimate box of answers has merely contributed to the historical dialogue that supplies the philosophers of today and tomorrow an ever growing foundation from which to commence their own philosophical inquiries. The cumulative history of philosophy is truly a dialectical process where two views, while sharing something in common, merge and transcend their respective initial views through a collaborative dialogue with different and necessarily disagreeing fellow philosophers. It is only because each philosopher has a distinct approach to understanding reality that the dialogue can expand into unchartered territory. The irony of distinctions synthesizing into unity is strikingly evident in such examples of the progression from Hegel to Marx and on and on into the Marxist tradition. Philosophy can only benefit from enhancing the diversity of contributors to this dialogue. It will require patience, time and most of all a willingness to adapt one's own philosophy to something beyond the dominant paradigms in the western tradition. The current specializations in philosophy and through academia at large are most unconducive to facilitating a more holistic and inclusive understanding of our shared reality. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">In conclusion, how can we see the same thing if we all are looking at it from different angles, through the inherent distinctions in our individual subjectivities? How can we share a single objective and absolute Truth? Returning to Mignolo's assertion that to answer the question we must question the question, we can't see one Truth or one reality but we shouldn't have to because this question is the wrong question to ask. <span style="font-style: italic;">The question we ought to be asking ourselves is not how we can get them to see what we see, but rather how we can share with each other what we both already see</span>. We can't see the same thing, because our way of looking at it is always going to be particular in some way, but if we really want to know it is not about winning any argument but rather about opening up the philosophical dialogue to anyone and everyone (inside and outside the philosophical community). As is a popular argument in refutation of relativism, won't judgments have to be eventually made whereby one truth is adopted as the truth over other equally subjective truths? My response to this is that yes, judgments will have to be made but let us not make them prematurely. Before we decide on the truths our society out to live by and internalize let us listen to all those who have been denied a voice for so long, because they have something to say, something I believe we all deserve and need to hear. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-82695711658185373902007-04-28T15:10:00.000-05:002007-05-10T17:50:10.686-05:00Ethical Views<p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><b><span style=";font-family:";" >What are Ethics?</span></b><span style=";font-family:";" > <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">According to Watsuji Tetsuro to be fully human is to be ethical which is to live in the betweenness of individuality and sociality. I believe that this incessant double negation between individuality and sociality is the foundation of my ethical philosophy. It is my contention that too many people in the West approach ethical questions without being sufficiently conscious of their social relations. What is it to live the good life? This question is about you as an individual making decisions that to determine your own individual lifestyle and ethical volition. In this ever transient and ever globalizing society of 2007 many people feel uprooted and forced to turn only to themselves for their futures. I wish people wouldn't feel so alone. It's good to have self-responsibility but we are inherently and necessarily social beings, and thus we ought to regard our social relations not as financial burdens (whether aging parents or young children) but as sources of inspirations for comfort and facilitators of personal compassion and empathy that have the potential to be extended into our wider and ever widening global community. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I want to be a bodhisattva. I want to learn through my experience and “when I get to the top of the mountain keep climbing” (Jack Kerouac, <i>Dharma Bums)</i>. My own personal enlightenment is never completed until I can share that knowledge and experience with all people. <span style="font-style: italic;">I am never there yet always there as long as I remember the intention of my journey</span>. But I am aware of what I ought to be and more importantly of what I ought to do, the next step is to apply this knowledge and through this application aquire a deeper and more practical understanding of why I study what I study and why I do what I do. The fact remains that my ethical ideals are not static, and while I claim to know how to live ethically I cannot truly know nor internalize any ethical principle or action without living it. As Feminist Philosopher Laurraine Code puts it, "Inquiry grows out of and turns back to action, to practice" (<span style="font-style: italic;">Taking Subjectivity Into Account</span>, 40-41). As I'm sure you will see in my entries on my epistemological views and metaphysical views, my epistemological, metaphysical and ethical philosophical positions are intimately and necessarily interconnected.<br /></p><p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I do not believe wholeheartedly in the universal rationalism of Kant in that if there is one thing I know it is that I won't know until I am living in it, and thus ethics must be contextual and make judgments both with overarching principles yet ultimately in consideration of the particular case at hand. Therefore, I admit that I have a long way to go in my own ethical development. I have studied many ethical theories but I see absolutely no value in such theories until they can be applied and assessed in the context of their practice. For me to live a good life I must not just think critically but live critically. