As the syllabus explains, there is a second 10% participation score that belongs to your writing grade. (Along with the 3 essays.)
There are three sub-categories here: discovery tasks, drafts, and peer review.
I'm giving an "A" for discovery task to anyone who submitted a reasonable effort at both of them. "C" if you missed one, "F" if you missed both. Reasonable effort means basically that you answered each question and didn't submit a blank document to EEE. I mean, I'm sure you didn't, but as Ronald Reagan said (somewhat nonsensically), "trust but verify."
For the drafts, you get an "A" if you submitted an ideas draft and a working draft for each of the three papers. One letter grade down for each one missed. I have never had a class that was so diligent about turning in completed ideas and working drafts. Please hold onto this habit; it will serve you well in the future. Even if drafts are not assigned, you ought to internalize some form of that process.
For the peer reviews, the default grade was A-. A couple gave more detailed/useful comments and got an A (apparently the Roses were very good partners to have for your paper... this gives me high hopes for the Rose/Rose collaboration on paper 3). A few gave less detailed/more cursory comments and got a B+ or B. But overall you did pretty well with this.
So I took those three sub-grades and averaged them together, basically. The overall average for writing participation was very nearly a straight A.
My favorite comment from the peer reviews, by the way, courtesy of Wes:
I think this next question is a load of rubbish. Who cares about the title of an essay that isn’t going to be published? You might as well call it “Laser Donkey Battles: The Austen Years” for the hell of it.
He makes a fair point. It would be silly to overemphasize the title to an unpublished essay. Then again, you could make the same argument for any other aspect of the essay! Such essays are, in the end, partly training exercises for writing similar essays in the future, partly assessment exercises, partly heuristics for promoting thought, and partly ways to nurture writing skills portable to other academic disciplines and professional fields (perhaps). I too think the two-part format can be rather stupid, and in fact I have made fun of it repeatedly to my fellow grad students. But it is a standard format in the humanities disciplines, a "unicorn" if you will. And it is somewhat useful, insofar as the second part tells the reader what the essay is about and the first part allows you to exercise some creativity. To make a long story short, the first part is indeed superfluous, but the second part isn't. All we're really trying to do is get students to write the mini-thesis in the title, and if they want to get a bit creative, that moves to the first part.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Two items of note
I'm sure Aristotle would disapprove of these riots in Greece, but the case for us is probably more complicated.
Jane Austen definitely would not approve of contemporary romantic comedies.
Jane Austen definitely would not approve of contemporary romantic comedies.
Participation grades ("lecture")
Participation is sometimes known to teachers as "the wiggle grade" or to students as "the bullshit grade." I try to make things a bit more transparent.
Per the syllabus I handed out on the first day of class, the "lecture" participation grade is determined by homework (completion only) and by vocal involvement in class discussions, with the "most helpful student" poll serving as a bonus. The quizzes wound up being ungraded, so I left those out.
So that's basically 5% for homework and 5% for speaking in class.
I divided the 19 of you into frequent speakers/contributors ("A"), occasional speakers/contributors ("B") and reluctant speakers/contributors ("C"). Per the syllabus, more than two absences to discussion eroded these grades, by one letter grade per day absence, in fact. Wes & Shae were the only ones affected, but they were also first and second in the poll, respectively, so I canceled out their absences. Stephanie was also tied for second, but attended every class except the day she was Laura. For her I'll cancel out a missed homework. And also for Ivan, who took me up on my mixtape proposal. So in the end, the 5% speaking grade fit exactly into my original A/B/C categories. (There were 5 As, 10 Bs, and 4 Cs.)
There were 14 homework assignments by my count. I'm throwing out the last 3 group homeworks because I can't remember who was responsible for what... I'll just assume everyone did those. That leaves 11, and I'll give you a free pass on one of those. From there, I'm starting everyone with an "A" for homework and subtracting one letter grade for each missed assignment of the remaining 10. That makes 12 As, 3 Bs, 2 Cs, and 2 Ds. Well, then I have to change Ivan from a B to an A, don't I? And that leaves us with Stephanie again. Hmmm, where does the extra credit go? I guess I'll code in an A+ for your participation... I think that raises it a tiny fraction.
The average grade for lecture participation, taking both talking and homework into account, is more or less a B.
Per the syllabus I handed out on the first day of class, the "lecture" participation grade is determined by homework (completion only) and by vocal involvement in class discussions, with the "most helpful student" poll serving as a bonus. The quizzes wound up being ungraded, so I left those out.
So that's basically 5% for homework and 5% for speaking in class.
I divided the 19 of you into frequent speakers/contributors ("A"), occasional speakers/contributors ("B") and reluctant speakers/contributors ("C"). Per the syllabus, more than two absences to discussion eroded these grades, by one letter grade per day absence, in fact. Wes & Shae were the only ones affected, but they were also first and second in the poll, respectively, so I canceled out their absences. Stephanie was also tied for second, but attended every class except the day she was Laura. For her I'll cancel out a missed homework. And also for Ivan, who took me up on my mixtape proposal. So in the end, the 5% speaking grade fit exactly into my original A/B/C categories. (There were 5 As, 10 Bs, and 4 Cs.)
There were 14 homework assignments by my count. I'm throwing out the last 3 group homeworks because I can't remember who was responsible for what... I'll just assume everyone did those. That leaves 11, and I'll give you a free pass on one of those. From there, I'm starting everyone with an "A" for homework and subtracting one letter grade for each missed assignment of the remaining 10. That makes 12 As, 3 Bs, 2 Cs, and 2 Ds. Well, then I have to change Ivan from a B to an A, don't I? And that leaves us with Stephanie again. Hmmm, where does the extra credit go? I guess I'll code in an A+ for your participation... I think that raises it a tiny fraction.
The average grade for lecture participation, taking both talking and homework into account, is more or less a B.
Final Exam (grades)
Like the midterm, I was really picky the first time I swept through the bluebooks because it helped me differentiate the scores for each answer more clearly. But when I ran all the averages, it became obvious to me, much like the last time, that though I had ranked everyone's exam in the correct order, I had set the median for the actual scores too low. [Note: this is not the same as "curving," in which one would begin with a set goal for the median... this is just me saving myself the time of going back into each individual question and adjusting the score slightly upwards... I'm recentering the scores to reflect my impression that the overall performance of the class was higher than the initial score I calculated]
So I'm adding a 3% correction again. Because those exams were really f***ing good! You have done the trailer proud.
So I'm adding a 3% correction again. Because those exams were really f***ing good! You have done the trailer proud.
Final Exam (essay)
In case it wasn't clear, Budweiser, Skoal, and Nascar are the favorite vices of "Bubba," the fictional trailerpark philosopher. Bubba deserves credit for coming up with three essay questions of roughly equal popularity on a final exam... he's never succeeded in doing that before. On the other hand, Bubba was surprised to find that these essays resembled the short answer questions... quite a bit more what than how or why. The better thinking for most of you actually happened in the passage analysis. He blames himself for that, or maybe everyone just ran out of time.
BUDWEISER (6 answers)
-I was really surprised that Plato only appeared once. Everybody really knows their Aristotle! Some made Descartes too much of an idealist. He is a dualist; he doesn't believe that the material world exists because the mind invented it, or some such, or that all there is in the world is thought... remember the sixth meditation, in which he shows how we could know, with some reliability, a material world. A couple of you saw Descartes as a step "backwards" from Aristotlean hylomorphism, which is interesting. But to D's credit, he is trying to absorb a much more sophisticated version of materialism than A had to, and he's being honest that it's difficult to do so. It isn't until you get to Kant and Hegel that you get an ontology that is once again capable of explaining the interrelationship between minds and bodies... but it could be just as easily said that the problem of Cartesian dualism has never been adequately solved. I'm glad nobody chose Austen and Aristotle, because they would have been too similar. I'm a bit skeptical of the argument a couple of you made that Morrison is an idealist because she disagrees with racism, which is a distinction between material attributes. I think the point may be that beneath the surface of every idealism, there is a material basis, such that the idealism itself is a kind of sham. But it's certainly debatable.
SKOAL (6 answers)
Again, everybody knows their Aristotle, although I must remind you once again that virtue is intrinsic and developed rather than something you acquire in a "point" system. You guys also do well with Plato, but not as well with relating his ideas to those of the other writers. I was surprised to find only one mention of Descartes... I had thought he would serve as a whipping post here for failing to construct an ethical system, but the rest of you chose to go another way. I was impressed by the way that many of you challenged my lazy Austen=Aristotlean idea by pointing out her emphasis on women and on a new form of empiricism. Well done, though like the short answers there was a creeping Romanticization of Austen... I assure you she does not want her heroines to "follow their hearts." As with the purple question, there were a number of good theories about Morrison's ethical position. This question also seemed to promote a better analysis of philosophy vs. novels than the Budweiser question, perhaps because of the obvious way that novels use characterization to promote or subvert ethical norms.
NASCAR (7 answers)
-This question had the most divergent set of answers. They were good... I was happy to see that you went in your own directions rather than simply parroting the discussion we had on the lawn on the last day. Though it was a bit frustrating to me that you largely dodged the most obvious point, which was the relationship between why and how (in simplest terms, why does Plato write a symposium? why does Aristotle write Platonic-style dialogues? why does Descartes write meditations? why do Austen and Morrison write novels?) Careful with dates by the way... one person said there were no revolutionaries in 17th-century England. Tell it to this guy, who was beheaded by 17th-century English revolutionaries! And careful with logic... remember the syllogism exercise I gave you way back when? If Plato believes that "anything we see is not true," it does not follow that he believes that "anything we do not see is true." He can't see a purple space monster, but I'm guessing he doesn't consider this to be one of the true concepts/ideas that undergird reality. Another Plato quibble... Plato didn't "invent" dualism. He invented philosophical dualism. Dualism is the basis of nearly all religious systems, some of which predate Plato. An unseen world of goodness/truth/power/beauty, etc. etc. Likewise, Aristotle did not invent teleology... it was the entire basis of Greek society. He just gave it philosophical expression.
BUDWEISER (6 answers)
-I was really surprised that Plato only appeared once. Everybody really knows their Aristotle! Some made Descartes too much of an idealist. He is a dualist; he doesn't believe that the material world exists because the mind invented it, or some such, or that all there is in the world is thought... remember the sixth meditation, in which he shows how we could know, with some reliability, a material world. A couple of you saw Descartes as a step "backwards" from Aristotlean hylomorphism, which is interesting. But to D's credit, he is trying to absorb a much more sophisticated version of materialism than A had to, and he's being honest that it's difficult to do so. It isn't until you get to Kant and Hegel that you get an ontology that is once again capable of explaining the interrelationship between minds and bodies... but it could be just as easily said that the problem of Cartesian dualism has never been adequately solved. I'm glad nobody chose Austen and Aristotle, because they would have been too similar. I'm a bit skeptical of the argument a couple of you made that Morrison is an idealist because she disagrees with racism, which is a distinction between material attributes. I think the point may be that beneath the surface of every idealism, there is a material basis, such that the idealism itself is a kind of sham. But it's certainly debatable.
SKOAL (6 answers)
Again, everybody knows their Aristotle, although I must remind you once again that virtue is intrinsic and developed rather than something you acquire in a "point" system. You guys also do well with Plato, but not as well with relating his ideas to those of the other writers. I was surprised to find only one mention of Descartes... I had thought he would serve as a whipping post here for failing to construct an ethical system, but the rest of you chose to go another way. I was impressed by the way that many of you challenged my lazy Austen=Aristotlean idea by pointing out her emphasis on women and on a new form of empiricism. Well done, though like the short answers there was a creeping Romanticization of Austen... I assure you she does not want her heroines to "follow their hearts." As with the purple question, there were a number of good theories about Morrison's ethical position. This question also seemed to promote a better analysis of philosophy vs. novels than the Budweiser question, perhaps because of the obvious way that novels use characterization to promote or subvert ethical norms.
NASCAR (7 answers)
-This question had the most divergent set of answers. They were good... I was happy to see that you went in your own directions rather than simply parroting the discussion we had on the lawn on the last day. Though it was a bit frustrating to me that you largely dodged the most obvious point, which was the relationship between why and how (in simplest terms, why does Plato write a symposium? why does Aristotle write Platonic-style dialogues? why does Descartes write meditations? why do Austen and Morrison write novels?) Careful with dates by the way... one person said there were no revolutionaries in 17th-century England. Tell it to this guy, who was beheaded by 17th-century English revolutionaries! And careful with logic... remember the syllogism exercise I gave you way back when? If Plato believes that "anything we see is not true," it does not follow that he believes that "anything we do not see is true." He can't see a purple space monster, but I'm guessing he doesn't consider this to be one of the true concepts/ideas that undergird reality. Another Plato quibble... Plato didn't "invent" dualism. He invented philosophical dualism. Dualism is the basis of nearly all religious systems, some of which predate Plato. An unseen world of goodness/truth/power/beauty, etc. etc. Likewise, Aristotle did not invent teleology... it was the entire basis of Greek society. He just gave it philosophical expression.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Final Exam (passage analysis)
SOAP (5 answers)
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I was surprised by the extent to which people looked at this question from Soaphead's perspective, but that was definitely one way to go. Morrison does ask us to try to see things through the eyes of her characters, even the distasteful ones. One of the interesting things that emerged from this question was that some saw Soaphead as a target of satire, while others saw him as a satirist himself. As with the other Morrison questions, a couple of you missed the point pretty widely by identifying M's ideology with that of cleanness or "innocence" in the conventional sense. But mostly, lower scores reflected a lack of focus on the "how" details of the passage, probably a result of time management issues more than anything.
Some of the details you guys paid special attention to: "like buying shoes," "white laughter," "like a streak out of blue heaven."
CAT (5 answers)
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The cat is black, but it also has blue eyes! That was a puzzler a few of you worked on. Most had something to say about the relative class status of Junior and Pecola's families, or about this being one of P's many experiences of abuse or trauma.
CANDY (9 answers)
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This one yielded the best answers, for whatever reason. All of you picked up on the linkage between the Mary Jane's logo and the "bluest eye" ideology, but the really interesting bits were how you analyzed the notion of consuming the candy/image, and how you analyzed the role of the grocer. Some noted the dandelion as P's projection of her experience of inferiority. Others noted how the scene began with a convention asymmetry between children and adults, or a conventional scene of desire, the kid at the candy store, and went in a darker or more complex direction. Others pointed out that this is one of only two times in the novel when Pecola is described as angry.
Side note: I disagree with the idea that comparing the candy-eating to an orgasm represents the "perversion" of innocence or some such. We have to look at this from Morrison's perspective, wherein it probably represents: 1) extreme pleasure, 2) double-consciousness, the externalization of pleasure outside the self. The pleasure, in other words, is really Mary Jane's, whereas Pecola's pleasure is only vicarious. I think that's the perversion here. Also, surely there was some other way to talk about the many levels of social hierarchy in 1940s Ohio than by simply calling the grocer a "gross immigrant." I don't think Morrison would much approve of that tactic... I agree that the description of him is grotesque, but remember, this is free indirect discourse from Pecola's perspective, so be careful of writing your own answers in free indirect discourse! Yakobowski is a sort of villain here, but I don't see what good it does to redirect the racism towards him.
