The meaningfulnes of life

I recently finished teaching a class called "Human Nature."  There are various ways of approaching the content for this class.  What I chose to do is to make this class about the "big" questions.  In particular, the class was about perhaps the biggest question of all:  What is the meaning of life?

I used this book as a textbook for the class.  As the title suggests, the book covered twelve theories, which gave their own answers to the above questions.  In case you're curious, here are the twelve theories:

1. Confucianism
2. Hinduism
3. Buddhism
4. Plato
5. Aristotle
6. Judaism/Christianity
7. Islam
8. Immanuel Kant
9. Karl Marx
10. Sigmund Freud
11. Jean Paul Sartre
12. Neo-darwinism

Each theory is broken down into four components:  the metaphysical assumptions of the theory, the claims made about the nature of human beings, its diagnosis of the human condition, its prescription for human flourishing.

Teaching the class got me thinking about the question of life's meaningfulness.  I've been getting progressively sadder over time because I've been getting more and more doubtful as to whether or not there is any meaning to life at all.  So, as a kind of therapeutic exercise, I figure I'd do reflection on what it means for life to be meaningful.

I don't have a definition for "meaningfulness."  I'll have to start with some examples and try to extract some necessary or sufficient conditions.  Let's go over some cases.

A lot people think that individual death and the ultimate "death" of the universe makes life meaningless.  Why strive after things if we're all ultimately going to die?

Supposing that the eventual death of all living things eliminates life's meaningfulness, we can draw at least two conclusions.

First, the meaningfulness of life depends on temporality.  What I mean by this is that whether or not you think your life is meaningful now will depend on states of affairs in the future.  This is what I infer when people say “What does it all matter? We’re all just going to die anyway.”  This is what you can also interpret from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes.

Second, the meaningfulness of life depends on consciousness.  I get this from the claim that death erases the meaningfulness of life.  I’m assuming that consciousness is extinguished upon death.  The idea, then, is that in order for life to be meaningful, that meaningfulness, whatever it may be, must be recognized.  Recognition, of course, requires a conscious perceiver.  Therefore, meaningfulness requires there be some conscious entity that is capable of recognizing the notion of meaningfulness.

It seems plausible to think that these two conditions are necessary conditions for meaningfulness, but we are still miles away from any kind of well developed theory of meaningfulness.  I’ll come back to this when I have more thoughts.

Math and reality

It's hard to imagine science without any kind of math.  It gets even harder as you move down to the more fundamental sciences, such as physics.  So many concepts in physics are mathematical, such as mass, velocity, speed, force, energy, etc.  From physics and upwards to the special sciences, so many laws are stated as mathematical equations.  E=mc^2, F=ma, etc.

Now, the sciences are investigations into reality.  What does it signify when we conclude that math is an inextricable part of science?

We take it for granted that so much of what we observe in the world is describable in terms of quantities and relations between quantities.  But, the world needn't have turned out that way.  The physical universe could have had no discernible pattern, thus resisting the formulation of mathematical laws describing the behavior of objects.

So why is it that math so effectively describes the world?  One possible explanation is simply that math is just as much a part of reality as atoms and molecules are.  Ontology is the study of existence, as well as what exists.  We often think of reality in ontological terms, i.e. giving an inventory of what exists.  However, this isn't all there is to reality.  Reality is not just about listing things that exists.  There is also the structure of reality, i.e. the way in which existing things are related.  Structure matters just as much in understanding reality as ontology does.  For example, just listing a bunch of wooden planks isn't enough to understand why something is a boat.  A pile of wood doesn't get you said boat.  You need something more.  You need to know how those planks are related, i.e. how they're put together.  Likewise a full understanding of reality means acknowledging that reality includes both things and structure.

So, we can say that math is a part of reality in that it is the structure of reality.

We could say the same thing about logic.  Math is to physics as logic is to metaphysics, although perhaps to a lesser degree in the case of metaphysics.  One can think of physics as a way of applying mathematics.  Similarly, one can think of metaphysics as a way of applying logic.  If logic plays a role that is similar to the role that mathematics plays in physics, then one can infer by analogy that logic is also part of the structure of reality.  This shouldn't be surprising, given the close association between mathematics and logic.

One consequence of the view that numbers and logical concepts are just as much a part of reality as tables and planets are is that there is more than one way to gain knowledge about objective reality.  Scientific knowledge is knowledge gained primarily via observation, i.e. through sense perception.  Logic and mathematical knowledge is knowledge gained through what I call "rational insight."  I don't use the word "intuition" because of its connotation with the kind of snap judgment thinking that you read about in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.  Rational insight is the faculty through which we come to know that claims in math and logic are true.  It is distinct from sense perception, in that it does not involve the use of our eyes, ears, etc.

So, if we accept that mathematical and logical entities are part of the physical universe, then it turns out that perhaps philosophy, metaphysics in particular, might tell us just as much about the universe as physics does.

Privacy and the asymmetry of information

People often consider privacy to be a right, similar to having the right to move around, say whatever you want, and buy whatever you want.  It's what some would call a "negative" right, meaning that it's something that people can't impede you from having.  If I have the negative right of movement, that means that people can't keep me from moving from one city to another city.  Contrast this with a "positive" right.  A positive right is a right to something that imposes a cost to other people.  For example, having the positive right to an education means that you are entitled to something that costs other people money, namely an education.

So, privacy is a negative right.  It doesn't cost anyone any money to give you privacy.

What I wonder about is why people think that this is so important.  There are familiar cases in which society faces a trade off between privacy and security.  Having more privacy across the board may make it more difficult for law enforcement officials to acquire relevant information regarding criminal activity.

Also there are familiar issues associated with social networking.  People raise a fuss about their privacy potentially being compromised on sites like Facebook.  But why does it matter so much?  Again, why do people place what seems to me a disproportionate amount of value on their privacy?