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I despise Political Correctness because I think it merely serves to cover over Evil and push it to another place and fuel its incessant insurgency. I am strongly influenced here by the French philosopher Alain Badiou. Let the evil have a seat at the table and let's see it for what it really is. By allowing it to show itself for whatever it is, we will be much better prepared to work with and struggle against Evil. I say work with because I would argue that Evil is everywhere, including inside each and every one of us. How can one wage a war against oneself? How can one know oneself without admitting to all of one's predicates?<br /></p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I believe that justice ought to be considered socially and communally as well as individually. Sometimes individual justice and meritocracy in fact covers over the social injustice in many communities. Just take for example, the story of Sebastian Telfair who growing up in a rough neighborhood in <st1:place st="on">Coney Island</st1:place>, NYC was able to go straight from high school into the NBA. Telfair certainly gave back to his community once he got his first pay check, and an ESPN documentary depicted the neighborhood as on the rise following Telfair's success, yet how much has really changed in that neighborhood or any neighborhood that has had one or even a few members turn pro in some sport or become a famous musician or actor. Moreover, what kind of a message does this send to children in those communities. Sure do well in school, but as I'm sure you already have gathered the school you go to ain't the greatest, so if you really want to get your family out of the ghetto you better practice your b-ball. The only way that justice can be enacted is if it is done on a social scale. People should be rewarded for their individual hard work, but they should also be granted equal opportunities to achieve such successes. As things stand now in this country, “the myth of meritocracy” serves as a most efficient illusion and impediment towards the implementation of any authentic social justice. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">I believe that ethics needs to be more centered in our everyday lives, and I believe this necessarily entails a greater awareness of our social relationships and overall environment. Ethics should not be viewed in the abstract, and while such thought experiments as Kant's <i>categorical imperative </i>and John Rawls' <i>original position</i> allow one to universalize one's actions they are too individualistic in their most basic premise. I love to read the works of Kant, Rawls, and most especially J.S. Mills yet their liberal ideology presupposes that humans are from the start isolated individuals. I believe this premise that humans begin as individuals is most problematic in that the hegemonic economic logic that presupposes while we are all distinct individuals we all have an equal knowledge of the economic relationships we are entering into. <span style="font-style: italic;">We need ethics not because once in a while our individual lanes intersect (as Mill might argue) but because our lanes are shared from the start</span>. We cannot and should not avoid social relationships because upon a close examination, we are what we are in relation to our relations. Now while we may be more than the products of our environment, no matter how individualistic we may be we can never escape our environment and the nexus of social relationships such necessarily entails. We can change this context but we can never escape it. </p> <p style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;">In my mind to live ethically requires above all things empathy. We must both theoretically reason what it would be like to be in another's shoes, as in Kant's categorical imperative, but more pertinently we must experience first hand as much as we can in order to garner a lived understanding of other's lives. I realize that I can never live the life of, for example, a black woman, but I can listen to her story. I suppose that's what my ethical and epistemological theory comes down to in one word; <span style="font-style: italic;">listening</span>.<span style=""> </span>Only by listening can we ever hope to live ethically.</p>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-24815011371031420792007-02-18T17:35:00.000-05:002007-05-10T17:37:49.598-05:00<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>Philosophy Map</strong></span><br />To map philosophy would necessitate a certain hierarchy within philosophy. Historically (as demonstrated in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy) this mapping centers more “objective” sub-disciplines such as Logic with Epistemology and Metaphysics. I do most certainly consent to this intimate and necessary relation between Epistemology and Metaphysics and acknowledge the consistency of precision the Logic so wields. I have no problem with the application of Logic insofar as it resists the urge so persistent in the sciences quest for objectivity whereby it detaches truth claims from value claims. The benefits from doing this is a purely abstract or theoretical sense are self-evident, yet when applied and even when constructed the values of logicians themselves are sure to leave their mark on the allegedly “value-free” proofs. This is not to say that one should not strive for an absolute truth, but simply that the means by which we pursue such a goal out to be hermeneutically pursued. The inter-relatedness between philosophical disciplines ought to be more fully illuminated. While philosophy prides itself on the competitive nature of contrasting arguments, whereby the dialectic synthesis two distinct ideas, thus allowing these ideas to transcend into a greater understanding, this process requires a certain reciprocity and openness to constructive criticism that I find alarmingly absent throughout academic philosophy (even in my own philosophy).