Sep 16, 2016 07:05 PM
A Life of Meaning (Reason Not Required)
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opi.../the-stone
EXCERPTS: Few would disagree with two age-old truisms: We should strive to shape our lives with reason, and a central prerequisite for the good life is a personal sense of meaning. Ideally, the two should go hand in hand. We study the lessons of history, read philosophy, and seek out wise men with the hope of learning what matters. But this acquired knowledge is not the same as the felt sense that one’s life is meaningful.
Though impossible to accurately describe, we readily recognize meaning by its absence. Anyone who has experienced a bout of spontaneous depression knows the despair of feeling that nothing in life is worth pursuing and that no argument, no matter how inspired, can fill the void. Similarly, we are all familiar with the countless narratives of religious figures “losing their way” despite retaining their formal beliefs.
Any philosophical approach to values and purpose must acknowledge this fundamental neurological reality: a visceral sense of meaning in one’s life is an involuntary mental state that, like joy or disgust, is independent from and resistant to the best of arguments. If philosophy is to guide us to a better life, it must somehow bridge this gap between feeling and thought.
[...] The psychologist Jonathan Haidt and others have shown that our moral stances strongly correlate with the degree of activation of those brain areas that generate a sense of disgust and revulsion. According to Haidt, reason provides an after-the-fact explanation for moral decisions that are preceded by inherently reflexive positive or negative feelings. Think about your stance on pedophilia or denying a kidney transplant to a serial killer. Long before you have a moral position in place, each scenario will have already generated some degree of disgust or empathy.
Nowhere is this overpowering effect of biology on how we think more evident than in the paradox-plagued field of philosophy of mind. Even those cognitive scientists who have been most instrumental in uncovering our myriad innate biases continue to believe in the primacy of reason....
Why we never die
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/opi.../the-stone
EXCERPT: [...] It is now patently unclear to me, however, that we ever actually die in this way. Our existence has numerous dimensions, and they each live according to different times. [...] Moreover, the physical dimension of existence clearly persists beyond any biological threshold, as the material components of our bodies mix and mingle in different ways with the cosmos. The artifacts that we have produced also persevere, which can range from our physical imprint on the world to objects we have made or writings like this one. There is, as well, a psychosocial dimension that survives our biological withdrawal, which is visible in the impact that we have had — for better or worse — on all of the people around us. In living, we trace a wake in the world.
If biological death appears to some as an endpoint to existence, there is nevertheless a longevity to our physical, artifactual and psychosocial lives. They intertwine and merge with the broader world out of which we are woven. This should not be taken as a form of spiritualist consolation, however, but rather as an invitation to face up to the ways in which our immanent lives are actually never simply our own. Authentic existence is perhaps less about boldly confronting the inevitable reality of our own finitude than about recognizing and cultivating the multiple dimensions of our lives. Some of these can never truly die because they do not belong only to us....
Not all things wise and good are philosophy
https://aeon.co/ideas/not-all-things-wis...philosophy
EXCERPTS: [...] I am wary of the argument, however, that all serious reflection upon fundamental questions ought to be called philosophy. Philosophy is one among many ways to think about questions [...] Philosophy, at its best, aims to be a dialogue between people of different viewpoints, but, again, it is a love of wisdom, rather than the possession of wisdom. This restless character has often made it the enemy of religion and tradition.
[...] Philosophy as an academic discipline has consistency insofar as it originates from the Socratic-Platonic tradition. Should philosophers converse with scholars of different religious and moral traditions? Of course. But it makes little sense for philosophers, say, to become amateur Islamic jurists or for Quranic scholars to study philosophy as a prerequisite for their doctorates.
To understand why the limits of philosophy matter, we need to situate the debate within ongoing debates about the funding of higher education. Last year, the Republican senator Marco Rubio said: ‘We need more welders than philosophers,’ a blunt articulation of a widely shared view among taxpayers and policymakers looking for reasons to eliminate, cut or defund philosophy departments. In that New York Times op-ed, philosophy departments are accused of being ‘temples to the achievement of males of European descent’. The implication is that academic philosophy is racist, sexist and worthy of an imminent demise. This will be welcome news for policymakers who want to prohibit federal funds from subsidising the study of philosophy, say, at community colleges or state universities....
