The spring 2013 semester is at a close, and I am looking at three months of vacation. But this vacation is of course an opportunity to get back into the life of curiosity-driven reading that I have put off for years. I can of  course read whatever I wish during a school semester, but the amount of time I have for such things is always secondary to reading for the classes I’m teaching. Every summer since 2006 has been a teaching summer. And for the last three years, that has been supplemented by tenure-track work and graduate classes. This summer, there are no obligations other than to myself.

I’m still grading papers, but I’m eager to dive into this list as soon as possible.

Here is the list, which is a work in progress:

Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise. Spinoza’s other great book, of which I’ve only read bits and pieces. I’m doing a reading group this summer with another HWC faculty member. Very much looking forward to reading more from my favorite philosopher.

Steven Nadler’s A Book Forged in Hell. A historical book by the UW-Madison scholar on Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise. 

David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Been slowly reading this since January. Great book that hasn’t received enough of my attention.

Steven Nadler’s The BEst of All Possible Worlds. Another Nadler book, this one about the intellectual community surrounding Leibniz in Paris, 1672. Also the main basis for a new Reacting to the Past game I want to get working on.

Nate Silver The Signal and the Noise. About statistics and their application by the man who most successfully predicted the minutiae of the 2012 presidential election.

David Abrams, Fobbit. A humorous novel about the Iraq war.

Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.

Marge Piercy’s He, She, It. Sci-fi novel that I was assigned in a grad class last year that I never actually finished… I’ll finish my assignments eventually 🙂

Shop Craft as Soulcraft. An essay/book reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not a novel, making the basic argument that craftsmanship is ultimately more fulfilling than any amount of philosophical speculation. Written by a UChicago PhD philosophy alumn who resigned from the academic life to start his own motorcyle shop.

Janet Browne’s two big biographies of Darwin, Voyaging and The Power of Place.

Re-reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and Origin of Species. 

Some more books on the current theory of evolution.

Some more books on education.

Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Because why not.

Hemingway’s Moveable Feast. On the persuasive recommendation from a student.

Yalom’s The Spinoza Problem. A novel based on everyone’s favorite philosopher.

The Philosophical Breakfast Club. 

More…

 

 

I cannot express how much I adore Janelle Monae’s music and videos. Here is her new one.

 

Sometimes, I crave oceans of solitude and philosophy. Clean, crisp air upon the blue-green waves and barren horizon for hundreds of miles around.

My habit is that of an indulgent and wasteful person.

Today, like many other days, I walked to the grocery store. I bought two small red potatoes, a bag of small brussel sprouts, both unsalted and salted butter, two small sourdough rolls, and one six ounce salmon steak. The small and mundane purchase was satisfying. It felt more satisfying, in fact, than many other purchases I have made at the same grocery store that were composed of more luxurious, indulgent, or plentiful foods. Today’s purchase was one of moderation. I had my indulgences: the small salmon steak and two rolls were unnecessary and purchased for their taste, rather than their nutritional value.

By four in the afternoon, I had eaten little. A few spoons of yogurt mixed with about 1/8 cup of premium-brand granola for breakfast. A sugary, chocolaty, mass-produced national brand “nutritious” granola bar. The remaining four spoonfuls of the bean and onion dish I made yesterday. Five cups of coffee, and much more water. By late this afternoon, hunger was clawing at me. But the hunger was oddly liberating. My spirit was mild. My passions, normally tyrannical over my will, allowed reflection and patience as I read from Kierkegaard and wrote some thoughts. On an afternoon walk, I recalled the goals and simple beauties of the more ascetic philosophers, particularly Siddhartha and Plato. A love of humility and poverty bloomed, and a derision toward money, the love of money, and luxury.

When I arrived home, I removed one sourdough roll from the bag, and the butter from the fridge. I put the roll to my nose, inhaled, and swooned. Ripping open the roll, I applied some butter, then took a bite. More attuned to my body and good habits than usual, I was sure to chew amply. At first, the feeling of food in my mouth was satisfying as it vanquished the feeling of hunger. Then, on the twenty-second chew, the intensity of the butter-on-sourdough flavor burst in my mouth. It struck me as beautiful.

I felt hunger today, and I practiced poverty. But I do not know real hunger or real poverty, neither that imposed upon myself, as a monk might do, nor imposed by the world around me.

This was not a day of asceticism, I reminded myself. This was a day of genuine moderation. It felt alien.

Contrary to most liberals, I cannot entirely support an end to the death penalty. However, the death penalty I have in mind is not the death penalty in existence today. It should not be used for crimes of passion or violence, nor in any case where there is any room for doubt. Most such criminals are largely products of their society. Well, that is a different argument that many people have already made.