<br /> It is my heartfelt belief that philosophy ought not to aspire to “foundationalism” and abandon its quest for an ultimate truth from the confines of a singular position, thus within philosophy itself, there ought to be no center of which the remainder of sub-disciplines are subservient to. Instead while acknowledging the need for certain leadership, which I shall grant to Logic, Epistemology, Metaphysics and also Ethics(in order to infuse the cogitation of value within all philosophy), I advocate a truly democratic structure throughout the discipline. My personal philosophical orientation would focus on, but never be limited to, Ethics, Epistemology, Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, Latin American Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy (the latter three I argue have been all unjustly marginalized within contemporary philosophy).Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-69843595699476519822007-02-03T14:17:00.000-05:002007-02-03T14:18:55.443-05:00Library Project: Phase 2<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html">http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html</a><br /> This is an unbelievable site for any philosophical inquiries/research, as I have used it on multiple occasions in the past. It was introduced to me by Professor McCarthy during our Watsuji class last spring.<br /><a href="http://www.erraticimpact.com/">http://www.erraticimpact.com/</a><br /> From what I saw this looks like a really thorough site.<br /><a href="http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/index.html">http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/index.html</a><br /> I’ve used this site before on many occasions when researching jobs and grad programs in philosophy.<br /><a href="http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSPrefs?entityjsdetect=:javascript=true:screensize=large:sessionid=fsapp2-56857-exjosbs2-ohern5:entitypagenum=1:0">http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSPrefs?entityjsdetect=:javascript=true:screensize=large:sessionid=fsapp2-56857-exjosbs2-ohern5:entitypagenum=1:0</a><br /> This search engine for philosophical texts yielded some extremely thorough results when I ran a few searches. I was quite impressed.<br /><a href="http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/philo.htm">http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/philo.htm</a><br /> This site was also quite thorough, yet, as has become a general trend throughout this project, non Western sources were severely limited at best.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-42697713613152977132007-02-03T14:12:00.000-05:002007-02-03T14:17:22.258-05:00Library Project: Phase 1, Part BKersey, Ethel. 1989. Women Philosophies. Greenwood Press: New York, NY.<br /> This reference was particularly interesting to me as I am taking Feminist Philosophies in addition to a Feminist Sociology course this semester.<br />Bales, Engen. 1987. A Ready Reference to Philosophy East and West. University of America Press: Lanham, MD.<br /> This reference was, although not surprisingly, disappointing in that it has the audacity to call itself East and West yet of the 10 chapters in the book, only two were about Eastern Philosophy and these chapters were respectively confined to the philosophies of India and China.<br />Buswell, Robert. 2004. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. MacMillan Reference: New York, NY.<br /> I’ve had a fascination with Buddhist Philosophy for quite some time and this looked like a really informative reference which I might use in the future.<br />McGreal, Ian. 1961. Worldly Philosophy. Salem Press: Englewood, NJ<br />Degeorge, Richard. 1980. The Philosophers Guide. The Regents Press of Kansas. Lawrence, KA.<br /> These last two sources, while seemingly informative, still bothered me with what has become philosophies universal fallacy of claiming universality while simultaneously limiting its scope to almost exclusively Western philosophies.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-89294562821328230372007-02-03T14:11:00.000-05:002007-05-10T17:36:46.793-05:00What is Philosophy?To ask what philosophy is necessitates one to ask what is philosophy becoming. The nature of philosophy has greatly evolved over time, yet what persists throughout its evolution is an attempt to somehow transcend one’s subjective limitations and know the world as God knows it. Philosophy constitutes a synthesis between the particular and the universal, the subjective and the objective, opinion and Truth. My problem with much philosophy, particularly Platonic and Christian, is that it creates dichotomies between the good and the bad, heaven and hell, true and false, when in reality we live in a single world. The truth is more complex than black or white. This becomes the danger of abstract philosophizing, which seems to believe, for instance, the Plato’s Forms exist independent of the reality in which they are pursued. Thus, to Plato, in order to discover the truth one must be prepared to abandon one’s world and as an atomized individual transcend this world into some higher more universal realm.