1. Who played good cop to Thomas Young's bad, in November 1773?
2. What did Young's accusers suppose too obvious to need proving?
3. In the common conception of morality, what is nihilism?
4. In the "immanent" conception of morality, what is the relation between nihilism and religion?
5. What was Locke's Epicurean statement of what we all seek?
6. What was Jefferson's summum bonum, and his "trinity"?
7. What historical irony does Stewart note in Locke's discussion of happiness?
8. Why does Stewart say the radical philosophy is not properly or exclusively a humanism? (To what is it closer?)
9. What was Spinoza's, Hume's, Machiavelli's, and others' charge against Christianity's concern for otherworldly salvation?
10. What balance did Jefferson seek between Head and Heart?
11. What is the meaning of "God's love" and "Holy Spirit," in Spinoza's account?
12. When did "the virtuous atheist" first appear in America, and what was virtuous atheism's "most notorious eruption"?
DQ
- Could/should American independence have been pursued and achieved nonviolently?
- Do you think Young was a good man? Can we know that of any long-dead historical figure?
- In your experience, are religious people any more likely to be good than freethinkers?
- Is there a necessary connection between morality and happiness? 271
- How do you define nihilism?
- Do you share the Epicurean idea of the good life? 275
- Do you agree with Jefferson on avoiding "indulgence which prevents a greater pleasure"? 276 Which are the greater pleasures?
- Do you agree with Hume on the relation between reason and the passions? 279
- Can you be a humanist without also being a naturalist?
- Is it fair to call Christianity's quest for otherworldly salvation selfish?
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Don asked for reading suggestions, what I wish I'd read back when I started to study philosophy. I mentioned Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. The 30th anniversary edition is just out, here's the publisher's blurb:
When it first appeared in 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. In it, Richard Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation: comparing the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. Rorty's book is a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned.Today, the book remains a must-read and stands as a classic of twentieth-century philosophy. Its influence on the academy, both within philosophy and across a wide array of disciplines, continues unabated. This edition includes new essays by philosopher Michael Williams and literary scholar David Bromwich, as well as Rorty's previously unpublished essay "The Philosopher as Expert."
Richard Rorty (1931-2007) was a prolific philosopher and public intellectual who, throughout his illustrious career, taught at Princeton, the University of Virginia, and, until his death, Stanford University.
I also recommend Anthony Gottlieb's Dream of Enlightenment, the 2d volume of a projected 3-volume series.
Also Robert Solomon's A Short History of Philosophy and its even shorter cousin A Passion for Wisdom.
And with respect to American Philosophy, John Kaag's American Philosophy: A Love Story, and Robert Richardson's bio William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism.
Spinoza on twitter... he makes remarkably good use of the platform, and may be easier to comprehend in tweet-sized bites:
Pinned Tweet
I have taken great care not to deride, bewail, or execrate human actions, but to understand them. (TP)
Alternative Q's
ReplyDelete1. Who played the "bad cop" to Sam adams's "good cop"?
2. Who was number one on the loyalist hit list?
3. Who was number 3?
4. When did Young and his family leave for Newport?
5. When did the situation in the Green Mountains reach a crisis point?
6. In what work does Thomas Young present his reflections on the nature of good and evil?
7. How did his antagonist respond to this work?
8. According to Matthew Stewart, otherworldly religion is not the cure for nihilism but a ______ of it.
9. The pursuit of happiness is the animating force behind what philosophy?
10. With what doctrine does epicurean ethics begin?
11. According to Epicurus, the wise man avoids behaviors such as stealing or cheating because?
Discussion Question Answers:
ReplyDelete1. Could/should American independence have been pursued and achieved nonviolently?
I do not believe that American independence could have been achieved nonviolently. The United States had racked up a great deal of debt because of the French-Indian War. The King and Great Britain had to come bail the colonies out of their troubles. The colonies paid significantly lower taxes than those in the kingdom, and yet they were still unhappy. King George had no reason to relinquish the colonists from his jurisdiction. Giving the colonies their freedom would mean losing all the natural resources of the Americas, losing the land, and losing the potential for global empire expansion. There is no feasible universe where the United States could be founded nonviolently.
2.In your experience, are religious people any more likely to be good than freethinkers?
Religion does not dictate morals. In the same vein, a lack of religion does not negate an individual's capacity for morals. However, in my personal experience, I have found more genuine, honest people to be without religion. Religion, Christianity specifically, has left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth as I have experienced many hypocritical religious people who do not act as they say their faith dictates. However, this doesn't in anyway negate all the good that churches and religious individuals do. Often, churches/synagogues/mosques are the first people to arrive on the scene of a crisis to offer aid.
3. Is there a necessary connection between morality and happiness?
This question would depend entirely on your definition of happiness. Hitler, I'm sure, was incredibly happy to see millions of people dying. Does that make him moral? Absolutely not. However, an argument can be made that individuals who are benevolent experience more happiness. In fact, there have been medical studies conducted that show when a human is kind toward another person their levels of serotonin increase. To make a long answer short, I do not think that happiness and morality are inherently correlated. However, there is a correlation between benevolence and happiness.
4.Is it fair to call Christianity's quest for otherworldly salvation selfish?
From an outside perspective: Yes. It's incredibly ethnocentric to push/force a set of beliefs on another group. From a Christian perspective: No. They genuinely believe they are doing what is best for the peoples' souls. Their quest is noble and for the betterment of the world.