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I was surprised by the extent to which people looked at this question from Soaphead's perspective, but that was definitely one way to go. Morrison does ask us to try to see things through the eyes of her characters, even the distasteful ones. One of the interesting things that emerged from this question was that some saw Soaphead as a target of satire, while others saw him as a satirist himself. As with the other Morrison questions, a couple of you missed the point pretty widely by identifying M's ideology with that of cleanness or "innocence" in the conventional sense. But mostly, lower scores reflected a lack of focus on the "how" details of the passage, probably a result of time management issues more than anything.
Some of the details you guys paid special attention to: "like buying shoes," "white laughter," "like a streak out of blue heaven."
CAT (5 answers)
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The cat is black, but it also has blue eyes! That was a puzzler a few of you worked on. Most had something to say about the relative class status of Junior and Pecola's families, or about this being one of P's many experiences of abuse or trauma.
CANDY (9 answers)
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This one yielded the best answers, for whatever reason. All of you picked up on the linkage between the Mary Jane's logo and the "bluest eye" ideology, but the really interesting bits were how you analyzed the notion of consuming the candy/image, and how you analyzed the role of the grocer. Some noted the dandelion as P's projection of her experience of inferiority. Others noted how the scene began with a convention asymmetry between children and adults, or a conventional scene of desire, the kid at the candy store, and went in a darker or more complex direction. Others pointed out that this is one of only two times in the novel when Pecola is described as angry.
Side note: I disagree with the idea that comparing the candy-eating to an orgasm represents the "perversion" of innocence or some such. We have to look at this from Morrison's perspective, wherein it probably represents: 1) extreme pleasure, 2) double-consciousness, the externalization of pleasure outside the self. The pleasure, in other words, is really Mary Jane's, whereas Pecola's pleasure is only vicarious. I think that's the perversion here. Also, surely there was some other way to talk about the many levels of social hierarchy in 1940s Ohio than by simply calling the grocer a "gross immigrant." I don't think Morrison would much approve of that tactic... I agree that the description of him is grotesque, but remember, this is free indirect discourse from Pecola's perspective, so be careful of writing your own answers in free indirect discourse! Yakobowski is a sort of villain here, but I don't see what good it does to redirect the racism towards him.
Final Exam (short answers)
My grading deadline is tomorrow, so your patience will soon be rewarded. I'm doing the exams first and then the Austen essays. I'm going to write some model answers as I go along... one of the rewarding parts of this grading for me, is that I'm seeing that even some students who had a lower overall score had a couple of answers that were really brilliant. I'll send you an email tomorrow night with full details on all of your grades, but if you want your actual bluebook back, see me in my office hours in January.
RED (19 answers)
-The best answers sketched D's argument for God in some fashion (cosmological proof and/or ontological proof), explained its relevance to the Meditations in some fashion (methodological doubt, clear and distinct ideas, or whatever), and drew some kind of logical or historical distinction between D's God and the orthodox Catholic/Christian God.
Judging by his work in Meditations, Descartes does believe that God exists, but it is hardly the God that the Catholic Church and the rest of France believe in. Descartes "proves" God's existence, but the God that he proves isn't a loving father nor a monitor of ethics like the one found in the Bible. Descartes' God is more of an explanation of things unknown than anything else. He is the "first cause" of everything in the world. He is also described in Descartes' ontological proof as a "perfect being" that he can think of "clearly and distinctly," however he makes no reference as to what the "perfect being" does or if it needs to be pleased or praised. One may go as far as to say that Descartes may not even be Christian because he makes no reference to the key portion of the New Testament - Jesus Christ. The only commentary that Descartes makes which doesn't seem to imply deism is that God gave him the free will to err in Meditation 4, and that if he focuses on God alone, he cannot err, but once his thoughts return back to himself, he makes mistakes.
GREEN (14 answers)
-Nearly all of you understood the difference between Aristotlean hylomorphism and Cartesian dualism, but not very many remembered that the soul is perishable/mortal while the mind is apparently not, that the soul has a telos while the mind apparently does not, that the mind, unlike the soul, seems unbound by ethical norms, or that Aristotle allows for souls other than humans. Though weaving all of this together would have been far too long for a short answer, the better answers invoked at least one of these further principles, in other words they showed why Cartesian dualism matters.
"I" is different from the soul in Aristotle in several ways. First of all, Descartes' "I" is solely a thinking object, nothing more. It is designed to process thoughts and through that other things will come. The soul in Aristotle is something different. The soul has a purpose, it has feelings and emotions and thought and it is the person itself, without the body. The "I" can only think, and it is limited to only itself, while the soul can interact with the body. The "I" is also eternal, the thinking never goes away. However, the soul dies with the body, so it is limited in that way. The soul can do a variety of things, but only the "I" lasts forever. [Aaron's note: The soul doesn't have emotions in Aristotle; they are an interaction of the soul and the body, we might say a hylomorphic phenomenon.
PRISM (5 answers)
-This is what you might call a high-risk/high-reward question because we didn't really discuss it in class. Most got that color was a physical phenomenon in Descartes, which would be perceived through the senses rather than the mind, and that therefore there was no such "thing" as color per se, just a certain property of light at certain wavelengths or whatever. A phenomenon of "extended things." Nobody compared to Aristotle... I think A would consider color within the notion of teleology. Many things have a certain color for a certain purpose... it's part of their nature. The medieval/Catholic Aristotleans called it a "quality" that something had. That's very different than a quantity, as in Descartes. Most of you did well with Morrison, in particular by connecting color to emotional experiences, to a statement of pluralism (colors are different, but valuable in different ways), or to an analysis of her novel's racial epistemology.
Color is an illusion that is based on our sense called eyesight ["illusion" is a bit strong, but OK]. We think that there are different colors because of how the light shines in our eyes but Descartes believes that it is only a trick. A person must have named that particular shade that is produced because of how the light rays bounced off, so that is what color is: something made up. [i.e. insofar as it is a quality or something that exists] Morrison, on the other hand, believes that colors are an experience in the world. As people, we enjoy how colors make our lives more vibrant or we associate certain things with colors.
NAVY BLUE (19 answers)
-All of you knew that the navy in Persuasion is a metaphor for a societal transition, roughly stated, the rise of the middle class(es). The better answers went beyond that, discussing the naval men's emphasis on horizontal networking / loyalty, emotional support, etc., or connecting naval life to an epistemology of seeking new knowledge in the world (i.e. empiricism), or remembering that the military is in fact a hierarchical and highly traditional institution and that it is therefore a sort of hedge on Austen's part that shows her ambivalence about the societal transition.
The Navy in Jane Austen's Persuasion represents a group of men who have obtained power and wealth through merit, unlike Sir Walter Elliot, through inheritance. Although Austen can seem to be a "new thinker" in her representation of the navy, it doesn't always seem to be the case. From years looking back at aristocracy and higher figures, for instance in monarchal times, "great men" have been established in the navy, i.e. "William the Conqueror." [it was a marine landing, but I'd call his force an army... also he was a monarch in France... it was his men who became aristocrats through the army... I'll shut up now] She would have been more of a new thinker if she used the profession of trade: being a tradesman or merchant. Not a "somewhat noble" profession" that still relies somewhat on status (the Navy). The difference between an Admiral and a Captain compared to a lower position of just an enlisted man is status, and that is supposedly what new thinkers are supposed to avoid.
ORANGE (3 answers)
-Something else we didn't discuss, although probably easier to make the jump than PRISM. Double-consciousness for Dubois is being black in a world defined by white standards, where white is "normal" and black is deviant or deficient, or to use a contemporary racist term, "ethnic." You can just be white; white is white. Single. But you can't just be black. Because black is defined against white. So black is double. (Of course white is actually double too, but he's describing the ideology as it is experienced by the individual.) The easiest way to approach this question is to ask yourself to what extent Austen is a feminist, since women are defined in her time as deficient men, more or less. How feminist you make her is debatable. Another way to go would be to talk about the class conflict in the novel (from Anne's perspective or Jane's), though I'm not sure that would really have as much bite as Dubois unless you talked about the true lower classes. This answer took the latter strategy.
W.E.B. Dubois' concept of "double consciousness" is one in which outside influences or what other people think about you, affect the way you perceive yourself. For example, because whites viewed blacks as ugly and inferior, blacks' double-consciousness made themselves feel like there was something wrong with the, that they were ugly or dirty, despite the fact that they are beautiful human beings just like everyone else. I think Austen does have a double consciousness, because even though her books depict change and going against the norm, she still follows the expectations to a certain extent. For exaomple, Captain Wentworth isn't of noble aristocratic birth, but Anne marries him after he is rich and has made a name for himself. So Austen tries to go against the expectations, but she doesn't do it completely.
YELLOW (15 answers)
-Most of you went beyond plot summary to show how Anne's situation reflects a conflict between different forms of persuasion that connect to different epistemological standards or ethical norms. Some of the answers that made persuasion out to be only "bad" and talked about Anne liberating herself entirely from her family and its associated social standards apparently read a different novel than I did (Wuthering Heights, perhaps... beware the "Romantic" pseudo-Austen). In Austen, you can't do away with persuasion, just as you can't do away with emotion, or with society. But you can educate it, or find better ways to regulate it, etc. Another approach was to link the concept of persuasion with narratology, in other words with the persuading that Austen herself was trying to do as narrator.
Persuasion, like most titles in Jane Austen books, is a motif found throughout the novel. However, it is also a key point in the lesson that Austen attempts to teach her readers. It is the one point that she emphasizes in both her published and unpublished endings, when she describes that Anne rightfully allowed herself to be persuaded by Lady Russell the first time that Captain Wentworth proposed to her. The idea that allowing oneself to be persuaded in certain cases could be the best thing to do is quite Aristotlean. Austen decides that Anne made the right choice in being persuaded the first time because the first proposal wasn't the right time or place for her character. Later on, Austen doesn't allow Anne to be persuaded into marrying Mr. Elliot, and instead because the time, place, and intentions are right, Anne's marriage to Wentworth is right. Also Persuasion's title is applicable to Austen's own writing style because she uses free indirect discourse in order to persuade her readers to seek further knowledge.
LIGHT BLUE (15 answers)
-This was probably the easiest question on the test, although that is a relative statement. Most of you did quite well. The highest scores went to those who noted that Pecola's double-consciousness was not unique, but was in fact socially normative, or to those who linked it to Dick and Jane, Shirley Temple or the other artifacts of that ideology that were mentioned in the novel, or to those who extended the concept beyond black/white race relations to a larger point about Morrison being anti-Platonic or some such. A couple of you tried to contort the ending into a parable of self-acceptance. Huh? Maybe it carries a message of self-acceptance, but Pecola sure doesn't accept herself, and even Claudia and Frida apparently find self-acceptance more difficult as they grow older.
Morrison's novel is predominantly based on the idealism of the white, nuclear family, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and its effects on black culture. We are presented with this ideal as being perfect, and what should be aspired to. With this, the characters who have changed themselves to be as "white" as they can, like Geraldine, sacrifice themselves. A major theme of cleanliness vs. dirtiness is seen as a major division between white and black. The characters are forced to disconnect from their savage, unclean bodily functions and attributes to strive to fit into this unattainable, fake ideal of happiness and perfection, and the superior attributes of "blue-eyed" people. [note: speaking of "superior attributes," it just occurred to me that the novel is set in 1946 and I think that's significant... I definitely don't think Morrison is saying that white Americans are Nazis, in 1946 or in 1970, but just how deeply rooted racism is in subtler ways].
PINK (7 answers)
-Just citing "realism" wasn't enough here. Most of you drew the contrast between the "Dick and Jane" epistemology and the extreme sensory & bodily details that Morrison gives, but some wrote about the latter as being only "unpleasant," "dirty and disgusting" etc. etc. It's hard for me to see justification for that... M goes out of her way to show bodily pleasures (along with bodily pains), and this is part of her anti-racism / anti-Platonism. It's easy to see the traumas in the book, which is not a happy one overall, but a medium-careful reading will reveal many moments of pleasure (even the vomiting!), and this is an instance where I was hoping you could go beyond the class discussion. To get even more particular, I got some answers that referred to menstruation as "dirty and disgusting" without a hint of irony. Really? I mean, from Morrison's perspective? Be careful not to confuse the author's representation of a social norm with the author's promotion of a social norm... and any doctor would tell you that menstruation is actually a cleansing function... "disgusting" is a social taboo, albeit a very strong, traditional, and widespread one. Another successful tactic was to link embodiment to M's strategy of creating sympathy (or aporia) in her reader.
Morrison includes details of material, bodily life to show how the real world exists. Plato tried to show that this world is false, Aristotle and Descartes that it was real to an extent, but Morrison tries to show that this is the only thing that is real. By bringing in details about things that we do not think about but that do exist, bodily things an things that we associate with "trash" and "dirty," we can see that everything around us is connected through these things and they help unify the world. Everyone deals with these things, and by bringing it out, we can see the true world that we live in.
PURPLE (12 answers)
-Again, we barely touched on this in class, but it is an obvious question to ask about this book. Many of the answers went right to M's definition of love on the last (next to last?) page, but the better ones linked it to other incidents, or the book as a whole, or linked it somehow to one of the other authors. A number of contrasting, but equally compelling theories about love evolved in your answers. Some of you focused on the idea of connection or interdependence, others on caring, acceptance, or even just recognition.
Love in "The Bluest Eye" is a different kind of love; it is, in a sense, attention. Morrison does not suggest a normative view in my opinion. She believes that people will love based on how they are. Now this may in fact be a very realistic view, but it is not a normative one. There is a difference. People see love as hugs, kisses, and romance; Morrison understands that love can be violent, even disgusting, as in the case of Pecola's rape. Normative is not what is actual; it is what people believe. Such as being white is better... that used to be a normative thought, but it has proven wrong. Love takes the form of many things; the type of love given depends on who is giving, so unless everyone in the world is sweet, gentle, and romantic, then love is not such.
[Oh, and big ups to Monique for getting her analysis of the Dick-and-Jane passage into this question even though I didn't put it in the passage analysis section.]
RED (19 answers)
-The best answers sketched D's argument for God in some fashion (cosmological proof and/or ontological proof), explained its relevance to the Meditations in some fashion (methodological doubt, clear and distinct ideas, or whatever), and drew some kind of logical or historical distinction between D's God and the orthodox Catholic/Christian God.
Judging by his work in Meditations, Descartes does believe that God exists, but it is hardly the God that the Catholic Church and the rest of France believe in. Descartes "proves" God's existence, but the God that he proves isn't a loving father nor a monitor of ethics like the one found in the Bible. Descartes' God is more of an explanation of things unknown than anything else. He is the "first cause" of everything in the world. He is also described in Descartes' ontological proof as a "perfect being" that he can think of "clearly and distinctly," however he makes no reference as to what the "perfect being" does or if it needs to be pleased or praised. One may go as far as to say that Descartes may not even be Christian because he makes no reference to the key portion of the New Testament - Jesus Christ. The only commentary that Descartes makes which doesn't seem to imply deism is that God gave him the free will to err in Meditation 4, and that if he focuses on God alone, he cannot err, but once his thoughts return back to himself, he makes mistakes.