<br />This process of pursuing truth has two sides, albeit one is typically severely neglected. We look at the rise of modernity as if it was an autonomous creation of Europe’s superior intellect, yet it was only after 1492 that Europe became the center of <span style="font-style: italic;">the world system</span> (Immanuel Wallerstein). This is an issue that I explored in some depth during my Latin Philosophy Class last semester. Through the readings of such philosophers as Walter Mignolo and Enrique Dussel, our class explored some of the overwhelmingly Eurocentric biases of such great German philosophers as Kant, Hegel and Habermas. Since Germany is the home to much of what we call philosophy it seems quite necessary to expose the context in which such philosophy was actually created. In short, without the radical transformation in material conditions afforded by the seemingly infinite abundance of resources and labor in the New World, the rise of modernity never would have taken place. This illuminates my problem with analytic philosophy. On one side, their focus on logic is necessary, however, it is in no way sufficient as it frequently neglects the time and space in and through which any philosophical work is created.<br />Another problem I have with the way much philosophy has been conducted is that it has relied on the assumption that the most objective philosophy is the product of atomized individuals. Given the problem of induction, the difficulties of transitioning from a subjective to an objective understanding of the world are quite considerable. <span style="font-style: italic;">How can one know the whole if one’s perspective is limited to but a particular part?</span> Broadening one’s perspective by actively collaborating with other members of a community is necessary albeit still insufficient to gaining a completely objective understanding of the world. Nonetheless, this is a necessary step, in that in a sense, it allows one to transcend the confines of one’s own biases and insufficiencies of experience, in order to not only know the world more objectively, but perhaps even more importantly to live more ethically and thus peacefully within both one’s local community and the global community. Perhaps Kant was right and we can never know the noumena, yet <span style="font-style: italic;">life does not necessitate us to know so much as it necessitates us to live</span>. By creating an absolutely inclusive dialogue between all members of one’s community and also between different communities, one is able to facilitate a democratic epistemology and ethics. This epistemology and ethics must be reciprocal and allow for constructive criticism that transcends the traditional hierarchy of knowledge production in which knowledge is seen as being passed down, vessel to vessel, from the teacher to the student. The teacher can also learn and the student can also teach for both have a subjectively limited worldview and thus both can mutually benefit from a truly open communal approach to both knowing and living ethically.<br />In my opinion, philosophy needs to abandon its pursuit of any fixed essences (such as Plato’s Forms or Hegel’s Spirit). Immanuel Kant introduced philosophy as a method of critiquing current epistemologies and metaphysics. This critical application of philosophy is absolutely necessary and illuminates the need for philosophy even in 2007. Philosophy can serve to check and balance the dogma of Christianity, Islam, Communism and Capitalism just as it can serve to preserve these dogmatic forces. The fact remains that <span style="font-style: italic;">philosophy does not evolve in some abstract vacuum but in a particular socio-historical context</span>. Thus to understand any given philosopher’s ideas requires one to take stock of the history and culture that so envelopes any philosopher. Nonetheless, existentialist thought demonstrates that we are more than the products of our time and space and that in the end we have the great power and responsibility to choose where we stand and not just what we philosophize about but for whom we philosophize as well.<br />By far the most influential philosopher in my life is Watsuji Tetsuro. Despite Watsuji’s active and conscious participation in some of the horrid atrocities committed by Imperialist Japan during World War Two of which I wrote my term paper about last semester for my Sociology of Knowledge class, Watsuji’s synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas is utterly enlightening. Watsuji’s early philosophical education was confined to Western philosophy, which introduces an interesting topic explored both in my Watsuji class and in my Latin American Philosophy class, that is, is there even such a thing as Japanese or Latin American philosophy respectively. The very framing of this question demonstrates the Eurocentric sickness of what many of us seem to exclusively consider philosophy. The argument can be made that only European’s actively sought to answer universal questions, whereas Japanese thought was insufficiently critical (as if this wasn’t the case during the middle ages in Europe) and culturally isolated and Latin American thought too particular and political (as if such profoundly influential thinkers as Locke and Hobbes weren’t strongly influenced by the political context of their place and age).<br />Watsuji’s own socio-historical context of a Western education coupled with Buddhist teachings and a distinctly unique Japanese culture parallels the east-west synthesis in his own philosophy. In short, Watsuji believes that to be truly human necessitates us to be both an individual and a member of a community (environmental, political, cultural, and of course being part of one’s family. Herein, we see Watsuji’s refusal to succumb to the binary logic so rampant in Western thought (particularly in the sciences). One must incessantly negotiate and renegotiate seeing oneself both as an autonomous individual and as part of a greater whole. Watsuji’s ideas are expressed through concrete examples such as to be a teacher their must also be students just as to be a husband requires that their be a wife, without the one the other ceases to exist. Furthermore, it is not as though we evolve into communitarian beings (as asserted by Rousseau’s original state of nature), for we have always identified ourselves in relation to others. The most clear example of this is the existence of language. We think in language and language’s intention is necessarily to communicate. While we may communicate without language we cannot use language and continue to perceive ourselves as isolated, atomized individuals. Watsuji gives an example to explain this in which he notes that even a philosopher thinking alone in his room as he or she merely stairs at a blank wall is thinking through language and since this language could not have been formed or evolved on an exclusively individual level, one’s philosophy is always necessarily a community endeavor. The ethical ramifications of Watsuji’s philosophy are absolutely remarkable as they synthesize many Western ideas of liberalism such as human rights and a community responsibility historically embedded in Japanese and Eastern culture.