Seth Paskin

Is Experimental Philosophy Bad Science?

Jun 122013
 

Wikipedia tells us that Experimental Philosophy (X-Phi) is:

an emerging field of philosophical inquiry that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research on philosophical questions. This use of empirical data is widely seen as opposed to a philosophical methodology that relies mainly on a priori justification, sometimes called “armchair” philosophy by experimental philosophers.

So what makes X-Phi experimental is the use of data rather than (presumably) data-less a priori reasoning. This is confusing. Even when employing ‘pure reason’, philosophers use data – if only the data of their senses, experience and consciousness. Would anyone deny that Descartes used data when he came up with the Cogito? That it was the data of his own experience doesn’t make it less valid qua data. Continue reading »

Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Moral Sentiment

Mar 312013
 

Simon Baron Cohen vis Cambridge Neuroscience

[DISCLAIMER:  Although I am using a conceptual distinction I got from the embedded Simon Baron-Cohen TEDx talk (where ever he got it from), I am not taking a position on his stance on Autism or Psychopathy.  I have no point of view about Autism and have reflected on empathy and psychopathy in this blog before, here and here.  I'm interested in the constituent parts of empathy that he lays out in relation to Smith and Hume's Moral Sentiment.  If you want to see some responses to Baron-Cohen on Autism, check out this blog or this one.]

Through the magic of Twitter, I was recently connected to a TEDx talk of Simon Baron Cohen on the erosion of empathy (embedded below).  After the requisite National Socialist reference, he outlined a distinction between two different aspects or types of empathy:  cognitive and affective.  Cognitive empathy is the ability to imagine someone else’s thoughts and feelings, the ability to put yourself in their position.  It is the recognition of the other’s state of being.  Affective empathy is the drive to respond with the appropriate emotion.

This put me in mind of our past discussion of Adam Smith and David Hume on Moral Sentiment.  Smith and Hume claimed that we build our understanding of morality by reflection (reason) on our reactions to people and events in comparison with the reactions of others.  These sentiments, filtered through the lens of rational moral judgment, form the basis of morality in any given society.  Smith explained the mechanism of sentiment as sympathy with others:  the ability to use imagination to put oneself in another’s place, feel their woes and judge oneself with respect to that experience.  That’s having a conscience. Continue reading »

Paul Fry on Lacan

Mar 292013
 

Paul Fry of Yale!

One of the groovy things about our new “open” society is how venerated institutions of higher learning like Yale are being strong-armed into sharing their course content online with the unwashed masses (aka you and me).  This means you don’t have to go to The Interwebs or TedX to get quasi scholarly ramblings about your favorite intellectuals or ideas:  you can get qualified scholarly ramblings instead.

Paul Fry has a named chair at Yale in English and Literary Theory and has done work on psychoanalytic criticism.  This hour long seminar on Lacan covers key Lacanian concepts from a psychoanalytic perspective but works as an explication of these ideas in a philosophical context as well.  Additionally, this lecture serves as a good bridge between our struggle with Lacan as philosopher and the reading of Poe’s Purloined Letter we’re about to undertake.   Continue reading »

The Not School Discussion of Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism

Mar 212013
 

Last week Being spoke through me in the saying of Martin Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism as part of a PEL Not School study group.  Joining me were Marilynn, Daniel, Rian and Alyson.

We worked through Heidegger’s idea that Humanism as a concept was inextricably tied to the history of western metaphysics that sees man as a animal rationale, language as techne and understands Being only through beings.  We recorded our 2-hour discussion and it is available now to Not School members.

If you’re a Not School member (or as we like to say, PEL Citizen), you can access the audio of this discussion here, join the group for discussion or our forum for discussions on a number of other topics.

If you’re not a member, please consider joining. For $5 a month you’ll get access to regular audio discussions above and beyond our regular podcast episodes and lots of other extra content.  Membership also gets you access to study groups and discussion forums and the opportunity to participate in Skype/Google Hangout audio or video discussions yourself if you’re interested.  Fame and/or notoriety await you!  Read more about Not School and sign up!

