Philosophy and Human Values: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Spirit

LINK: Video & Transcript

AUDIO MP3 (Right click to download.)

Discussion Question:

• This one is heavy. What did you find most intriguing about Kierkegaard's discussion of despair and/or his defense of Christianity.

Lecture Seven: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Spirit

I. A recap of Nietzsche:

A. Power is inter I wined with things which are not dependent on power, such as truth and goodness.

B. The Greeks were straight-forward with their idea of virtue. It was based on excellence and the fulfillment of human powers.

C. Christian morality grew out of a slave context. Its doctrines of love and compassion were tooted in resentment of a power that could not express itself.

II. God is “dead.”

III. Kierkegaard

A. In a place where all arc Christians, ipso facto, none are Christians.

B. Kierkegaard did not believe that each one of us are individual subjects some how separated from each other like monads.

IV. The Sickness Onto Death:

A. Kierkegaard argues that psychology is in principle impossible.

B. The self is not a substantial thing but a deep relation, and it’s not even that relation but the relating of relations.

1. We are a synthesis between our desire for freedom and our recognition of brutal necessity.

2. Because we are a relation, we are incomplete.

3. This despair constitutes the self.

C. Kierkegaard describes a morally ill person who is struggling with death yet does not die. (sick onto death)

D. The hope is to find a way to die.

1. Suicide is not acceptable.

2. Despair is the reaction to the struggle to be human in inhuman conditions.

V. The relation to human values and social systems:

A. The 19th century story was the replacement of manual labor with machine labor, while the 20th century story will be the replacement of intellectual labor with machine labor.

B. Humans driven to this extent of socialization would greatly prefer death but are unable to do it,

C. In the postmodern culture, images are more real than the real thing, and patriotism is cynical.

D. Things no longer look like human values but rather human commodities.

Philosophy and Human Values: Nietzsche: Knowledge and Belief

While everything up to last week's lecture dealt with discussions of values and morality in terms that most folks can accept or dismiss without much controversy, the Marxist critique of capitalism discussed last week, and Nietzsche's critiques of Christianity hit a little closer to home for most Americans and can be quit disconcerting.

It is important moving forward that the critiques offered of modern society is the work of philosophy. To question the unquestioned assumptions of a particular people in a particular place and time is what philosophy is at its best. It can help us to think about our time and place differently, challenge us to more rigorously think about what we think we know, and either make us more stalwart defenders of our culture or work to improve upon it. But I have said this before. Enjoy this lecture and if you have any questions please ask them in the comments below.

Oh yeah, and the audio portion ends abruptly. No matter. Roderick was nearly finish anyhow.

LINK: Video & Transcript

AUDIO MP3 (Right click to download.)

Discussion Question:

• Why do you think Nietzsche thought that Christianity was a catastrophic development for humanity? To what extent is he correct about the inherent duplicity embedded within Christianity? To what extent his he mistaken?

Lecture Six: Nietzsche: Knowledge and Belief

I. There are no water-tight distinctions between philosophy and politics.

A. The priority of politics is marked even in the Greeks.

B. These set the necessary conditions within which human beings can pursue things, such as a good life for themselves.

C. There is a severe problem with the writings of Marx.

1. He assumed that workers shaping and forming their own modes of work would not fall victim to the power of the state.

2. The state would step in place of a capitalist class and exploit their labor.

D. The process of a world becoming bureaucratically more complex and intrusive at the level of the state is a world phenomenon, and is not localizeable.

II. Nietzsche was a critic of modernity.

A. Nietzsche held the view that knowledge is a form of power, which was the subject of his most important book, From Where Do Distinctions Come?

B. He speaks of the Greeks’ understanding of virtue, vastly different from our own.

1. They knew who and when to con.

2. Excellence was multi-dimensional and honored a fully developed person, not a proficient functionary.

C. He gives us a genealogy of our uses of words.

D. Eternal problems change radically depending on where you happen to be in history.

E. Knowledge, truth, and objectivity, good and bad, have conditions for possibility and these conditions change.

III. Nietzsche criticizes Christianity.

A. He suggests that Christianity inculcates us in bad reading.

B. Superficially, beneath the Old Testament’s doctrine of love and compassion is submerged a doctrine of resentment and hatred.

