You're such a character!

Today's goal focuses on identifying the piece(s) of literature you will use for section 2 of your proejct.  All year we've raised philosophical questions about the characters in the plays, novels, and books we've read:  What motivates them? Why do they do what they do?  How are they shaped / changed?  How do they shape / change others?  And many more.

Your goal is to identify a character who speaks to your question in some way.  It may not be a direct connection, and it may be that the character completely disagrees with your perspective on the issue.  In any case, their experiences and actions and thoughts will be a different lens for you to use to explore your question.  Think of the ways in which your question appears in the text and how it is similar to or different from what you've already named.

In this section you will walk your reader through the text, closely examining various parts of the story and linking it back to your question.  Note that you may find it useful to use a variety of characters from one text to get to your point.  Also, many people who have worked on this project in my previous classes have found it to be helpful to compare / contrast characters from two or more texts in order to give a more complete look at the issue. 

Feel free to return to your previous essays and writings to help you with this section.

Today's music selection comes from one of my favorite music webistes, Gorilla vs. Bear.  Here is a link to their monthly mix from April - lots of great new tunes to check out!  Enjoy!

Philosophy Project - Find the Text!

By now your research has hopefully been an interesting browse through a variety of ideas, questions, and potential answers.

The main goal for today is to clarify which philosopher(s) you will use for your project.  The steps you can use toward this involve using the search engines I gave you on the right side of the blog:

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Philosophy Pages

To effectively use these search engines you will need to use keywords - terms people discussing your issue typically use.  How do you identify what these are?  Basically it comes from trial and error.  Try a word or two, see what types or articles it takes you to, read those to see how they are treating the issue, see what other words people are using, and repeat.

I also have several of my own books available for you to use.  I will bring these to the computer lab each day.  They are organized by topics and questions and I think you'll find them to be helpful.

One *optional* goal for today is to send me your "Philosopher Proposal" (the form is on the blog under "handouts") - don't stress over this one - it's just a way of keeping in touch with me about how your search is going.  Please note this is a step that can be as formal or informal as you like, and can even be completed by just having a brief conversation with me.

The other goal for today is to find the actual texts written by the author you plan to use.

There are a variety of sites that will be helpful for that, starting with the links we already have.

1. Go to Philosophy Pages.  Click on "dictionary" at the top of the page.  Click the letter of the person you are searching for then look for him / her on the list.  Click "Life and Works" and you will find links to many of the full-text versions of their works!
2. Go to Project Gutenberg's Philosophy Bookshlef.  Simply scroll down this page and I think you'll easily be able to find a link to the work you are looking for.
3. Do a Google search! 
   It’s actually not as hard as you think – you’re just a Goolge search away from finding just about any essay I think you’ll need for this project.  Just read through the overviews on the topic you are interested in provided on the websites listed above.  Then, once you have discovered a writer and the name of a particular essay, just plug those into Google using a formula like this:
   (Author Last Name) + (One or Two key words from title) + “full text”
   
   
   Here are three quick examples I did:
   
   
   Essay: David Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”
   
   
               I Googled “Hume Enquiry Full Text”
   and found it here: http://18th.eserver.org/hume-enquiry.html
   
   
   Essay: Rene Descartes’ “Meditations on First Philosophy”
   
   
               I Googled “Descartes First Full Text”
   And found it here: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/meditations.html
   
   
   Essay: William James’ “On the Varieties of Religious Experience”
   
   
               I Googled “William James Varieties Religious full Text”
               And found it here: http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/james.html#will
   
   
   All three of those are either the first or second link to come up in the Google search.  Even after you find it, don’t just print it!  Take the time to read it and work though it – you may only need to print a section of it.
   
   
   Again if you've read this far you deserve a reward.  Today's music selection - a great one for a Monday morning - is Van Morrison's "Moondance" record.  Enjoy.
   
   

   
   

Sign up for Senior Symposium

Hey - don't forget to stop by the bookstore to sign up for the all-day Senior Symposium on May 16th.

Here is a link to the speakers and sessions available on that date - great stuff!

Philosophy Project - What Are You Thinking?

For today, I'm recommending getting going on Part 1.  Again, this is a statement of where you are with your initial thinking about your question.  To help you do that, it is good to use stories and examples.  Think of why you have the beliefs you do and what led to that.  Of course it doesn't need to be something you personally experiences - it can be an example from a book, movie, or even a hypothetical situation you create.  Refer to the previous handouts for suggestions about questions to ask yourself, and answer, as you expand your thinking over the pages of this section.

Today's music selection is a mix created to honor the great hip-hop producer J Dilla.  He worked with many acts, including A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Common, the Roots, and many more.  He died at the age of 32.  Check out these beats:

Philosophy Project - Time to Focus

Greetings!

I hope you enjoyed your last set of late-arrival days!  Hard to believe how quickly the time is going.

Today there are a few suggested components:

1. If you submitted your question proposal to me, you can read my comments in turnitin.com. If you have not yet submitted your question, let's just say getting to that today would be a great idea.
2. Check out the planning and expectations guide I have created for you.  It names a step for each day and a suggested progression for the overall project.  Note that none of these are required check-ins.  However, if at any point you want to show me what you've written, or sit and discuss something you've read, or anything, let's make that happen.
3. Get started with Part 1.  See my suggested steps on the guide above.
4. Look around at some of the websites I've listed to get a preliminary sense of the different ways in which other philosophers have written about your topic.

If you've read this far and want some great tunes to work with today, I'll be posted something each day.  For a Wednesday afternoon, I recommend jamming out to this live show from a band I've been listening to for over twenty-five year - Widespread Panic.  This is a show they played in Florida over the weekend and captures them at their finest.  Let me know if you love it, hate it, or want to know more!

