Best Philosophy on the Internet: Vote Now

The folks over at 3quarksdaily are having a contest for the best philosophy blog posts of the past year. Our recent ruminations on the Sotomayor nomination are among the choices. So go over and check out some of the philosophy available on the internet and let them know what you think (and voting for Engage is good for your karma).

Democracy and Civil Disobedience: Philosophy Cafe @ Powell's Books: Aug. 1

Yesterday, I participated in the Philosophy Cafe at Powell's Books. Its a new event organized by a new friend of mine, Brian Eliot, and his colleague, John Farnum. The hope is to involve everyday folks in philosophical discussions about a wide variety of topics. My talk yesterday focused on "Democracy and Civil Disobedience". Brian and John told me we reached the highest audience numbers with this one (about 55 people total). After I gave my presentation, the audience asked some questions and then they were broken up into small discussion circles. John, Brian, and I listened in to some of the conversations. There was some great soul searching about whether or not people thought they would be willing to put their lives, jobs, reputations on the line for justice and whether non-religious people could have the same fortitude to engage in social justice work and nonviolence as figures like Gandhi, King, or Chavez, who were all deeply spiritual men. (I pointed out Barbara Deming's, work as a secular theory of nonviolence)



The talk I gave provided two views on the legitimacy of civil disobedience (which I defined, following Rawls, as "the public, conscientious, and nonviolent refusal to obey laws or commands of the government in order to bring a change in such laws or commands").

I offered two arguments from Socrates in the Crito which say that CD should not be allowed because: 1) laws and government institutions are "like parents" in that they provide the conditions for nurturance for a person to live and flourish and as such, they are owed obedience and gratitude by citizens who benefit from them; and 2) to the extent that a citizen stays in a society and abides by the laws and government power without dissent, then an implicit contract is formed in which the citizen agrees to accept the legitimacy of the laws and government. If a citizen does not like the laws, then he can leave; if he does not, he accepts them and the power they hold over him.

I then countered with Martin Luther King's point that even if a rule is legal this does not make it moral. There are just laws and unjust laws. While we have a legal and moral responsibility to obey just laws, we have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws.

I finished by talking about why nonviolence is the method with which we ought to think about making social change. Sometimes, when the injustices of our society are grasped in their enormity, it might seem that only violent upheaval can make the changes needed so that people will not suffer or die any longer. I offered some quotes by Cesar Chavez on how armed struggle rarely results in a situation of social justice and ended with the views of Barbara Deming. She says that nonviolence is the most ethical way to resist evil because it resists oppression "with one hand", but offers the other hand to the oppressor to reassure them that we do not seek their destruction or suffering.

Spurned again by the Academy: Top Ten Philosophy Blogs

Alas, I again did not make Brian Leiter's cut for being one of the top ten philosophy blogs on the WWW. I feel so much like Susan Lucci (don't know who she is? you need more camp in your life, my friend.)

Leftist Faith: Kolakowski on Religious Feeling at the End of Days

Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski passed away last week. I've never been familiar with his work, but Margaret Soltan writes a very thoughtful memorial about him. She respects him for being a leftist who found a place for religious feeling toward the end of his life. However, it was not some desperate grab for a foundation in life or a calculated bet to win rewards in the afterlife a la Pascal. Instead, Kolakowski simply recognized a sense of mystery and awe about the complexities of life that don't seem to be reduced to a set of philosophical propositions or explainable according to biology or physics:

"People - and by no means professional philosophers only - often have experiences which they describe as astonishment at the fact of existence, awe in the face of 'Nothingness', apprehension of the unreality of the world or the feeling that whatever is impermanent must be accounted for by what is indestructible. Experiences of this kind are not mystical in the strict sense, i.e., not events people interpret as direct encounters with God. They might rather be described as a strong feeling that in the fact of being and of not being - in this very fact and not only in the experiencing person's existence - there is something unobvious, alarming, puzzling, queer, astounding, something which defies all the ordinary, daily norms of understanding. Such feelings cannot be and need not be converted into scientific 'problems'; they are expressed, more or less clumsily, as metaphysical riddles. There is in them no stuff for 'proving' anything if 'to prove' retains the sense it usually has in scientific procedures. Indeed, inserted as links into a chain of reasoning they usually look poor and unconvincing. Yet it is astonishingly foolish to dismiss them, as empiricists often do, as errors generated by the wrong usage of words or subject to explanation as an abuse of semantic standards."

Guerilla Philosophy: Is there room for philosophical graffiti?

The London Underground drivers are exposing commuters to philosophical thoughts ranging from Sartre to Gandhi (presumably over the speakers?). Here some philosophers and politicians share what aphorisms they would like to hear.

This made me think of what it would be like to do guerilla philosophy--graffiti with a philosophical twist, spread out across public spaces. Such graffiti is common in Latin America (Eduardo Galeano is good at collecting this "street wisdom." He has said: "The walls are the publishers of the poor".)