GREEN (14 answers)
-Nearly all of you understood the difference between Aristotlean hylomorphism and Cartesian dualism, but not very many remembered that the soul is perishable/mortal while the mind is apparently not, that the soul has a telos while the mind apparently does not, that the mind, unlike the soul, seems unbound by ethical norms, or that Aristotle allows for souls other than humans. Though weaving all of this together would have been far too long for a short answer, the better answers invoked at least one of these further principles, in other words they showed why Cartesian dualism matters.
"I" is different from the soul in Aristotle in several ways. First of all, Descartes' "I" is solely a thinking object, nothing more. It is designed to process thoughts and through that other things will come. The soul in Aristotle is something different. The soul has a purpose, it has feelings and emotions and thought and it is the person itself, without the body. The "I" can only think, and it is limited to only itself, while the soul can interact with the body. The "I" is also eternal, the thinking never goes away. However, the soul dies with the body, so it is limited in that way. The soul can do a variety of things, but only the "I" lasts forever. [Aaron's note: The soul doesn't have emotions in Aristotle; they are an interaction of the soul and the body, we might say a hylomorphic phenomenon.
PRISM (5 answers)
-This is what you might call a high-risk/high-reward question because we didn't really discuss it in class. Most got that color was a physical phenomenon in Descartes, which would be perceived through the senses rather than the mind, and that therefore there was no such "thing" as color per se, just a certain property of light at certain wavelengths or whatever. A phenomenon of "extended things." Nobody compared to Aristotle... I think A would consider color within the notion of teleology. Many things have a certain color for a certain purpose... it's part of their nature. The medieval/Catholic Aristotleans called it a "quality" that something had. That's very different than a quantity, as in Descartes. Most of you did well with Morrison, in particular by connecting color to emotional experiences, to a statement of pluralism (colors are different, but valuable in different ways), or to an analysis of her novel's racial epistemology.
Color is an illusion that is based on our sense called eyesight ["illusion" is a bit strong, but OK]. We think that there are different colors because of how the light shines in our eyes but Descartes believes that it is only a trick. A person must have named that particular shade that is produced because of how the light rays bounced off, so that is what color is: something made up. [i.e. insofar as it is a quality or something that exists] Morrison, on the other hand, believes that colors are an experience in the world. As people, we enjoy how colors make our lives more vibrant or we associate certain things with colors.
NAVY BLUE (19 answers)
-All of you knew that the navy in Persuasion is a metaphor for a societal transition, roughly stated, the rise of the middle class(es). The better answers went beyond that, discussing the naval men's emphasis on horizontal networking / loyalty, emotional support, etc., or connecting naval life to an epistemology of seeking new knowledge in the world (i.e. empiricism), or remembering that the military is in fact a hierarchical and highly traditional institution and that it is therefore a sort of hedge on Austen's part that shows her ambivalence about the societal transition.
The Navy in Jane Austen's Persuasion represents a group of men who have obtained power and wealth through merit, unlike Sir Walter Elliot, through inheritance. Although Austen can seem to be a "new thinker" in her representation of the navy, it doesn't always seem to be the case. From years looking back at aristocracy and higher figures, for instance in monarchal times, "great men" have been established in the navy, i.e. "William the Conqueror." [it was a marine landing, but I'd call his force an army... also he was a monarch in France... it was his men who became aristocrats through the army... I'll shut up now] She would have been more of a new thinker if she used the profession of trade: being a tradesman or merchant. Not a "somewhat noble" profession" that still relies somewhat on status (the Navy). The difference between an Admiral and a Captain compared to a lower position of just an enlisted man is status, and that is supposedly what new thinkers are supposed to avoid.
ORANGE (3 answers)
-Something else we didn't discuss, although probably easier to make the jump than PRISM. Double-consciousness for Dubois is being black in a world defined by white standards, where white is "normal" and black is deviant or deficient, or to use a contemporary racist term, "ethnic." You can just be white; white is white. Single. But you can't just be black. Because black is defined against white. So black is double. (Of course white is actually double too, but he's describing the ideology as it is experienced by the individual.) The easiest way to approach this question is to ask yourself to what extent Austen is a feminist, since women are defined in her time as deficient men, more or less. How feminist you make her is debatable. Another way to go would be to talk about the class conflict in the novel (from Anne's perspective or Jane's), though I'm not sure that would really have as much bite as Dubois unless you talked about the true lower classes. This answer took the latter strategy.
W.E.B. Dubois' concept of "double consciousness" is one in which outside influences or what other people think about you, affect the way you perceive yourself. For example, because whites viewed blacks as ugly and inferior, blacks' double-consciousness made themselves feel like there was something wrong with the, that they were ugly or dirty, despite the fact that they are beautiful human beings just like everyone else. I think Austen does have a double consciousness, because even though her books depict change and going against the norm, she still follows the expectations to a certain extent. For exaomple, Captain Wentworth isn't of noble aristocratic birth, but Anne marries him after he is rich and has made a name for himself. So Austen tries to go against the expectations, but she doesn't do it completely.
YELLOW (15 answers)
-Most of you went beyond plot summary to show how Anne's situation reflects a conflict between different forms of persuasion that connect to different epistemological standards or ethical norms. Some of the answers that made persuasion out to be only "bad" and talked about Anne liberating herself entirely from her family and its associated social standards apparently read a different novel than I did (Wuthering Heights, perhaps... beware the "Romantic" pseudo-Austen). In Austen, you can't do away with persuasion, just as you can't do away with emotion, or with society. But you can educate it, or find better ways to regulate it, etc. Another approach was to link the concept of persuasion with narratology, in other words with the persuading that Austen herself was trying to do as narrator.
Persuasion, like most titles in Jane Austen books, is a motif found throughout the novel. However, it is also a key point in the lesson that Austen attempts to teach her readers. It is the one point that she emphasizes in both her published and unpublished endings, when she describes that Anne rightfully allowed herself to be persuaded by Lady Russell the first time that Captain Wentworth proposed to her. The idea that allowing oneself to be persuaded in certain cases could be the best thing to do is quite Aristotlean. Austen decides that Anne made the right choice in being persuaded the first time because the first proposal wasn't the right time or place for her character. Later on, Austen doesn't allow Anne to be persuaded into marrying Mr. Elliot, and instead because the time, place, and intentions are right, Anne's marriage to Wentworth is right. Also Persuasion's title is applicable to Austen's own writing style because she uses free indirect discourse in order to persuade her readers to seek further knowledge.
LIGHT BLUE (15 answers)
-This was probably the easiest question on the test, although that is a relative statement. Most of you did quite well. The highest scores went to those who noted that Pecola's double-consciousness was not unique, but was in fact socially normative, or to those who linked it to Dick and Jane, Shirley Temple or the other artifacts of that ideology that were mentioned in the novel, or to those who extended the concept beyond black/white race relations to a larger point about Morrison being anti-Platonic or some such. A couple of you tried to contort the ending into a parable of self-acceptance. Huh? Maybe it carries a message of self-acceptance, but Pecola sure doesn't accept herself, and even Claudia and Frida apparently find self-acceptance more difficult as they grow older.
Morrison's novel is predominantly based on the idealism of the white, nuclear family, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and its effects on black culture. We are presented with this ideal as being perfect, and what should be aspired to. With this, the characters who have changed themselves to be as "white" as they can, like Geraldine, sacrifice themselves. A major theme of cleanliness vs. dirtiness is seen as a major division between white and black. The characters are forced to disconnect from their savage, unclean bodily functions and attributes to strive to fit into this unattainable, fake ideal of happiness and perfection, and the superior attributes of "blue-eyed" people. [note: speaking of "superior attributes," it just occurred to me that the novel is set in 1946 and I think that's significant... I definitely don't think Morrison is saying that white Americans are Nazis, in 1946 or in 1970, but just how deeply rooted racism is in subtler ways].
PINK (7 answers)
-Just citing "realism" wasn't enough here. Most of you drew the contrast between the "Dick and Jane" epistemology and the extreme sensory & bodily details that Morrison gives, but some wrote about the latter as being only "unpleasant," "dirty and disgusting" etc. etc. It's hard for me to see justification for that... M goes out of her way to show bodily pleasures (along with bodily pains), and this is part of her anti-racism / anti-Platonism. It's easy to see the traumas in the book, which is not a happy one overall, but a medium-careful reading will reveal many moments of pleasure (even the vomiting!), and this is an instance where I was hoping you could go beyond the class discussion. To get even more particular, I got some answers that referred to menstruation as "dirty and disgusting" without a hint of irony. Really? I mean, from Morrison's perspective? Be careful not to confuse the author's representation of a social norm with the author's promotion of a social norm... and any doctor would tell you that menstruation is actually a cleansing function... "disgusting" is a social taboo, albeit a very strong, traditional, and widespread one. Another successful tactic was to link embodiment to M's strategy of creating sympathy (or aporia) in her reader.
Morrison includes details of material, bodily life to show how the real world exists. Plato tried to show that this world is false, Aristotle and Descartes that it was real to an extent, but Morrison tries to show that this is the only thing that is real. By bringing in details about things that we do not think about but that do exist, bodily things an things that we associate with "trash" and "dirty," we can see that everything around us is connected through these things and they help unify the world. Everyone deals with these things, and by bringing it out, we can see the true world that we live in.
PURPLE (12 answers)
-Again, we barely touched on this in class, but it is an obvious question to ask about this book. Many of the answers went right to M's definition of love on the last (next to last?) page, but the better ones linked it to other incidents, or the book as a whole, or linked it somehow to one of the other authors. A number of contrasting, but equally compelling theories about love evolved in your answers. Some of you focused on the idea of connection or interdependence, others on caring, acceptance, or even just recognition.
Love in "The Bluest Eye" is a different kind of love; it is, in a sense, attention. Morrison does not suggest a normative view in my opinion. She believes that people will love based on how they are. Now this may in fact be a very realistic view, but it is not a normative one. There is a difference. People see love as hugs, kisses, and romance; Morrison understands that love can be violent, even disgusting, as in the case of Pecola's rape. Normative is not what is actual; it is what people believe. Such as being white is better... that used to be a normative thought, but it has proven wrong. Love takes the form of many things; the type of love given depends on who is giving, so unless everyone in the world is sweet, gentle, and romantic, then love is not such.
[Oh, and big ups to Monique for getting her analysis of the Dick-and-Jane passage into this question even though I didn't put it in the passage analysis section.]
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Concluding thoughts
1a) If you missed some or most of the review session, I would recommend getting in touch with someone who did... it was one of the better "classes" of the quarter. Also that pizza was really great.
1b) With regard to the "unicorn ideology" rant... perhaps I gave the implication that every idea that people collectively believe even if it does not have a strict logical or factual basis is "bad." (Because I mainly cited negative examples like racism.) But is it? Decide what you think about that and decide what our five authors think.
2) A good study question... did we do philosophy despite the trailer or because of the trailer?
3) See my email about the "lifeline call." I'm going to email my phone number to whomever is winning the poll when it closes on Monday morning. Please direct your question(s) to this person.
4) Watch the space above for future reading recommendations.
Good luck on all your papers and exams!
1b) With regard to the "unicorn ideology" rant... perhaps I gave the implication that every idea that people collectively believe even if it does not have a strict logical or factual basis is "bad." (Because I mainly cited negative examples like racism.) But is it? Decide what you think about that and decide what our five authors think.
2) A good study question... did we do philosophy despite the trailer or because of the trailer?
3) See my email about the "lifeline call." I'm going to email my phone number to whomever is winning the poll when it closes on Monday morning. Please direct your question(s) to this person.
4) Watch the space above for future reading recommendations.
Good luck on all your papers and exams!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Your reflection writing
These are very thoughtful and interesting. Thanks for putting so much into this.
I don't really want to quote these because I made it clear that they were personal/anonymous, but I found this sentence particularly interesting:
"I kind of feel like I'm drowning when I read The Bluest Eye."
I don't really want to quote these because I made it clear that they were personal/anonymous, but I found this sentence particularly interesting:
"I kind of feel like I'm drowning when I read The Bluest Eye."
Paper #3 peer review exercise
I will assign you partners by email as the working drafts trickle in. Please make sure your working draft, or its most recent version, is submitted to the shared student files section of the EEE dropbox by Wednesday morning. You probably just submitted it to the submit section. And please make sure that the exchange of peer review comments is completed by Thursday night.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1a. Does the paper address what?
1b. Is the what appropriate to the length of the paper, not too narrow and not too broad?
2a. Does the paper address how?
2b. What is the weakest how moment in the paper?
2c. What is the strongest how moment?
3a. Does the paper address why?
3b. Does it do so in the form of reversible thesis that could logically be disproven? (I.e. "I hate Jane Austen" cannot logically be disproven, whereas "Captain Wentworth acts differently in the revised ending because he's on drugs" could be logically disproven.)
4. Is that thesis clearly indicated in the introduction paragraph... not necessarily in one sentence, because sometimes it takes more than one, but somewhere in there?
5. Does the title use this two-part format, with the first part providing a creative frame and the second part providing a capsule of thesis?
6. Personalized peer review request from partner I.
7. Personalized peer review request from partner II.
8. Personalized peer review request from partner III.
Please consult the Nov. 26 post below if you don't know what I mean by what/how/why.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1a. Does the paper address what?
1b. Is the what appropriate to the length of the paper, not too narrow and not too broad?
2a. Does the paper address how?
2b. What is the weakest how moment in the paper?
2c. What is the strongest how moment?
3a. Does the paper address why?
3b. Does it do so in the form of reversible thesis that could logically be disproven? (I.e. "I hate Jane Austen" cannot logically be disproven, whereas "Captain Wentworth acts differently in the revised ending because he's on drugs" could be logically disproven.)
4. Is that thesis clearly indicated in the introduction paragraph... not necessarily in one sentence, because sometimes it takes more than one, but somewhere in there?
5. Does the title use this two-part format, with the first part providing a creative frame and the second part providing a capsule of thesis?
6. Personalized peer review request from partner I.
7. Personalized peer review request from partner II.
8. Personalized peer review request from partner III.
Please consult the Nov. 26 post below if you don't know what I mean by what/how/why.
