I am trying to think of an excellent essay topic for the last paper, and I am having difficulty gathering my thoughts on this. The philosophers that we have been studying in the class are Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard, and we are about to get into Nietzsche, so he is fair game as well.  The requirement that I have for this assignment is that it will require the student to utilize and engage with the text, while at the same time giving them enough freedom to choose a concept that they wish to examine. This is in order to encourage creativity and give some control to the student, which often makes the paper more enjoyable and exciting for the student to write.  I was successful with the previous essays– I am having a hard time with this one.  I must strike the right balance that challenges and excites the more advanced students, while being within the grasp of students who are attending and attempting, but who are still struggling. 

After Kant, we have seen philosophers change their focus from the world of things to the world of conscious representations, and how it affects the meaning of our life.  With Hegel, we see the “life and death” struggle between one’s self and the other, manifesting in the master-slave relationship. With Marx, we see how our relationship with our labor and our products changes who we become and what we value. With Kierkegaard, we see someone tackling the notion of Faith and Christianity. And with Nietzsche, we see how all of our morality may merely be a product of our conditions and our “will to power.”

You have two options for this final essay.

Option (A): The meaning of life– Both Kierkegaard, the Christian, and Nietzsche, the nihilist, present philosophies that deal squarely with the highest “meaning of life.” Rather than looking at it objectively, they both examine it subjectively.  In this essay, first consider your own view of “the meaning of life.” Second, use the critique of Kierkegaard and/or Nietzsche on your own belief. How would they criticize what you believe? Finally, make some type of conclusion. Did their critique work? Or does your view stand up to that critique?

Option (B): Knowledge and Truth. A central theme of this class has been the human’s ability, and inability, to utilize reason and other mental faculties in order to acquire some understanding of the truth. Both Hegel, discussing the view of the self, and Marx, discussing his view of labor, demonstrate that the self changes depending on certain conditions. In this essay, examine your own consciousness: who are you, what are you, what influenced your ‘becoming.’  Second, utilize the critique of one or both philosophers to provide a critique of this view. Your objective in this second part is to discover a view of yourself that you did not previously hold. You do not need to agree with this critique.  Finally, you must make some sort of conclusion. Was the simulated philosophers’ critique a worthwhile one, or did it miss the mark? 

In both options, you are required to demonstrate: 

A) An ability to engage in the text, utilizing quotes and analysis to present a supported interpretation of the philosopher/s. 

B) An ability to engage an audience that may not share the same views as your own.

C) An ability to write a well-organized essay.

 

Well, that’s what I came up with and gave them. They seemed to enjoy the prospect. Critical comments/critique welcome.

I am sure there are many people, including my students, fellow teachers, and even friends, who would despise my teaching method. Often, I provide very few clear objectives. Students struggle to understand what an assignment is about. Lectures are often not evaluated by quizzes or exams.

The struggle and ambiguity are the point. What does it matter to the average person if they can recall the difference between Lockean and Cartesian theories of the mind and knowledge? What does it matter to the average person if Spinoza is a dualist or monist, if he was a theist or not?

It does not matter at all, and it is the pompousness of professional philosophers, and their misunderstanding of their own subject, self-ignorance, that makes us think it does.

The struggle is the point, because if we are to be truly human and free, then the most important habit to build is the habit to accept and deal with ambiguities for which there are no clear answers, for which the individual human must apply the motions of thinking, rather than recalling misunderstood information.

I am also being pompous, because I would be incapable of teaching all of the fine details, even of Spinoza. It bores me to teach it, and my memory is too poor for that. Privately, I love dealing with them, but only with myself or with those who are also excited about them. Otherwise, I will save the pedantics for my academic essays.  I will value that which I do, not because it is valuable, but because I do it.

The greatest value in teaching the history of philosophy is in the fact that, at least for the philosopher, the history of philosophy is a representation of the history of one’s own education and growth, and understanding that helps one better understand the current self, the direction of the self, and where else the self must think, learn and know in order to expand.

This may very well be a pompous thought, but it is what I have been feeling lately.

