Everyone thinks humans are special because they’re the only species that understands fairness. Think again:
The Problems of Love from Sartre and Beauvoir to Irigaray
How to do Philosophy
As an undergrad, I did philosophy by reading the material, trying to get an understanding of them, and then answer various questions in class. In grad school, I did philosophy by trying to get a broader understanding of the philosophers and try to have a sense of responding to them, either by agreeing with them or not. However, I’ve realized that that isn’t doing philosophy, I was just simply reading about it, or writing about it.
Doing philosophy is something different. In order to do philosophy, you must always challenge your beliefs. So for example, if you’re pro-choice on the abortion debate, you must purposely find a good book or article that argues for a pro-life position. If you believe in God, you must find a good philosophical book that talks about atheism (and none of that atheistic trash like Christopher Hitchens). If you believe in Communism, you must find a good book on libertarianism (and not just Ron Paul, I mean a really good philosophical position). Why do this?
- It keeps you on your toes. By reading materials you don’t believe in, you are already on the defense, but you’re willing to listen. Indeed, reading something that you don’t agree with forces you to listen so that you can argue back or perhaps modify your beliefs.
- It makes you not dogmatic with your beliefs. This deals with the first premise but Bertrand Russell has said that when you have a belief, always make sure you have a question mark hanging over that position. By reading or listening to something that you don’t agree with, it forces you to have that question mark over your head.
- It makes you more aware of your beliefs. Foucault has called for a genealogy of your beliefs. Although he argues that everything comes down to power, I suggest that by looking at things that you don’t agree with, you are more aware of where your beliefs come from, why you have them, and it makes you have a better outlook on your beliefs by giving better justification for your answers. With this, you can get a better understanding of your beliefs without relying on the lame answers such as, “that’s how I was raised” or “it just is.”
- You realize who are good thinkers. I come across philosophers that I don’t agree with, but when I read them, I have this internal dialogue where they can always reply back to my responses. I play the devil’s advocate, but at the same time, I’m trying to defend my views to these philosophers. Likewise, it forces you to know the philosopher’s responses.
I call for you to find something, on purpose, that disagrees with your beliefs. Read it seriously. It will help you develop critical thinking skills and to bring about an awareness of your beliefs that you’ve never thought out before. Read it as if the other philosopher is a formidable opponent instead of a blowhard. (This is why I’ll never read anything by Sean Hannity. Sorry, but I can’t consider him a formidable opponent.)
To give an example, I used to be extremely liberal on the abortion debate, but then I forced myself to listen to Peter Kreeft on his stance on the pro-life position and now I’m on the fence. I think it’s actually good. Kreeft has made me realize that the belief I have could be mistaken and so it’s better to have a true belief than a false one.
On the other side, I have read books talking about religion, and this has actually modified my views on religion which resulted in a paper that I wrote about. I hope to develop this skill and by doing philosophy, I’ll have a more developed life and a more developed philosophy. Nietzsche has said that philosophy is a shift of your perspectives. That’s how one does philosophy instead of just thinking about philosophy.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with books that you do agree with, but there’s no challenge in that. If you want to do good philosophy, find something that you purposely disagree with and listen to it seriously. Treat it as if it was a friend you disagree with actually, and then discuss it. Philosophy books aren’t just books, they are like your friends and you must reply in a serious manner. After all, if you don’t know your opponent’s views, you truly don’t know your own.
Along with this, I find that philosophers are like friends. There are those that you’d want to visit often. There are those that you rarely visit. And there are times where if you have some philosophical problem, you know which philosopher to go to. For me? I usually go back to Sartre. I find that he’s the “friend” that I can go back to. (Of course in real life, I doubt we could ever be friends, but that’s another story.)
Posted in Education, Paper Topic
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Saying “I Love You”
Saying “I love you” seems to be a trick, a chicanery, a manipulation just to get the other person to say “I love you too.”
Posted in Love, Relationships
25 Comments
US views of Abortion Have Shifted to Pro-Life
. . . for the first time in 15 years. The majority of Americans have typically been pro-choice since Roe v. Wade (except for a few moments during the Regan administration). But a recent poll which you can see here has shown that the opinion has shifted. 51 percent of Americans are now pro-life.
There are more interesting statistics at the site as well: more people believe that abortion shouldn’t be allowed under any circumstances. Pro-choicers have actually gone down a bit over the years.