The explanation that makes most sense to me is grounded in the idea that information is a form of social currency.  Having more information gives you a kind of power, and being exposed (i.e. having people gain information about you) somehow diminishes your power.

So maybe privacy is a form of empowerment.  The less people know about you, the more "powerful" you are, perhaps.  It's like a game of poker, where the person who has the most information about their opponent is most likely to win.

Suppose that all information was freely available.  You could find anything you wanted about anybody, including classified government information.  Likewise, anybody could find out anything they wanted about you.  Nobody could hide any information at all.  Would this be a better society?  I'm inclined to think that it would be, but that's just a knee jerk response.

Basically, my gut response is that privacy is an issue only when it's asymmetric.  What I mean is that I'd get upset about my privacy being violated if I didn't have equal information access to the individual getting my information.  If had the same kind of access, i.e. if there was symmetry of information access between myself and some other individual, then I'd be okay with that.  I figure other people wouldn't be, and I wonder why.

The evocative nature of music

Music obvious has an effect on one's experience.  There seem to be close relationships between forms of music and mental states, such as emotions.  This kind of stuff is everywhere.  Here are some examples.

Songs in a minor key often evoke melancholy, whereas songs in a major key evoke happiness.
The tempo of a song is also associated with mood.  You never hear fast funeral dirges.
Sounds coming from different instruments have different effects.  Compare the sound of a flute with the sound of an electric guitar playing through a highly distorted amplifier.  They could play the same melody, but achieve vastly different effects on one's mental states.

Everything about music has this potential effect.  The volume, tempo, rhythm, pitch, harmony, timbre, instrumentation, etc.  Anything about a particular song can contribute to producing a certain mental state.

That's the power of music.  That's why you have film scores and soundtracks.

Here's a question.  What do we make of the fact that music has this causal effect on our mental states?  Why does music have this effect?  Why did our brains evolve to be sensitive to these musical details?  Do certain aspects of music have the same effects on individuals across time and culture?  If so, why?  If not, where do these associations come from?  Suppose that the association of minor keys with sadness is a western European thing.  Then how did that association come about?

Conflict, conciliation, and how group disputes are resolved in politics

Suppose that there is a minority group that is being persecuted in some way by the majority group.  What can the minority group do to eliminate the persecution?

There are basically two categories of approaches.  The first is conciliatory.  The minority can end the oppressive treatment by convincing the majority to stop the oppression.  Notable examples of this approach include the non-violent movements led by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

The second approach is antagonistic.  The minority can end persecution by engaging in some form of conflict and winning.  There are plenty of examples of this approach.  Any war that is labeled a "revolution" is an example of the antagonistic approach.

The distinction here isn't binary though.  Instead, the two approaches lie at polar ends of a spectrum with hybrid or alternative approaches occupying points along this spectrum.

This is a helpful distinction when we talk and think about politics.  Here are two points that I want to make here regarding this distinction.

First, there's a lot of confusion regarding this distinction.  Oftentimes people claim to be taking one approach, when their actions indicate otherwise.  Here are two examples going in both directions.  First, there's this band called Rage Against The Machine.  They're a 90s rock band that I was (and still am) a big fan of.  They are unabashedly political, leaning heavily towards left-wing politics.  Much of the band's songs contain lyrics that prescribe an antagonistic approach to social change; you hear a lot of songs where Zack de la Rocha is telling us to burn shit and to start riots.  However, the band's approach to social change in real life has been decidedly conciliatory (as far as I know).  Their involvement has been almost exclusively through non-violent protests and grass roots democratic organization.

The second type of example seems much more prevalent to me, especially in identity politics.  Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, women, ethnic minorities, and the LGBT community have been working hard for their rights as participants in a democracy, possessing equal standing with straight white men.  Much of this work has been done via the conciliatory approach, but with the advent of the internet, we've witnessed a movement towards antagonistic approaches.  This sort of antagonism isn't physically violent, but by means of shaming, insults, and other forms of verbal abuse, it threatens the possibility of cooperation between oppressor and oppressed.  This cooperation is essential to the conciliatory approach.

That last example leads me to my next observation.  What counts as conciliation, and what counts as antagonism.  As I stated above, most approaches may be a hybrid of the two.  It is important to think this through, because I think that the second example is basically a type of hypocrisy.  The idea is that the conciliatory approach is considered the moral high road, and so everyone of course will claim to be conciliatory.  However, they end up being antagonistic in all sorts of sneaky and backhanded ways.  This is troublesome, to say the least.  Therefore it is important to have a clear understanding of what conciliation is all about in order to protect that standard from hypocrisy and conceptual erosion.

Evolution and the Christian doctrine of Imago Dei

Aside from exegetical issues surrounding the first few chapters of the book of Genesis, there really doesn't seem to be much conflict between the idea that a divine Creator exists and that life as we know it is the product of an evolutionary process.  It doesn't seem so hard to imagine that God set the initial conditions and started the process off, perhaps making a few tweaks and adjustments along the way.

One area that does seem to create some tension, at least in my mind, is the doctrine of Imago Dei.  This Christian doctrine roughly holds that humankind is made in the image of God.  What does this mean?  Since Christian orthodoxy holds that God is not a physical entity, being made in the image of God can't be interpreted as being made in the physical image of God.  If that's the case, then by "image" we must mean some kind of emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or volitional faculty (or perhaps all of the above).

If it is indeed the case that man is made in the image of God, then this question is put to those (including me) who believe in the truth of evolutionary theory.  According to evolutionary theory, mankind is a descendant of a number of lesser developed species.  If this is so, then at what point was the image of God imparted in man?  Humankind is a descendant of early one celled organisms.  Surely these organisms did not have the image of God.  The same could be said of other species that are part of humankind's evolutionary lineage.  One might point out that the image of God was imparted when the species Homo Erectus evolved to the species Homo Sapiens.  However, this transition was gradual.  Can we point to some exact event where the image of God was imparted?  If so, where and why that event?