I am excited to learn more about 20th century philosophies, because although I learned about the continental side as an undergrad, and some of the analytic side as a grad, I have taken up very little of it as a teacher (other than contemporary scholarship of 17th century philosophers), which is where I have reached a clearly higher level of comprehension in many other subjects.

After writing the previous post, I read all of my previous posts on the page. This is something that I have not done before. Many of the same concerns arise again and again. Two things:

1) These posts are clearly biased toward the more melancholy moments of the past few months. I often notice that I almost never write when I am content and feeling overall elation. Writing, usually, is a means of emotional problem solving, but only when I feel there is a problem. Certainly, there are many forms of content that hide the problems, even from one’s self. And these are problems that, even while knowing they are there, I do not feel compelled to deal with. 

2) Reading the posts actually did a fair amount to reshape the terrain of my mind, to use the language I did in the last post. The flow of my thoughts moved according to how it ought to when I am doing philosophy; the dormant ‘lights’ of my mind lit up again, and the structure of my first lecture arose mostly spontaneously with little effort, and with solid satisfaction. Some reflection was needed afterward, but only to provide modifications, not restructuring. 

After that last post, I crawled back into bed and slept for about two hours. I dreamed of today’s lecture, and I know that even in my sleeping state I was thinking through the lecture, figuring it out. Dreaming about philosophy is not something that happens to me often anymore, although when I was an undergraduate, it happened all of the time. I believe, although I cannot be sure, that moments like this edify my mind around the forms of whatever philosophy I am dealing with on that day.

Facing frustration over the past few weeks. What is the cause, and how is it relieved? The frustration is accompanied by an inability to think my best, which then limits by ability to teach and lecture. One cause is certainly the presence of papers to grade. Nothing frustrates me more than grading papers. It seems to absorb my mental energy, whereas learning philosophy energizes me. However, I need energy to start learning, so it is not as if I can use learning as a recovery. Instead, when I am in a paper grading period (which is almost all the time after week 5) my mind feels constantly exhausted and uninterested in learning. I must forcibly goad my mind like a stubborn mule, and even when it moves, it doesn’t move with enthusiasm. 

Another point of frustration is the number of classes I am teaching. For the third semester, I am teaching six classes, all different. Because of this, I often feel like I do not have the time and energy to devote an adequate amount of time to each class and each student. I am frustrated because I could do a much better job if I had fewer classes– even experienced, full time professors with teaching assistants virtually never teach more than four classes in any one semester. But I am forced to because of money, and even with six, I am not paid enough to give me financial security, which also frustrates me. 

But these conditions will not change anytime soon, and I still have my duty to do.  So the problem is, how do I reorient those few flexible parts of my life so that I can deal with the inflexible parts better? 

Working harder seems barely to be an option. I do not work all the time, but I believe I am working as hard as I can. Perhaps that is not true. I do know that I woke up at 3:30am today to read Hegel, Marx, Clifford and James, draft a review of 18th century philosophy, and organize some papers. I do know that I did not get a lot of work done this past week, but this is largely because I, too, need a spring break in an seventeen week semester. I do not think that is unfair. I do know that the frustration of my conditions hit a little harder than usual, but unfortunately, that is not new– rather, it is everpresent, but sometimes I deal with it better than at other times. 

This is the current, and apparently inescapable terrain of my mind. The purpose is to figure out a solution, to understand the mechanism of my will and purpose, in order to shape the terrain of my mind. This is what one must do if there is no free will, if our will is beyond our control, and if we always follow the strongest will…which I believe we always, necessarily do, and we are only lying to ourselves if we think otherwise.

Still alive. All my thoughts are belong to school.

There seem to be occurences that follow a law-like consistency within my own behavior, ones that I am not about to assume apply to all people, but laws that I would be foolish not to consider simply because I cannot test it scientifically with my limited knowledge and means.

It certainly seems to be the case that, if I have unpleasant grading to do, I will not be productive in many other tasks because I refuse to engage in those other tasks until the grading is done.

However, I am unlikely to be productive in unpleasant grading because it is unpleasant. Therefore when I have unpleasant grading to do, I am unproductive in a whole range of activities.

When I have unpleasant grading to do, I look for distractions, and the longer the grading is carried out, the stronger this rule becomes. 