Philosophy - What's Your Question?

The goal for today is simple: to identify the question you will work with for your project.

Now, I'll admit, it's not exactly easy to do this, so there are some steps I'll suggest for today.  Before I even get to those, I'll add a few things:

1. Although your question proposal is due at the end of the period, this is your preliminary question.  This means it is a starting point for your journey.
2. You will still both widen and sharpen the focus of your question as you move forward and explore various aspects of it.
3. If you find another question you'd rather answer, you can still switch - it is your project, after all.

Here is a set of suggested steps to follow today.  You don't necessarily need to do all of them but I think you'll find it to be a good use of your time.

Also, I'll say this frequently, but I highly recommend doing all of this in writing - in whatever format you like.  If you want to create a blog to use for this project, I'll be happy to help you set one up - it takes minutes!

1. Brainstorm a list of potential questions.  These can come from a variety of sources, including:
1. Your previous writings for this class - think about all of the great issues you've already addressed and thought about for your essays.
2. The lists I provided you with on the handouts - open and read "Some basic philosophical questions" and "Forming philosophy questions."
3. Browse around through the websites you've linked to: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philosophy Pages, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2. Do some preliminary research of your question.  I'll do a short demonstration of this at the start of class today.
1. Scan through what other writers and thinkers have said about your issue.
2. Think of a variety of different words associated with your topic (we'll spend a lot of time on this next week) and try them in your search.
3. Try taking this quiz - if it's working.

Lastly for today, complete the "Philosophy Question Proposal" - you'll find it under the "handouts" tab on the blog.  Please note that you are not turning in a paper version of this.  Instead, once you have completed the form and saved it in your "my documents" file, you will upload it to TurnItIn.com.

Good luck!  A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step!

Philosophical discussions and first thoughts towards your question

For today you have two tasks that will move you towards naming your question.
As the bottom of this post you will see the homework for Monday.

1. Find a partner.  You will have a typed conversation about one of the issues that came up during our discussions of Man's Search For Meaning.  It can be from the final section of the work you did on Tuesday, or even from one of the opening set of questions we addressed.  You can find that earlier handout by clicking here.
1. For your conversation - which will essentially be a practice run for the dialogue section of your project - you should start out with an opening statement that goes something like this: "Frankl raises the question of ... and he claims ...." 
2. You'll follow this by talking about your beliefs in relation to the issue: "I agree / disagree / am not so sure because..." then add in an explanation of your thoughts about it.  Try to use a specific story or example to illustrate your point.
3. Switch computers.  Read what the previous person had to say, and then respectfully respond to their points.  It should start with something like, "I agree / disagree / am not so sure about what you are saying because..." then add in an explanation of your thoughts about it
4. As the conversation continues, both of you should work towards gaining a fuller understanding of your point and what the other person has to say.  To get there, use some of the questions we used on Tuesday: 
1. What the other person's assumptions and premises?
1. What is s/he assuming to be true?
2. What conditions is s/he assuming to exist?
3. What is s/he suggesting about the different people involved?
2. What are its implications?
1. If this is true then what else is true? Why?
3. What different types or contexts exist?
1. When does / doesn’t it work?
4. What do the specific terms mean?
5. Who else shares this belief or perspective, and why?
1. Are there other people who this does / doesn’t apply to? Why?
5. Go for about 15 minutes.  Save your results.
2. Choose a new topic from the list below.  Choose a new partner.  You and your partner must have different topics.  Repeat the process detailed above for these two new quesions, with each person starting off one of them with a personal statement.  These do not need to connect with the book.

1.      On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form

2.      The ultimate goal in life is to live as pleasurably as possible.

3.      Democracy is the best form of government.

4.      God exists.

5.      I am now the same person as I was when I was 5 years old.

6.      I am always responsible for my actions.

7.      To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally
         reprehensible.

8.      Ghosts exist.

9.      One day there may be computers that understand Shakespeare better than I do right now.

10.  It is wrong to impose the death penalty.

11.  There are universal moral standards that apply to all human beings regardless of where they live.

12.  The best way to treat depression is to inject chemicals into the brain.

13.  If I had been born into a different environment, I might have become a professional killer.

14.  It is impossible to know anything with absolute certainty.

15.  The future is fixed; how one’s life unfolds is a matter of destiny.

16.  The life of a young child is more valuable that the life of a 22-year-old college student.

17.  If God does not exist, then there are no moral obligations.  In this case, no action would be right  
       or wrong.

18.  It is impossible to be truly happy if one is an immoral person.





Hopefully all of this thinking today gave you a lot to think about!  For Monday, please refer to this handout - it discusses how to move towards creating your question.

By the end of class Monday, you will complete this form which describes your proposed question.

The Philosophy Project

Here is a link to the handout describing the philosophy project.

Here is a link to the power-point I shared in class today, showing 13 essential philosophical questions.

Man's Search For Meaning - Developing Philosophical Questions

For our work with Frankl's book today, please refer to this document.

Man's Search For Meaning - opening thoughts

On Monday we started the final book we'll read together, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning.

To get us thinking about the Holocaust and what we already know about it, we shared stories then read this quotation from Elie Wiesel's Night, a book many of you have already read:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

 

We noted how in this brief excerpt Wiesel raised issues about his faith, his beliefs, the actions and inactions of those around him, and what it means to go on living after such an experience.

 

Today we'll start reading Frankl's book to see how he raises and explores these questions, in addition to a few others.

 

Here is a link to the calendar for the unit.

Here is a link to the handout, including questions, we'll use for our initial reading.