Class #28 Reminders
-Post full group answers from today to blog (below)
-Finish Bluest Eye
Thursday 9pm = Essay #9 peer review completed (see next post)
Friday = last class, clear afternoon schedule
Sunday 9pm = final draft to turnitin.com
Wed. Dec. 10th 1:30 - 3:30 = final exam
FINAL EXAM
-Bring bluebook
-Exam is in discussion classroom
-Short Answer (Descartes, Austen, Morrison) = choose 6 of 9, 40%
-Passage Analysis (Morrison) = choose 1 of 4, 25%
-Essay (all books) = choose 1 of 4, 35%
-Finish Bluest Eye
Thursday 9pm = Essay #9 peer review completed (see next post)
Friday = last class, clear afternoon schedule
Sunday 9pm = final draft to turnitin.com
Wed. Dec. 10th 1:30 - 3:30 = final exam
FINAL EXAM
-Bring bluebook
-Exam is in discussion classroom
-Short Answer (Descartes, Austen, Morrison) = choose 6 of 9, 40%
-Passage Analysis (Morrison) = choose 1 of 4, 25%
-Essay (all books) = choose 1 of 4, 35%
Sunday, November 30, 2008
"Killing Us Softly"
This is an excellent video on social norms pertaining to representations of the female body. You will see a lot of connections to Bluest Eye, although the speaker touches on race only superficially, and those are actually some of the weaker parts. Highly recommended. Also, notice the "related videos" that Google pulls up on the right side.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Toni Morrison on her newest book
Video interview here. You might have to make a New York Times login and password to view it. (I'm not sure because my browser automatically runs all the password cookies my wife puts in when she looks at news websites for her job.)
Notice Morrison overlaps one of the points I made in class last week, which is that the modern version of racism didn't really exist prior to the 1700s. This doesn't mean people weren't a**holes back then, but they were certainly a**holes in a very different way.
The other thing that's interesting is that you can see how she has widened the historical scope you get in her earlier books, like Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon. In Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise, which are her best books, either the flashbacks or the main plots spend a lot of time in the 1800s. Apparently this new book, A Mercy, is mostly set in the 1600s. If there's one thing we've learned in this course, it's that ideas can be very deeply rooted. One way to challenge deeply rooted ideas, as we discussed last week is to show how they are artificial, in other words how they are just certain ideas you might have rather than the absolute true ideas that "everyone" has. Another way is to write what we might call corrective or revisionist histories of the origin of those ideas. Because one of the main ways that any ideology justifies itself - and racism is a good example - is to pretend that it has always existed, that it is a natural norm, and to erase the evidence that there was a time before it existed, when people thought about things differently.
Notice Morrison overlaps one of the points I made in class last week, which is that the modern version of racism didn't really exist prior to the 1700s. This doesn't mean people weren't a**holes back then, but they were certainly a**holes in a very different way.
The other thing that's interesting is that you can see how she has widened the historical scope you get in her earlier books, like Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon. In Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise, which are her best books, either the flashbacks or the main plots spend a lot of time in the 1800s. Apparently this new book, A Mercy, is mostly set in the 1600s. If there's one thing we've learned in this course, it's that ideas can be very deeply rooted. One way to challenge deeply rooted ideas, as we discussed last week is to show how they are artificial, in other words how they are just certain ideas you might have rather than the absolute true ideas that "everyone" has. Another way is to write what we might call corrective or revisionist histories of the origin of those ideas. Because one of the main ways that any ideology justifies itself - and racism is a good example - is to pretend that it has always existed, that it is a natural norm, and to erase the evidence that there was a time before it existed, when people thought about things differently.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thanksgiving Break Reminders
1) Paper #3 working draft... I strongly recommended that you finish this on Sunday night... technically, these only count for homework credit, but as you know you can't very well write a good final draft without doing the working draft all the way through... if you're worried about the homework credit, make sure your working draft is into the dropbox by Wednesday morning
Clarifying thought on paper #3 that came to me as I was doing conferences today... This paper is about what, how, and why. What is the difference between the two endings that you are identifying, how does Austen use literary technique to achieve this difference, to make the revised ending strike the reader in a particular way, and why does she feel it necessary to make the change. The what should be established in your intro, the how is the majority of your paper, and the why is an issue you must settle by the end. (I would recommend that the why find its way back into the initial thesis because it's not good to make surprise endings in analytical essays.
2) Course Guide 78-90 is a good brush-up on how to construct a working draft, which is something you have to do without my help this time.
3) Read Bluest Eye 61-183 and have something to say about study questions Autumn 1, 3, 8, 18, Winter 1, 5, and Spring 3, 9, 12.
4) See if Van Sant's / Morrison's concept of "thinking through the body" applies to Thanksgiving dinner.
p.s. Dessert ?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Class #24 Reminders
Signup for conferences... remember, you can opt for written comments instead of a conference. It's one or the other.
The more you can do on your ideas draft, the more I can help you!
Post ideas draft to the dropbox. Due Sunday night at 9pm for Monday conferences and "written comments" and Tuesday at 1pm for Wednesday conferences. The guidelines are on the post below this one if you lost your handout.
Post the Friday afternoon homework below (observations of details from the two endings).
And don't forget to read the first 57 pages of Bluest Eye!
p.s. Better photos of Bath... don't get the impression from my photo that it's just a dingy cave. That's the Roman-era baths that archaeologists have excavated. The 19th century era baths are obviously more ornate, in keeping with the luxury idea.
The more you can do on your ideas draft, the more I can help you!
Post ideas draft to the dropbox. Due Sunday night at 9pm for Monday conferences and "written comments" and Tuesday at 1pm for Wednesday conferences. The guidelines are on the post below this one if you lost your handout.
Post the Friday afternoon homework below (observations of details from the two endings).
And don't forget to read the first 57 pages of Bluest Eye!
p.s. Better photos of Bath... don't get the impression from my photo that it's just a dingy cave. That's the Roman-era baths that archaeologists have excavated. The 19th century era baths are obviously more ornate, in keeping with the luxury idea.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Class #23 Reminders (a.k.a. the Ideas Draft post)
Most of this will be repeated in class on Friday, but some of you were looking for an early start, so I'm posting it now.
I read the Paper 3 Prompt today, and I also talked to Monique & Kiyomi in office hours to try to get a sense of what it looked like from the student's perspective.
There are two things in particular that I want to change about the prompt.
A) The prompt asks you to argue that he published ending of the book is "better" than the unpublished ending, and support that thesis with relevant details. I find this focus highly problematic. I think it will lead to most of the papers being basically the same, and to most of them being pure opinions or evaluations rather than analysis. Here's my reworded thesis question: Why might Austen have chosen to revise the original ending in this particular way?
B) This is a lesser concern, but still an important one. The prompt focuses almost exclusively on what we would call narratology (e.g. pacing, point of view). It's like the prompt is saying, "your paper must be about tomato sauce." For my section, your paper does not necessarily have to be about tomato sauce, although this is a good topic. As I said, you can focus on other elements as your basis for comparison (e.g. setting, e.g. character(s), e.g. satire, e.g. the depiction of emotional reactions or behaviors, e.g. the parallel between the social relationships between the characters and British society as a whole, or whatever else we talked about or didn't talk about). Cheese, peppers, onions, mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, pineapples, broccoli (!?!), whatever you like. But as I said today, your paper does need to have a particular focus. The one thing you really shouldn't write about is the use of dashes and ampersands (&)... it isn't clear at what stage Austen abandoned the draft, but these are in all likelihood remnants of her usual drafting process that she would have polished out had this actually been published. So this would be the equivalent of writing about the box the pizza came in, I guess.
In sum, here's the formula for your thesis: Austen made changes X, Y, Z in order to better convey themes A, B, C. Don't take the number of my variables literally... you don't need three of each. Nor my use of the word "theme" if that word means something really specific to you from your previous English classes. I'm just saying you need to relate particular details to the whole of the book.
IDEAS DRAFT
-----------
1) Write a brief Austen style character analysis of someone you know. You can choose what level of satire to use, how sympathetic you are to this person, etc. But try to use irony and free indirect discourse at some point.
2) Make a list of broad similarities and differences between the two endings... we may do this in class on Friday.
3) Choose a new keyword that occurs repeatedly in the ending (one version or both), and use the OED to figure out the different/changing/competing meanings that word would have had to an 1814 reader.
4) Choose three short passages, somewhere between a 1/2 page and a page in length. Perhaps two from the published ending and one from the unpublished ending. Do a close analysis of these passages in which you identify at least one weird or notable thing about each. Just like today I chose a passage and used Ann blushing as a weird or notable detail. It could be a minor plot point, a turn of phrase, an element of scenic description, an instance of FID, or whatever. Remember, we got a whole conversation out of an exclamation point the other day, and Leah & Stephanie got one out of a variant spelling. It might help if the detail recurs more than once within the passage.
5) Scavenger hunt. Find at least three other instances of each of the three details in the rest of the assigned pages, probably two in the published ending and one in the unpublished ending.
6) Decision time. Which one of these details is your paper going to be about? It obviously helps to choose one that:
-occurs repeatedly in the book
-occurs in both versions of the ending
-might be a bit different in the two versions
-links in some interesting way to the overall themes of the novel
I found this really great olive. It's not like other olives that are usually on pizza. It's really interesting to compare different olives, isn't it? We can learn a lot about pizza in general by thinking about olives.
7) Thesis time. You need to relate the olives to the pizza. Here's the formula again: Austen made changes X, Y, Z in order to better convey themes A, B, C. Or, "Austen changed the purple kalamata olives in the original ending to green pecholine olives in the published ending, because she wanted to make the pizza saltier."
8) Scavenger hunt, the revenge... rescavengation. Whatever detail you chose, find three more similar/different uses of it in the published ending, two in the unpublished ending, and two elsewhere in the book. I suppose, given today's lecture, that the mere absence of it might be interesting.
9) Outline time. You need to create an order for the presentation of details in your body paragraphs. By this point you have gathered a list of particular passages and sentences from Persuasion. I won't bother to count how many... it's a bunch. Discard your findings from pt. 4 & 5 above that aren't about olives, in other words that are about other details that you're not focusing on. Now create an order for the rest. Here's a rough formula, please feel free to change it.
I read the Paper 3 Prompt today, and I also talked to Monique & Kiyomi in office hours to try to get a sense of what it looked like from the student's perspective.
There are two things in particular that I want to change about the prompt.
A) The prompt asks you to argue that he published ending of the book is "better" than the unpublished ending, and support that thesis with relevant details. I find this focus highly problematic. I think it will lead to most of the papers being basically the same, and to most of them being pure opinions or evaluations rather than analysis. Here's my reworded thesis question: Why might Austen have chosen to revise the original ending in this particular way?
B) This is a lesser concern, but still an important one. The prompt focuses almost exclusively on what we would call narratology (e.g. pacing, point of view). It's like the prompt is saying, "your paper must be about tomato sauce." For my section, your paper does not necessarily have to be about tomato sauce, although this is a good topic. As I said, you can focus on other elements as your basis for comparison (e.g. setting, e.g. character(s), e.g. satire, e.g. the depiction of emotional reactions or behaviors, e.g. the parallel between the social relationships between the characters and British society as a whole, or whatever else we talked about or didn't talk about). Cheese, peppers, onions, mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, pineapples, broccoli (!?!), whatever you like. But as I said today, your paper does need to have a particular focus. The one thing you really shouldn't write about is the use of dashes and ampersands (&)... it isn't clear at what stage Austen abandoned the draft, but these are in all likelihood remnants of her usual drafting process that she would have polished out had this actually been published. So this would be the equivalent of writing about the box the pizza came in, I guess.
In sum, here's the formula for your thesis: Austen made changes X, Y, Z in order to better convey themes A, B, C. Don't take the number of my variables literally... you don't need three of each. Nor my use of the word "theme" if that word means something really specific to you from your previous English classes. I'm just saying you need to relate particular details to the whole of the book.
IDEAS DRAFT
-----------
1) Write a brief Austen style character analysis of someone you know. You can choose what level of satire to use, how sympathetic you are to this person, etc. But try to use irony and free indirect discourse at some point.
2) Make a list of broad similarities and differences between the two endings... we may do this in class on Friday.
3) Choose a new keyword that occurs repeatedly in the ending (one version or both), and use the OED to figure out the different/changing/competing meanings that word would have had to an 1814 reader.
4) Choose three short passages, somewhere between a 1/2 page and a page in length. Perhaps two from the published ending and one from the unpublished ending. Do a close analysis of these passages in which you identify at least one weird or notable thing about each. Just like today I chose a passage and used Ann blushing as a weird or notable detail. It could be a minor plot point, a turn of phrase, an element of scenic description, an instance of FID, or whatever. Remember, we got a whole conversation out of an exclamation point the other day, and Leah & Stephanie got one out of a variant spelling. It might help if the detail recurs more than once within the passage.
5) Scavenger hunt. Find at least three other instances of each of the three details in the rest of the assigned pages, probably two in the published ending and one in the unpublished ending.
6) Decision time. Which one of these details is your paper going to be about? It obviously helps to choose one that:
-occurs repeatedly in the book
-occurs in both versions of the ending
-might be a bit different in the two versions
-links in some interesting way to the overall themes of the novel
I found this really great olive. It's not like other olives that are usually on pizza. It's really interesting to compare different olives, isn't it? We can learn a lot about pizza in general by thinking about olives.
7) Thesis time. You need to relate the olives to the pizza. Here's the formula again: Austen made changes X, Y, Z in order to better convey themes A, B, C. Or, "Austen changed the purple kalamata olives in the original ending to green pecholine olives in the published ending, because she wanted to make the pizza saltier."
8) Scavenger hunt, the revenge... rescavengation. Whatever detail you chose, find three more similar/different uses of it in the published ending, two in the unpublished ending, and two elsewhere in the book. I suppose, given today's lecture, that the mere absence of it might be interesting.
9) Outline time. You need to create an order for the presentation of details in your body paragraphs. By this point you have gathered a list of particular passages and sentences from Persuasion. I won't bother to count how many... it's a bunch. Discard your findings from pt. 4 & 5 above that aren't about olives, in other words that are about other details that you're not focusing on. Now create an order for the rest. Here's a rough formula, please feel free to change it.
I. Introduction
-My aren't there a lot of olives in this pizza.
-Olives are the key to understanding this pizza, or at least provide an interesting perspective on this pizza.
-Why are olives important in this pizza? Because they make it salty.
-When Austen made her first pizza, there were either no olives in it, or olives that weren't salty enough. Or olives that clashed with the other ingredients. Or whatever.
-Thesis: Austen changed the type/number of olives to strengthen the saltiness.
II. Olives in the other slices of this pizza (earlier chapters.)
-Details/analysis: kalamata olives, picholine olives, other olives
III. Olives in the unpublished final slice
-Details/analysis: kalamata olives, picholine olives, other olives
IV. Olives in the revised final slice
-Details/analysis: kalamata olives, picholine olives, other olives
V. Conclusion
-restate thesis
-some kind of twist or new idea (don't actually deal with this until final draft)
ALTERNATE
I. same as above
II. same as above
III. kalamata olives
-in the other parts of the pizza
-in the unpublished final slice
-in the revised final slice
IV. picholine olives
-in the other parts of the pizza
-in the unpublished final slice
-in the revised final slice
V. other olives
-in the other parts of the pizza
-in the unpublished final slice
-in the revised final slice
V. Conclusion
-restate thesis
-some kind of twist or new idea
ALTERNATE
rearrange the order of the "rest of the book," "unpublished," and "published" sections... you could, for instance, begin with the published ending, then backtrack to the rest of the book, then discuss the unpublished ending... or whatever
More keywords in Persuasion
Words that take on multiple or contested meanings... some may be relevant to your paper.