If I have unpleasant work to do, then if I dally and relax in the morning, then I will waste the whole day. If I leave the apartment immediately in the morning, then I may still have an unproductive day, but it will in all likelihood be more productive than staying at home.

Depending on the habits of the moment–habits that do fluctuate every few weeks–even if I have enjoyable but difficult work to accomplish, then if I dally and relax in the morning, then I will waste the whole day.  This is certainly dependent on the habits of the time: My most productive days in this work have been at home, but this is only true if for the last few days I have not been distracted by other things and have had a “momentum” like quality in my work.  This work  is generally the actual work of philosophy, rather than grading philosophy papers or preparing lectures that I am unexcited about.

Again, these are hypotheses about how I work; only the weakest of speculations would allow me to ascend to more general notions than this.

It seems like every February and March, I get a little depressed, become very unproductive, and generally hate life. Maybe its the weather. Maybe it’s something about planning for the next school year. Maybe I just get worn down from school. I don’t know. But I do know that every February and March, I get a more depressed than at any time of the year, and there seems to be little I can do to escape it. 

Fortunately, the weather has been outstanding for the past couple of days, and I was able to ride my bicycle through to work today. It felt great. And as I am getting re-aquainted with my bicycle again, I am falling in love with biking again, as I do every year. My biking skills are already back, and when on the road, bicycle and I are one inseparable being: I feel the road as surely, or more surely, than I feel the socks on my feet. I maneuver and weave while riding with no hands. I fly through traffic without slowing, so confident and capable that I will sail through narrow cracks like gliding through Charibdis and Scylla. 

I will post more about my biking adventures, but there are a few rules that I live by:

1. The number one most important safety device is not your helmet. The top three are, in fact, your eyes, your maneuverability, and your annoyingly bright flashing lights. 

2. Cars are like big, dumb, herd-like animals that are generally passive, but each is perfectly capable of destroying you if you do not respect them. They are generally predictable, but just like stupid animals, they can be extraordinarily unpredictable. And the rider must always be prepared for when it is unpredictable, or they will destroy you. 

3. If the helmet fatigues you, and makes you even the slightest bit resistant to looking all around at all times, don’t wear the goddamn helmet. 

4. Fixed gear bikes, especially those without breaks…wtf. Sure, your Hipsterishness is already ridiculously unpractical and the result of never facing real struggle.  But don’t even pretend that you’re safe on one of these things. Some people have claimed that they are better bikers without breaks because they are forced to be more aware of the situation. Sure.

5. Then again, I claim that I am a better biker without a helmet. I am probably just as ridiculous.

Without going into too much detail, the emotional state since my last post did not move into the drum-beating militaristic mode that I anticipated. Rather, it moved into the diligent, down-to-earth, no time for nonsense and drum-beating, but nevertheless soldierly attitude. My will pushed me to one objective only: do work. I immersed myself in Kant and Shakespeare, thinking about and preparing for lectures, That is not to say there were no lapses. There are always lapses. Wednesday afternoon, after teaching two classes and awaiting the evening class, I bought a coke, purely from desire, knowing it was counter to my best interests. Another day, after already eating, I bought and consumed a large Potbelly Sandwich and Mocha Malt. I still find time to go to a bar and drink a few more beers than I intended. But overall, these were more like farts in my striving, rather than a redirection.

Overall, it was an excellent state to be in. I witnessed my mind expand as it tackled both Shakespeare and Kant from a position of great ignorance (both are people whom I did not know well two weeks ago, and there is still more to learn than has been learned), and saw my inquiry modify my life, lectures, and social interactions for hte better, even when it did not directly regard philosophy.

Philosophy is, after all, not just an academic discipline. It is a way of life.

Stop. In trying to analyze the flow, I need to be exact or my abstractions drive me to pompousness, which always drives one off the road of clarity and truth. On the other hand, my intent is to tackle what is going on right now, and I only need an abstraction 

Would it not be nice to have a team of historians, living inside of one’s mind, collecting the facts and creating competing theories of how certain psychological events arose? Competing intellectuals, dedicated in a science that is all about self-understanding. After all, the contours of one’s emotional life is truly complex– only a poor understanding allows us to think that it is simple. As it is in formal history. Those new to the subject, and many who think they are experienced, are often filled with convictions about the most important factors in some eras of history, particularly recent eras. But generally, there is not a single mind that could have developed a clear picture all on their own. A community of intelligent theory-making, fact collecting (never all the facts, that is impossible) historians dedicated to coming to some understanding, but then exposing those theories to the dissenting community, in order for all individuals to consider things that they would not have considered on their own. 

