Questions, topics, subfields, approaches and methods

Philosophical angles

My geographical philosophical preference has definitely changed a lot in four years. I definitely began and continue to love reading European philosophy. 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). After taking Latin American philosophy, however, I was struck by the degree of uncritical and pretentious worldview of many of these great philosophers. This is particularly the case with Kant and Hegel. 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. 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. Neverthless, I remain fascinated by existentialism and western philosophy remains unavoidably my philosophical provenance. This is to say Western philosophy was and is my introduction to philosophy.

It is also important to realize that Western philosophy is in no way monolithic. I am particularly drawn to the “subversive” voices in the western tradition; Nietzsche, Marx, Merleau-Ponty, the entire feminist tradition, much Latin American philosophy. I love philosophy cause philosophy loves to question. Turn the world on its head as Hegel once said.

Philosophy is my vehicle to revolt, to subvert, to implode the entire western philosophical tradition and as a means to evolutionize the world system. It’s not about strictly speaking political philosophy. It’s all political, whether implicitly or explicitly, conscious or unconscious. Philosophy cannot be understood apart from the political and socio-historical context in which it was created. Created I say, because philosophy is not discovered. To borrow an expression from Baylor Johnson, philosophical Truths (or even truths) are not found lying under rocks. Instead, they sprout from the soil from a combination of the fertility of the soil and climate in addition to a seed. Sometimes this seed is planted after the soil has been tilled into neat rows, but sometimes this seed sprouts from no anthropgenic intentionality. 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. 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?

To be short (for once), I am attracted to any philosophical geographical tradition in which I have had any experience. I am most drawn to Germany, France, Italy and Japan. 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. I love reading everything anything deriving in any semblance to the Marxist tradition.

The following are some of favorite philosophical queries:

What is the good life is my quintessential philosophical query. What must I do to live the answer to this question?

The problem of Induction pursued from a collective and collaborative position is something I would definitely like to extensively investigate.

What is freedom?

What is art?

Doest God exist? (and if he/she/it does who created him/her/it?)

Why do we suffer?

Why do people do drugs?

Can a means and an end equivocate?

Can we get smarter? (courtesy of Darren…something, I can’t forget his last name but I think he teaches at the University of Calgary, which reminds me to mention something. I gotta give Canada it’s props. In addition to the enlightening mock class I went to taught by Darren, I have three professors this semester from Canada, and they are three of the best professors I have had while at SLU. So Go all you Canucks (especially the one’s from Vancouver who were resiliently heroic in their double overtime victory over Anaheim last night).

Philosophy is my means and my end. Thus it will take me and be shaped by everywhere I go, everything I see, every conversation I have, and every language I think and/or communicate in.

My preferences (both in subdisciplines and geographics) have diversified into what I know consider a certain necessity. When a philosophy becomes to narrowly focused it ceases to be philosophy.

if Philosophy= love of Wisdom

Wisdom necessitates Experience

Experience necessitates Action

Thus, if Philosophy refuses to Act then it is not Philosophy.

The future of philosophy

Future of Philosophy

I am tremendously skeptical of academic philosophy. In a sense it is dying. It can no longer claim to possess or “discover” objective certainties. As Gianni Vattimo asserts, philosophy exists now without “metaphysics”, that is sufficient systems of philosophy which yield “Truths” with a capital T. As Vattimo reminds us, when Nietzsche said “God is dead” he wasn’t just talking about institutionalized religion. He was talking about the death of all objective truths that can be applied universally across all times and all spaces.

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. Many postmodernists and even some feminist philosophers seem to have made this mistake as they plunge into an indecisive and ironic absolute relativism. 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 in our present predicament. Philosophy is about seeking the universal. Therefore, philosophy must strive to derive from the universal, that is, from a multiplicity of diverse positions. 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. The present political and philosophical predicament we are in is commonly refered to as Identity Politics. Women fight for women’s issues, minorities fight for minority issues, gays fight for gay issues. 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. This means that the left needs to build more and more coalitions between such groups. I believe philosophy can significantly contribute to the materialization of this idealization by acting as both a mediator and active participant. Philosophy must act to bridge these bridges between various social movements, granting focus to the universality of this oppression. 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. What this all implies of course is that philosophy become more political. More specifically, all of philosophy must become more political not just its still marginalized subdisciplines, such as feminist and Latin American philosophies.