Propriety, Politeness, Indifference, Impertinence, Gentleness, Intimacy, Calculations, Eligibility, Instrumental, Interest, Recollection, Profession, Manners, Management, Attachment, Offices, Worldly, Discomfited, Deranged, Retrenchment
Propriety, Politeness, Indifference, Impertinence, Gentleness, Intimacy, Calculations, Eligibility, Instrumental, Interest, Recollection, Profession, Manners, Management, Attachment, Offices, Worldly, Discomfited, Deranged, Retrenchment
Monday, November 17, 2008
Class #23 Reminders
Read the last three chapters of Persuasion and the alternate ending in Appendix A.
Post the class exercises here (questions and answers both).
Leftover halloween candy:
This is the movie I was talking about today.
This is an interesting New York Times article on an archaeological discovery that sheds light on the historical origins of the Mediterranean concept of the soul.
This is an article that reflects on Descartes' legacy and its relevance to contemporary U.S politics.
And now, I'm off to persuade my connexions that they should help me accomplish an independence.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Class #21 Reminders
-Read Persuasion to pg. 224... in other words, everything but the last three chapters... note that Van Sant told us she was doing full spoilers on Monday... but I already ruined the ending anyway
-Discovery Task #2... turn it in to the Dropbox by Monday morning... I'm not sure if this pertains directly to Paper #3 or not; I have to ask at the next staff meeting... I know that the main reason that Core requires these assignments is to teach you good research skills in preparation for a big paper that you write in the spring
-Blog homework... post below... I assigned each of you a character in the book... rate their social/economic status 1-10 and give me a corroborating textual reference (paste quote and give page number)... then rate their satiric status 1-10 and give me a corroborating textual reference (paste quote and give page number).
Have a nice weekend! If you happen to go to the Cobb, be careful of the steps or you might fall down.
p.s. #1 Which character from Persuasion are you?
I was Admiral Croft.
p.s. #2 A thought occurred to me as I was walking from class back to the office. The thought was that Austen probably isn't quite as socially progressive as we were making her out to be today. On the one hand, she does seem to be pitching in for taking risks, looking to new sources of knowledge, some form of self-determination, and new model of marriage as an emotional and intellectual joint partnership. On the other hand, it's not like Anne marries an actual capitalist, like a merchant or someone like that. The military is much more merit-based (meritocratic) than the aristocracy. But it still has a kind of traditional status. I mean, literally speaking, the military is where the original aristocratic titles and real estate all came from, right? William the Conqueror williamtheconquered England and gave land and titles to all the dudes in his army. That's the equivalent of Captain Wentworth winning prize money for sinking French ships. Err, but then again, money is different from land and the navy is different from the army. Bears further thought.
p.s. #3 How you can tell when a character is being satirized... we've been talking about Austen and her use of irony. Since I mentioned The Office today, it bears saying that there is a very clear hierarchy on that show between who is "in" on the joke and who is not. Jim and Pam always look at the camera in alliance with the viewer; you could compare that to the kind of narrator function Van Sant has been talking about. Some of the other characters look at the camera, in particular Michael, but their effort to be part of the "in" group with the viewers fails. Indeed if you look at Michael on the show, one of the things that defines his character is his desire to be part of a social in-group, particularly with Jim and Pam. The camera isn't passive on the show; it renders judgments, just like Austen's narrator.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Class #20 Review and Reminders
-Read Course Guide 59-65
-Read my further Descartes comments on the Nov. 3 post and the Nov. 5 post.
-Read Persuasion Ch. 1-10 (to page 121) with the three baldies in mind
-Be ready to discuss study questions 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 16
I think that was everything. (The photo is me in Bath in 2001 (on the left) with Charles & Mary Musgrove and Anne Eliot... this was the only one I had because it rained all freaking day. We're in the excavated Roman baths... so as you see, people went there for R & R going back nearly 2000 years.)
Monday, November 10, 2008
Two resources for grammar & style
As long as I'm already getting fired for the whiskey, viva la underwear metaphor.
Another instructor recommends this website for grammar & style brush-ups.
Plus, the editor of Easy Writer (the spiral bound grammar & style guide that was mandatory for this class) will be doing a Forum in the lecture hall on Friday at 11:00, presumably to talk about related issues.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Class #19 Review and Reminders
In the next class, we will move on to Austen and try to build a conceptual bridge over from Descartes.
So these are the things you need to do between now and then:
-Exchange your paper, in its most recent form, with your peer reviewer by Monday 8 p.m. Be sure to include three specific questions that you want them to use to guide their reading of the paper. And then re-exchange the papers back when you get the comments. Use the EEE dropbox: Working Draft 2, Shared Student Files.
-Peer review pairs: Christine/Jeffrey, Kate/Wes, Alec/Rosemary, Kiyomi/Florence, Jessica/Jie, Ariana/Monique, Ivan/Roselaine, Shae/Hannah/Mari (divide it up somehow), Leah/Stephanie
-Final draft #2 due to turnitin.com with acknowledgements & reflections, Tuesday 9 p.m.
-Finish all unfinished Descartes blog homework (last chance)
-Read Chapters 1-4 of Austen's Persuasion.
Special bonus editing & peer-reviewing tip... change the zoom level on your document depending on what kind of editing you're doing. If you're editing at the sentence level (grammar, etc.), zoom to 200%. If you're editing at the paragraph level, use a regular 100% or 125% zoom. If you're looking at the paper "globally," i.e. at its overall argument and organization, zoom to 75% or smaller. I find that this substantially changes the way that I think as I read something, and I use it when editing students papers.
So these are the things you need to do between now and then:
-Exchange your paper, in its most recent form, with your peer reviewer by Monday 8 p.m. Be sure to include three specific questions that you want them to use to guide their reading of the paper. And then re-exchange the papers back when you get the comments. Use the EEE dropbox: Working Draft 2, Shared Student Files.
-Peer review pairs: Christine/Jeffrey, Kate/Wes, Alec/Rosemary, Kiyomi/Florence, Jessica/Jie, Ariana/Monique, Ivan/Roselaine, Shae/Hannah/Mari (divide it up somehow), Leah/Stephanie
-Final draft #2 due to turnitin.com with acknowledgements & reflections, Tuesday 9 p.m.
-Finish all unfinished Descartes blog homework (last chance)
-Read Chapters 1-4 of Austen's Persuasion.
Special bonus editing & peer-reviewing tip... change the zoom level on your document depending on what kind of editing you're doing. If you're editing at the sentence level (grammar, etc.), zoom to 200%. If you're editing at the paragraph level, use a regular 100% or 125% zoom. If you're looking at the paper "globally," i.e. at its overall argument and organization, zoom to 75% or smaller. I find that this substantially changes the way that I think as I read something, and I use it when editing students papers.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Class #18 Review and Reminders
First things first, conference signup for Friday. The schedule is a bit weird because I have a doctor's appointment and I have to sub for another section.
I think we are going to need one more day on Descartes. It won't be Monday, for obvious reasons, but perhaps we can integrate Descartes and Austen somehow next Wednesday. Let's cross that bridge when we get to it.
Right now, other than the Aristotle courage paper, you should be focusing on three things: a) How is Descartes different than Aristotle?, b) What is the basic structure of the Meditations, like can you follow the main argument? and c) What are some of the consequences of redefining philosophy in such a way.
*Paper 2 working draft due tonight... late... I dunno, 11, 12, 1, 2. Whatever your definition of late tonight is if you promise you'll do the Descartes stuff on Thursday.
*Re-read Meditations 4-6
*Take the midterm survey if you haven't.
*Do the last homework if you haven't... post it to the Class #17 entry... give either an attack against Descartes (that he blasphemes Christianity or undermines Aristotle) or a defense of Descartes (that he puts Christianity or Aristotle on a sounder philosophical foundation)
*Do today's homework... which one of D's two proofs of God do you find more convincing and why? You may find it necessary to restate in your own words. Then answer in what respects the God you derive from this proof resembles or does not resemble the Christian God. (Or some other God; a comparison might be interesting.)
I think we are going to need one more day on Descartes. It won't be Monday, for obvious reasons, but perhaps we can integrate Descartes and Austen somehow next Wednesday. Let's cross that bridge when we get to it.
Right now, other than the Aristotle courage paper, you should be focusing on three things: a) How is Descartes different than Aristotle?, b) What is the basic structure of the Meditations, like can you follow the main argument? and c) What are some of the consequences of redefining philosophy in such a way.
*Paper 2 working draft due tonight... late... I dunno, 11, 12, 1, 2. Whatever your definition of late tonight is if you promise you'll do the Descartes stuff on Thursday.
*Re-read Meditations 4-6
*Take the midterm survey if you haven't.
*Do the last homework if you haven't... post it to the Class #17 entry... give either an attack against Descartes (that he blasphemes Christianity or undermines Aristotle) or a defense of Descartes (that he puts Christianity or Aristotle on a sounder philosophical foundation)
*Do today's homework... which one of D's two proofs of God do you find more convincing and why? You may find it necessary to restate in your own words. Then answer in what respects the God you derive from this proof resembles or does not resemble the Christian God. (Or some other God; a comparison might be interesting.)
Clarification on Midterm Grades
This will save us the trouble of discussing it in class or office hours. You know who you are. 58->61 (D becomes D+), 60->63 (D+ remains D+), 70->73 (C remains C)... 76->79 (C+ remains C+)... 78->81, 79->82 (C+ becomes B-)... 81->84, 82->85 (B- becomes B)... 83->86 (B remains B)... 85->88, 86->89 (B becomes B+)... 87->90, 88->91, 89->92 (B+ becomes A-)... 92->95 (A- becomes A). Please note that if you are able to see your grade on EEE, it is probably all screwed up because I can't get the interface to work the way I want it to. Yet.
p.s. Speaking of marks, why does Van Sant favor "Maker's Mark" over "Trademark"? Could it be because she grew up in Kentucky with thousand-legged worms? (Fine print so I don't get fired: I do not endorse immoderate drinking, and neither does Van Sant or Descartes.)
Monday, November 3, 2008
Class #17 Review & Reminders
-Add 3% to your exam grade... this will raise the letter grade for some, but not all of them
-Working draft 2 due to EEE dropbox Wednesday at 11 p.m.
-Take this midterm survey on EEE.
-Re-read Meditations #1-3... recommended study questions from Core website #s 1, 7, 9, 13, 18
-Each group from today should post three arguments for the Catholic Church v. Descartes trial. (Group A: Descartes' sins against Aristotle, Group B: Descartes' sins against God, Group C: defense of Descartes as a good Aristotlean, Group D: Defense of Descartes as a good Christian)
Here's Badiou, by the way. Like Descartes, he uses methodological "doot" to construct a philosophical system that can actually stand up to doot, although he is obviously dealing with newer kinds of doot that have developed in more recent philosophy:
-Working draft 2 due to EEE dropbox Wednesday at 11 p.m.
-Take this midterm survey on EEE.
-Re-read Meditations #1-3... recommended study questions from Core website #s 1, 7, 9, 13, 18
-Each group from today should post three arguments for the Catholic Church v. Descartes trial. (Group A: Descartes' sins against Aristotle, Group B: Descartes' sins against God, Group C: defense of Descartes as a good Aristotlean, Group D: Defense of Descartes as a good Christian)
Here's Badiou, by the way. Like Descartes, he uses methodological "doot" to construct a philosophical system that can actually stand up to doot, although he is obviously dealing with newer kinds of doot that have developed in more recent philosophy:
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Model Answers for Midterm
Question Alpha:
"A symposium is a gathering of men, in which they come together to drink and party. Each man speaks to praise or discuss a particular thing. Plato uses the form not only as a discussion at a party, but to develop a better understanding of a concept. His purpose is to build upon each speaker's speech about love, to bring about a better, more intellectual understanding of love."
For this question, it was especially important to recognize that Plato's symposium is different than a regular symposium. The answer above is brief, but it hit all the majors points and thus received 12 of 12 possible points.
Question Beta:
Only one person answered this question! I bet you were all scared of the two part phrasing.
To me, the point of the ending is that we needn't produce a sharp contrast between thinking and pleasure. Socrates has so much fun at the party that he "thinks" the other men under the table. Likewise, comedies are fun; why shouldn't they be taken seriously too?
Question Gamma:
"The point of Socrates refusing Alcibiades' seduction is not to prove that Socrates is not attracted to Alcibiades sexually, but to prove that Socrates has found something more interesting to devote his time to at that moment. Socrates is sexually attracted to Alcibiades, but he would rather pursue his time with knowledge. To Socrates (and Plato), knowledge is most important, and coming up with a better concept than the men started with is Socrates' main focus at the Symposium. One's devotion to knowledge is higher on the "stairs" presented by Diotima (and Socrates) than the devotion to a hot and beautiful boy."
This answer received 12 of 12 possible points. One thing that makes it good is that it does not make Socrates out to be an ascetic, a person who attempts to negate physical desires. Too many of the answers I got trended in that direction; just because thinking is good does not mean sex or drinking is bad. It just means they should be moderated by reason and shouldn't be one's highest goals.
Question Delta:
"Aristotle believes that nature can be put into causes, namely the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient, and the final cause. The material cause has to do with the types of matter used to create something. The formal cause is its structure that it forms in accordance to the materials. The efficient cause is who, or what, is responsible for the construction. The final cause is its purpose. For example, let's take a cookie
It's clear to me that all of you get the gist of the four causes, but too many of you went straight to the example without actually giving a general definition of the causes. This answer received 11 of 12 points; it would have been better if it had started with a broader view of the theory, like "Aristotle is a teleological thinker; he believes that everything that occurs in the universe happens for a purpose. Four causes define the purpose of any object." Etc.
Question Epsilon:
"Aristotle defines the differences between humans, animals, and plants to show that living things have different souls and different purposes. He explains plants to have a vegetative soul, which includes the abilities of reproduction, growth, and nourishment. Animals have [those] the same as plants but also desire, emotion, and locomotion. Humans have all the above, additionally intellect and reason. He shows how there is a hierarchy of importance when it comes to our souls. Therefore, human beings are more important than plants and animals. Also, we all have different virtues that we are to possess and different means of happiness."
This answer is worded in a kinda funny way, but unlike many answers it identifies both the larger purpose of Aristotle's contrast between types of souls and gives a good account of the differences. So it got 12 of 12. Many of you had difficulty differentiating animals and plants; the key is sensation and/or emotion. Locomotion is less important, since plants actually do move. For humans, you could cite ethics along with reason, since they go together. It could also be argued that the hierarchy is one of increasing complexity and/or one of increasing self-sufficiency. Anyhow, I kept thinking of this as I was grading the answers to this question.
Question Zeta:
"Happiness, according to Aristotle, is based on two things. First, it is the greatest good because it is pursuing one's excellence and building one's virtue to the highest of her ability. To Aristotle our life is only good through acquiring virtue. We can acquire virtue through the choices we make every day. But not just any choices, these choices must be based on reason, and not passion. The choices also should not just fulfill our pleasures, in the moment, but the greater good for people in a lasting way. Like Sappho, who brings her "irrational" emotions into line with her rational thoughts. We must not be heedless in our practice but practice some constraint, ultimately leading to a good life. Secondly, Aristlte also believes that we all have a different telos, we were all meant to do different things, and we must practice and do our telos, and actualize our arete. For instance, my arete could be to be the greatest dancer I can be, so I should practice and watch other people's work to help me grow my abilities to pursue my craft."
