Human Person Schedule
Philosophy 151
Sections 03, 04, and 06
Autumn 2010
Week One:
August 30:
Overview of course, texts, and requirements.
Introduction to the search for meaning.
September 1:
Reading: Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life, Chapter 1 "Questions and Answers" (pages 1-32).
In this chapter Eagleton explores whether "What is the meaning of life?" is a proper sort of question at all and whether it might be unanswerable, along with several popular or attractive ways of addressing it, including the notion that we might be the creators of our own meaning.
Reading reflection: What does Eagleton mean when he asks whether the question of life's meaning is a properly formed question at all? Do you think it is a meaningful question? Why or why not? Even if it's a perfectly good question, is it answerable? Why should we think it is or isn't? Be sure to say something about either tragedy, our awareness of our own finitude, the variety of answers on offer, or the possibility we create our own meaning.
September 3:
Finish discussing Eagleton, chapter 1.
Meaning Reflection: Go through example together in class on "What Is a Meaning of Food?" and individually on "What Is a Meaning of Sleep?"
Week Two:
September 6:
No Class - Labor Day Holiday
September 8:
Reading: Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life, Chapter 2 "The Problem of Meaning" (pages 33-55) and Chapter 3 "The Eclipse of Meaning" (pages 56-77).
In Chapter 2, Eagleton explores the meaning "meaning" and the possibility that life is meaningless or, even if it is meaningful, that pursuing life's meaning might be self-destructive.
In Chapter 3, Eagleton asks whether the contrast between "meaningful" and "meaningless" already assumes too much and then goes on to try to work through the seeming distinction between "inherent" meanings and meanings that are "ascribed" or "constructed."
September 10:
Finish discussing Eagleton, Chapter 3.
Reading reflection: What does Eagleton say about the meaning of "meaning" when we talk about life having meaning? What are some of the various possibilities he explores? What do you think about it? Why? Is the kind of meaning you think about more of an inherent one or is it more what we make of it? Are there limitations upon what kind of meaning we can construct?
Week Three:
September 13:
Meaning Reflection: In class written reflection on "What Is a Meaning of Time?"
Reading: Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life, Chapter 4 "Is Life What You Make of It?" (pages 78-101).
In this final chapter, Eagleton gives his attention to one of main contenders for claiming to be the meaning of life: happiness, understood as human self-fulfillment. But Eagleton also considers some other contenders: power, love, freedom, desire, death, self-sacrifice, worldly success, intellectual contemplation, and so forth.
September 15:
Reading reflection: Based on Eagleton's discussion in Chapter 4 and your own thoughts and experiences, what do we mean by "happiness"? What sorts of activities, relationships, achievements, and the like contribute to your happiness? Why? Do you think someone could be wrong about what sort of things might make him or her happy? Are there some things that just could never be part of human happiness? Why not?
September 17:
This week, we will also be transitioning into Plato's Phaedo, beginning with some history and background for Western philosophy in general and for the ancient Greeks in particular.
Film Nights: Several times this week and next week I have scheduled times for us to get together to watch the film Ghost World. This film is about a cynical, social misfit teenager, Enid (Thora Birch), who is searching for some sort of meaning in her life, but who ends up hurting everyone she might connect with, including her best friend Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) and a middle-age, lonely record collector Seymour (Steve Buscemi).
Soon I will post here the times and locations for showing the film.
Questions for reflection and analysis will be distributed at the film showing.
Week Four:
September 20-24:
Reading: Plato, Phaedo 57a-107a (pages 5-58).
Plato writes this dialogue in the form of a flashback, narrated by Phaedo of Elis, a disciple of Socrates who was present at the time of his teacher's death. In it Phaedo recounts the hours leading up Socrates death sentence (self-administered through the drinking of hemlock) and his conversation with those at his bedside, particularly Simmias and Cebes. During his last day, Socrates discussed and reviewed four main arguments concering the afterlife and the immortality of the soul.
As you read Phaedo, think about how Socrates' four arguments come together to provide a comprehensive perspective on the nature of reality, knowledge, absolute goodness and beauty, the role of philosophy, and the condition of the soul.
Also, note how the dialogue opens with a discussion of Socrates' putting Aesop's fables to music and ends with Socrates' telling a fable of his own, which he suggests we should sing to ourselves. Furthermore, in the middle of the dialogue Socrates' refers to the songs of swans before they die, as an expression of their prophetic vision of the life to come. What do you make of all that?