Philosophy must adapt or it will not survive. It must choose to politicize itself, and be honest with itself. 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. As Marx once said, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it” (11^th Thesis on Feuerbach). 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. Philosophers have served most indispensable roles in upholding the status quo for as long as philosophy has exists. They have limited our options to the individualism, parlementarianism, and capitalism, but philosophers have also forced us to think beyond and herein lies the future mission of philosophy. 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). 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. 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. 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.

I am both optimistic and pessimistic in these prescriptions for philosophy. 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. 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. The key will be whether philosophy itself allows these universal addresses to be constructive by all and not just a few elitist philosophers. 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.

Revisiting the becoming of my philosophy

Revisiting the becoming of my philosophy

My philosophical thought has undergone significant and at times radical developments during my four years at SLU. . My philosophy has evolved in to one that certainly regards all three sub-areas of philosophy as necessarily interconnected. 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. The title of this paper is I Am, 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. 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. 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. 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:

All ideas are interpreted in relation to other ideas. By changing or abolishing the meaning of a certain term, for instance black, one would have to proportionally amend the definition for white. Simply imagine how one would consider good, lacking the existence of a bad or evil. Could we then just live in some kind of a utopia? 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. Just the concept of nothingness seems inexpressible in our present reality as there is always something to occupy one’s senses (I had yet to encounter Buddhism at this point). 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. Lacking reality would be like lacking white and then trying to define black, for clearly their meanings are interdependent.

This notion of interdependence and the relational foundation of both metaphysics and epistemology definitely corresponds with the main vein of my current philosophizing. Moreover, I was particularly excited to read 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 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, The Coming Community.

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. My last sentence concludes 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. 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. 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 find myself. Two years ago I definitely saw philosophy as a vehicle to escape problems of the everyday world. In comparison to the big questions of philosophy, everything else just seemed so trivial. 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 going through rather than around the social arena.

My philosophy is no longer about transcending reality through philosophy, because even if I still wanted to I severely doubt I could. 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 others as hell) 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. 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. According to Watsuji, “He who cannot experience badness, cannot achieve goodness” (Watsuji-Ethics).

It was also fascinating to read over one of the first philosophical papers I’ve ever written. The one I looked at was from my introduction to philosophy class about Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and titled Without Evil There is No Good. 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. 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. 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. 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.

After reading through some more of my early writings, which I denote as prior to my semester abroad in Austria (spring semester sophomore year), I am pleasantly surprised that many of the ideas I had then I continue to defend today. 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. 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. 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. There’s so much I can learn from myself about myself.

My philosophical certainties have dissolved and solidified over and over again in the course of the last four years. 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. Metaphysically, I believe in the interdependence Watsuji talked so much about in Japanese society. My conviction in this interdependence is the result of my experiences within relationships just as much as my exclusion from them. I live in a certain void. 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. Nevertheless, I see the potentiality of such transparently interdependent relationships in every aspect of my life. 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. 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.

Epistemologically I believe there persists a dire need to breakthrough and transcend the dichotomy between absolutism and relativism. This necessitates, first and foremost, transcending the objective-subjective dichotomy. The myth of objectivity strives for power through a façade of truth. 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. Yet in this ideal situation the intentionality of the epistemic process is truth rather than power. 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. 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. The one point I must stress, yet again, is that, to borrow a line from the women’s liberation movement, The personal is political, and this applies to CEOs as well as single mothers on welfare. 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. As Francis Bacon said long ago, Knowledge is Power. Now what one actually does with that power is the key question that all knowledge producers should be ethically compelled to ask themselves.

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. 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. 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. I struggle with even, what most would consider the most trivial of ethical decisions on a daily basis. Often, I am paralyzed by my hyper-conscious analysis of such situations and fail to act according to my authentic convictions.

I struggle with my own moral development every day yet I wouldn’t have it any other way. “My people” have not been oppressed, but rather my provenance is one of slave holders, bigots, racists, sexists, and self-righteous and hypocritical liberals. I am not above good and evil. I am within good and evil, and I shall never leave it. 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.