The key to this question was linking the concepts of telos, arete, and reason in some kind of logical way, instead of just randomly listing them. This answer received 12 of 12 because I think it accomplished that. It also addressed the issue of the general telos of humans versus the specific telos given by individual talents. I'm surprised anyone could write that much in six minuted, geez. One grumble... we don't really "acquire" virtue as if it were an external object, we actualize it from our internal potential. This isn't a video game.
Question Eta:
"Aristotle thinks an excellent thinker can and should be an excellent doer. Aristotle believes that all should try to live to be the most excellent person they can be. To do this, epople have to tune their virtues to attain excellence. To tune one's virtue, one must make good choices. To make good choices, one must use reason to think logically about how to pick the best choice. So if one is an excellent thinker, one can use reason to make good choices to tune the virtues and to have an excellent life, which is being an excellent doer."
This answer received 12 of 12 because it explained, rather than merely stating, why excellent action requires excellent thought, and why excellent thought actualizes itself in excellent action.
Question Iota:
Successful answers used the term ontology, correctly summarized and contrasted two or more philosophical positions, and gave examples and/or analysis of them. We will revisit ontology with Descartes; it turns out that ontology really depends on epistemology. This is the third major branch of philosophy... its central question is how do we know what we know?
Question Theta:
Successful answers used the term ethics, correctly summarized and contrasted two or more philosophical positions, and gave examples and/or analysis of them. Something nearly all of you are having trouble grasping is that ethics, especially Aristotlean ethics, is not limited only to "should I or shouldn't I" type problems. Ethics asks what a person should do to live a good life, more generally. Thus nearly everything you do is an ethical choice. You are mainly thinking of ethics in a criminal context, as a deontologist might be inclined to do.
Question Kappa:
This essay was clearly more difficult, but as we know, facing and fearing the right things can develop our excellence. I thought a few of you might want to follow up on Schwab's last lecture, and I was right. The better answers defined specific challenges and solutions for a revival of Aristotlean thought, while the less-better answers were either vague (doing little beyond restating the question) or meandered from point to unrelated point. Most of the answers argued for the continuing relevance of A's ethics, but there was some disagreement as to whether A's physics could be reconciled with modern physics. But it's also worth asking whether A's ethics really works if you remove its ontological basis. This will be a concern as we move to Descartes.
"A symposium is a gathering of men, in which they come together to drink and party. Each man speaks to praise or discuss a particular thing. Plato uses the form not only as a discussion at a party, but to develop a better understanding of a concept. His purpose is to build upon each speaker's speech about love, to bring about a better, more intellectual understanding of love."
For this question, it was especially important to recognize that Plato's symposium is different than a regular symposium. The answer above is brief, but it hit all the majors points and thus received 12 of 12 possible points.
Question Beta:
Only one person answered this question! I bet you were all scared of the two part phrasing.
To me, the point of the ending is that we needn't produce a sharp contrast between thinking and pleasure. Socrates has so much fun at the party that he "thinks" the other men under the table. Likewise, comedies are fun; why shouldn't they be taken seriously too?
Question Gamma:
"The point of Socrates refusing Alcibiades' seduction is not to prove that Socrates is not attracted to Alcibiades sexually, but to prove that Socrates has found something more interesting to devote his time to at that moment. Socrates is sexually attracted to Alcibiades, but he would rather pursue his time with knowledge. To Socrates (and Plato), knowledge is most important, and coming up with a better concept than the men started with is Socrates' main focus at the Symposium. One's devotion to knowledge is higher on the "stairs" presented by Diotima (and Socrates) than the devotion to a hot and beautiful boy."
This answer received 12 of 12 possible points. One thing that makes it good is that it does not make Socrates out to be an ascetic, a person who attempts to negate physical desires. Too many of the answers I got trended in that direction; just because thinking is good does not mean sex or drinking is bad. It just means they should be moderated by reason and shouldn't be one's highest goals.
Question Delta:
"Aristotle believes that nature can be put into causes, namely the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient, and the final cause. The material cause has to do with the types of matter used to create something. The formal cause is its structure that it forms in accordance to the materials. The efficient cause is who, or what, is responsible for the construction. The final cause is its purpose. For example, let's take a cookie
It's clear to me that all of you get the gist of the four causes, but too many of you went straight to the example without actually giving a general definition of the causes. This answer received 11 of 12 points; it would have been better if it had started with a broader view of the theory, like "Aristotle is a teleological thinker; he believes that everything that occurs in the universe happens for a purpose. Four causes define the purpose of any object." Etc.
Question Epsilon:
"Aristotle defines the differences between humans, animals, and plants to show that living things have different souls and different purposes. He explains plants to have a vegetative soul, which includes the abilities of reproduction, growth, and nourishment. Animals have [those] the same as plants but also desire, emotion, and locomotion. Humans have all the above, additionally intellect and reason. He shows how there is a hierarchy of importance when it comes to our souls. Therefore, human beings are more important than plants and animals. Also, we all have different virtues that we are to possess and different means of happiness."
This answer is worded in a kinda funny way, but unlike many answers it identifies both the larger purpose of Aristotle's contrast between types of souls and gives a good account of the differences. So it got 12 of 12. Many of you had difficulty differentiating animals and plants; the key is sensation and/or emotion. Locomotion is less important, since plants actually do move. For humans, you could cite ethics along with reason, since they go together. It could also be argued that the hierarchy is one of increasing complexity and/or one of increasing self-sufficiency. Anyhow, I kept thinking of this as I was grading the answers to this question.
Question Zeta:
"Happiness, according to Aristotle, is based on two things. First, it is the greatest good because it is pursuing one's excellence and building one's virtue to the highest of her ability. To Aristotle our life is only good through acquiring virtue. We can acquire virtue through the choices we make every day. But not just any choices, these choices must be based on reason, and not passion. The choices also should not just fulfill our pleasures, in the moment, but the greater good for people in a lasting way. Like Sappho, who brings her "irrational" emotions into line with her rational thoughts. We must not be heedless in our practice but practice some constraint, ultimately leading to a good life. Secondly, Aristlte also believes that we all have a different telos, we were all meant to do different things, and we must practice and do our telos, and actualize our arete. For instance, my arete could be to be the greatest dancer I can be, so I should practice and watch other people's work to help me grow my abilities to pursue my craft."
The key to this question was linking the concepts of telos, arete, and reason in some kind of logical way, instead of just randomly listing them. This answer received 12 of 12 because I think it accomplished that. It also addressed the issue of the general telos of humans versus the specific telos given by individual talents. I'm surprised anyone could write that much in six minuted, geez. One grumble... we don't really "acquire" virtue as if it were an external object, we actualize it from our internal potential. This isn't a video game.
Question Eta:
"Aristotle thinks an excellent thinker can and should be an excellent doer. Aristotle believes that all should try to live to be the most excellent person they can be. To do this, epople have to tune their virtues to attain excellence. To tune one's virtue, one must make good choices. To make good choices, one must use reason to think logically about how to pick the best choice. So if one is an excellent thinker, one can use reason to make good choices to tune the virtues and to have an excellent life, which is being an excellent doer."
This answer received 12 of 12 because it explained, rather than merely stating, why excellent action requires excellent thought, and why excellent thought actualizes itself in excellent action.
Question Iota:
Successful answers used the term ontology, correctly summarized and contrasted two or more philosophical positions, and gave examples and/or analysis of them. We will revisit ontology with Descartes; it turns out that ontology really depends on epistemology. This is the third major branch of philosophy... its central question is how do we know what we know?
Question Theta:
Successful answers used the term ethics, correctly summarized and contrasted two or more philosophical positions, and gave examples and/or analysis of them. Something nearly all of you are having trouble grasping is that ethics, especially Aristotlean ethics, is not limited only to "should I or shouldn't I" type problems. Ethics asks what a person should do to live a good life, more generally. Thus nearly everything you do is an ethical choice. You are mainly thinking of ethics in a criminal context, as a deontologist might be inclined to do.
Question Kappa:
This essay was clearly more difficult, but as we know, facing and fearing the right things can develop our excellence. I thought a few of you might want to follow up on Schwab's last lecture, and I was right. The better answers defined specific challenges and solutions for a revival of Aristotlean thought, while the less-better answers were either vague (doing little beyond restating the question) or meandered from point to unrelated point. Most of the answers argued for the continuing relevance of A's ethics, but there was some disagreement as to whether A's physics could be reconciled with modern physics. But it's also worth asking whether A's ethics really works if you remove its ontological basis. This will be a concern as we move to Descartes.
Friday, October 31, 2008
164 m.p.h.
The fun never stops with the 10 week quarter system. We can't just slow back down, or we might crash. We have to keep going 164 miles per hour.
I hope the exam wasn't too terrifying and that it helped you nail down some of your thoughts about Greek philosophy. I will return them to you on Monday.
Oh by the way, speaking of Greek philosophy... it's all wrong. So says Descartes, your new friend for the weekend. (Check out his Halloween costume. Lame! Oh wait, that's just what he usually wears. Nevermind.)
I thought it would be too mean to bring this stuff up before or after you were taking the midterm, but you need to read ALL of Descartes' Meditations this weekend. That means pgs. 47-103 of the turquoise Cress translation if you bought the standard bookstore copy. Not only do I think the six meditations can't be excerpted, but I think the whole thing doesn't make much sense without the preface and the synopsis. And you absolutely cannot miss the dedication... watch how weasely he is.
And of course, your working draft of paper #2 is due to the EEE dropbox Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m. Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to read.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Class #13 Review and Reminders
-Monday would be a good day to ask any questions that arise about Essay #2
-We can also discuss the midterm if you guys want, or we can save that for Wednesday
-Ideas draft #2 due Monday 9am
-Post your dialogue homework if you didn't get a chance... but no more found money problems
-Office hours continue to be interesting... this afternoon Christine & Rosemary & I discussed what situations would ethically justify eating: tigers, dogs, monkeys, people
Have a nice weekend... and by nice I mean a weekend that actualizes your arete, of course!
-We can also discuss the midterm if you guys want, or we can save that for Wednesday
-Ideas draft #2 due Monday 9am
-Post your dialogue homework if you didn't get a chance... but no more found money problems
-Office hours continue to be interesting... this afternoon Christine & Rosemary & I discussed what situations would ethically justify eating: tigers, dogs, monkeys, people
Have a nice weekend... and by nice I mean a weekend that actualizes your arete, of course!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Class #12 Review and Reminders
I hope that I-spy was as helpful to you guys as it was to me. Every now and then I have a good idea... and you asked excellent questions.
Mari asked another great question after class: which is more "important," a car or a tree? Perhaps the tree because it has an organic soul that seeks nutrition, perhaps the car because it has a very useful function and has been actualized by the souls of human craftsmen. But we have to leave aside the question of utility, because we're being teleologists and not utilitarians. Which is more wonderful, shall we say. Which is more substantial Aristotle might say. And there is a single test you can always apply in Aristotle, whether you're talking about ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics, logic, or whatever. The test is which thing is more self-sufficient? Which thing is more of a mover and less of a move-d. (Catholic Aristotleans would say, which is a creator and which is a created thing, though A. himself believes the universe has always existed and therefore wasn't "created.") Which is more actualized, and actualizing of other things? By this test it's the tree, since the tree can live and reproduce on its own whereas the car must be maintained, serviced, driven by people.
REMINDERS... write a dialogue on ontology, ethics, or both. At least two characters representing different philosophical positions. At least 15-20 lines of dialogue, but the more you do, the more you're preparing for your mid-term.
The major positions on ontology are:
-Plato (dualism shading into pure idealism)
-Aristotle (hylomorphism / teleology)
-Democritus (materialism... you could also use any modern scientist)
-Gorgias (nihilism / skepticism)
-I guess common sense or craft could be considered ontological theories, albeit ones with obvious defects
The major positions on ethics are:
-Kant (deontology, often via categorical imperative)
-Aristotle (individual teleology -> eudaemonianism / cultivation of virtue, often via golden mean)
-Epicurus (individual teleology -> hedonism)
-Mill (social teleology -> universal hedonism)
-Iannucci (164 miles per hour -ism???, via non-golden mean / golden non-mean... by the way, this is a very apt statement of the ethics of capitalism)
-I guess a conventional ethics, what Schwab called normative, is an ethical position, albeit a pre-philosophical one... following the letter of the law or following social custom)
IF YOU WANT A HEAD START... the ideas draft for paper 2 (due Monday at 11 a.m. to the EEE dropbox) will be answering the "four tasks" of this prompt in any way you find useful. We'll probably start task 1 in class on Friday. I may also add another not-essay component, like doing a Theophrastian character sketch of the courageous man (or alternately the cowardly man or the rash man.)
Oh, and the prompt recommends you read the Course Guide chapters 4, 6, and 10. Which would be quite helpful for you to read in general, so I highly recommend doing that sometime before Monday.
Mari asked another great question after class: which is more "important," a car or a tree? Perhaps the tree because it has an organic soul that seeks nutrition, perhaps the car because it has a very useful function and has been actualized by the souls of human craftsmen. But we have to leave aside the question of utility, because we're being teleologists and not utilitarians. Which is more wonderful, shall we say. Which is more substantial Aristotle might say. And there is a single test you can always apply in Aristotle, whether you're talking about ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics, logic, or whatever. The test is which thing is more self-sufficient? Which thing is more of a mover and less of a move-d. (Catholic Aristotleans would say, which is a creator and which is a created thing, though A. himself believes the universe has always existed and therefore wasn't "created.") Which is more actualized, and actualizing of other things? By this test it's the tree, since the tree can live and reproduce on its own whereas the car must be maintained, serviced, driven by people.
REMINDERS... write a dialogue on ontology, ethics, or both. At least two characters representing different philosophical positions. At least 15-20 lines of dialogue, but the more you do, the more you're preparing for your mid-term.
The major positions on ontology are:
-Plato (dualism shading into pure idealism)
-Aristotle (hylomorphism / teleology)
-Democritus (materialism... you could also use any modern scientist)
-Gorgias (nihilism / skepticism)
-I guess common sense or craft could be considered ontological theories, albeit ones with obvious defects
The major positions on ethics are:
-Kant (deontology, often via categorical imperative)
-Aristotle (individual teleology -> eudaemonianism / cultivation of virtue, often via golden mean)
-Epicurus (individual teleology -> hedonism)
-Mill (social teleology -> universal hedonism)
-Iannucci (164 miles per hour -ism???, via non-golden mean / golden non-mean... by the way, this is a very apt statement of the ethics of capitalism)
-I guess a conventional ethics, what Schwab called normative, is an ethical position, albeit a pre-philosophical one... following the letter of the law or following social custom)
IF YOU WANT A HEAD START... the ideas draft for paper 2 (due Monday at 11 a.m. to the EEE dropbox) will be answering the "four tasks" of this prompt in any way you find useful. We'll probably start task 1 in class on Friday. I may also add another not-essay component, like doing a Theophrastian character sketch of the courageous man (or alternately the cowardly man or the rash man.)