For those who interpret the first few chapters of Genesis literally, the answer to this question is simple.  The image of God was imparted on the sixth day of creation when God created humankind from dirt and breathed the breath of life into them (or at least him).  Here there is a specific event that can be pointed to as the event where the image of God was imparted.  Of course, this answer comes at the cost of a highly implausible account of the Earth's origins.

So suppose that you identify as a Christian whose beliefs are more or less orthodox.  Suppose also that you are convinced by the theory of evolution as accurately describing the history of life on Earth.  How do you resolve this apparent tension between science and religion?

What is the meaning of "What is the meaning of life?"

This is a course description that I recently wrote for a class that I'll be teaching this fall called "Human Nature."

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“What is the meaning of life?”

This is probably the most famous question you’ll hear that’s associated with philosophy.  It’d be nice if there was a definitive answer to this question, but unfortunately there isn’t (Or at least none that I’m aware of).  Instead, there are a variety of answers, some more established than others.

But, before we get to the answers, we need to be clear on what the question means.  This is what philosophers are really good, clarifying exactly what questions are supposed to be asking.  This is important.  If we don’t know exactly what the question is asking, then how can we be sure which answers are even relevant?

So what does the question mean?  In order to answer this question, we’ll need to make a distinction between two types of facts: positive facts and normative facts.  Positive facts are facts that describe things the way they are.  For example, “Obama is the president of the United States.” is a positive fact.  Normative facts are facts that describe things that way they ought to be.  For example, “People shouldn’t steal from others.” is a normative fact.

So, the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is combination of two more specific questions.  The first is, “What is life about?”  This is a question with a positive answer.  The second is, “How should people live their lives?”  This is a question with a normative answer.

It’s important to see how the two answers work together.  In order to know how you should live your life, you’ll need to know what life is like.  For example, let’s say that the right way to live life includes acts of prayer and worship to God.  This is a normative claim.  But, this wouldn’t make much sense if you didn’t believe that God exists.  The claim that God exists (or does not exist) is a positive claim.  So, in order for normative claims to make sense, it has to come with a set of positive claims that describe the reality in which we live our lives.

Every theory about the meaning of life will have a set of positive and normative claims.  The positive claims fall into two categories:

Metaphysics:  This first category has to do with what reality is like.  Does God exist?  Is there such a thing as fate?  Does everything obey the laws of science?

Human nature:  This second category has to do with what human beings are like.  Humans, of course, are part of reality.  But, are the a special part of reality?  Do they have souls?  Do they have free will?  Or, are they just like everything else in reality?  Is their behavior determined by laws of nature?  

The normative claims are also split into two sub categories:

Diagnosis:  We wouldn’t be asking “What is the meaning of life?” if life were peachy.  We experience all kinds of problems, conflict and suffering.  Where does all this negativity come from?  Each theory about the meaning of life gives us a diagnosis.  It tells us why things aren’t as they should be.

Prescription:  After a diagnosis, we need plan to make things better.  This is where we learn about how we should live so as to flourish and to live the best kind of life.  

Any theory that gives tells us about metaphysics, human nature, diagnoses the human condition, and prescribes a way to live a flourishing life is a theory that answers the question, “What is the meaning of life?”  In this class, we’re going to examine twelve such theories.  These theories include both religious traditions, as well as the thoughts of major philosophers.  From this survey, you’ll see just how diverse opinions are about what the meaning of life really is.  Hopefully the class will give you the tools you need to decide for yourself what the answer to the question is.

An argument for the moral permissibility of psychoactive drugs (The medical type)

There seems to be a weird stigma about using prescribed psychoactive drugs.  These sorts of drugs include antidepressants, like Prozac, stimulants, like Ephedrine, mood stabilizers, such as Lithium, or sedatives, like Klonopin.  Some people hold the belief that it is somehow immoral or unnatural to take these kinds of drugs.  Here's an argument that shows that if you're okay with other sorts of pain-relieving medicine, you should be okay with psychoactive drugs as medicine.

1.  Prescribed psychoactive drugs are relevantly similar to (physical) pain-relieving drugs.
2. It is not a big deal (i.e. morally permissible) to use (physical) pain-relieving drugs in a responsible manner.
3. Therefore, it is not a big deal to use prescribed psychoactive drugs in a responsible manner.

I'm going to expand on the first premise, but let me say something quick about the second premise.  Obviously psychoactive drugs can be abused.  But this is true for any drug out there.  The potential for abuse is not something unique to psychoactive drugs, and is therefore not a good reason to think that it is morally questionable to use them.  The same can be said of potential side effects and possible addiction.

Okay, now on to the first premise.  We're all okay with using pain relievers like Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Aspirin.  We're also okay with lots of other symptom repressing drugs like antihistamines, antacids, or various cold/flu medicines.  We are we okay with using these kinds of drugs?  Here's my guess.  Pain is a mental state.  It exists to alert the body that it is somehow in harm's way.  Once an individual has placed her body out of the potential source of danger, then the pain has served its purpose.  It is no longer useful at that point.  Many times, however, the pain still lingers even though we've taken the corrective measures.  This pain is not only superfluous, but can act as a detriment to our living our lives.  As a result, we take the sorts of pain relieving drugs mentioned above.

Emotions are also mental states.  They also serve as alerts to the individual.  They respond to stimuli in a similar way as pain does.  Negative emotions indicate external stimuli that may be psychologically harmful to the individual.  Once an individual has acknowledged such emotions and has taken the necessary steps to address the stimuli and has taken corrective measures, the emotion has served its purpose.  Like pain, however, negative emotions can also linger.  And, like pain, such emotions can be not only superfluous, but also harmful.  Psychoactive drugs repress negative emotions, like pain-relieving drugs repress the sensation of pain.