Such as it is with the Examined Life. I have met people, repeatedly, that claim “I know who I am.” Because certainly, if there is one thing that a person ought to know, it would seem that it would be themselves. But such a statement is often as pompous as a historian, who, without listening to the community, claims “I know how we got to this particular place in American History.” 

Yes, a truly examined life would require a community of sorts, but it is something that must be internalized. To have multiple voices inside one’s own head, all of whom have lived through the same “facts,” but each considering some more important than others, and each creating theories based on their own particular values.

Is this nonsense? I can only speak for myself, but I witness that who I am seems quite different week in and week out. I am a different person, with a different bent of will and a different value of actions, in the morning versus the night, at home versus the school, the bar, the coffee shop or train. And so, in a sense, there is a relevant community in the single life, each examining one’s life from a different perspective, with different methods of analysis and different biases. And this partially explains such odd phenomena as when I look back on my life at different times, and at times feel highly fulfilled and happy, and at other times, looking at the same life with an otherwise identical perspective, concluding that it is entirely a sham.

So, if this is true, what do we make of this? For the sake of the examined life, it is important not to be in the same mind set everytime one engages in reflection. Some people, I have heard it say, think best in the morning, and so only do their writing in the morning. Others say the same about the evening, or certain locations (library versus apartment versus coffee shop, etc.). But the solution rests not in routine, but in the lack of it. Reflect in all these conditions, and take note. Debate with one’s self. It is probably necessary to write it down as well, because the memory of the thoughts themselves will morph too frequently to be noticed by an alternative self-view.  Perhaps to bring it to its highest levels, the academic apparatus of journals might be an interesting model. Ideas written in madness move to analytic essays on a particular view, laid out side by side, but then commented upon, and the comments are analyzed and commented upon– a thorough examination of the self.

The self is, as far as I can see, our greatest, most incredible gift. For everything else that we encounter, the subtlety, the complexity, the feeling and force of all things pales in comparison to the self: after all, all of these things only exist for us, within the self, dependent and through the self. And so they, as experiences only and not things in themselves, they are part of the self, not distinct. And so it seems worthwhile getting to know this thing. 

 

Article of Note: First Person Plural, from “The Atlantic,” November 2008, by Paul Bloom.

I wonder if there is any truth to a standard cycle of emotions. Plato provided a very interesting theory of a cycle of political systems in The Republic, that rotated according to the dominance and balance of the three parts of the city and their virtues, which is analagous to the three parts of the soul. I believe it was something like aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy to anarchism to tyranny to aristocracy. (I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly right– I may have made a distinction where there shouldn’t be one.)

Anyway, I wonder if there is a cycle of emotions that people in general, and myself in particular, move through. I need to get to sleep, but I will briefly point out that I have certain periods of melancholy, reflection, obsession, warrior-like discipline and motivation, and satisfaction.

I bring this up now because I am being afflicted with a change that seems very familiar, and I wonder how often, and with what regularity, I continue in this direction. I have been in a period of melancholy over the past week. This past weekend has been somewhat depressing, somewhat productive, and largely a waste of time. But even in those wastes of time, I could not do anything else. And now, as I am about to go to bed and thinking about tomorrow, I feel the war drums beating in my chest. I will most likely wake up tomorrow and go straight to the floor to do pushups, then curls and crunches, despite doing very little in the way of physical fitness in weeks. I will move briskly, waste no time, and be out the door precisely when I need to be. I will do what I need to do, and avoid that which is destructive. I will move toward perfection, but it will be without much reflection and without much joy. I will do what needs to be done.

The military uprising seems like a familiar and common response to a period of melancholy. No other emotional mode has the ability to shake myself out of that melancholy. But the military mode nevertheless erodes after life stabilizes.

I will track these emotional phase shifts for a little while and see if I can detect some pattern.