Oh, and the prompt recommends you read the Course Guide chapters 4, 6, and 10. Which would be quite helpful for you to read in general, so I highly recommend doing that sometime before Monday.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Class #11 Review & Reminders
Post your ethical analysis of the voting propositions in the reply. It's going to get rather complicated, but I think it will be a good demonstration of how Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and Epicurus would reason through some different concepts. And the added benefit is it might help you make sense of some of the more confusing aspects of the California ballot.
Oh, speaking of that... here's the complete Voter Information Guide
And here's the rest of the Armando Iannucci comedy sketch on the non-golden mean... is this a fifth ethical system?
Oh, speaking of that... here's the complete Voter Information Guide
And here's the rest of the Armando Iannucci comedy sketch on the non-golden mean... is this a fifth ethical system?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Class #10 Review
Thank you for actualizing my teacherly potential today.
REVIEW:
I. Deontological ethics
-I should do the act that is right, regardless of situation or consequence.
-Example: Immanuel Kant
-Kant's Criterion: "Categorical Imperative"... would I want every other person to act in such a way?
II. Teleological ethics
-I should do whatever will produce the best consequence in this particular situation.
A. Social Teleology
-Example: John Stuart Mill
-Mill's Criterion: "Utilitarianism"... what will produce the most pleasure and the least pain for the greatest number of people?
B. Individual Teleology
-Example: Aristotle
-Aristotle's Criterion: "Eudaimonian(ism)"... what will develop my virtue to its greatest excellence and therefore make me happy?
-Conflicting Example: Epicurus
-Epicurus's Criterion: "Hedonism"... what will bring me the most pleasure and the least pain?
More
-Note how Mill and Epicurus agree that the end of ethics is pleasure, but disagree about whose pleasure... utilitarianism has been called a "universal hedonism"
-Note how Aristotle's premise that the cultivation of virtue/excellence is equivalent to happiness seems to require further proof. Do you think it can be proven?
-Can you think of any other combinations of these methods and criteria for making ethical choices? Can you think of any wholesale alternatives?
REMINDERS:
-Final Draft #1, Sunday 9 p.m. here
-Read Theophrastus sketches in Course Guide pgs. 4-5
REVIEW:
I. Deontological ethics
-I should do the act that is right, regardless of situation or consequence.
-Example: Immanuel Kant
-Kant's Criterion: "Categorical Imperative"... would I want every other person to act in such a way?
II. Teleological ethics
-I should do whatever will produce the best consequence in this particular situation.
A. Social Teleology
-Example: John Stuart Mill
-Mill's Criterion: "Utilitarianism"... what will produce the most pleasure and the least pain for the greatest number of people?
B. Individual Teleology
-Example: Aristotle
-Aristotle's Criterion: "Eudaimonian(ism)"... what will develop my virtue to its greatest excellence and therefore make me happy?
-Conflicting Example: Epicurus
-Epicurus's Criterion: "Hedonism"... what will bring me the most pleasure and the least pain?
More
-Note how Mill and Epicurus agree that the end of ethics is pleasure, but disagree about whose pleasure... utilitarianism has been called a "universal hedonism"
-Note how Aristotle's premise that the cultivation of virtue/excellence is equivalent to happiness seems to require further proof. Do you think it can be proven?
-Can you think of any other combinations of these methods and criteria for making ethical choices? Can you think of any wholesale alternatives?
REMINDERS:
-Final Draft #1, Sunday 9 p.m. here
-Read Theophrastus sketches in Course Guide pgs. 4-5
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Class #9 Review and Reminders
First, I want to emphasize something I've said before, which is... we'll rarely have time to truly finish discussions and activities in class although we will sure as hell start a lot of them. To finish something like today's thesis exercise, you need to continue with your partner after class, even if that just means exchanging emails. To finish the philosophical discussions we start, you need a regular partner from this class or one of the other (non-trailer) classes to talk through the ideas a couple of times a week.
REMINDERS:
-read Nichomachean Ethics (1.4, 1.5, 1.7, 1.8, 2.1, 2.5-2.7, 3.6-3.8)
-chart three virtue sliders for Obama & McCain w/ specific reference to tonight's debate
-do quotations exercise for Obama & the Hills
-post Turtle/Ghandi/Descartes exercises from Monday in reply to this post
REMINDERS:
-read Nichomachean Ethics (1.4, 1.5, 1.7, 1.8, 2.1, 2.5-2.7, 3.6-3.8)
-chart three virtue sliders for Obama & McCain w/ specific reference to tonight's debate
-do quotations exercise for Obama & the Hills
-post Turtle/Ghandi/Descartes exercises from Monday in reply to this post
Action Philosophers
OK, so the philosophy comic book is available online for only 99c an issue. Since we're now discussing ethics, how about we download it legally. (Not qua mere legality but qua virtue, because it is the best thing to do.)
Scroll to the bottom where it says "Digital Comics" and you can download them.
Recommended: Issue #1 (includes Plato), Issue #5 (includes Descartes), Issue #7 (includes Aristotle and the pre-Socratics)
Scroll to the bottom where it says "Digital Comics" and you can download them.
Recommended: Issue #1 (includes Plato), Issue #5 (includes Descartes), Issue #7 (includes Aristotle and the pre-Socratics)
Monday, October 13, 2008
Class #8 Review and Reminders
Excellent questions today. We will use that format more in the future, I think.
IMPORTANT REVISION TO PAPER PROMPT:
In talking with you each individually, I've decided that I really don't see the point of section 3 of the prompt as currently phrased. So we will approach it somewhat differently. We will call section 3 "rhetoric" rather than "organization." Your concern in section 1 is where E is coming from, your concern in section 2 is what E says, in section 4 you can draw any number of comparisons between what he says and what one of the other speakers says, but your concern in section 3 is how he says what he says. Organization is one such how, but there could be others. Does he, for instance, make jokes like Aristophanes and Alcibiades? Does he hop up and down on one foot? Does he favor particular types of arguments over others. Etc.
REMINDERS:
-bring an unmarked copy of your essay to class
-read Guide 29-35 and do Descartes exercise, Ghandi exercise, and Turtle exercise
-Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for Friday (Book I, Chapters 4, 5, 7, 8, and 13; Book II, Chapters 1, 5, 6, and 7; Book III, Chapters 6, 7, 8)
IMPORTANT REVISION TO PAPER PROMPT:
In talking with you each individually, I've decided that I really don't see the point of section 3 of the prompt as currently phrased. So we will approach it somewhat differently. We will call section 3 "rhetoric" rather than "organization." Your concern in section 1 is where E is coming from, your concern in section 2 is what E says, in section 4 you can draw any number of comparisons between what he says and what one of the other speakers says, but your concern in section 3 is how he says what he says. Organization is one such how, but there could be others. Does he, for instance, make jokes like Aristophanes and Alcibiades? Does he hop up and down on one foot? Does he favor particular types of arguments over others. Etc.
REMINDERS:
-bring an unmarked copy of your essay to class
-read Guide 29-35 and do Descartes exercise, Ghandi exercise, and Turtle exercise
-Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for Friday (Book I, Chapters 4, 5, 7, 8, and 13; Book II, Chapters 1, 5, 6, and 7; Book III, Chapters 6, 7, 8)
Friday, October 10, 2008
Woof
This is today's quiz, in its ideal Platonic form. I rearranged/excerpted some of your answers.
Stupidocles:
"A 4-legged animal that barks." (Jie)
"A pet that barks and wags his tail." (Jessica)
"A dog is an animal that helps me hunt." (Monique)
"Everyone should own a dog." (Ivan)
Dogistotle:
"An animal created when a male and female dog mate." (Jeffrey)
"The result of breeding different types of wolves until we are eventually left with a trainable and obedient hybrid." (Stephanie)
Gorgias:
"A something." (Kate)
"A dog is your best friend! It scares cats and rats away from your house! You should get one!" (Wes)
"Would a child be happier with a dog? The answer is yes!" (Shae)
Xenocrates:
"A dog is not real, it comes from dogness" (Kiyomi)
"A dog is merely a copy of an ideal dog."
"Part of the idea of dogness." (Hannah)
Democritus:
"Fur, muscle, blood, etc."
"Something that is made of atomic matter." (Florence)
"Made up of matter like everything else in the world." (Leah)
Aristotle:
"An animal with four legs, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and has fur. Can jump, run, eat, etc.
"A potentiality actualized by a soul." (Ariana)
"A living thing, which has a soul yet has no intellect or reason." (Jessica)
"Their noses have the cold and wet attribute." (Ivan)
"The soul of a dog cannot live without its body." (Rosemary)
Stupidocles:
"A 4-legged animal that barks." (Jie)
"A pet that barks and wags his tail." (Jessica)
"A dog is an animal that helps me hunt." (Monique)
"Everyone should own a dog." (Ivan)
Dogistotle:
"An animal created when a male and female dog mate." (Jeffrey)
"The result of breeding different types of wolves until we are eventually left with a trainable and obedient hybrid." (Stephanie)
Gorgias:
"A something." (Kate)
"A dog is your best friend! It scares cats and rats away from your house! You should get one!" (Wes)
"Would a child be happier with a dog? The answer is yes!" (Shae)
Xenocrates:
"A dog is not real, it comes from dogness" (Kiyomi)
"A dog is merely a copy of an ideal dog."
"Part of the idea of dogness." (Hannah)
Democritus:
"Fur, muscle, blood, etc."
"Something that is made of atomic matter." (Florence)
"Made up of matter like everything else in the world." (Leah)
Aristotle:
"An animal with four legs, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and has fur. Can jump, run, eat, etc.
"A potentiality actualized by a soul." (Ariana)
"A living thing, which has a soul yet has no intellect or reason." (Jessica)
"Their noses have the cold and wet attribute." (Ivan)
"The soul of a dog cannot live without its body." (Rosemary)
More Aristotle
During the peripatetic phase of office hours, one of you (I think it was Kiyomi) was asking about how the soul/anima/psyche (English/Latin/Greek) was passed from an organism to its reproductive offspring. Aristotle thinks that a "seed," broadly conceived, contains the entire telos of an organism. An apple is potentially an entire apple tree, a sperm is potentially an entire human being, etc. This is consistent with the idea of soul/anima/psyche being a motivating purpose. The only difficulty comes when Aristotle speaks of the psyche being indivisible; how could it divide some small part of itself to actualize the seed and still itself be a whole? And how could the small part that provides the actuality of the seed then itself become a whole? Aristotle, being a good scientist, acknowledges that it does, and that reproduction is part of what psyches do. (You can see the seed of this idea, actually, in the Symposium... compare the bottom paragraph of pg. 171 of our Aristotle book.) A very simple version of the "reproduction" problem occurs with something like a cactus shoot, which is actually a part of an ensouled thing (a plant) that you cut off from the whole, but the whole goes on functioning and the part then becomes a whole (a plant). Again, this requires some elaboration on Aristotle's part. Read this passage from Parva Naturalia (Minor Essays on Nature) and see if you think he's being too tricky. I think what we should keep in mind is that the psyche isn't like a little speck that's somewhere inside an organism. It is the form and telos, the animating principle of all of its material. Using our biology, we might say that it's in every cell. So it makes sense that it would be somehow transferable if we can get around this part/whole problem. Indeed in De Anima II.5 (pg. 174) Aristotle even concludes that the ability to reproduce is what makes something psychic in the first place... if an apple tree's purpose is to be an apple tree, its purpose is to continue being an apple tree, and reproduction through seeds is part of its telos.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Qua
The best literal definition I've seen is "in the capacity of." It would also translate to "as." And I was wrong when I said it derives from "what" in Latin. It actually derives from "who." Here are some examples of its usage I found on the internets:
"It was qua poet that Byron resurrected the exploded and discarded immortal Christian soul by bodying it forth through the notion of soul conceived as poetic imagination."
"The President qua head of the party mediated the dispute."
"Their old standing friends, qua individuals and groups, have to unite and wage a worldwide campaign that should equal the protests that are being made against G8, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank."
"The self-perpetuating tendencies of educational institutions, qua institutions, should never go unchallenged when they perpetuate socially disputable functions."
"It was qua poet that Byron resurrected the exploded and discarded immortal Christian soul by bodying it forth through the notion of soul conceived as poetic imagination."
"The President qua head of the party mediated the dispute."
"Their old standing friends, qua individuals and groups, have to unite and wage a worldwide campaign that should equal the protests that are being made against G8, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank."
"The self-perpetuating tendencies of educational institutions, qua institutions, should never go unchallenged when they perpetuate socially disputable functions."
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Class #6 Review & Reminders
My wife is really sick, so I don't have much time to devote to the blog this afternoon. I hope between our class and Schwab's lecture you're a bit less intimidated by Aristotle. (Don't forget the forum Friday at 11:00 if you want to ask him a question.)
But... I encourage the groups who didn't have their question answered during class today to post it here, and I will reply later tonight or tomorrow morning.
And I definitely owe you guys a post about "qua."
REMINDERS
---------
-Read Course Guide 26-27
-Read On the Soul from start to finish
-Bring your Ideas Draft to class on Friday... we will be doing more writing exercises
But... I encourage the groups who didn't have their question answered during class today to post it here, and I will reply later tonight or tomorrow morning.
And I definitely owe you guys a post about "qua."
REMINDERS
---------
-Read Course Guide 26-27
-Read On the Soul from start to finish
-Bring your Ideas Draft to class on Friday... we will be doing more writing exercises
Monday, October 6, 2008
Plato & Aristotle
OK, so one difference is that Shaquille O'Neal once called himself "The Big Aristotle." I'm not aware of any "Big Socrates" or "Big Plato." (Shaq was riffing on the fact that Aristotle was unusually tall for his time period. Which means he was probably, oh, 5'10.")
Anyway, post HW responses here.
Anyway, post HW responses here.
Class #5 Review & Reminders
Feel free to ask further questions about the paper here or on the listserv. I wanted to share one useful idea that came out of office hours and two useful ideas that Schwab mentioned during today's staff meeting.
1. From office hours (by the way, come to office hours! if you wait 5 mins. after class I'll walk over with you and show you where it is)... anyhow, I was talking to a student in office hours today and I mentioned my "samurai theory of critique." What this means is that if you want to criticize the positions taken by a speaker like Eryximachus, you should start by constructing the best possible version of those positions, the strongest version of his argument, even if you have to be somewhat charitable and even inventive in doing so. The samurai part is, you win no honor by defeating a weak opponent, only by defeating a strong opponent. So make Eryximachus as strong as you can before you start to point out his limitations. Furthermore, if you read the prompt you see that the main point of the assignment is simply to construct his position in detail and that evaluating it doesn't even come until the very end for the most part.
2. Schwab A: Schwab wasn't sure if Socrates (or Plato) was as down on women as the other speakers. He wondered if the exclusion of women is part of the traditional ritual or culture of the symposium rather than part of the new philosophical view, or even if it is something particular to this group of men. He pointed out the important role of Diotima, and some things that Socrates said about women in other dialogues. I'm not sure I agree... it seems to me that Plato likes imaginary women more than real ones... but the point is it's an area for debate. I mean certainly in our own adoption of Socratic/Platonic ideas in class, we can just as well assume that any of the things said about men apply equally to women.