It is comical to reflect upon my once proud ambitions to be an “ethicist”. 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). 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. 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. As Sartre once said, “Man is condemned to be free”, and as Nietzsche once said, “God is dead”. These statements express a certain ambiguity as both blessings and curses. The key is to accept the “thrownness” (Heidegger, Sein und Zeit) of one’s situation and accept individual responsibility for one’s ethics. We must begin by looking in ourselves, and through ourselves, examine the relations with our society that have so constructed this self. We are not individuals in a vacuum. 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. It is in our power, at all times, to reject or accept what our community deems ethical. The key is to realize that whatever the consequences may be of this choice, it is fundamentally a choice. It is our choice.

In our chains lies our freedom. In social construction lies social deconstruction and reconstruction. We are made and we can be unmade. 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.

In all, I believe my philosophy can be refined down to: humility, interdependence and faith in one’s power to choose. I call this last aspect “faith” because it is precisely that and can only be that, that is, until it is actualized. We can never know until we live it, but we can live it at any time, wherein lies our salvation.

Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #3 Philosopher as Public Intellectual

I 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.

What is Democracy Matters?

We are not advocating Communism or Socialism (We aren’t even just Democrats). We are not trying to restrict your free speech (unless you think that rich people deserve a greater voice than the rest of us). We are not even advocating any significant tax increases (full public funding for federal elections would only cost about $10 a person). The truth is Democracy Matters is a non-partisan student organization trying to get money out of politics. 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. 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. 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. In his latest book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama candidly admits, “I know that as a consequence of my fund raising I become more like the wealthy donors I met.”

The way clean elections works is actually quite simple. 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. The catch is each person who signs has to give the candidate $5 (or 10$ in Connecticut, because well it is Connecticut) to demonstrate their sincere support for the candidate. 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. This system puts values, issues and people at the center of politics rather than money. 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).

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. 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 The Federal Election Campaign Act was passed and the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) was established. 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. 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. Following the Supreme Court case of Buckely vs. Valeo 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.

Ever since 1976 numerous reforms have been made to clean up this system but with minimal success. Individual and group campaign contributions (Hard money) have been limited, but this has not deterred corporations from heavily influencing politicians through “Bundling” which is when a individuals collect their money and are able to give considerable donations to candidates. Another popular method to financially influence politicians is through unlimited donations given to political parties, and thus indirectly funneled to candidates (Soft money).

During the last Presidential election George W. Bush and John Kerry raised respectively $367,228,801 and $328,479,245 (www.opensecrets.org). In 2008 experts predict the total contribution to presidential candidates to top $1 billion! So what can we do about it?

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. 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). 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).

The situation is not as bleak as it may seem. There is hope! To find this hope one need only to look to such states as Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut, who all have full public financing for all state offices. Furthermore, Vermont (governor and lieutenant governor), North Caroline (judiciary, yes even judges are still influenced by corporations in most other states), New Mexico (legislator), New Jersey, in addition to the municipal governments of Alburquerque, NM, and Portland, OR. Ask anyone from Arizona and they’ll tell you that their governor, Janet Napolitano, who was elected and reelected on public money, is no ordinary governor. 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 Arizona) is famous for sitting down and talking to any citizen who has a question or concern. Isn’t this how democracy is supposed to work? We live in a republic, where politicians are supposed to be public (not corporate) servants. As citizens we pay taxes to pay their salaries, so shouldn’t they be held accountable to us.

In New York, Governor Eliot Spitzer laid out in his State of State address his full support for a full public campaign finance system in New York. Citizen Action of New York is leading the way and Democracy Matters Chapters throughout New York, including SLU, are actively fighting to make this ideal a reality. We hope to accomplish this goal by talking to local politicians such as Assemblymen Darrel J. Aubertine, attending New York State lobby day on April 9^th in Albany. 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.

I must again stress that we are a non-partisan organization. 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. 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. 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.

Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #2 : Phenomenology

Phenomenology

What is work? What is laziness? I am often plagued by these questions because I cannot avoid them. I have to work, but I suppose the key is simply finding something that I actually enjoy working at. The fact remains that what I work at determines the degree to which what I do is perceived as work. For the purpose of this exercise I will confine my attention to academic work in philosophy.