In any case, they may bring ruin to other people, but generally to no more than a handful of victims. There are individuals in our nation who bring ruin, if not as gruesome, then certainly more pervasively and chronically to the whole or large portions of society. Generally, these individuals escape all punishment. The most frequent punishment is poor public polling, or losing an election. Occasionally, they are sent to prison for a few years. Are these “white collar” prisons any more difficult to bear than the rigorous life of a true monk in a monastery? I guess I wouldn’t know.

But to the point: Concerning severe, premeditated crimes of corruption among our democratically elected politicians, I believe that the death penalty should not merely be permissible, but that it should perhaps be required by a just state.

Perhaps when a politician is brought up on charges of political corruption, and once that politician has been found guilty by a court of expert lawyers, judges, and a jury or citizens, a special election should be held asking the public what the punishment should be. A simple majority in favor of the death penalty would be too hasty: but perhaps a 2/3 majority should suffice.

Upon sentencing, the politician should be given the opportunity to speak his or her piece to the public, and given a sufficient amount of time to reflect on what those words will be. Perhaps a month is sufficient.

In short, the capital punishment should be reserved only for our nation’s most powerful public servants when they unambiguously betray the public that they have sworn to serve, when the public servant has been thoroughly examined by a fair court, and when citizens overwhelmingly vote in favor of such a penalty.

Of course, who would propose or pass such a law? Everyone who has the power would also be the law’s prime target. Individuals in power rarely forfeit their power: groups of people in power, seeking consensus, almost never do.

I would challenge and call upon anyone to show me in what way this notion is unjust, or unjustly unsympathetic.

Suppose one wishes to write an argumentative philosophical essay. What does this mean?

First, as an essay, it is some kind of an attempt to find an answer. I mean “essay” in the most classical sense, literally meaning “attempt.” More specifically, it is the attempt to honestly find the answer to some question. This involves being fully aware of one’s own ignorance and short-sightedness, and to some extent, admitting these frailties to one’s audience. In modern papers, a good scientific paper is far closer to the model of a true essay than almost every polemic, editorial, or privately held view. In the end, an essayist should make clear and reliable progress toward an answer, and follow reason and common experience as far as the writer can see: but also be fully aware of all the additional questions that are still left unanswered, completely or partially.

Second, as an argumentative essay, it must strive to be based from secure, objectively true reasons and evidence, and it must aim toward a controversial or contentious statement, called the thesis: the “tip of the spear.” Everything else about the essay should show what problem the thesis provides a solution or answer to (the function of a good introduction), or supports the thesis by relying upon reasons and evidence. The argument must rely on objectively and universally accepted reasons and evidence, in order to appeal to a rational audience member who likewise seeks the truth.

Third, as a philosophical argumentative essay, it aims at some objective truth, and generally (perhaps universally) aims at the critique or deconstruction of some other idea or framework of ideas. This depends not on trains of thought that feel convincing or spectacular, but rather on the rigorous use of logic: being clear on what claims follow necessarily from established evidence, what claims follow possibly, and what claims cannot follow. When possibly, what are the other possible conclusions? Even if we do not have objective, logically grounded starting points, what logically follows if we assume certain starting points are true?  The philosophical project aims to become partners with the reader in uncovering some truth. Generally, philosophy specialists concern themselves with a sub-set of subjects such as the nature of God, reality, knowledge, the mind, ethics, language, or the works of previous philosophers, but philosophical inquiry can be pointed at anything, and by anyone. Finally, it also presumes that ultimately, in Socratic fashion, “I know nothing,” but seek to explore the arguments that might justify one conclusion or another.

In order to do this, it must be assumed that such things as universal and objective truths exist. Is this assumption a true one? That is actually beside the point. I believe it is true, and this has helped me fall in love with philosophy. But even if you are a relativist, one must accept the assumption in order for the argument to find force, and in order to validate any and all cultivations of the mind, with the possible exception of those arts that rely entirely on taste. I actually doubt these exist, but sometimes people classify cooking, dance, painting, music, and other such things in this category. That is a possibility. At the other extreme, sometimes people classify history, politics, the sciences, mathematics, or technology in this category. What a confusing mess that mind must be.

Sometimes, people claim that “truths differ from person to person.” As suggest in the previous paragraph, this may or may not be true. But if it is true, then all argumentation is impossible. All writing is merely useful for (1) reaffirming and fortifying one’s former beliefs, or reaffirming the beliefs of like-minded individuals, and (2) expressing one’s self so that others can know what different kinds of beliefs exist. But under such a framework, there is no such thing as a difference between valid and invalid arguments or stronger and weaker arguments. All arguments possess the same weight. And if all arguments possess the same weight, then (1) we must accept everyone’s beliefs, and the actions that they carry out from those beliefs, and (2) all education, the sciences, and critical thinking projects become redundant and useless expenditures of time.