(Translation: Poverty is a time bomb)

Anyway, here is my selection for a philosophical nugget in the public sphere:

"With individuals, as with nations, respect for the rights of others means peace"

Benito Juarez

(Photo by Guillermo Campos via Flickr. Street art in Coyoacan, Mexico)

What Good is a Master's Degree Philosophy during a Recession?

According to these experts, if your Master's is not in law, business, engineering, or medicine, you're wasting your time.

What Good is a Philosophy Degree in a Recession?

Not much, according to business folk over at Business Week. Forget about critical thinking. Less than 5% want people with liberal arts degrees. They want you to show them that you know how to take orders.

Grad school? They say its a waste of time. Just find a job.

Singer's Plan to End Global Poverty

Peter Singer's new book lays out his plan for ending global poverty, in which over 3 billion human beings live on less than $2 a day (and a shocking 1 billion live on less than about $1.25 a day for all their essential needs). As this profile in The Observer explains, here is a way for the most privileged human beings to discharge their duties to the most poor:

Every person in the developed world ought to give at least 5% of their annual income to poverty relief efforts (such as Oxfam or Unicef). The rich ought to give more.

And to address the ad hominem that always follows Singer's argument: He gives about 25% of his annual income to Oxfam.

Muhammad Yunus Inspires Young People to Change the world

Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus talks about the importance of young people using their imagination and creativity to envision a better world and not focusing on the trappings of grades and success as the centerpoint of a meaningful life.

Perverts and the Examined Life: Philosopher's Guide to Movies

Two new films with philosophical subject matter coming out soon. The first is a documentary, Examined Life, that captures the peripatetic experience with deep thinkers such as Peter Singer, Cornel West, and Judith Butler.



The second film is a project of that philosophical wild man, Slovoj Zizek (who is also interviewed in Examined Life), that analyzes psychoanalytic themes in a variety of American classic films. The Pervert's Guide to Cinema seems worth it just to watch Zizek trying to pilot a small motorboat.




The Ethics of Polyamory and Relationship Diversity: The Complete Series

The final webisode of the interview with Christian Matheis is finally up. You can now listen to all four webisodes:

Webisode One: "What is Polyamory?" Definitions of Relationship Diversity

Webisode Two: "What is Polyamory?" Fairness and Jealousy in Polyamorous Relationships

Webisode Three: "What is Polyamory?" Polyamory and Patriarchy

Webisode Four: "What is Polyamory?" Final Thoughts--Caution and Human Potential in Relationship Diversity

The theme of relationship diversity has arisen in the popular press recently with the new book Opening Up (2008) by former Village Voice columnist Tristan Taormino.

And perhaps more than anything, polyamory is a movement that is spread over the internet. There are numerous sites and blogs devoted to the subject. For an interesting insight into the dynamics of such relationships, one can look to: The Journal of a Polyamorous Triad, (two men and woman sharing a house and raising children together) or for updates about polyamory worldwide, Polyamory in the News (which includes an interesting post as to whether we ought to read Sartre's No Exit as a fable about polyamory!)

Museums, Memory, and the Logic of Coercive Institutions

National Public Radio has a new series on museums in the United States. People often think of Americans as sports fans or infatuated with pop culture entertainment, but it turns out that we quite the museum goers. Almost 900 million people visit museums annually.

Why are museums so popular?

Philippe de Montebello, former Metropolitan Museum of Art director, answers: "A museum is the memory of mankind."

But we know, too, from many psychological studies that human memory is a very fragile and confusing thing. It is often unreliable and susceptible to being framed and influenced by extraneous forces. We know too often that sometimes people remember things that did not actually happen or not in quite the same way according to different people's recollections.

That why The Pinky Show offers a very interesting take on the museum as a cultural institution. Instead of being neutral repositories of our collective memory, museums may in fact be coercive institutions, run by elite groups who take it upon themselves to disseminate "official" (that is, ideological) versions of history for the masses. Actually, that sounds too Marxist. Kim the kitten puts it better:



This is Your Brain on Love

Researcher Helen Fisher argues that the feeling of romantic love creates changes in the brain that are similar to those undergone by someone with narcotic addiction.

This does seem to describe very well the kind of obsession that many people talk about with eros.

One hesitation I have about her discussion is her description of romantic love as a feeling, distinct from sexual attraction, that singles out one person as worthy of exclusive attention for the purpose of mating. This seems to essentialize heterosexual monogamy into biology.

New Interview on KUCI's "Justice or Just Us?"

Last week, I had a great interview about Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence on KUCI's program "Justice or Just Us" with activist-scholar Jarret Lovell. You can listen to it here

Can we Trust Joe Biden? Plagiarism and Moral Character: A New Engage Podcast

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to face down a peculiar political scandal. It seemed that he had been caught plagiarising a speech from Australian Prime Minister John Howard. You can see Harper's notorious speech next to the original here.

In an article for the website Inside Higher Ed, Jonathan Beecher Field wonders why we in the United States aren't outraged that Joe Biden is a contender for one of the highest public offices in the land, considering that he is habitual plagiarist. It seems that not only did Joe Biden fail a class in law school for plagiarising, he was later caught stealing from a speech during his 1988 bid for the presidency. Field says that all academics should be outraged at the choice of this man for the VP position.