I am getting mixed messages. In one ear, I hear approval. Continue studying philosophy. Keep working at it. Everyone must find there own niche and perhaps philosophy is yours. You are spending exorbitant amounts of time reading, writing, discussing and contemplating. The skills you are developing through your work in philosophy refine your writing and clarify your ideas. Perhaps most importantly, working through such challenging ideas helps you work through your own life experiences. Thus, the work you are doing is not confined to academia or any future career.

In the other ear I am scolded with disapproval. You enjoy reading philosophy way too much. You escape into your books, your theories, your abstractions. 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. You interpret everything from a far, but real work requires getting your hands dirty. Your futile attempts at philosophizing are receptive to receiving new ideas, but wherein lies the reciprocity in your work. Where’s the praxis? How will you ever know if what you know is really true if you never actually apply it to the real world. Thus, your current work is insufficient even if your ends are confined to the epistemological. You can’t even know for the sake of knowing by reading, talking and writing about books alone.

Most importantly, however, is what kind of a job are you going to get working with philosophy? Sure, you enjoy philosophizing today, but how do you expect to make a living once you are out of school. You are living the life of luxury, of bourgeoisie meditation. Your work is not really work. You’re not being challenged cause you don’t want to be challenged. No one can touch you or even really communicate with you in your ivory tower with all your big words and profound insights. 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. Working requires working through something. It requires falling down and learning to get back up again. Does philosophy make you fall? 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? Can that philosopher learn from his or her mistakes? Is isolated self-motivation sufficient for a good work ethic or must we all be prodded at some point or another by a master?

I am lazy. I am afraid to apply my philosophy because I am afraid I will fail and my philosophical foundations, my horizons, will come crashing down. I don’t know what I could do without them, and thus I fear their potential void. On the other hand, I am working through these ideas through my everyday experiences. I struggle each and every day to try as I might to reconcile all the contradictions between my theories and my practices. I am so hypocritical, yet so aware of my hypocrisy. This is both a blessing and a curse. It plagues me and saves me. 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. I am what I will be willing to work to will myself to become.

I feel as though it is a privilege to be writing this. It gives me the sense that I am being productive and at the same time reflective. It kills two birds with one stone, yet the question remains will this continue, can this continue once I leave school? 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. In the end, I am so grateful for my time at school. I have found my work ethic in academia, but I refuse to confine it to that. I have discovered that it’s not about some inherit intelligence, but rather about motivation. I have found that I can motivate myself. My only concern is choosing a truly worthwhile project to work on. My means and ends are reflections of each other. 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.

The truth is I cannot wait to get out into the “real world” and apply my philosophies. 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. I don’t want to take sides, but I want to take action. 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. The book is never closed. To work is to, first and foremost, work on oneself within oneself. To constantly examine and reexamine why one does what one does. To strive to be as honest with oneself as one possibly can. Such is never easy. 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). Once again, it all comes down to motivation and inspiration. Philosophy inspires me to see my ends and means as one in the same. 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. Only the struggle can give meaning to my life in the present. 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.

Philosophical Methodology Exercises: #1 Logical Analysis of an Argument

Logical Analysis

P1: old people shouldn’t be allowed to drive

T1: neither should any dangerous driver, regardless of age

P3: bill would restrict all old drivers even one’s that are excellent drives

P4: It’s no more credible to say that elderly citizens are poor drivers than saying that all young people are good drivers

P5: avoid driving on high ways

P6: avoid driving during traffic

P7: just drive locally

P8: avoid driving under the influence of drugs and or alcohol

P9: not often given to distractions of loud music

P10: avoid talking on cellphones when driving

P12: avoid driving at night

P13: don’t go 85 mph

T2: Seniors are more cautious drivers

P11: The proposed requirments would impose rules for everyone regardless of ability. I’m reluctant to classify everybody in the same boat and restrict these folks

P14: Accidents involving seniors involve more serious injuries

P15: Seniors more prone to injury

T3: Not cause and effect but simply attributable to the effect that seniors are more prone to injury

T4: Threatening to remove or restrict driving privileges is very stressful to the elderly.