<br />In conclusion, <span style="font-style: italic;">philosophy is seeking a mirage if it continues to seek essences</span>. The truth lies in relations, in the betweeness between the myriad parts, and thus to know is a two fold process whereby we must study the whole and the part. This epistemological method is reveled through Japanese, Latin American and Feminist Philosophy, in addition to complexity studies in the sciences and cultural studies in the humanities. To know one we must know the other. Furthermore, we must recognize that reality is constantly moving. Therefore, <span style="font-style: italic;">to know the truth we must move with it.</span>Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-47084942845839820472007-02-03T14:05:00.000-05:002007-02-03T14:10:54.722-05:00My Philosophy courses<strong>Humanities</strong>: This course was technically an english course that I took for my first semester during my senior year in high school and was my first introduction to a discussion based class, which I loved from the start.<br /><strong>PHIL 100A Intro to Philosophy</strong>: This course opened my eyes to the ideas of Plato, Hume, and philosophy in general. After finishing this course I knew that I wanted to major in philosophy.<br /><strong>Western Political Thought</strong>: I took this class over the summer in between my freshman and sophomore years at SLU at Tufts University. The course was technically listed as a political science course, yet the discussion based structure of the class was highly philosophical in addition to the reading list which included Adam Smith, Descartes, and one of my favorite philosophers at the time who was introduced to me in my intro class, John Stuart Mills. Due to a computer program the professor never actually received my final paper which was on one of my favorite works to this very day, Mills’ On Liberty. Despite not getting any credit for this course, the experience of taking a class outside of SLU was most appreciated, especially considering that about three quarters of the class was international students, which as one could imagine made for some fascinating discussions.<br /><strong>PHIL 203A Ethical Theory</strong>: This class had the best discussions of practically any philosophy classes I have taken to this day considering the diversity of the class (devout Christians, Hippies, Economics Majors, and even a pregnant student). This course opened my eyes to the relevance of philosophy today and the various ways in which it can be applied to real life situations.<br /><strong>PHIL 202A Reasoning</strong>: This was probably the most challenging philosophy course I have ever taken, given my lack of mathematical skill and enthusiasm. I really had to work in this course. I think this course should be a requirement for all college graduates for its skills can be applied in virtually any real life situation.<br /><strong>PHIL 204A Theories Knowledge & Reality</strong>: This course provided some tremendously valuable background and introductions to numerous philosophical approaches. I particularly enjoyed reading Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics and some of the class discussions were highly inspiring. Like Reasoning I think this course should be experience by all SLU students.<br /> <strong>PHIL 206B Political Theory</strong>: This course had an amazing reading list, and really provided the backbone for understanding virtually all modern politics. This course was my first genuine exposure to reading philosophical works whose views I strongly disagree with such as Hobbes and Machiavelli. This course provided me the tremendously valuable insight of learning to actually listen to the other side of things and enabled me to begin cutting through the dualistic structure of many of my ideas. This particularly opened my eyes to the value of studying not only the content of any philosophical work but moreover the context in which it was created. This course introduced me to the idea that to change the world one must first understand it from a multiplicity of perspectives, particularly those historically in positions of power.<br /> <strong>PHIL 327A Existential Philosophy</strong>: This course was probably the most enjoyable philosophy course I have ever taken, perhaps because it was my first experience taking a course consisting of a majority of fellow philosophy majors. The ideas of existentialism were some of the most inspirational I have encountered to this day in that many of the core themes and concepts served as excellent and profound articulations for ideas I had already been struggling with since my high school years.<br /> <strong>PHIL 347B SPTP:Envr East&West</strong>: This course had a community service component which opened my eyes to some of the challenges of small scale farming in our modern age. This course was but another example of the holistic potential of philosophy as it is truly interconnected to many academic disciplines including environmental studies.<br /><strong>PHIL 223A Asian Philosophy</strong>: This course definitely complimented my Watsuji course. The course focused on Taoism and Buddhism and proved highly inspirational both academically and spiritually.