C. He argues that love is meaningless without discrimination.

D. He criticizes Christianity’s distinction between earthly and carnal kinds of love.

Philosophy and Human Values: Hegel and Modern Life

In this lecture, Roderick introduces us to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and his most famous student, Karl Marx. In so doing, he begins to bring the discussion of philosophy into the relevant "here and now" or everyday experience. This means that the critical appr

oach taken by Marx is directed at the modes and systems within which we work and live. This inevitably leads to a critique of how the way we work and live is a reflection of our beliefs about what is important and ultimately "true"; our ideology.

In another lecture,(not required) Slavoj Zizek argues that the unquestioned ideology of Western society is nothing short of "market, neo-liberalism", another term for the more populous "global consumer culture"; Hegel's Absolute Freedom manifested in the capitalist, liberal-democratic nation state. Note on the word "liberal"; It's use in these discussions refers to the definition as held in Europe and should not be confused with notions of "socialism" as conflated by people on the political right. Rather, it is a descriptive term related to Enlightenment values of rule of law, meritocracy, economic liberty, and individual rights.

LINK: Video & Transcript

AUDIO MP3 (Right click to download.)

Discussion Question:

• So Marx is interested in what capitalism tends to do to, or how capitalism tends to act upon members of the society at large, in the material world. To what extent is Marx's complaint that capitalism commodifes everything in a society including interpersonal relations, basic needs, and our institutions "true" or "not true"? Is he fundamentally wrong and the market, neo-liberal present state of affairs is that best that humanity can expect? Have fun and try not to take anything too personally.

Lecture Five: Hegel and Modern Life

I. Hegel was conservative.

A. The culmination of this long historical process is that history proper came to an end.

B. Right wing Hegelians took Hegel to be fundamentally right and therefore applied his method over and over.

C. To left wing Hegelians such as Marx Hegel’s is a classic text but has an ambiguous legacy.

II. Marx criticized capitalism

A. A criticism of capitalism is a criticism of Hegel because for Hegel, capitalism coupled with

liberal democracy is the highest achievement of humanity.

B. The democratic state is in contradiction with the imperatives of the capitalist economy.

1. We are used to these contradiction in our current society. This was not true in Marx’s

time.

2. The secret of capitalism is the shift in identity from what you are in a society to what you

own or have.

C. Marx identified several effects of capitalism.

1. It reduces human needs to those which can be bought and sold in the market

place.

2. It produces from nature more technological abilities than in all of

history.

3. These come into contradiction because of the imperative of the economy to make a profit and to fulfill nil these new needs.

III. Marx’s ideology:

A. If you really want to know how someone thinks, look at their surroundings. This outlook,

“materialism,” criticized ideas by examining.

B. Moral or philosophical dilemnas must be understood in terms of being different for different

classes.

C. There is a difference between a theoretical approach and an approach rooted in daily life.

D. You must not let your life be reduced to poverty or work.

E. Before moral problems arise, there are preconditions for human life that have to be fulfilled such as food, shelter, health care and freedom to pursue other goals besides work.

Philosophy and Human Values: Mill on Liberty

PROGRESS REPORT

I know this is a difficult assignment, the material is dense, it requires a lot of attention, and it takes a form that many of your are not used to. However, if you get your comments in earlier the discussions will work better and in the end, you will have a better foundation going into AP Euro. Try to get your first comments in by Thursday or Friday so that we can have a more fruitful experience. Remember that I ask for a MINIMUM of two comments, one addressing the discussion question directly and one reflecting on the comments of your peers. I have been holding off on asking clarifying questions and making points of my own because I do not want to interfere with the rest of the class and your own ideas.

If you engage in the assignment, I think you will find the ideas discussed stimulating and challenging, forcing you to

think about what it is that you know, or think you know, and reflect upon “what you are doing.”

Come on y’all. This is good for . . . and you’ll like it.

Peace,

ward

LINK: Video & Transcript

AUDIO MP3 (Right click to download.)

Discussion Question:

• The utilitarian principle leads to the

principle of paternalism, wherei

n we begin to think that the state ought to interfere with the freedom of others f

or their own good. For example, the requirement that we wear seat belts, the prohibition against taking certain drugs, and of course, compulsory education. Of cour

se, the state has the power to enforce it's will and interfere in the freedom of the individual but do you think that such interference is legitimate? If so, on what grounds? Not specifically regarding these examples, but in general.

Lecture Four: Mill on Liberty

I. Another objection to Kant is the question of what happens when you are trying to will a universal principle in a situation when two principles are good and yet you cannot do them both.