Week Five:
September 27 - October 1:
Readings: Plato, Phaedo 107a-118 (pages 58-67) and John Milbank, "The Ethics of Self-Sacrifice." [Downloadable Word document file]
Milbank seeks to address the view that the only purely ethical action is self-sacrifice, in which the agent of the action is killed. Only in this way can we exclude self-interest from morality. Milbank argues that this position is ultimately incoherent. Instead, he offers a vision of asymmetrical reciprocity - mutual love - as an alternative basis for ethics.
Reading reflection: According to Plato, what are the inter-connections between the goodness of the wise soul, the absolute Form of Goodness, and the soul's immortality? How does Milbank read these connections in Phaedo and deploy them in his own argument against "self-sacrifice" as paradigmatically ethical? How does Milbank's discussion of reciprocity connect with Eagleton's remarks on love in Chapter 4?
Week Six:
October 4-8:
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I (pages 1-18).
Aristotle begins his ethics with a discussion of the "highest good" or ultimate purpose of human life, a topic that connects back to Eagleton. Like Eagleton, Aristotle suggests that happiness is in fact what we want out of life, but he sees happiness as grounded in and shaped by our specific nature as human. Thus, happiness is not just whatever we want it to be and, indeed, we can be mistaken about what will make us happy. While the human activity that is happiness is an open-ended, creative, and constructive pursuit on our part, Aristotle nonetheless thinks we must engage this pursuit along the lines of the human excellence he calls "virtue."
Reading Reflection: Due to the specificity of this week's assignment, I will distribute it in class.
Week Seven:
Octobe 11-15:
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (pages 18-30) and Book III.1-3 (pages 30-36).
In the reading from Aristotle for this week in Book II, he fills out his account of human virtues of character. He sees such virtues as the cultivation of habits of excellence that guide our actions, along with the feelings and desires that shape them, in accordance with what he calls a "mean." What constitutes this mean is always, to a degree, relative to our particular situations and temperaments. We discover and achieve this mean through the use of practical wisdom, which is itself an intellectual virtue, acquired through time, experience, and training.
In the sections assigned from Book III, Aristotle constructs an account of the human will as directed toward ends and when we may judge actions to be voluntary or involuntary in light of various circumstances such as coercion, ignorance, duress, regret, and so on. Building on this account of voluntary action, he then moves on to discuss the uniquely human capacity for deliberative action, which requires a degree of self-reflectivity and moral imagination that goes beyond that of animals or even small children.
Mid-Term Review: I will collect your portfolios at the end of this week. You should include all the work for this class that you've completed up to this point. You should also include a 2 page, typed review of your work and reading thus far, reflecting upon and evaluating your progress, a concept that interests you, an area in which you've gained insight, connections between various readings, or some other aspect of your experience in the course.
Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI (pages 86-96) and Jay Wood, "On the Uses and Advantages of an Epistemology for Life." [Sent via email]
In this final selection from Aristotle, he outlines and distinguishes various intellectual virtues, with particular attention to practical wisdom (or prudence) and philosophical wisdom.
The article by Wood draws upon Aristotle's discussion of virtue to construct an account of "epistemology" (views about how we come to form beliefs and acquire knowledge). His account tries to bridge the distinction we saw in Eagleton between inherent and constructed truths, as well as engaging with some of the problems and worries that suffuse post-modern philosophy.
Week Eight:
October 18:
No Class - Mid-Semester Holidays
October 20-22:
We will round out the week by wrapping up any remaining issues or material from Aristotle and Jay Wood.
In his essay Wood provides an analysis of intellectual virtue that both [a] builds upon Aristotle and [b] deploys the notion of "virtue epistemology" to respond to some of the challenges of postmodern thinking (e.g., Nietzsche, Foucault).
Broadly speaking "epistemology" is any philosophical approach to questions about how and what we believe and know. "Virtue epistemology," in contrast with most of the approaches that have dominated the past 400 years or so, digs back into pre-modern thinking about the virtues to explain how we as human beings go about forming our beliefs.