<br /><strong>PHIL 245A Ancient Greeks</strong>: This course reviewed a lot of highly influential philosophical ideas, particularly those of Plato, that are strongly connected to the historical development of essentially all Western philosophical thought.<br /><strong>PHIL 390A Philosopher:WATSUJI Tetsuro</strong>: This course was absolutely amazing, as we studied the main work of Watsuji, Ethics, this course was without a doubt the most influential of any philosophy course I have ever taken as it introduced me to many of the benefits of non-Western philosophical inquiry and profoundly altered my own philosophy on philosophy.<br /><strong>PHIL 247A SPTP:Philososphy from the Periphery:PowerBeingLatinAmerica</strong>: This course definitely complimented the Watsuji course in terms of looking at ideas within their spatial and temporal contexts. This course in addition to SOC 347A SPTP: Sociology of Knowledge, Watsuji, and some of the feminist critiques of scientific epistemology introduced in PHIL 204A Theories Knowledge & Reality profoundly revolutionized my own philosophy away from essences and towards relationality.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122673680908055630.post-7578857985068346302007-02-03T13:51:00.000-05:002007-05-10T17:30:42.855-05:00Why Philosophy?I decided to major in philosophy after my first semester at St. Lawrence. This decision was inspired by the Introduction to Philosophy course I took that first semester with Professor Rob Loftis. Rob's class was unlike anything I had ever experienced in that unlike most of my high school courses I actually looked forward to going to Rob's class. I think I knew I would pursue a future in philosophy one day in October as I was reading one of Plato's Dialogues and I realized how much I enjoyed the process of struggling through the multiplicity and complexity of thoughts that meandered throughout my mind. I think I first realized then that philosophy isn't so much about solving any problems, answering any questions or even proving any points, but more about appreciating the adventure of learning. I've been a dreamer for as long as I can remember, but it really wasn't until high school that I was able to apply any of my abstract ideas to my academics. My senior year in high school I took a class called humanities which, in hindsight, I discover was my first taste of philosophy. Ever sense then I've realized that no matter how abstract my thoughts may become as they meander almost aimlessly throughout my mind, I can apply them; to literature, to science, and most importantly to everyday discussions with anybody and everybody. Above all, I have come to study philosophy because it has the potential to radically transform and reorient my everyday experiences in the world, and once you get a taste of it, like in Plato's allegory of the cave when one exits the cave and sees real sunlight for the first time, there's no going back.<br /><br />My decision to declare my major in philosophy was eased by the full support of my parents and the argument Rob loved to make about how philosophy could teach you to think like a math major and write like an English major. As I begin my final semester at SLU I doubt I have either the reasoning skills of a math major or the articulation of an English major, but I have learned a lot and I have garnered an insatiable hunger for knowledge. I love knowledge in and of itself, but during the last year or so I have begun to see the downsides of ideal philosophizing in terms of its egoism and potential inapplicability to the real world. I still want to go to graduate school for philosophy but next year at least I want to get some more practical experience in this world we all must live in. I believe this has a lot to do with some of the sociology courses I've taken. Sociology and European Studies are my two minors and have both complimented and contradicted my philosophical education. My Sociology courses have, like some Eastern philosophy, redirected my aims away from thoughts and towards action. My European Studies minor gave me the opportunity last semester to conduct an independent study concerning multiculturalism and immigration in Europe. This study served as a great example of the value of a liberal arts education where disciplinary boundaries begin to blur and sociology, cultural studies, statistics, politics and philosophy work in a holistic fashion to achieve a single goal, that being a better understanding of our reality, lending to a much more equipped arsenal to change the world.<br />More than anything else I consider my decision to major in philosophy as a great privilege. The only reason why I could even consider majoring in this subject if because of the ongoing support of my parents both financially and through their own curiosity concerning philosophy. I look at some of my friends from high school who didn’t have as much money and opportunities as I did growing up as many of them are critical of my decision to major in philosophy. One of my friends frequently points out the fact that because I had money growing up, money now has lesser value to me, and its true. I don’t feel as though I have to prove myself by making more money or even as much money as my parents, and at times I’ll admit I am unappreciative of all the opportunities that have been presented to me on a silver platter. Without a doubt, wealth means much more to someone if that someone actually earned it, whereas it was essentially just handed to me. In addition, I’ve come to realize that money really can’t buy happiness, and in fact, in many of my experiences it has led to a decrease in motivation and complicity concerning my role in the world. As I near graduation, I want to struggle. I want to experience what it means to be without and have to compensate accordingly, for without experiencing such struggle how can I ever hope to empathize with the vast majority of the rest of humanity.Mateohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776196600540818242noreply@blogger.com1