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. The first thesis or conclusion is a perfectly sound point, yet it fails to address the question of whether or not all seniors should unconditionally be allowed to drive. 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. 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. 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. Premises five through 13 could all be refuted on the grounds of each statements unsoundness. They are all hasty generalizations (ha I finally remembered the name of a fallacy) in that they overgeneralize stereotypes and take them as facts. 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. I believe this statement implies that seniors are better than young drivers or perhaps the author means they are better than all drivers. In any case the ambiguity of this phrasing can leave one wondering who seniors are really better than when it comes to driving. Premise eleven is absolutely ludicrous. What’s the matter with grouping everyone together and giving them all an equal opportunity to prove their driving merit. 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. The last statement may be true but it doesn’t hold well in an argument as seniors’ stress is an insufficient condition to avoid testing their eye sight to secure that only healthy seeing seniors are on the roads.

my intellectual/philosophical journey

My Intellectual Journey

How did I come to think the way I do? How did I come to see the world as I do? I often reflect on these questions, and my reflection takes me back to roots of my intellectual journey in my childhood. Both of my parents went to graduate school and both of them love to read and talk about what they read. My intellectual roots are surely found in my introduction to books at an early age. I’d love to be read to as a young child, yet actually learning how to read was significantly less pleasurable. I struggled mightily through about 3^rd grade. I was easily frustrated as I yearned for everything to come easily. Once I had finally yearned how to read I still saw myself as stupid. I can remember in 5^th grade being the “snack time monitor”. Every day at 10:15 I’d announce to the class that it was snack time. 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. 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^th grade came middle school and in middle school we got letter grades for the first time. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. My pushing someone down and standing on their head one feels taller, stronger and better for it. 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. I don’t think anyone’s exempt but to be aware of it is the first step in changing any such behavior. 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. No one, in my opinion, is ever born stupid.

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. Math still pisses me off to this day because it’s so black or white, right or wrong, with no wiggle room in between. I think that’s what has drawn me to philosophy. It’s a trade off you see. While I am never absolutely wrong, I can never settle. I can never rest because there’s always more work to be done. 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. 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 Truth) was just, as Baylor Johnson might say, hiding under some rock waiting to be found. I saw power in philosophy, in the ability to comprehend what others deemed incomprehensible. It allowed me to prove once and for all that yes I am smarter than you. Thus, my own intellectual insecurity had a lot to do with my decision to major in philosophy. I think I’ve matured a lot since my initial positions at college. 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. I can’t know the Truth, because there is no truth. As Nietzsche would say there are only interpretations. This realization is most liberating. The problem persists nonetheless as most people continue to cling to this notion of objective truth. 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. It’s all about arguing. 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. To do so requires that I work with and through the rhetoric of binary logic. As an English teacher once told me in high school, to break the rules you have to first know the rules. What really inspires me is the possibility of revolutionizing my own language in order to find a dialectic between absolutism and relativism. 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. My mission, my question is how to simultaneously change my own self-presentation and discourse and change the way the world discourses with itself.

So let’s get back to the story, that is, the story of how I became philosophical. I was always a day dreamer. I had my head in the clouds throughout middle school, and struggled to focus on the class material. 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. I found the golden ticket in books introduced to me by a few wonderful English teachers. I am so grateful to them in hindsight as they showed me that it was ok to learn what I wanted to learn. 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. 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. I really crack myself up sometimes. I rebel for the sake of rebelling. For instance, my parents always make me do the dishes at home, but at school I do them completely voluntarily. 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. Yet I also know that I need structure and that different people learn differently and thus need different degrees of such externally induced structure. 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.

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. 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. 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. It was my escape. It made me feel one with the world but at the same time somewhat self-alienated from society. I found that most people in my class really detested the assignment and I felt the complete opposite sentiment. This event really symbolizes what has been my philosophy. Escaping into the ivory tower I want to see from above so I can be from above. Yet I’ve come to realize that reality can not really be transcended, but I can transcend myself but only by going through myself. I have to be honest with my self. I have to be self-critical. 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. This can and in many cases has been problematic, but I won’t stop trying. As Plato once showed us, once one sees the light there is no turning back. One must go through insanity in order to find saneness. 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. There is no escaping it. 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. It is not a matter of choosing one or the other but of consciously integrating both into action.