I’m sure the numbers will change. Throughout history, people’s view of abortion changes usually with whoever is President. I predict the pro-choice opinion will go up slightly, but probably no higher than 55 percent.
Adding Sketches to Spam
Someone has made sketches pertaining to those lame spam mails that you receive. 
Check out the rest here. It’s awesome.
Posted in Humor
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Two Examples of Freedom of Speech in Crisis
A few weeks ago, Carrie Prejean (aka Miss California) got some heat mainly from two things. The first is seen below:
Many people got offended by this. At the same time, Prejean also posed in topless pics before she became Miss California. You can see them here and here.
Now, were people offended? I’m sure they were. And because of this offensiveness, people wanted Miss California to relinquish her crown.
Example number 2: Wanda Sykes at the White House Correspondence Dinner. She made a joke that you can see below:
People were really offended by that and said that Sykes went too far.
So what’s the story behind this? They both practiced freedom of speech and when it comes to that, I can’t help but think of what John Stuart Mill said about freedom of speech and harm. He said:
If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.
So at what point can we restrict your freedom? Mill states again:
the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
To be clear, offense does not mean harm. Were people offended by their speeches? I’m sure they were. Were they harmed? It seems hard to prove that.
(On a personal note, I never understood offense. However, it takes a lot to offend me. Perhaps I just admire Mill so much that I’ve taken his work to be a good measuring stick of society’s standards. So if someone makes a speech which is deemed “offensive,” I seem to be the only one that has the mentality not of, “I’m offended,” but rather, “that person is expressing his or her opinion, and nothing more.”)
With Prejean, she got to keep her crown and rightfully so, I think. As for Wanda Sykes, the media kept asking was this joke going too far. Here’s my question back to the media: did she harm anyone? Did people die? Did people needed to get psychiatric help? Did these people need counseling from this joke? It seems not. At most, people were mad and offended. So did Wanda Sykes and Carrie Prejean go to far? The answer is simply no. They expressed their opinion (and notice that it’s an opinion, which means you don’t have to agree with them or not). Therefore, they didn’t go “too far.”
Posted in Freedom of Speech, J. S. Mill
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The 20 “Most Important” Philosophers of the Pre-Modern Era
Voted by 531 philosophers:
1. Plato (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Aristotle loses to Plato by 231–229
3. Socrates loses to Plato by 366–81, loses to Aristotle by 356–122
4. Aquinas loses to Plato by 447–37, loses to Socrates by 328–130
5. Augustine loses to Plato by 458–22, loses to Aquinas by 279–115
6. Epicurus loses to Plato by 458–15, loses to Augustine by 291–106
7. Parmenides loses to Plato by 453–16, loses to Epicurus by 170–162
8. Heraclitus loses to Plato by 447–21, loses to Paremenides by 179–114
9. Confucius loses to Plato by 417–20, loses to Heraclitus by 152–150
10. Ockham loses to Plato by 462–9, loses to Confucius by 158–156
11. Anselm loses to Plato by 452–10, loses to Ockham by 162–150
12. Pythagoras loses to Plato by 457–12, loses to Anselm by 161–152
13. Duns Scotus loses to Plato by 436–11, loses to Pythagoras by 151–145
14. Machiavelli loses to Plato by 459–9, loses to Duns Scotus by 156–153
15. Democritus loses to Plato by 453–13, loses to Machiavelli by 166–151
16. Zeno of Elea loses to Plato by 458–10, loses to Machiavelli by 172–146
17. Plotinus loses to Plato by 441–7, loses to Zeno by 154–118
18. Avicenna loses to Plato by 426–8, loses to Plotinus by 134–114
19. Cicero loses to Plato by 450–6, loses to Avicenna by 140–134
20. Sextus Empiricus loses to Plato by 437–8, loses to Cicero by 142–134
I’m surprised that the Buddha wasn’t on this list. I would’ve made him more influential than Ockham.
On this list, I haven’t read 13, 17, 18, 19, and 20. Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do.
Posted in Experts, History
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How Much Water do you Use?
There’s a nice chart that you can see here along with some good advice. Notice how much water is needed for meat.
Posted in Environment
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Being vs. Doing
“Go out there and be someone.” This is a line you often hear from parents, teachers, and other peers. But what does it mean? People usually mean that you must achieve something in your life and that your very being is at stake if you don’t achieve that goal. Going with philosophy, here’s a list of what people are after:
- Confucius says we should aim to become the Chun-Tzu (the superior man), otherwise we’ll be the hsiao-jen (the vulgar man).