If you agree that this is a reasonable assessment of emotions, and if you are okay with taking pain-relieving drugs, then you should be okay with taking psychoactive drugs if you need them.  Now, it is important to note that it is only permissible to take such drugs to deal with superfluous negative emotions.  It is not okay to take such drugs in lieu of addressing the stimuli that is causally connected to the pain.  But this is also true of pain-relieving drugs.  It is obviously not okay to take pain-relieving drugs in lieu of actually dealing with the source of the pain.

Perhaps this is why the stigma exists.  It may not be clear if an individual has really dealt with the source of negative emotions, whereas it's usually pretty clear when an individual has dealt with the source of physical pain.

Physical versus Psychological Harm

The concept of harm plays a central role in moral and political theorizing.  We generally tend to believe that every person has the right to be free from harm inflicted by other.  But exactly counts as harm?  This is a tough concept to analyze.  I'm not going to pretend to give anything close to a complete analysis here.  I just want to think about it a little bit and maybe make a few sketches.

Okay, so let's think of life as dynamic.  Either things are moving forward, or things move in circles.  Life moves forward by growing, learning, adapting, achieving goals, etc.  Things move in circles via some kind of maintenance, like the nitrogen cycle, homeostasis, etc.  The idea is that there is some kind of action or movement, and the right kinds of movement are considered good.

So with that metaphor, we might consider harm to be either an impediment to this kind of movement, or movement in the wrong direction.  For example, oxygen deprivation is considered harmful because it impedes the respiratory and circulatory process in the body.  Degenerative diseases are harmful because it reverses the growth process.

So if we have the notion of harm as either impediment or regression, then we can make a further distinction.  For persons, harm can be either physical or psychological.  This distinction is pretty self-explanatory.  Physical harm is harm done to the body.  Psychological harm is harm done to the mind.

In most societies, we try to legislate against harm.  For instance, aggravated assault is a kind of physical harm, and it is illegal in most societies.  In general, we think that harm is morally bad.

What I want to note here is that psychological harm is worse than physical harm.  In fact it seems true that a lot of physical harm is bad only because it also inflicts psychological harm.  This seems particularly true when it comes to harm inflicted by another person.  For instance, two guys fighting in a boxing ring inflict harm on each other.  But we don't think that this kind of physical harm is morally bad.  However, two guys fighting in a parking lot is considered bad.  Why?  Because we think that there is also some psychological harm involved.  In this case it the exertion of dominance by one over the other.

So it seems that much physical harm, at least the physical harm inflicted by persons, reduces to psychological harm.  If we want to legislate against harm, then we should be legislating against psychological harm.  But note that there is not much in terms of laws against pure psychological harm, i.e. psychological harm without physical harm.  For instance, there are laws against child abuse, but this is child abuse primarily understood as physical abuse.  I'm not aware of very many cases where a child was taken from his/her parents solely because of what the parents said to the child, even though such words can deal irreparable psychological harm to the child.  Likewise, there are no criminal laws against adultery.  Adultery is another example of psychological harm that is not physical harm.

Why is this?  Well the easiest and most obvious answer is that it is difficult to enforce laws against pure psychological harm, especially when such harm is inflicted through speech.  If a child accuses her parents of psychological harm through emotionally damaging criticism, what evidences can she provide?

To further corroborate this point, we already do have some laws against pure psychological harm.  These are laws related to libel and slander.  More recently, states have passed laws against bullying and cyber-bullying in particular.  Libel, slander, and cyber-bullying are all instances of pure psychological harm.  These laws are considered enforceable because evidence can be mustered for this kind of harm.  This is the interesting about technology and psychological harm.  As technology advances more and more communication becomes of the type that can be preserved and documented.  We communicate via text, video chat, social media, email, etc.  All of these can be recorded and saved.  Thus evidence of psychological harm can be preserved, and laws prohibiting forms of psychological harm can be enforced.

So it'll be interesting to see how technology affects our legislation regarding psychological harm.  What will also be interesting to see is how this interacts with our concern for privacy.  Being able to access these forms of communication is often seen as an invasion of privacy, but it also enables society to control instances of psychological harm.

Voluntary bodily control vs involuntary functions

When I was in grade school, I learned that there were two types of actions with respect to my body.  There were voluntary actions, like using my muscles to type, walk around, and speak.  There were also involuntary actions, like my heart rate, digestive process, and metabolism.

I was taught that some actions in my body had to be involuntary, because if they were all voluntary, I'd have to concentrate on all of these functions in my body.  A lapse in concentration could lead to my death.

This is all well and good.  However, there are certain bodily functions that are both voluntary and involuntary.  Two examples include blinking and breathing.  When we don't pay attention, our body automatically breathes and blinks.  It is normally an involuntary action.  However, we can direct our attention to these actions and voluntarily control our rate of breath or the rate at which we blink.  Thus, these sorts of actions can be at times involuntary, and at other times voluntary.

What I always wondered about was why some actions had this property of being both voluntary and involuntary, while lots of other actions do not.  I can control the rate at which I breathe, but why can't I directly control my metabolism?

There are lots of things in my body that I have no direct control over.  I have no control over lots of sensations.  For instance, if I feel pain, I can't, without medication, decide to just not feel pain.  The same goes for emotions.  If I am sad, I can't just directly turn off this sensation.  Similarly I can't just decide to fall asleep.  If I am tired, I can close my eyes and drift off to sleep.  But there are plenty of times where I close my eyes, wanting to sleep, but don't fall asleep.  I have absolutely no direct control over my digestive and metabolic processes.  I can't directly command my body to convert the food I eat directly into energy, rather than storing it as fat.  The same goes for healing processes.