– Seth

 

Engaging with Buber

Feb 242013
 

In looking for web resources on Buber to blog about, I’ve come across an interesting phenomenon:  there are very few and they are mostly introductory.  Every time we do a podcast, I cast the Google net to see if there are interesting, useful or funny things out there on the net I can share with our audience about the subject of the episode.  When I did this for I and Thou, the vast majority of the top hits are expository whether in video or text.

This tells me two things:  first, lots of people are looking for help understanding the text so there are a lot of people out there doing basic summary/intro work on it.  Second, after reading it folks typically don’t engage/re-engage with it as part of the tradition.  There are, for example, few if any easily accessible online talks or papers on the relationship between Buber and Kierkegaard, Heidegger or Husserl.  There is more work on Buber treated as a theologian both from the Jewish and Christian perspective.  For the most part, however, this kind of engagement work is limited to scholarly articles. Continue reading »

Socrates’ Attack on Rhetoric in the “Gorgias”

Jan 192013
 

 

Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle from lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com

I have never shared the vitriol in Plato’s dialogues for rhetoric.  I understand why he goes after people for holding what he considers to be untenable positions, particularly if they are teachers or otherwise influencers of others.  But only insofar as they hold beliefs which don’t accord with his own or if they appear to have a methodology or agenda that is antithetical to the Truth.  

In the first part of the Gorgias, Plato’s Socrates undertakes to do something unusual:  rather than disabuse someone of the idea that they know X or Y, he tries to show that an entire sphere of human endeavor – persuasive speech – is morally bankrupt.  If practiced in the wrong way, that is.  I believe he is wildly off the mark here and in puzzling through this, I came to a better understanding of why I disagree with Plato on this point. Continue reading »

Scrutability: The PPT

Dec 292012
 

 

Credit manwithoutqualities.com

If you don’t know what the acronym “PPT” means, consider yourself lucky that you have avoided a work or social context where doing presentations is required.  If you are like me, the power of those three letters to inspire dread is almost unparalleled.  The phrase ‘Can you put together some slides…’ evokes panic, fear and nausea made worse only when accompanied by ‘What’s the business case?’

For those who don’t know, “PPT” is short for “PowerPoint” and more commonly a “PowerPoint Presentation”.  PowerPoint is a Microsoft Office application used for creating visual presentations.  It allows for the presentation of information in text, visual, graphical and audio/visual format through a slide-show series of pages.   Continue reading »

Civics via Schoolhouse Rock

Nov 132012
 


During our recording on the Federalist Papers, we mentioned at some point Schoolhouse Rock, a PBS television series that ran regularly when I was a child. For anyone who doesn’t know, it was a cartoon with skits and songs about grammar, science, civics, American History and some other topics.  In addition to state and federal civics classes in junior high and high school (do they still teach these) it was a primary learning aid for my generation.

While I’m more familiar with Conjunction Junction and A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing there are some salient little ditties about the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence and even a musical version of the Preamble to the Constitution (which is how I and I suspect many of my peers know it – I can’t recite it, only sing it). Continue reading »

Red State, Blue State, One State, Two States

Nov 052012
 

Lief Parsons graphic from New York Times Steven Pinker article


Steven Pinker of Harvard recently posted an article on The Stone at the New York Times called “Why Are States So Red and Blue?” His summary of his thesis:

The North and coasts are extensions of Europe and continued the government-driven civilizing process that had been gathering momentum since the Middle Ages. The South and West preserved the culture of honor that emerged in the anarchic territories of the growing country, tempered by their own civilizing forces of churches, families and temperance.

In essence, the North and South were originally settled by two distinct groups. In the North it was English farmers and in the South it was Scots-Irish herders. These two groups have differing views of human nature based on their property. Herders whose animals can be stolen in the blink of an eye have a negative view of human nature and emphasize self-defense and protection; farmers whose land is more secure are more communitarian and willing to accede to legal resolutions of disputes.

Continue reading »

15 Minutes of Fame

Oct 092012
 

Shameless cleavage shot of Mrs. Famous

Andy Warhol famously said that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”  This is commonly interpreted to mean that the hierarchical structure that identified worthy subjects of art – ‘celebrities’ – from those not worthy – ‘civilians‘ (thanks Liz!) was breaking down.  In other words the structure that delineated who was famous from who was not would break down, making it possible for everyone to be famous.