Reading reflection: In relation to the Wood essay (and in connection with earlier readings), please answer one of the following questions:
1. What do you think about Wood's take on Aristotle? Does he faithfully represent a truly Aristotle-inspired approach to epistemology? How might Aristotle, in the end, differ from Wood? Would Aristotle be so ready to sever a "virtue" approach from some kind of objective account of human nature and ends?
2. Wood presents Plato, especially as represented by Phaedo, as a contrast with Aristotle and as more like Descartes. Do you think that's correct? How might Socrates' forays into myth, fable, prophecy, and song run counter to that? How might Milbank's perspective on Plato soften the contrast also?
3. Terry Eagleton also both built upon Aristotle's account of virtue and human flourishing and responded to postmodern thinkers who rejected notions of ultimate meaningfulness. How does Wood's approach to bringing pre- and postmodern together differ from Eagleton's? How is it similar?
Two pages is fine. The analysis doesn't have be to exhaustive, but it should be focused, concise, and pay attention to the details of the texts involved (including quotations where appropriate).
Week Nine:
October 25-29:
Reading: Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will Book I.1-10 (pages 1- 17).
In Augustine's treatise he is dealing with the over-arching question of human free will to choose, whether choosing good or choosing evil. This question is generated for him by the mystery of why there is a evil in a world created by a good, loving, and all-powerful God. As he discusses human choices, he develops a notion of human freedom that sees freedom as instrinsically tied to goodness, so that turning away from good ends actually diminishes our true freedom.
As Augustine discusses human freedom, he explains evildoing as disordered (or "inordinate") desire. That is to say, all human action expresses desires and, on one level, these desires are aimed at good ends. Evildoing is not the result of desiring evil in itself, but desiring good in a disordered way, so that greater goods are sacrificed for the sake of lesser goods. This, for Augustine, is the essence of evil-doing.
In discussing inordinate desire, Augustine also brings up a variety of other topics, such as the inherent goods of true learning and knowledge or the distinction between eternal, universal law and temporal, human laws.
Week Ten:
November 1-5:
Reading: Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will Book I.11-16 (pages 17-28) and Book II.1, 18-20 (pages 29-30 and 64-59). Skim over Book II.2-17 (pages 33-64).
In Book II, Augustine begins with a brief discussion of faith and reason, followed by an extensive argument for the existence of God.
Augustine follows his argument for God's existence with an argument that free will is itself a good gift, even if it can be abused or used wrongly to pursue evil. Still, even in doing evil, the will directs itself towards goods, even if in a defective way.
Film Nights: Several times this week I will be showing the film Gattaca. The film concerns a future world shaped by the purported ability to determine one's future and potential through genetic testing. The main character, Vincent (Ethan Hawke), was naturally conceived rather that genetically engineered. He must use the identity of another person, an injured athelete named Eugene (Jude Law), in order to gain access to work with the Gattaca corporation, where he meets and falls in love with Irene (Uma Thurman).
Questions for reflection and analysis will be distributed at the film showing.
Week Eleven:
November 8-12:
Readings: Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will Book III.1, 5, and 13-18 (pages 70-73, 78-83, and 96-107) and William T. Cavanaugh, "The Unfreedom of the Free Market" [Downloadable PDF]
In these final sections, Augustine gets into the question how a good and perfect will could turn away from the goodness toward which it was originally directed. The ability to turn away from goodness and from God, Augustine argues, is itself praiseworthy since it is simply the flip side of the will's ability to freely move toward goodness and toward God.
In some respects, for Augustine, there cannot be a full explanation for the human choice to do evil since evil, in itself, is "nothing" but is a privation or absence of the good. Thus it is not something in itself to serve as an object of choice, which always remains directed toward good. Empty choice, without content, merely for choice's sake is the essence of wrongdoing and sin. It is the path to enslavement to disordered desired and the opposite of true freedom.
In his essay, "The Unfreedom of the Free Market," Cavanaugh uses Augustine theory of human free will as a way of talking about the freedom of markets and of economic choices. If empty choice, the merely ability to choose anything or nothing, irrespective of particular ends, is of the essence of wrongdoing and destroys freedom, then a "free market" unconstrained by a positive conception of "the good" is not truly free, but rather is a form of self-destruction and enslavement to disordered desire.