This makes me wonder about the relationship between me and my body.  It seems like I have very little direct control over a lot of things that go on in my body.  Can we conclude anything from this?    What's interesting is the fact that I have any direct control at all.  Why aren't all of my actions involuntary?  Why is it that have I some direct control rather than no direct control?  It's this mix of voluntary and involuntary actions that go on in my body that leaves me scratching my head.

This is an example of a curious feature of human beings (and maybe some other mammals as well).  We are self aware creatures.  We are not completely responsive to the environment around us.  Some parts of us are totally responsive to external stimuli.  Perhaps our metabolism, heart rate, etc. are examples.  But some of our actions aren't completely dictated by external stimuli.  Why is that?

This aspect of human beings, this sort of dual, two-tiered nature, is something I find highly fascinating.  I'll be writing about this more in later posts.

Who cares?

When you read philosophy articles, you'll often come across the "motivation" part of the article early on.  This is where the author tries to convince you that what he or she is writing about is worth your time and attention.  It's pretty clear that the truth of the article is not sufficient for it to be of value.  People also have to care about what the author has to say.

Unfortunately, there are lots of areas in philosophy that no one really cares about.  Here's one example.  In one of the intro classes that I teach, I cover six topics: knowledge/skepticism, the existence of God, the possibility of time travel, the relationship between mind and brain, personal identity over time, and free will.  Of these topics, I have the hardest time getting students to care about skepticism.  Do we really have access to the external world, or are we dreaming?  Or in a computer simulation?  Who cares?

If nobody cares about a particular issue or problem, then no one will work to solve it.  But how exactly do we understand this notion of caring?  Why do people care about the things they do, and how do the come to care about things that they didn't care about before?

Part of this is easy to explain.  People care about Maslow's hierarchy stuff like getting food, water, shelter, social interaction, etc.  This is explainable in terms of evolutionary concepts like survival or reproduction.

Other things that we care about might be explained as extensions of things that we care about for Darwinian reasons.  For instance, we often care about money because it serves as the means to stuff that ensures our survival or ability to reproduce.  Lots of things that we care about on a daily basis might fall into this category.

There are, however, things that we might care about that are don't directly serve our interests in surviving and reproducing, nor are they straightforwardly extensions of the aforementioned interests.  I'm thinking of things like art, music, literature, and philosophy.

Why do we care about these things?  There are lots of answers floating around that appeal to cultural, religious, or biological mechanisms.  I'm interested in a pedagogical standpoint.  If a student doesn't get them to care about philosophy, how do you get them to care?  Likewise for politics, art, etc.  Is concern for these things simply a function of how an individual was raised?  This doesn't seem quite right.  There are plenty of adults who come to care about these things when they had no prior interest.  What happened?  How do people come to care about something they didn't care about before?

Culpability and original sin

So part of the standard story that you get in Christian theology is that everyone is sinful and requires redemption from God.  But why is everyone sinful?

Here are a few ways to answer this question.

Everyone is already sinful at conception, birth, or whenever you have the emergence of a human person.

Everyone will eventually sin at some point in their lives, when they do, they are sinful and need God's redemption.

Let's start with that second answer.  Is it true that EVERYONE will eventually sin?  Is it possible for someone to go their whole life without actually sinning?  It seems that the general consensus answer among theologians is no, although I am not entirely sure.  If the answer is no, then the next question is, "why not?"

One answer is that everyone is born with a defect that will inevitably result in the committing of a sin of some sort.  Okay, so where did this defect come from?

Now we have two choices, either people are sinful, i.e. guilty before God, right from the start, or they have a defect that will inevitably lead to sin.  Either option raises the same basic question: why?

The standard answer is that we inherited this condition from Adam, i.e. the first man and also the first person (along with Eve) to sin against God.  Because of Adam's sin, we are also sinful.  This is puzzling.  Why should I, or anyone else, be held responsible for the acts of one man (and woman)?

Let's suppose that it is indeed the case that I am sinful before God because of the disobedience of Adam.  it seems to follow that I am in some responsible for what he did.  If that is true, then shouldn't it also be true that I am responsible for the acts of my parents, grandparents, and all of my ancestors?  If not, why not?  Why is the case with Adam exceptional?  How is it that the sin of Adam is transmitted through the generations, but no one else's?

Travel and technology

Traveling, i.e. going to from point A to point B, was initially done out of the need to find food.  You traveled to follow herds of buffalo, or to find where the edible plants are in season.  I'm guessing that travel was done initially by foot.  Then come animal domestication, followed by mechanical forms of travel.

Technological advances in travel allow for more people to travel greater distances in shorter periods of time.  What sort of cultural consequences are there to technological advances in travel?

As societies became agrarian, groups traveled in order to look for arable land.  It was inevitable that as more people were able come into contact with other groups.  This led to such consequences as trade, conflict, cooperation, etc.

Technological advances in travel are accompanied by at least two cultural consequences.

First, travelers are able to physically interact with more people.  The further you can go in a shorter period of time, the more opportunities you will have to interact with more people.

Second, technological advances in travel allow individuals to travel for leisure, rather than out of necessity.  This comes in at least two forms.  First, the mode of travel itself can be a recreational activity, like horseback riding, driving, flying airplanes, etc.  Second, destinations can now be purely recreational, like camping, going to the beach, skiing, etc.

Now, suppose that something like teleportation were possible.  Suppose that people could travel anywhere in the world in a moment's time.  It would take me just as much time to travel from New York to China as it would take me to walk from my bedroom to my kitchen.  At this point, it seems that there is no longer travel in the sense that there is some kind of process or journey.  Older forms of travel are now done solely out of recreation.  What would society be like if everyone were able to travel via instantaneous teleportation?

Substantitive vs. shallow ethnic identification

I identify as a Korean-American.  I do so simply because I am an American citizen, and I believe that my ancestry goes back through Korea for quite some time.