Today, I will be introducing my students to one of the most important philosophers of my own life and thought process: Benedict de Spinoza. Unable to sleep more than three hours last night, I got out of bed, opened the pages of the Ethics, and began to read. These pages struck me with thunder years ago. They fail to make an impact on me now. With my current mind, would I have been affected as a first time reader in the same way I did when I was 23? Have I matured beyond this book, or am I no longer able to see what I saw back then?

I remember my first reading of his Ethics vividly. I was visiting my paramour of the time in New Mexico for five or six days. As a new 2nd Lieutenant in need of training, she had been stationed there with the National Guard for the summer for her military intelligence school. Our “relationship” was not a smooth one. I had ferocious passion for her, but also frequently felt betrayed, manipulated, and used. My desire for her felt meaningful and true, but also filled with strife. Was this worth it? Was this what a truly powerful love should be? I was there to find out.

This is all relevant, because it was within the conditions of this emotional and reflective maelstrom that Spinoza was able to find proper soil for his ideas to grow in my mind. Looking at the short table of contents, one sees that Part III of Ethics is titled “On the Origin and Nature of the Affects,” affects meaning something like “the emotions of desire and aversion fused with ideas,” and encompass everything that we feel. It is an early and robust causal psychology, two hundred years before proper psychology texts and theories were established.  Part IV is “Of Human Bondage, or the Powers of the Affects.”  This aims to illustrate how our belief that we are free is actually an enslaving idea, and that given the deterministic nature of nature’s causality, we are totally lacking in free will. But Part V, “Of the Power of the Intellect, or on Human Freedom,” promises us a different sort of freedom, based on recognizing our lack of freedom, repairing our ideas by finding true, natural causes for our thoughts, and ultimately devoting one’s self to the love of god. Albeit, a god that cares or thinks nothing for us. For Spinoza, love of god is simply love for existence itself, the expansion of the mind by learning those natural laws that govern human society and the individual mind. I could smell my personal salvation laying within these pages.

One early morning at 4:30 or 5:00am, we drove to the National Guard base from her apartment so she could attend her morning physical training session. I had packed my copy of The Ethics, and brought it along in hopes of finding some time to read. While she undertook her training, I began my reading of The Ethics sitting in an adjacent dark parking lot,. From the very first lines, the book is built like a puzzle. At first, the reader is given eight short definitions for the book’s most important terms, followed by seven axioms. At this point, nothing about the world has been asserted. Spinoza has merely laid out his tools. But then, the real fun begins. Proposition One states, “A substance is prior in nature to its affections.” But what does this mean, and how do we know this? Spinoza provides a demonstration: “This is evident from Definitions 3 and 5.” So the reader flips back, and reads D3: “By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, that is, that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed.” Definition 5: “By mode I understand the affections of a substance, or that which is in another through which it is also conceived.”

What!?

I had to stop and think about this. I don’t know what sorts of things substances or modes are, but I think I can understand “what is in itself and is conceived through itself.” I reason that substance must be any object or idea for which, in order to think about, what does not need to think about anything other than the object or thing itself: something independent. What could this be? A shotgun burst of thoughts emerges from my mind–my imagination jumping to myriad conclusions–but I must restrain myself. Spinoza is obviously trying to be careful here, so I must do the same. What is a mode? The affections of a substance, he says, or anything for which, in order to think about it, one must think about something else. Aha! And so these fit, and clearly bring us to the postulate that modes (or affections) are always dependent on a substance. After one postulate, I still don’t know what this is talking about, but I am beginning to see the structure of his thought. This, of course, does not strike one as profound. But then again, this was only step one of a long geometrical formula. But it was a sure step, and true profundity is not achieved with the single dazzling insight of a poet or prophet, but rather with a series of small, meticulous, and thoroughly mundane steps.

The book rarely gets much simpler, and is generally much more complicated. It is an extraordinarily complex read. Flipping through the first few pages, it looks more like a technical manual than a philosophical treatise, complete with diagrams.  With every postulate, the demonstrations become more complicated, including not only the three or four named definitions, axioms, and propositions, but every definition, axiom, and proposition that previous demonstrations used as well. Occasionally, a discussion, or “Scholium” breaks out and the reader can slow her pace to a more leisurely stroll through prose, and see Spinoza’s reflective and occasionally biting self shine through. One biographer notes that Spinoza’s name belies his personality well: “Benedict Spinoza” loosely translated “Good-willed thorns.”

