Continuation

“PEOPLE CHANGE … BUT THE PERSON IS CONSTANT”

But how is the person to be distinguished from the people which, after all, is merely a collection of persons? Of course, the philosophical question of change and constancy was debated by the ancient Greeks, particularly Parmenides and Heraclitus.

Parmenides claimed “Nothing changes,” a view championed here by “Alfille” but Heraclitus maintained, “You cannot step twice into the same river for fresh waters are forever flowing in upon you.” How can the dilemma be resolved? Parmenides adopted what we would today call a substantive essentialist position, in the present context, “You are who you are” which is reminiscent of Aristotle’s first law of logic: “A is A.”

On the other hand Heraclitus adopted what we today would call a contextualist or relativistic position, that is, what someone is is relative to the context (the “river”) in which one finds oneself. There is, of course no Aristotelian logic which, by its nature, deals only with unchanging substantive states.

My claim is that we must back away from an absolutist position in both cases, the absolutist substantive and the absolutist contextualist positions. In other words, it seems odd to say that someone never fundamentally changes from cradle to grave; on the other hand it seems equally odd to say that someone, lacking all substantive identity, is continually changing from cradle to grave. There must be some “middle path” but where it is located can only be a matter of further reflection.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

True, very true.

AN AMBIGUITY

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Roundabout (03/01, 6:18PM)

Well no, I must disagree. Alfille has raised an extremely interesting philosophical point, i.e., the ontological nature of identity. Is identity an invariant constant as with Parmenides or, as with Heraclitus, does it undergo continual change relative to the environment (the “river”) in which it finds itself?

I have been thinking about the contrast I drew and it appears I overlooked an ambiguity. Quoting Heraclitus to the effect that we cannot step twice into the same river as fresh waters are forever flowing in upon us, it might be argued that the individual remained unchanged in spite of the changing environment. In other words, it might be just the environment which changed but not the individual which, in my view, points to a possible reconciliation with Parmenides’ unchanging individual.

But questions of ontology are usually vexed, as I’m sure you will agree.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

A” GENERAL NUISANCE”

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Egghead (03/02, 10:33PM)

Yes it counts but, of course, the question is WHY your homeroom teacher called you a “General Nuisance.” I believe that this might tie in with “Chomsky on Miseducation” (2000) where he claimed that the job of teachers, as the foot soldiers of the corporate plutocracy, was to indoctrinate the youth into accepting the values and social structures embodied in that plutocracy. It’s called “domesticating education.”

The example is given of David Spritzler, a twelve-year old student at Boston Latin School who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance which he considered “a hypocritical exhortation to patriotism” and not “liberty and justice for all.” He was considered a “general nuisance” to put it mildly.

Chomsky stated that the case was “a sign of the deep level of indoctrination that takes place in our schools, making an educated person unable to understand elementary thoughts that any twelve-year old can understand. In fact what happened to David Spritzler is expected of schools, which are institutions for indoctrination and for imposing obedience. Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion. And once you are well educated, you have already been socialized in ways that support the power structure, which, in turn, rewards you immensely.”

So my question is whether you were a “general nuisance in Spritzler’s sense, i.e., an independent critical thinker or were you just a pain in the ass. If the former could you explicate your position? (Avoid hot blow.)

Write back soon.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

LEARNING & TEACHING

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Egghead (03/03, 3:40PM)

“I had an aptitude for my teacher’s subject but suffered from sporadic motivation.”

It sounds to me like the teacher wasn’t doing his job. What is his job? It is to motivate his students. How does he do that? He engages their minds. How does he engage their minds? He engages their minds by engaging in reflective, structured and sustained dialogue with them. How does he engage their minds in reflective, structured and sustained dialogue? He do so by a philosophical approach to his subject, by collectively seeking meaning, by jointly attempting to answer the question, “Why?”

Actually, I rejected Chomsky’s institutional view of schooling as simply the handmaiden of the corporate plutocracy because it was, um, too “institutional.” While there is a great variation in the quality of teachers and teaching, everything that matters in schooling occurs on the classroom floor and nowhere else. It is not so much the subject matter itself that counts but rather the manner in which it is taught. But the manner in which it is taught will reflect the teacher’s passion for that subject.

So my next question is, what was your teacher’s subject? Can you provide a rationale for your aptitude in it?

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

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Egghead (03/04, 4:47PM)

When I asked for a rationale for your aptitude in your teacher’s subject I didn’t mean “aptitude” in the psychological sense of nature/nurture – I’m pretty sure the psychologists couldn’t give a convincing explanation either – but rather your aptitude for the subject matter itself.

So your aptitude was for mathematics and logic which is closely tied to Physics. So my question would be, what was it about the nature of mathematics/logic/Physics that appealed to you? In my view these subjects all appeal to the need for an impersonal certainty. Within the context of a prescribed framework of given premises all follow impersonal, deductive procedures leading to an incontrovertible conclusion. None deal with the thought of actual human beings but rather with pale abstractions (logic/mathematics) on the one hand and the impersonal forces of nature (Physics) on the other. Am I right about this where you are concerned?

As you might suspect these are not my favourite subjects. Who was it who said, “The proper study of mankind is man” where, by “man” is to be understood his thought. I have no objection to those who think otherwise as long as they don’t attempt to reduce the humanities to science. i.e., “scientism.”

I know there are teachers who shouldn’t be in the classroom but, like human beings generally, there is a vast range of pedagogical talent, ranging from its total absence to those who love their subject and who can convey that love to their students. For me, those who stick around just to pick up a paycheck are in fact apostates from a noble calling and should be banished to the hinterlands. But, as you say, sometimes it just takes one really good teacher to make a difference.

Anyway, was I right about your aptitude for logic/mathematics/Physics or did I have a cognitive shortfall?

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

“What other subjects can be so rich and so simple at the same time? Is philosophy one of these?”

Well, yes it is in one sense but not on the sense that you are using it. To speak of “supreme objectivity” in philosophy would be to invite ridicule, and rightly so. While Pythagoras thought that the highest reality was “number” – probably for the same reasons as you – philosophy, other than formal logic, does not aim at ineluctable certitude which necessarily arrives at a given conclusion if one accepts the major premise and the bridging minor premise. But philosophy is much more nuanced than that mechanistic exercise, relying rather on the marshalling of reasons to support one’s position. And one has a position whether one is aware of it or not. One’s position, in a nutshell, IS one’s philosophy.

Many philosophers do not see the point of math or logic any more than they see the point to devoting one’s life to chess. Within a rigidly prescribed framework of moves certainty in the form of victory or defeat is unavoidable but human relations are not of this bloodless, mechanical sort.

Yet philosophy is a rational exercise in that the weight of reasons plays a central role in the attempt to give shape and meaning to human life, including one’s own. But centrally, everybody whether they know it or not, has a philosophy. It may be tacit, one may be even unaware of one’s philosophy, but it is there. It is impossible to be a human being without philosophy, to have some conception of the point and purpose of existence. So philosophy might be said to be that which brings such tacit awareness to full consciousness. It is that by which we come to know who we, and others, are.

I guess that’s a good start.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!