I would imagine that this is typically how people identify with respect to their ethnicity.  However, there are other ways of thinking about this.

Suppose you have an individual whose biological parents have ancestries in Korea, but who was adopted and raised by a white American couple.  Suppose also that you have an individual whose biological parents have ancestries in Europe, but who was adopted by a Korean couple in Korea.  Who would you say was more "Korean?"  Do both have equal claims at identifying as Korean?

When it comes to identifying as an ethnicity or nationality, genealogy matters, of course.  But if all you have is genealogy, then it seems that your identification is shallow.  Substantive ethnic identification involves more than just being born into a certain family tree.  One has to be deeply embedded in the culture of said ethnicity.

There are at least three ways of engaging in culture.

1.  Consumption and production of commodities
This includes stuff like making and and eating an ethnicity's food, wearing ethnic clothing, consuming entertainment produced by that ethnicity, etc.

2.  Compliance with norms, customs, and practices
This is stuff like dining etiquette, rules of the road, entertaining guests, participating in religious and social rituals like marriages and funerals, etc.

3.  Language
This is self-explanatory.  This is attaining fluency in the language associated with the ethnicity in question.

I listed the above in what I take to be the order of shallowest forms of engagement to the most substantive.  It seems clear to me that the most substantive way of really engaging in a culture is to master its language.  In fact, you won't even be able to do the other two very well without fluency in the ethnicity's language.  Language allows one to understand an ethnicity's perspective and worldview.  I hold that without fluency in the language, ethnic identification remains shallow.

This means that although I identify as Korean-American, my ethnic identification as Korean is pretty shallow.  I can speak some Korean, but my language skill is pretty rudimentary.  I eat Korean food, know what to do during Korean holidays, know how to interact with my elders, etc.  But all this is merely rote behavior.  I don't have the ability to read Korean at a high level, so I can't read Korean commentary on Confucius.  Nor can I read the famous Korean poets and storytellers.  My linguistic limitations prevent me from really taking on the Korean mindset, and thus keeps me from really identifying with Korean culture.

An Argument for Epistocracy

Here's one really simplistic way of describing government.  The government makes laws, people have to follow them.  Now, we can sort different types of governments by answering the question, "Who makes the laws?"

In a dictatorship, you have one person making the laws.  In a pure democracy, every member of the state has a say in making the laws.  Dictatorships can be quite efficient.  One guy makes the laws, no one else gets a say.  If the dictator wanted to make a law that Friday would be no pants day, then bam, it's done.  No need to wait for anything to make the law official.  Democracies, on the hand, are quite inefficient.  Sometimes it takes a while to get consensus on a potential law.  Lots of candidate laws never see the light of day.  If there were an omniscient, morally perfect leader, then a dictatorship would be the best form of government.  Unfortunately, no such individual exists.  So, democracy, inefficient as it is, works out better than a dictatorship, since it allows people to decide for themselves what is best for them.  Dictators can and do often act in a way that benefits themselves at the expense of the other members of the state.

Another reason to think that dictatorships are no good as a form of government is that it is possible to manipulate the dictator to make laws that may not be beneficial to everyone.  Let's say you and your family were members of a dictator state.  If you wanted a law that made it easy for your family to get high-paying jobs, then you'd have to go through dictator, since the dictator makes all of the laws alone.  You could get the dictator to make such a law via some form of manipulation, e.g. bribery, blackmail, false information, etc.  A dictator who is corruptible, ignorant, or unreasonable would be susceptible to various forms of manipulation, and could thus instate laws that are harmful to the majority of citizens.

We would thus think that democracy is better because it's harder to manipulate a bunch of people than it is to manipulate one person.  All things held equal, this is true. Even though it may be relatively harder to manipulate a bunch of people, it is still certainly possible to do such manipulating with all of the mass media technology that we possess currently.

That's one reason to think that pure democracy is an inferior form of government to what I call democratic epistocracy.  An epistocracy is a state run by those who meet some minimal standard of rational aptitude and being informed.  John Stuart Mill championed a form of epistocracy where the number of votes you had varied positively with the degree to which you were informed and the degree to which you were capable of reasoning.  This is democratic epistocracy in a nutshell.  All citizens get a vote, but those in the know and are capable of thinking things through get more votes.

I think that democratic epistocracy is less susceptible to manipulation than pure democracy.  Like pure democracy, you have to deal with the prospect of trying to manipulate a group of people rather than one person.  Unlike pure democracy, those with the most say in what laws get enacted are less likely to manipulated via misinformation, appeals to sentiment, and bad reasoning.  Of course, such individuals are not incorruptible, but at least they are not easily led astray by soundbites and such.  This added resistance to manipulation is one reason to favor democratic epistocracy over pure democracy.

How stories are told

How many different ways are there to tell a story?  We can go more or less chronologically.

1.  Oral Storytelling
I'd imagine that stories were told orally first.  People would gather around and the tribe shaman or other storyteller would spin a yarn.  So you have storytelling via oral transmission.

Physical communication involves more than just speaking, though.  There is body language.  How a storyteller gesticulates plays a major role in the conveyance and quality of storytelling.  Can you tell a story with just the body language?  Sure.  There is pantomime.  Mime artists have been around for a while.  There is also dance, which I'll get to below.

One major development in oral storytelling is theater.  Instead of one guy narrating the tale, you have a group of individuals all acting out a narrative by playing their roles.  In addition to acting, which includes speaking and body language, we have the inclusion of artifacts in the form of sets and props.  Perhaps ancient storytellers used props, but this notion goes to the next level in theater.

2.  Pictures
People started drawing pictures in caves a long time ago.  What was the point of painting in caves?  At what point in history did people draw pictures to tell stories?  Of course you have different ways of drawing pictures:

A. Drawing and painting.  This is includes stuff like oil, watercolor, acrylic, graphite, ink, spray paint, etc.  Basically drawing and painting is any attempt at producing some kind of image on a flat surface.

