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.