You could also infer that this would mean that no one would be famous, but Warhol was clearly right as we still have fame and there are people now who have become famous outside of the traditional model of celebrity (Honey Boo Boo).  So if anyone can now become a celebrity, that is, can be sacrificed on the alter of fame, what does that mean for Payne’s thesis that celebrities serve a social function in society? Continue reading »

The Value of Writing (Non-Fiction)

Sep 252012
 

Peg Tyre

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Peg Tyre documents the remarkable turnaround in student performance at an underperforming high school when the curriculum was altered to put a focus on analytic writing.  Analytic writing, it turns out, is a marker of critical thinking:  if you can craft clear and coherent written sentences, paragraphs and essays it generally means you have clear and coherent, well considered thoughts.  Sounds like common sense or maybe even obvious?  Apparently not.  And the ability to write well translates into improved performance in all disciplines, not just English and the Social Sciences.What?  Critical thinking skills help you no matter what subject you are studying?  Sacre bleu!  I was part of that generation that had to do grammar exercises as part of my core studies – I remember what felt like a whole year (probably a semester) doing nothing but diagramming sentences.  Also spelling, handwriting (cursive and block), debate, all that stuff.  Then when I got into advanced grades, we wrote.  First it was outlines, then summaries of books (aka the book report).  Then we had to have ideas about those summaries. Continue reading »

Seth’s Interview with Dan Mullin

Sep 082012
 

Being the wife of an unemployed philosopher might be worse than being the unemployed philosopher from worstjobs.com

Dan Mullin is a philosophy grad student and part-time teacher who runs a blog called The Unemployed Philosopher’s Blog.  His mission statement is to challenge the view that a philosophical education isn’t of much value for employment.  As he says:

 My name is Daniel Mullin and I’m a philosophy grad student and part-time teacher. The other part of the time, I’m unemployed and/or looking for work. I’ve been relatively successful in finding work in the traditional job market for philosophy — teaching at universities — but that market consists mainly of contract positions that don’t really provide a liveable wage. Continue reading »

Rick Roderick on Nietzsche on Truth and Lie

Aug 202012
 

As usual, Rick Roderick proves to be a great go-to guy on Nietzsche.  In this series of videos (one lecture put together by Daniel Horne), he takes on the accusation that Nietzsche is taking a relativist stance towards truth, or as it can be labeled, a ‘perspectivist’ stance.  Roderick does an (as usual excellent) exposition of Nietzsche’s.

It starts with ideas about one’s belief about one’s beliefs.  Nietzsche is attacking the idea that one usual thinks that one’s beliefs should be held by everyone else – your belief about your belief is that it should be everyone’s belief.  That’s dogmatism, not universal truth.  But it parades around as truth.

Continue reading »

The Future of Education

Jul 292012
 

Courtesy of edudemic.com

So the perception is that the college/university system is dying, or at least anachronistic and a new model of learning is needed.  Every other TEDx talk is by an entrepreneur who thinks education is a barrier to creative thinking and a waste of productive years.  Economic analyses show the ROI of attending college isn’t worth it for many graduates.  The government funded primary school system is severely mismanaged.  That thing that Aristotle thought was the foundation for a virtuous life is in shambles.

Witness the rise of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  Coursera, Udemy, MITx aka edX which now includes Berkeley and Harvard are all different implementations of online learning systems intended to address the problem statement above.  There are others.  (Udacity) Udemy is a free market of instruction, allowing anyone to be an instructor or student, in any subject.  Teach what you want, charge what you want and if someone is interested, great.  It has a less traditional course structure focusing on skill development. Continue reading »

Psychopathy and Empathy

Jul 202012
 

Last year I posted on psychopathy and moral sentiment. This week Cosmos magazine reports that researchers from the Netherlands have determined that psychopaths can ‘turn on’ empathy on demand.  In short, a study was structured that measured psychopath’s empathy for others (not explained how) and then the subjects were told that the study was designed to measure empathy.  After which a surprising thing happened.  Their empathy ‘normalized’.

Continue reading »

“Worst Attack on Jewish Life Since the Holocaust”

Jul 162012
 

Conference of European Rabbis President Pinchas Goldschmidt: “An existential question for the Jewish community in Germany.”