In the newest Engage interview, Dr. Courtney Campbell, the Hundere Professor in Religion and Culture at OSU, talks with me about the moral nature of plagiarism and why it should be condemned as a practice. We discuss what kind of harm plagiarism causes and how we should understand and evaluate the character of people, such as Joe Biden, Martin Luther King, Jr. and now, Stephen Harper, who are public figures, seeking the trust of their communities, but have been shown to exhibit this kind of moral failing.

You can listen to this interview at the new Engage site here.

Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award for 2008: Nancy Tuana

From the Society for Women in Philosophy:


The Society for Women in Philosophy is pleased to announce that Nancy Tuana has been named the Distinguished Woman Philosopher of 2008.

Biography:
Nancy Tuana is DuPont/Class of 1949 Professor of Philosophy, Science, Technology, Society, and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University and Founding Director of the Rock Ethics Institute (http://rockethics.psu.edu ). Her contributions to feminist philosophy include: Series Editor of ReReading the Canon (Pennnsylvania State University Press), co-editor with Laurie Shrage of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Editor of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, co-editor (with Sally Haslanger and Jenny Saul) of the Stanford Encyclopedia's entries on feminist philosophy, director of two NEH Summer Seminars on Feminist Epistemologies, and numerous publications in the field of feminist philosophy. With Joan Callahan she is working on an in-depth oral history project Feminist Philosophers: In Their Own Words. Her most recent project is an investigation of the intersections of feminist philosophy and climate ethics.


Recipients of the Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award:
Nancy Tuana (2008)
Joan Callahan (2007)
Ruth Millikan (2006)
Linda Martín Alcoff (2005)
Susan Sherwin (2004)
Eva Feder Kittay (2003)
Sara Ruddick (2002)
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (2001)
Marilyn Frye (1999)
Linda Lopez McAlister (1998)
Claudia Card (1997)
Gertrude Ezorsky (1996)
Alison Jaggar (1995)
Iris Marion Young (1994)
Kathryn Pyne Addelson (1993)
Virginia Held (1992)
Jane Roland Martin (1991)
Sandra Harding (1990)
Hazel Barnes (1989)
Leigh Cauman (1988)
Elizabeth Flowers (1987)
Mary Mothersill (1986)
Marjorie Greene (1985)
Elizabeth Beardsley (1984)
(no recipient was honored in 2000)

New way to listen to Engage: Conversations in Philosophy

As many of you know, Engage began as a project to bring podcasts of conversations of engaged philosophy to the public. We have done several podcasts so far.

I'm beginning a new Tumblr site that will allow us to post conversations on the internet more quickly and easily. Hopefully that means you will be able to listen more quickly and easily, too.

I'm beginning the new audio blog with one of our most popular conversations, "What is Diversity?" with Dr. Lani Roberts. Go give it a listen here. And look forward to new podcasts very soon.

Bookstore Hall of Fame: Best Place to get your philosophy fix?

A list of the 10 best bookstores in North America? Certainly some of the best places to go to augment your philosophy collection:

1) Tattered Cover--Denver, Colorado

2) Powell's Books--Portland, Oregon

3) Title Wave--Anchorage, Alaska

4) Mcnally Robinson Booksellers--Winnipeg, Canada

5) Harvard Book Store--Cambridge, Mass.

6) Clues Unlimited--Tucson, Arizona

7) Elliot Bay Book Company--Seattle, Washington

8) Kramerbooks and Afterward--Washington, D.C.

9) City Lights--San Francisco, California

10) Book People--Austin, Texas

I can proudly say I've been to 40% of these landmarks, but I'd be hard pressed to say whether I love Powell's or City Lights more.

Habermas Wins European Award

Jurgen Habermas, in my mind one of the giants of social and political philosophy in the twentienth century, recently won an award:

European prize goes to philosopher Habermas
The European Prize of Political Culture has been awarded to the German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas at the Locarno Film Festival.

Habermas' theories have greatly contributed to the evolution of modern social sciences, the Hans Ringier Foundation, patrons of the €50,000 prize said.

The philosopher, born in 1929, is best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic and title of his first book.

Last year the prize went to Serbian president Boris Tadic; Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister received the honour in 2006. The prize is in its third year.

From here. (Tadic was also a philosopher, if memory serves me right)

Why doesn't the United States have such prizes?

What is it that you do?

I just had a conversation with my friend Dennis about the difference between political philosophy and political theory (as usually taught in Political Science Departments). I tend to think that political philosophy is more normative, that is, its concerned to examine whether or not politics ought to be a certain way, whereas political theory is more interested in explaining the foundations for why politics is the way it is now. For instance, I tend to think political philosophers are more interested in questions of utopia than are political theorists.

From Public Reason: the questions that motivate social and political phlilosophy

1) What Should the Social World Be Like?

2) Should There be Government?

3) What Sort of Government Should We Have?