4. Schwab B... this one is more interesting: Schwab pointed out that each of the dialogues doesn't so much refute the previous one as preserve one or two useful elements of the previous one and then go forward with elaborating those. He contrasted the "integration" of previous ideas to the "negation" of previous ideas or the "competition" between ideas. In the same way, he said that to be a philosopher for Socrates was not to "negate" the pleasures of the body, but to "integrate" them along with the more important pleasures of the mind. This relates to one of my previous blog posts when I was talking about gooder and worser. Socrates still drinks wine... he just doesn't get as drunk as the other men because he is also focused on gooder mental pleasures instead of exclusively focused on worser physical pleasures. Likewise, I'm not sure he cockblocks Alcibiades because he isn't attracted to him but more that he is simply more interested at that moment in having a philosophical conversation. Physical pleasures aren't bad according to this theory, they're just not as good.
Speaking of mental pleasures, your homework:
--------------------------------------------
-be sure to put your ideas draft in the dropbox if you haven't already
-grammar exercises (recommended; I will post the answers later tonight)
-read Aristotle On the Soul 1.1, 1.4, 2.1-2.3, 3.4, 3.7 ( = pgs. 161-71, 194-96, 198-200)... warning... this is way harder than reading Plato
-read Sappho poems (Course Reader pg. 3)
-write a blog post in which you talk about one part of the Aristotle reading that seems to contradict with the theories of Plato/Socrates. Explain why you think it's a contradiction.
1. From office hours (by the way, come to office hours! if you wait 5 mins. after class I'll walk over with you and show you where it is)... anyhow, I was talking to a student in office hours today and I mentioned my "samurai theory of critique." What this means is that if you want to criticize the positions taken by a speaker like Eryximachus, you should start by constructing the best possible version of those positions, the strongest version of his argument, even if you have to be somewhat charitable and even inventive in doing so. The samurai part is, you win no honor by defeating a weak opponent, only by defeating a strong opponent. So make Eryximachus as strong as you can before you start to point out his limitations. Furthermore, if you read the prompt you see that the main point of the assignment is simply to construct his position in detail and that evaluating it doesn't even come until the very end for the most part.
2. Schwab A: Schwab wasn't sure if Socrates (or Plato) was as down on women as the other speakers. He wondered if the exclusion of women is part of the traditional ritual or culture of the symposium rather than part of the new philosophical view, or even if it is something particular to this group of men. He pointed out the important role of Diotima, and some things that Socrates said about women in other dialogues. I'm not sure I agree... it seems to me that Plato likes imaginary women more than real ones... but the point is it's an area for debate. I mean certainly in our own adoption of Socratic/Platonic ideas in class, we can just as well assume that any of the things said about men apply equally to women.
4. Schwab B... this one is more interesting: Schwab pointed out that each of the dialogues doesn't so much refute the previous one as preserve one or two useful elements of the previous one and then go forward with elaborating those. He contrasted the "integration" of previous ideas to the "negation" of previous ideas or the "competition" between ideas. In the same way, he said that to be a philosopher for Socrates was not to "negate" the pleasures of the body, but to "integrate" them along with the more important pleasures of the mind. This relates to one of my previous blog posts when I was talking about gooder and worser. Socrates still drinks wine... he just doesn't get as drunk as the other men because he is also focused on gooder mental pleasures instead of exclusively focused on worser physical pleasures. Likewise, I'm not sure he cockblocks Alcibiades because he isn't attracted to him but more that he is simply more interested at that moment in having a philosophical conversation. Physical pleasures aren't bad according to this theory, they're just not as good.
Speaking of mental pleasures, your homework:
--------------------------------------------
-be sure to put your ideas draft in the dropbox if you haven't already
-grammar exercises (recommended; I will post the answers later tonight)
-read Aristotle On the Soul 1.1, 1.4, 2.1-2.3, 3.4, 3.7 ( = pgs. 161-71, 194-96, 198-200)... warning... this is way harder than reading Plato
-read Sappho poems (Course Reader pg. 3)
-write a blog post in which you talk about one part of the Aristotle reading that seems to contradict with the theories of Plato/Socrates. Explain why you think it's a contradiction.
Friday, October 3, 2008
More on Ideas Draft (read prompt first before reading this)
I think I did a decent job explaining the 3-stage drafting process for Paper #1 (idea draft, working draft, final draft), but let me tell you a bit more about how it relates to the work you've done so far.
Section I = continue & then present your research from the Discovery Task
Section II-III = expanded version of the Eryximachus column in the grid handout
Section IV = other column(s) in the grid handout, our discussions on Platonism
We've gone "past" this paper in our class discussions now; today's discussion served mainly to get you ready for Schwab's last lecture on Plato and his lectures on Aristotle. You know all the background you need, so it's a question of getting all the bits of close analysis down in the idea draft, fusing them together into a coherent whole in the working draft, and revising/improving that in the final draft.
IMPORTANT: The main purpose of the idea draft is to remove the fear of the blank Word document that will greet you as you write your first college paper. You've already done some of the thinking in class and in your homework, and this will allow you to do most of the rest of it so you can focus in the next drafts on writing well. So DON'T WORRY ABOUT COMPLETE SENTENCES OR SOUNDING LIKE YOU'RE SUPER-SMART. Just write in a way that's comfortable and easy for you.
Section I = continue & then present your research from the Discovery Task
Section II-III = expanded version of the Eryximachus column in the grid handout
Section IV = other column(s) in the grid handout, our discussions on Platonism
We've gone "past" this paper in our class discussions now; today's discussion served mainly to get you ready for Schwab's last lecture on Plato and his lectures on Aristotle. You know all the background you need, so it's a question of getting all the bits of close analysis down in the idea draft, fusing them together into a coherent whole in the working draft, and revising/improving that in the final draft.
IMPORTANT: The main purpose of the idea draft is to remove the fear of the blank Word document that will greet you as you write your first college paper. You've already done some of the thinking in class and in your homework, and this will allow you to do most of the rest of it so you can focus in the next drafts on writing well. So DON'T WORRY ABOUT COMPLETE SENTENCES OR SOUNDING LIKE YOU'RE SUPER-SMART. Just write in a way that's comfortable and easy for you.
Class #4 Review & Reminders
I thought we had another productive dialectic today, and I'm sure it will make it easier to understand Schwab's lecture on Monday, and the rest of this year's Humanities Core. BUT, I need you to help me with something. Don't let me talk about the Symposium, or Trees vs. Treeness, or Platonism-in-general, etc. on Monday. Like actually raise your hand and tell me to stop! On Monday we need to talk about Paper #1, which means analyzing the Eryximachus speech.
SOME FURTHER EXPLANATION:
Since I can't talk about this Monday, I'll talk about it now. Christine, Ivan, Hannah and I had a nice little symposium in office hours today and they have helped me identify two major areas of confusion that arise from the weirdness of us having to think our way backwards into an ancient Greek mindset.
1) The ancient Greeks do not believe that sexual desire is bad or dirty. The main cultural source of that idea in the modern West is our religious traditions, specifically as they were developed during the middles ages in Europe. Actually, let me take things a step further. The Greeks do not believe ANYTHING is good or bad, in the sense that the good thing is holy and nice and the bad thing is wrong and dirty and evil. They believe that SOME THINGS ARE GOODER THAN OTHERS. Diotima's speech about the "staircase" of desiring the good is not a heterodox, anti-traditional idea. It's actually a pretty good expression of what all Greeks thought. (Well, except for the part about young men being better sex than women.) When Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens by making them question traditional religion and values, his defense was that all he was trying to do was SAVE the traditions from the sophists (rhetoricians) who were saying that there was no gooder or worser and that everything was equal. That anything you could convincingly argue for was true. (cf. marketing, "truthiness"). The jury didn't buy this defense, but, at least here, he could plausibly make that defense. The lesson of the Symposium is YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT (or screw, or think about.) There isn't such a thing as non-desire, because that would mean a human was a god. All humans desire, it's just a question of what. In the end they all desire "the good," but the smarter ones realize that the lower desires are only confused or worser ways of getting it. (So from now on in class let's say gooder and worser instead of good and bad. I'm being entirely serious.)
2) The Greeks are not aware of modern science! It's actually Aristotle who gets the whole ball rolling on that, but it's not until much, much later that a way of doing science as we would recognize it emerges. (We'll read Descartes later in the quarter; he's one of the earliest of the moderns.) The premise of Plato's philosophy is that the evidence of our senses is unreliable; think about how your ears and eyes can play tricks on you, or how every physical object in the world moves and changes. Since concepts are, like "gods," perfectly satisfied/stable/complete, then using our unreliable senses to describe changing objects like this tree or that tree is not a good way to find truth. A better way would be to use dialectic to generalize toward stable concepts like treeness. Towards categories, that is. Now Shae might say, that makes these categories human inventions, just like she said the gods were human inventions. No, it doesn't. Not if you're Plato. Those concepts, those objects of knowledge, those philosophical "gods" (treeness = the god of trees, you might say)... they are what you are trying to KNOW. You're not inventing them. They're real. You can't see them or touch them, yet they must be real because otherwise how could there be actual, physical trees? Actual, physical trees come from treeness. This tree dies, that tree gets cut down. But treeness endures, and without treeness there are no trees. (If treeness sounds dumb, think of a concept we still use, like gravity.) Plato will actually go on to say that the things you can see and touch are therefore NOT REAL. Or not fully real. They're real like xerox copies or real, or the circle I drew on the board is real. They're imperfect, and only perfect things are really real. Now the modern scientific objection is this... even if there were perfectly real abstractions, how could I possibly KNOW them except through my imperfect senses? Modern science says EVEN THOUGH our senses are imperfect and EVEN THOUGH the objects in the world are not concepts, not perfect circles, that this is the ONLY way to accumulate knowledge. By gathering as much imperfect data as possible and comparing it together. Better to look through a foggy window than try to look through a wall, says modern science. Plato thinks you can look through that wall, using your mind. (Come to office hours and ask me for the Long Explanation of Why Platonism is Wrong. This blog would explode if I tried to type that here.)
WEEKEND HOMEWORK:
-Familiarize yourself with the Paper #1 prompt and bring any questions about it.
-Do the Ideas Draft #1 assignment. Turn in one copy to the dropbox and print out a copy to bring to class on Monday (for your own reference during class). I also put the handout itself in the dropbox because I think someone missed class. (Dropbox->Trailerology->CourseFiles) More notes on this in my next post.
-Read Easy Writer 182-189 and do exercises 23.1-24.4 in the little workbook. This is not busywork; these are skills that relate directly to the Paper #1 assignment, specifically how to paraphrase and how to grammatically integrate quotations.
-Think about all of the wonderful times you had with the tree. Because you're going to miss it when it's not there on Monday.
SOME FURTHER EXPLANATION:
Since I can't talk about this Monday, I'll talk about it now. Christine, Ivan, Hannah and I had a nice little symposium in office hours today and they have helped me identify two major areas of confusion that arise from the weirdness of us having to think our way backwards into an ancient Greek mindset.
1) The ancient Greeks do not believe that sexual desire is bad or dirty. The main cultural source of that idea in the modern West is our religious traditions, specifically as they were developed during the middles ages in Europe. Actually, let me take things a step further. The Greeks do not believe ANYTHING is good or bad, in the sense that the good thing is holy and nice and the bad thing is wrong and dirty and evil. They believe that SOME THINGS ARE GOODER THAN OTHERS. Diotima's speech about the "staircase" of desiring the good is not a heterodox, anti-traditional idea. It's actually a pretty good expression of what all Greeks thought. (Well, except for the part about young men being better sex than women.) When Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens by making them question traditional religion and values, his defense was that all he was trying to do was SAVE the traditions from the sophists (rhetoricians) who were saying that there was no gooder or worser and that everything was equal. That anything you could convincingly argue for was true. (cf. marketing, "truthiness"). The jury didn't buy this defense, but, at least here, he could plausibly make that defense. The lesson of the Symposium is YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT (or screw, or think about.) There isn't such a thing as non-desire, because that would mean a human was a god. All humans desire, it's just a question of what. In the end they all desire "the good," but the smarter ones realize that the lower desires are only confused or worser ways of getting it. (So from now on in class let's say gooder and worser instead of good and bad. I'm being entirely serious.)
2) The Greeks are not aware of modern science! It's actually Aristotle who gets the whole ball rolling on that, but it's not until much, much later that a way of doing science as we would recognize it emerges. (We'll read Descartes later in the quarter; he's one of the earliest of the moderns.) The premise of Plato's philosophy is that the evidence of our senses is unreliable; think about how your ears and eyes can play tricks on you, or how every physical object in the world moves and changes. Since concepts are, like "gods," perfectly satisfied/stable/complete, then using our unreliable senses to describe changing objects like this tree or that tree is not a good way to find truth. A better way would be to use dialectic to generalize toward stable concepts like treeness. Towards categories, that is. Now Shae might say, that makes these categories human inventions, just like she said the gods were human inventions. No, it doesn't. Not if you're Plato. Those concepts, those objects of knowledge, those philosophical "gods" (treeness = the god of trees, you might say)... they are what you are trying to KNOW. You're not inventing them. They're real. You can't see them or touch them, yet they must be real because otherwise how could there be actual, physical trees? Actual, physical trees come from treeness. This tree dies, that tree gets cut down. But treeness endures, and without treeness there are no trees. (If treeness sounds dumb, think of a concept we still use, like gravity.) Plato will actually go on to say that the things you can see and touch are therefore NOT REAL. Or not fully real. They're real like xerox copies or real, or the circle I drew on the board is real. They're imperfect, and only perfect things are really real. Now the modern scientific objection is this... even if there were perfectly real abstractions, how could I possibly KNOW them except through my imperfect senses? Modern science says EVEN THOUGH our senses are imperfect and EVEN THOUGH the objects in the world are not concepts, not perfect circles, that this is the ONLY way to accumulate knowledge. By gathering as much imperfect data as possible and comparing it together. Better to look through a foggy window than try to look through a wall, says modern science. Plato thinks you can look through that wall, using your mind. (Come to office hours and ask me for the Long Explanation of Why Platonism is Wrong. This blog would explode if I tried to type that here.)
WEEKEND HOMEWORK:
-Familiarize yourself with the Paper #1 prompt and bring any questions about it.
-Do the Ideas Draft #1 assignment. Turn in one copy to the dropbox and print out a copy to bring to class on Monday (for your own reference during class). I also put the handout itself in the dropbox because I think someone missed class. (Dropbox->Trailerology->CourseFiles) More notes on this in my next post.
-Read Easy Writer 182-189 and do exercises 23.1-24.4 in the little workbook. This is not busywork; these are skills that relate directly to the Paper #1 assignment, specifically how to paraphrase and how to grammatically integrate quotations.
-Think about all of the wonderful times you had with the tree. Because you're going to miss it when it's not there on Monday.
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