My very first encounter with Spinoza actually occurred a couple years prior, when I was still in the Marine Corps.. I was given a book about the philosophies and lives of philosophers titled The Story of Philosophy, by William Durant. He had a chapter devoted to Spinoza, and I was in awe of this simple-living man, whose philosophy was so fresh, powerful, mystical, and rational. Spinoza was a man who devoted himself to learning and writing on a myriad of topics, including god, ethics, sciences, democracy, and psychology. He lived a simple life, renting out an attic space from a merchant family in The Hague, dressing plainly, eating plainly, and working. He was despised for his philosophy, and survived not only an excommunication from the synagogue of his youth, but also an assassination attempt in his later life. The coat he wore during the attack was pierced by a knife, and he never mended the hole. It was a reminder, and he took on the motto “Caute,” meaning caution, because he understood that criticizing peoples’ political and religious beliefs often risks irrational retaliation. His philosophy is ultimately one of uncompromising search for truth, for benevolent and free societies and individuals, and a love of the god to which we all equally belong. He struck me then, and still does, as a kind of Saint for philosophers.

…

Can I still read Spinoza the way I once did? Compared to the fresh, eager, and clear mind I possessed at 23, my 34 year-old mind feels sluggish and dull-witted. Perhaps it is age. Perhaps it is the skepticism instilled from David Hume, Kant’s critique of the faculty of reason, or Nietzsche’s psychological demolition. Or the years oppressive graduate school and academia that seems to despise, or at least disregard as superfluous, any genuine love of philosophy. Maybe it was getting a stable job and a pleasant life that closes my philosophical eye. Or maybe it was simply too many beers and video games that dulled my intellect. I am not sure if I will see Spinoza the way I once did, but I sincerely hope that my relationship with Spinoza has more in my future than in the past.

 

The power of evolution comes from a few basic facts. I find that among these, the most subtle but critical is that each specimen’s “blueprint” is not a blueprint of the final result, but a blueprint of laws of motion.

The variation that occurs from specimen to specimen, such as brother to brother, occurs not at the level of final result, but at the level of the law of motion. When the infant is in the mother’s womb, it collects molecules, and each infant receives a very similar set of molecules.

Natural selection is a force that follows from material conditions and laws of motion, not to some design or form. We often look at the forms, and mistake this as what evolution is about. But that is a mistake born from the prejudice of the senses: we believe that what we see is what best informs us about what is.

As a result of this, the diversity of a population branches out over the generations, and some of the resulting variations are better keys for overcoming the obstacles in that population’s environment.

Consider what this teaches us about ideas and thinking, and how we teach thinking to our students. When our students present an idea, do we examine the end form, and say, “yes, you did that correctly or incorrectly,” or do we examine the process by which they came to that idea? If the former, then we are not teaching them how to think, but rather how to conform their ideas to the ideas of their authorities. If the latter, then we are cultivating the tools of generative thinking that allow our students to think things that their teachers did not, and allow them to solve problems that their teachers did not anticipate.

Today is the first day of the Spring 2013 semester. I am feeling both excited and nervous, and had some difficulty falling asleep last night. I believe this is a good sign. 

Years ago, when I first began teaching, I was always nervous and excited on the first day. That nervousness prompted me to think deeply about the purpose of teaching philosophy to my students, to anticipate the questions my students may have, and to formulate responses ahead of time. The nervousness prompted me to make creative plans, and engage in a critical re-examination of my beliefs about both philosophy and teaching. With these reflections fresh in my mind, I was able to speak and react more dynamically in class, and have fresher, more authentic insights and answers for my students’ comments. Over the past two years, as my passion for teaching was overridden by duties and obligations, my mind increasingly depended upon memories of answers I had already formulated. Whether or not my students saw it, I felt more and more that my teaching had become stale, and that I was losing my ability to teach an excellent class and tackle difficult texts. 

But one of the principal goals of philosophy is the art of critically demolishing old thoughts in one’s mind: to deconstruct, re-examine, and re-build answers to old problems. The problems of teaching are problems that I worked hard to answer a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean my work is done. It doesn’t mean that I can depend on my old answers to move forward. Rather, in order to be an effective teacher of philosophy, I must rethink and rebuild everything from scratch. 

The nervousness and excitement that I felt last night, that I feel right now, and that has been building over the past week has enabled me to do that. At this point of the fall semester, my mind was occupied with being the department chair. At this point last summer semester, my mind was occupied with my final tenure application. At this point of spring 2012 and fall 2011, my mind was occupied with the graduate classes I was taking. Today, my mind is totally occupied with Confucius, Descartes, Galileo, and my anticipations of how my students will react to these three thinkers and the various projects of my courses in Ethics, the Enlightenment, and my “Great Books” game class.

Let’s get this semester started. 

 

My anxiety and lack of passion expressed in the two previous posts has completely dissipated. This week has been a personal renaissance for my love of reading and teaching. I am excited and prepared to be back in the classroom next week.

Also, I have slowly been getting back into the habit of writing. I hope to have some more quality posts on teaching philosophy in the coming months, though perhaps on a new blog.

The two previous posts, and some earlier ones, veer dangerously close to being merely self-indulgent. The original intent of this blog was to have an exceedingly small audience, and I’ve largely been successful at that. But I think this blog has just about run its course. This blog, or my blogging habits, need a rebirth and a new purpose.