- Socrates says we should examine our lives because “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
- Aristotle says we should achieve eudaimonia, otherwise we’re living the life of cattle.
- Kant says we should strive to become wise by using reason, because we are essentially rational creatures, otherwise we aren’t being rational.
- Marx says we should get rid of our alienated lives and achieve a species-life.
- Nietzsche aims for the Übermensch (the Overman), otherwise you are the untermensch (the Underman).
- Heidegger wants us to focus on the fact of our Dasein (our “being-there”), otherwise you’re being inauthentic.
The list could go one but one thing’s for certain, you aren’t your full self, your true self, unless you’ve achieved what these philosophers above have recommended. You aren’t fully human, perhaps if you don’t achieve this state of being, then you haven’t reached your full potential. You are basically living a life where life is drifting by, you are the ultimate couch potato, your are the person who has “less being” than someone who’s acheived “more being.” So live out your life and reach your full potential, which is to “be all you can be.”
However, the question often comes back: how you start living a life with full being? Most of these philosophers reply by saying that you have start doing something, either some activity or something where you are engaged in life. By doing that, you are fully aware of your being. But notice that advice, you must be doing something. Thus, in order to be, you must first do.
Thus, the advice we often hear is “why don’t you do something with your life?” The focus, here, is on the actions, the activities of your life and that is what your focus should be. However, most of the philosophers who focus on your doings in life ignore or even disregard the being. Examples include:
- The Buddha said that in order to achieve Englightenment, one must follow (in other words, do) the Eightfold Path.
- The Hedonists said that we must try to gain as much pleasure as we can. Thus, your actions must focus on pleasure.
- The Cynics said that we must get away from society as much as we can.
- The Empiricists said that in order to gain knowledge, we must experience the world. In other words, our actions in life gains us knowledge.
- The Utilitarians focus on acting to promote the most amount of utility to the most.
- Kierkegaard has said “what am I to do?” rather than what kind of life should I be.
- The pragmatists focus on the pragmatic life which includes acting and getting engaged in the world.
- Sartre has said that who you are is exactly what you do. Your choices (which means your actions) defines who you are.
These “doing-oriented” philosophers focus on the activities which defines who you are. Thus, the primary thing is to act in the world. It’s only after that, you’ll figure out who you are. But the question that is often replied back is what actions should I do? What actions can I do? Of the doings in my life, which “doing” defines me? In other words, what activity brings out my most full potential? In order to answer this question, one must first figure out who one is. In other words, what type of person are you to be. Thus, we must figure out who you are first in order to see what you can and should do.
But we’re back to the beginning. Now, these philosophers in the past bring in both the being and the doing of our lives. However, they focus or emphasize on either being or doing. The “being people” say that we must first figure out who we are first, only then, can we figure out what to do. The “doing people” say that we are first thrown into the world and we just simply act out. After we act in the world, it’s only then that we can figure out what our being is.
Many questions can come out from this: is being first, or is doing first? Does it matter? Can we get along in the world by ignoring the other? This may go back to the old age question of rationalism and empiricism but I think it comes down to something more fundamentally: being vs. doing.
Posted in Empiricism, Epistemology, Paper Topic, Rationalism
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Religion and Happiness Don’t Always go Together
A while ago, there was a study showing that the more religious one was, the more happy one was. Religiousity and happiness were proportional to each other. I was always skeptical of this claim because I thought the numbers were missing something. Well, this week someone found those missing numbers: the irreligious.
Apparently, these previous studies have never studied the atheists, agnostics, or people who aren’t religious to determine whether they’re happy or not. After taking this into consideration, the results are remarkable:
Galvanized by a desire to even the scales, these researchers have been organizing academic centers to study the irreligious, conducting major surveys, and comparing their findings. They’ve already found that convinced atheists appear just as well equipped to cope with hardship as convinced believers, and that some of the world’s healthiest societies have the lowest levels of piety.
That doesn’t surprise me. Seriously, atheists can cope with the world just as the religious can. But more than that:
More recently, Karen Hwang, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, decided to examine atheists at risk for depression more closely. Hwang’s interviews with atheists suffering from spinal cord injuries revealed how becoming debilitated strengthened their convictions, and their convictions strengthened them. “It doesn’t matter so much what a person believes in,” she says, “but how consistent and cohesive their worldview is.”
Perhaps studying the non-religious folks would help get the studies accurate.
Posted in Religion, Values
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