B. Sculpture.  As opposed to drawing and painting, sculpture is any attempt at creating a three dimensional image.  Like drawing and painting, there are lots of media here.  Do people use sculptures to tell stories?  Probably.

C. Photography.  The most recent development would be the production of images through technology and light.  Normally photography might be sorted with drawing and painting, since it is a production of an image on a two dimensional surface, but it may also be considered its own sub-category, what with the advent of three dimensional printing.

D. The Moving Image.  As technology advances, we go from the ability to portray a static image to that of a moving image.  Basically, there are three types of moving images.

i. Film.  Film is the moving image counterpart to photography.  Older film is just a series of photographs shown in rapid succession.  Newer film incorporates digital technologies to capture moving images.

ii. Animation.  Animation is the moving image produced by either drawing, painting, or sculpture.  Like older film, older animation incorporated a series of drawn images shown in rapid succession.

iii.  Puppetry.  Puppetry is basically an animated version of sculpture.  Three dimensional images are manipulated so as to gesture and to communicate in ways similar to body language.

Film and animation are often presented in either of the two formats:  Feature film or serial.  Serials include both television, as well as internet series.

The thing that binds these sub-categories is the production of a static image.  Can a static image tell a story?  Maybe.  They do say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Can those thousand words comprise a coherent narrative?

3.  Music
Like pictures, music has been with us for a long time.  People typically associate music with songs, and I'll get to that in a bit, but let's consider music without any accompanying lyrics.  Do people use music by itself to tell a story?  Probably.  But, like pictures, it can be hard to see how music itself can communicate a detailed narrative.

There are lots of ways of categorizing music.  A lot of those categories, however, are combinations of music and other forms, such as dance or poetry.  Even when we consider music by itself, there are lots of categories.  Do these categories make a difference when it comes to music as a medium for communicating narrative?  I'm not sure.  Does it make a difference if you're telling a story through a concerto as opposed to a symphony?

4.  Written Storytelling
A major milestone in storytelling was the development of the written word.  Stories can now be told without a storyteller physically present.  Written storytelling comes in a variety of forms.

A. Poetry.  I think epic poetry is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, written form of storytelling.

B. The novel.

C. The short story.

D. The serial

5. Hybrids
There are lots of combinations of the four media mentioned above.  Theater often includes accompanying music.  Film can be seen as recorded theater that isn't bound by live performance or a particular stage.  Here are some more examples that I could think of.

A. Songs.  Combining music with written storytelling is a natural move that goes ways back.

B. Opera.  Here we have a combination of music, poetry, and theater.

C.  Musical Theater.  Like opera, except people don't sing all the time.

D. Illustrations.  Lots of novels and other forms of written storytelling have been supplemented with images, either to enhance the written narrative, or to make its own unique contribution to the story.

E. Graphic novels.  The notion of the picture making its own narrative contribution goes to the next level with graphic novels, a relatively recent form of written narrative.  Comic books are a combination of written and pictorial storytelling.

F. Dance.  Dance is a combination of music and oral storytelling in the particular form of body language.  There are as many dances as there are unique cultures.

G.  Ballet.  A combination of dance and theater.

H.  Video games.  Video games are a form of animation where the audience participates in the narrative.

There are probably lots of other formats out there that I've neglected to mention.  Although I enjoy categorizing things, there is a point to this post aside from mere taxonomy.  Here's the question:  How do different forms of communicating narrative compare to each other?  Are some inherently better than others?  Is it all apples and oranges?  You'll often hear people say that the book was better than the movie.  Is this true?  If so, why?  What are the essential elements of communicating a good story?  Do some formats meet these requirements better than others?

Communication, Technology, and Culture

Let's start with communication itself.  There are two parts to communication: the content of what is being communicated, and the medium through which communication occurs.  Technology obviously has a direct effect on communication media.  This is what I'll focus on here.  I'll also speculate on the relationship between technology and communicated content.  Finally, I'll also wonder aloud about the relationship between changes in communication brought about by technology and culture.

Assuming there is no such thing as telepathy, communication is always mediated by the five physical senses.  Although it is certainly possible to communicate to some extent via taste, smell, and touch, communication is most commonly received via sight and hearing.  It is through sight and hearing that we communicate propositions, i.e. pieces of information that report facts and states of affairs.  Taste, touch, and smell, aren't so efficient at receiving these kinds of information, with the exception of the use of braille.  The aforementioned senses are more of the evocative variety.  They bring to mind certain kinds of experiences, but these experiences tend to be highly subjective.  Communication received via sight and hearing in the form of written and spoken language allow for some intersubjectivity between the participants of communication.

So, I'll be focusing on communication via language.  As mentioned above, language is employed either in either written or spoken form.  There are ways in which technology can affect the way in which language is transmitted.

Oral Language
Spoken language is constrained by the ability of the audience to hear the message.  Without technology, the speaker's audience is limited to those within earshot.  Technology can alleviate this constraint in a few ways.  First, it can amplify the volume of the spoken message so that the message is intelligible at further distances.  Examples include megaphones and public address systems.  Second, it can convert a spoken message to something else, transmit it, and reconvert it back to a spoken message available to any audience anywhere who possesses to the means to reconvert that message.  Examples include, radio, television, telephones, internet, etc.  With the advent of recording, a spoken message can reach anyone potentially anywhere at any time.

One effect that technology has on spoken language is that it separates the message from the physical interaction that usually comes with it.  Typically, a spoken message is given with the speaker and audience physically present.  With technology, neither party is required to by physically present when the message is given.  How does this affect culture?

Written Language
Of course, the fact that a message can reach an audience that is separated from the speaker by time and place has already been established by written language.  The advent of written language ushered in major changes in culture.  Messages can now be preserved across time and distributed across distant geographic locations.  How did this affect culture?

