Conversing with the Universe

Conversing with the Universe

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In the classroom I’m explicit with the disclaimer that since we’re doing philosophy, nothing is off the table for questioning, including religious beliefs. It is this “nothing’s off the table for question” attitude that is so particular to philosophy, particularly as it is constantly calling itself into question. And it is this attitude that has implications for the roles we play, the masks we wear. We all play various roles, whether student, professor, parent, brother, close friend, etc. The question…

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Death and the (Mistaken?) Privileging of Consciousness

Death and the (Mistaken?) Privileging of Consciousness

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I believe that one day in the next sixty years I will cease to exist. I will die. I don’t believe I’ve got a soul, immortal or otherwise. Perhaps a soul is possible—though the notion doesn’t make sense to me—but we shouldn’t confuse possibility with probability. My ceasing to exist one day causes me a fair amount of unease. It’s rather untoward of life to do such a thing as cease—human life, anyway: my life and those I love, anyway….

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Is it true that nothing really matters because one day I or the universe will cease to be?

Is it true that nothing really matters because one day I or the universe will cease to be?

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There are a number of things that might concern one about death and the meaning of one’s life. Two related concerns are that in a million years nothing we do now will matter and, assuming there is no soul-like immortality, because life on earth is finite, nothing has any meaning. Something like these two ideas seems to be running through the following quote from Hans Küng regarding Simone de Beauvoir: Simone de Beauvoir, the companion of Jean Paul Sartre, growing…

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The Relational Identity of Persons and the Importance of Personal Projects

The Relational Identity of Persons and the Importance of Personal Projects

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What follows are some first steps in thinking through an aspect of the possible relational identity of persons. I imagine there is a great deal of confusion herein. But so it goes with many beginnings. The question “What is it to be an…..?” is often, if not always, difficult to answer. Pick any object around the house, a chair, for example, and ask what is it that makes it a chair, and you can discover the difficulty. But when we…

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Reverence

Reverence

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Whether false idols or a true god, I am troubled by the idea of worship. Not because I am too good. Not because I lack humility. There is something unthinking in that word “worship.” There is something crudely objectifying, distancing in the notion.

Something about the self

Something about the self

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With some questions we just can’t help our- selves. Buddhists answer one way. Hindus answer another. Both say we’ve got the wrong idea of what the self is or isn’t. I’m not sure what to think…except… that they, that we, are likely all a bit off in our estimation. Is it a bit like when in the Boy Scouts, on a camping trip, the older scouts would make the younger scouts excited about snipe hunting? And so off we’d go…

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Compassion and the Epistemology of Suffering Thresholds

Compassion and the Epistemology of Suffering Thresholds

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In an attempt to get clearer, and less hyperbolic, about the value of suffering, I earlier suggested the idea of a suffering threshold, which is the “point” at which suffering loses its (positive) value and warrants easing. The idea of easing suffering leads directly to compassion/pity and this passage from section 338 of Nietzsche’s the Gay Science: The whole economy of my soul and the balance effected by “distress,” the way new springs and needs break open, the way in…

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Buddhism and Aristotle on the Appropriateness of Suffering Grief: A Further Mark Against Buddhism

Buddhism and Aristotle on the Appropriateness of Suffering Grief: A Further Mark Against Buddhism

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In the well-known parable of the arrow, the Buddha responds negatively to the usefulness of answering certain metaphysical questions. The point that he makes is that they are not important for furthering the goal of alleviating dukkha (suffering/existential dissatisfaction): Whether the view is held that the world is eternal or not, Malunkyaputta, there is still birth, old age, death, grief, suffering, sorrow and despair – and these can be destroyed in this life! I have not explained these other things…

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Against Essentialism in Ethics

Against Essentialism in Ethics

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It has long seemed to me folly to assume that one thing can determine the right or the good in all contexts in the way that, for example, Kantian deontologists and utilitarians claim. Each time I teach global ethics, this “feeling” is heightened. Why could it not be the case that in one context consequences are more relevant and in another intentions? For example, a person is careless while driving, looking at his iPod, and ends up killing someone, quite…

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The Limits of Science, Philosophy, and Poetry: Opening Moves

The Limits of Science, Philosophy, and Poetry: Opening Moves

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A view of knowledge that acknowledges that the sphere of knowledge is wider than the sphere of ‘science’ seems to me to be a cultural necessity if we are to arrive at a sane and human view of ourselves or of science. (Hilary Putnam, Meaning and the Moral Sciences, 5) There are, of course, a great many things that humans do quite naturally, e.g., acquire a mother tongue and fall in love. Just as naturally as those, there is the…

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