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opi.../the-stone
EXCERPTS: Few would disagree with two age-old truisms: We should strive to shape our lives with reason, and a central prerequisite for the good life is a personal sense of meaning. Ideally, the two should go hand in hand. We study the lessons of history, read philosophy, and seek out wise men with the hope of learning what matters. But this acquired knowledge is not the same as the felt sense that one’s life is meaningful.
Though impossible to accurately describe, we readily recognize meaning by its absence. Anyone who has experienced a bout of spontaneous depression knows the despair of feeling that nothing in life is worth pursuing and that no argument, no matter how inspired, can fill the void. Similarly, we are all familiar with the countless narratives of religious figures “losing their way” despite retaining their formal beliefs.
Any philosophical approach to values and purpose must acknowledge this fundamental neurological reality: a visceral sense of meaning in one’s life is an involuntary mental state that, like joy or disgust, is independent from and resistant to the best of arguments. If philosophy is to guide us to a better life, it must somehow bridge this gap between feeling and thought.
[...] The psychologist Jonathan Haidt and others have shown that our moral stances strongly correlate with the degree of activation of those brain areas that generate a sense of disgust and revulsion. According to Haidt, reason provides an after-the-fact explanation for moral decisions that are preceded by inherently reflexive positive or negative feelings. Think about your stance on pedophilia or denying a kidney transplant to a serial killer. Long before you have a moral position in place, each scenario will have already generated some degree of disgust or empathy.
Nowhere is this overpowering effect of biology on how we think more evident than in the paradox-plagued field of philosophy of mind. Even those cognitive scientists who have been most instrumental in uncovering our myriad innate biases continue to believe in the primacy of reason....
Why we never die
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/opi.../the-stone
EXCERPT: [...] It is now patently unclear to me, however, that we ever actually die in this way. Our existence has numerous dimensions, and they each live according to different times. [...] Moreover, the physical dimension of existence clearly persists beyond any biological threshold, as the material components of our bodies mix and mingle in different ways with the cosmos. The artifacts that we have produced also persevere, which can range from our physical imprint on the world to objects we have made or writings like this one. There is, as well, a psychosocial dimension that survives our biological withdrawal, which is visible in the impact that we have had — for better or worse — on all of the people around us. In living, we trace a wake in the world.
If biological death appears to some as an endpoint to existence, there is nevertheless a longevity to our physical, artifactual and psychosocial lives. They intertwine and merge with the broader world out of which we are woven. This should not be taken as a form of spiritualist consolation, however, but rather as an invitation to face up to the ways in which our immanent lives are actually never simply our own. Authentic existence is perhaps less about boldly confronting the inevitable reality of our own finitude than about recognizing and cultivating the multiple dimensions of our lives. Some of these can never truly die because they do not belong only to us....
Not all things wise and good are philosophy
https://aeon.co/ideas/not-all-things-wis...philosophy
EXCERPTS: [...] I am wary of the argument, however, that all serious reflection upon fundamental questions ought to be called philosophy. Philosophy is one among many ways to think about questions [...] Philosophy, at its best, aims to be a dialogue between people of different viewpoints, but, again, it is a love of wisdom, rather than the possession of wisdom. This restless character has often made it the enemy of religion and tradition.
[...] Philosophy as an academic discipline has consistency insofar as it originates from the Socratic-Platonic tradition. Should philosophers converse with scholars of different religious and moral traditions? Of course. But it makes little sense for philosophers, say, to become amateur Islamic jurists or for Quranic scholars to study philosophy as a prerequisite for their doctorates.
To understand why the limits of philosophy matter, we need to situate the debate within ongoing debates about the funding of higher education. Last year, the Republican senator Marco Rubio said: ‘We need more welders than philosophers,’ a blunt articulation of a widely shared view among taxpayers and policymakers looking for reasons to eliminate, cut or defund philosophy departments. In that New York Times op-ed, philosophy departments are accused of being ‘temples to the achievement of males of European descent’. The implication is that academic philosophy is racist, sexist and worthy of an imminent demise. This will be welcome news for policymakers who want to prohibit federal funds from subsidising the study of philosophy, say, at community colleges or state universities....