These are the words of the Conference of European Rabbis as reported by Spiegel Online in this article.  Exceptionally inflammatory words, particularly coming as they do in response to a German court ruling.  The Rabbi who issued the statement for the Conference, Pinchas Goldschmidt, is the Chief Rabbi of Moscow.  A Rabbi from Munich took a less strident tone:

Rabbi Yisroel Diskin, Director of Chabad in Munich, says the ban is concerning for Germany’s Jewish population but he is optimistic that the state will overturn the ruling.

“I’m sure that the German government or Parliament will correct this issue and I hope it will be very soon,” Diskin told The Algemeiner.  “Just the message from the court, that circumcision is not allowed, is a very serious issue for Jews in Germany.” Continue reading »

Graphing the History of Philosophy

Jul 012012
 

This is a crazy cool interactive visualization of the relative influence and importance of philosophers.  This guy simonraper (that’s his handle anyway) did a data pull from Wikipedia determining what philosophers are identified as having influenced other philosophers and used a graphing platform to visually map it.

If you are interested in his methodology, go read the post.  I got linked to it from a NY Times article wherein our own Mark Linsenmayer got mentioned for an Open Culture post. Continue reading »

In Memoriam: Alan Saunders

Jun 252012
 

Alan Saunders

 It was with great sadness this weekend that I heard via Facebook and on the Australian Broadcast Corporation website of the untimely passing of Alan Saunders.  Saunders was the host of the ABC Radio National program The Philosopher’s Zone, a weekly broadcast covering a broad range of topics, both in philosophy and outside of philosophy in a philosophical manner.

I first started listening to the show as a podcast via iTunes over 2 years ago and wrote a review in August of 2010.  I was a little critical of his style, but it was more out of a desire for more than the weekly, 30 minute format could accomodate in tackling lofty topics.  Saunders always demonstrated a strong grasp of the philosophical issues at hand, delivered his questions and comments calmly with his made-for-media voice and exhibited a generous spirit towards his guests, the issues, the thinkers and the history of philosophy.  He also clearly had a clever sense of humor that peeked out far too infrequently.

My blog post led to correspondence with the show’s producer, Kyla Slaven, who kindly acknowledged my interest and gave me feedback occassionally on topics I addressed here.  She shares Saunders’s enthusiasm and love for philosophy and his broad intellectual curiosity.  So I say to Alan Saunders’s family, friends, colleagues, fans and particularly to Kyla, may his memory be a blessing.

You can read the announcement on ABC’s site here and a tribute page here.  He will be missed.

–seth

The Good as Simple Idea

Jun 222012
 

Good and Bad Road SignAt some point during the episode, Dylan and Wes were arguing about Moore and referred to the good as a ‘term’.  I corrected them that Moore actually calls it a ‘concept’ as if something hung on that distinction.  I guess it is incumbent upon me to explain.

First off, Moore never uses the word “concept” in the chapter – my bad.  He uses “idea” and “notion”.  But my point is the same:  I just felt like we were experiencing Wittgenstein hangover in the way we were discussing Moore.  He does try in the first chapter to make the point that he is not doing linguistic analysis of the meaning of the word.

What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now it may be thought that this is a verbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one word’s meaning in other words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for…If I wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first place how people generally used the word good; but my business is not with its proper usage, as established by custom…I shall, therefore, use the word in the sense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discuss whether I am right in thinking it is so used. My business is solely with that object or idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object or idea, and about this I am extremely anxious to arrive at an agreement. Continue reading »

Humor Case Study 2: Henny Youngman

Jun 092012
 

So Mark took on the comedy stylings of Louis CK in the first case study, someone who establishes a core insight and then plays it out through both content and performance.  I’d like to take a look at two other (multi-generational!) comedians who rely on establishing a premise quickly using audience assumptions and then make a joke by twisting either the meaning of words or expectations of the situation.

Henny Youngman was a comedian known for one-liners or jokes vs. story telling, character or prop work.  I plan to get to more ‘modern’ comics later so if you aren’t familiar with him – google now and come back.  Walter Winchell dubbed Youngman ‘The King of One-liners’ and he was famous for delivering dozens of jokes in a short set.  Check out the following recording:

Continue reading »

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