A. It is not just right or wrong. You must chose the one that leads to the best results.

B. In an embodied context it may not do a bit of good to know the rule, illustrating that the moral life is full of ambiguity.

II. Freedom in the 19th Century is addressed by Mill’s commentary on liberty.

A. Mill tries to show where the grounds are for the government’s interference: with our liberty, a question of legitimacy, not of power.

B. The harm principle posits that the only legitimate ground for social coercion is to prevent harm to others. Once you give this power up, it is over.

C. The offense principle, which Mill would not support, posits society has a legitimate right to socially coerce to prevent “offending” others. Such offense undermines the moral tone of society.

D. One must make a distinction between self-regarding actions and other-regarding actions in the harm principle. (Some argue that there is no such thing as a self-regarding action.)

E. The principle of paternalism is that we can interfere with people for their own good.

F. An added dimensions of the harm principle: social coercion can be used if decisions are encumbered by craziness, drunkeness of if freedoms of others are interfered with.

III. There are limitations to Mill’s account of freedom.

A. It is an account of “negative freedom” only, a freedom from constraint.

B. He says nothing about positive freedom to act.

IV. Hegel argues that freedom is the meaning and the point of human history in general. Overcoming obstacles is gaining freedom.

A. The challenge of freedom is to find the new boundaries and then to figure out how to break them down.

B. Marx wrote that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point is to change it.

Ward's notes on the lecture;

Professor Roderick is witty and sarcastic, and he attempts to bring this material "down to

our level." That is, he condescends to us in the best sense of that word. Rather than referring to obscure texts to illustrate his points Roderick, continually refers to

films and television shows that were popular with a late twentieth century audience. Many of his references are from the 1980s and you may not be familiar with many of them. That is okay. You may wish to see the films if you think it will help you to follow his examples but I don't think that it is particularly crucial.

I would encourage you to download the MP3's of the lectures and listen to them a couple of times before you comment on the discussion questions that follow. I have included a link to the transcript and the videos but you should understand that the videos were uploaded to youtube when they still had the 10 minute maximum rule. Therefore, if you watch you will be re

quired to load each new video every 9 - 10 minutes. On the other hand, the audio files allow you to listen uninterrupted anywhere you might go. However, I encourage you to read the transcripts as you listen as the text will help you to follow the increasingly complex ideas he discusses as the lecture series progresses.

You will find that this material is demanding. It demands your undivided attention and a degree of thought that can be taxing and exhausting. So stick with it. Our discussions in the comments will be much more fruitful if you have engaged with the material early in the week so that we have time to interact throughout the week ahead.

One last point on this summer assignment. While our course begins with the fourteenth century, I think that Professor Roderick's survey of Philosophy and Human Values will help us to follow the intellectual climate of our study throughout the year. It is okay if you don't "get" everything that he discusses throughout this series. A basic familiarity with the figures and ideas will help to provide the intellectual context for our study as the year progresses.

Have fun and I look forward to our discussions.

Peace,

ward

LINK: Video & Transcript

AUDIO MP3 (Right click to download.)

Suggested Reading: Wikipedia article on Rick Roderick.

Discussion Question:

• Why does Socrates think that it is essential to have knowledge of oneself, and how might our different understandings about the nature of "Truth" make understanding difficult?

Lecture One: Socrates and the Life of Inquiry

I. The trial and death of Socrates inaugurated the Western philosophical tradition.

A. Investigation turned from movement of stars and composition of the earth toward human matters by separating scientific from philosophic discourse.

B. Dialogic form posits dialogue as essential to knowledge.

C. It is essential to have knowledge of oneself.

II. Socrates had an argument against relativism.

A. Is the idea that truth is relative itself a relative truth — or is it an absolute one?

B. Human Meaning:

1. What are you doing — now, and in life?

2. Do meanings transcend the here and now?

3. When a term or set of terms that are very important to a society (e.g. “virtue”, “patriotism”) are questioned, society is in danger. This was true of Socrates’ Athens and of our condition.

4. Several themes are pursued throughout the lectures.

C. Ask and try to localize in history what it means to be a human being.

D. Explore ways of living, including the socratic way of critical inquiry.

E. The “fallibilist” philosophy is believing passionately in certain things but realizing that the beliefs may be wrong.

F. This type of critical inquiry, if it can be carried out at all, can be carried out when societies are troubled and the meanings of words are debated and redefined.

1. The way we describe and understand our lives is inextricably connected to the way we live them.

2. Under these conditions it may not be possible to expand localized useful definitions.