Reading reflection: In Cavanaugh's article he describes Augustine's view of human free will, drawing upon a variety of sources from Augustine's writings. How does Cavanaugh's description of Augustine's viewpoint connect to what we read in On Free Choice of Will? How does it move beyond what Augustine says in that particular dialogue? In what ways does this discussion of genuine freedom intersect with the kinds of economic decisions you make or the sorts of wants and desires you find yourself having? In what ways has advertizing, the media, and culture shaped your desires in ways that limit genuine freedom? What might be one thing you could do to be more genuinely free in the sense Cavanaugh describes?
Week Twelve:
November 15-19:
Reading: René Descartes, "Meditations I-II" in Meditations on First Philosophy (pages).
As an early modern philosopher, standing at the beginning of the European Enlightenment, Descartes differs from our earlier readings both in content (the focus on epistemology) and style (first person perspective meditations), though you've already heard a bit about Descartes from Eagleton and Wood.
In these first two Meditations Descartes explains his basic project: to rebuild the structure of human knowing on a foundation of certainty and indubitability. In the process of rebuiling knowledge, he concludes that the human mind is better known than any material thing, including one's own body, and indeed, in knowing anything, we first of all know ourselves.
November 19: Abstract and Outline due.
Your final paper in this class will be about 6-7 pages in length. The focus should explore some theme in relation to the texts we've be reading, developing your own ideas about that theme, and relating the theme to our lives and your experiences. You will need to develop some specific thesis that makes a claim in relation to this theme for which you will provide particular arguments and support.
Topics might include:
- the nature of genuine happiness
- how human beings are unique
- the existence of the soul
- the possibility of life after death
- how meaning, value, and freedom are affected by modernity
- postmodernism, meaning, and purpose
- enlightenment, intellectual virtue, and true knowledge
- the social production of desire
- God, faith, meaning, and happiness
- virtue and vice, goodness and evil
- power, freedom, and human identity
Your abstract should articulate a specific, focused thesis with regard to one of these topics, followed by several sentences of explanation, summarizing where you intend to go with the thesis.
Your paper outline should set out how you plan to structure your paper, making reference to your thesis, which authors and texts you expect to incorporate, how you will use them, how they will fit into your overall argument, and what connections you will draw with our lives and experiences.
Week Thirteen:
November 22:
Reading: René Descartes, "Meditations III-VI" in Meditations on First Philosophy (pages).
In these subsequent Meditations Descartes develops two further apsects of his epistemological project: demonstrating the existence of God and demonstrating the existence of the human soul (mind) as a substance entirely distinct from the material body.
His argument for the existence of God serves his goal of founding knowledge on a basis of certainty, since the existence for a perfect God can serve to guarantee the reliability of memory and belief-formation.
His argument of the distinction between soul (mind) and body is a tranposition of his sharp distinction between the subject and object of knowledge into the question of personal ontology.
November 24-26:
No Class - Thanksgiving Holidays
Week Fourteen:
November 29 - December 3:
Readings: Immanuel Kant, "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (1784) and Michel Foucault, "What Is Enlightenment?" (from Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, New York: Pantheon Books 1984:32-50). [Downloadable Word documents]
If Descartes stands at the beginning of the Enlightenment person, Kant stands at the end of the Enlightment, looking back over it and summing up his understanding of its historical and philosophical significance.
According to Kant, the hallmark of the Enlightenment is intellectual maturity, the willingness to question received traditions and authorities, acting as an autonomous intelectual agent. He sums this up in the slogan, "Dare to know!" (Sapere aude!).
Michel Foucault is a recent postmodern philosopher who looks back at Kant's text from the standpoint of where the European Enlightenment has led our thinking in the years after Kant, to the point where the critical stance of the Enlightenment has been turned against the ideology of the Enlightenment itself. Thus, "enlightenment" involves, among other qualities, a recognition of our own cultural embeddedness and limitations.
December 1: Rough Draft due.
Week Fifteen:
December 6-10:
Readings: Michel Foucault, "The Body of the Condemned" and "Panopticism" from Discipline and Punish [Downloadable Word documents] and Jacques Ellul, "The Power of Technique and the Ethics of Non-Power." [Downloadable PDF]
In these final readings, Foucault applies his understanding of our epistemological situation to a specific historical question: how is it that modernity developed imprisonment as the primary form of criminal penalty and what does this development tell us about the character of modern society as a carceral society established through disciplinary technologies?
In the Ellul reading, he explores the notion of modern technology, living in a technological society, and the implications of this for meaningful, ethical living.