With respect to the written word, technology has different effect than it does with the spoken word.  Primitive ways of creating the written word were slow, costly, and difficult to distribute.  Think of messages engraved into stone.  As technology advances, these effects were ameliorated.  Paper made messages easier to distribute.  The printing press significantly lowered the cost of distribution.  Typewriters sped up the process of creating written messages.  How has this affected culture?  Are there significant ways in which culture differs because written messages can be created and distributed quickly and cheaply?

The most convincing argument for the existence of God

This is a follow up to my previous post regarding an argument against the existence of a Christian God.  It should be obvious that by "convincing," I mean convincing to me.  Anyways, here's the argument.

1. Human beings are fundamentally different from all observed entities in the physical universe.
2. If human beings are fundamentally different from all observed entities in the physical universe, then their origins cannot be completely explained by appeals to the physical universe.
3.  Therefore, the origins of human beings cannot be completely explained by appeals to the physical universe.

Of course, this argument does not show that a Christian God exists.  It doesn't even conclude that any kind of God exists.  It does, however, present a first step towards establishing that God exists.  At the very least, it shows that there is something other than the physical universe out there.

I would imagine that most people would reject the first premise of the argument.  Here's another argument given in support of the first premise.

1.  Human beings experience transcendental emotions.
2.  The fact that human beings experience transcendental emotions is best explained by the notion that human beings are fundamentally different from all observed entities in the  physical universe.
3.  Therefore, it is likely that human beings are fundamentally different from all observed entities in the physical universe.

Transcendental emotions are emotions whose scope is greater than regular social contexts.  We experience hope, despair, gratitude, and anxiety at a mundane level.  But we also experience these emotions at a far greater level.  When someone feels thankful to be alive, who are they thanking?  When someone despairs at possibility of life's meaninglessness, where is the emotion directed towards?  These sorts of emotions are data that require explanation.  Reductive accounts appealing to evolutionary mechanisms seem unsatisfying to me.  So, absent other candidates, the best explanation seems to be that sorts of emotions come from a part of human beings that isn't formed by physical mechanisms.

Summary of the third chapter of my dissertation

The Project 
I will explore and flesh out in further detail the epistemic connections between metaphysics and science. By "epistemic connection," I mean the following sorts of relations:

x epistemically justifies, or raises the justification of y.
x defeats justification for, or lowers the justification for y.

If you replace x and y with propositions commonly associated with science and metaphysics, then under what conditions will the above propositions be true or false? I will develop an account that clarifies this epistemic relationship between science and metaphysics. I will show when, if ever, propositions in science appropriately raise or lower the epistemic justification of beliefs in propositions in metaphysics, and also vice versa.

The Motivation 
Imagine the hottest nightclub in town, i.e. the kind of long lines, velvet ropes, beefcake bouncers, and $20 Cosmopolitans. Let's call this place "Club Knowledge." Now, suppose we have a fellow named "Metaphysics." Metaphysics, with his faux hawk, popped collars, and Affliction jeans, has been trying to get into Club Knowledge for months now. People have hotly debated whether or not Metaphysics should be admitted to Club Knowledge. Now suppose we have a lady named Science. Science is queen of Club Knowledge. She is admitted immediately to her own VIP area and rolls with her entourage of sycophants. Metaphysics thinks to himself, "Maybe I can friendly with Science, and she'll put me on the guest list." Will this plan work? Will Science include Metaphysics in her ever growing entourage? Will Metaphysics have to do anything or make any changes in order to gain the favor of Science? Does Metaphysics even need Science to get in the club? What happens if Science disses Metaphysics? Stay tuned for more!

The Plan 
Here's how the paper breaks down.

First, I'll clarify what I mean about the lowering and raising of epistemic justification. In formal epistemology, you might hear talk of credence. Credence is more or less the strength of belief that an agent has with respect to a proposition p. Credence takes on values from 0 to 1, where 0 is certainty that p is false, 1 is certainty that p is true, and 0.5 is agnosticism about p. You might think of epistemic justification as a sort of "normative" credence, i.e. the degree of credence that you should have given the justifiers present. My interest here is in determining which sorts of propositions serve as appropriate justifiers for a particular belief, and why. Armed with this knowledge, I'll move on to talk about science and metaphysics.

Once I've clarified the mechanics behind changes in epistemic justification in light of the evidence, I'll next clarify on the notions of science and metaphysics. The goal here is to more or less determine which propositions fall under science, which fall under metaphysics, and why these sorts of propositions are categorized the way they are. How does the subject matter of science relate to the subject matter of metaphysics? There are several possibilities here. The two subjects could be disjoint. One could be subsumed in the other. They might overlap to some degree, or they might be coextensive. What's the correct way to view the relationship between the subject of these two disciplines and why? Understanding the relationship between subject matter will help us further understand how the two are epistemically related. For instance, if the two are disjoint, that might go some way to explaining why there is little to no epistemic relation between the two.

Apart from subject matter, academic disciplines can also be differentiated by their methodology. What is the methodology of science and of metaphysics? How are they related? Like subject matter, the methodology of these two disciplines will help to shed light on the epistemic connections between these two disciplines. For instance, if the methodology science was completely empirical, and if the methodology of metaphysics was completely a priori, then it would seem that there is no epistemic connection between the two. Clearly things aren't actually so cut and dry, so further exploration will be needed.

Now that I've got my all my conceptual pieces, it's time to put them together to form a coherent theory about how claims in science are epistemically related to claims in metaphysics, and vice versa. This section will lean heavily on the work that I've done clarifying the concepts that are mentioned above. What I hope to show is that if there are connections between science and metaphysics, what precisely those connections are how they work, given my understanding of the above concepts. I hope to clear up some confusion and to clean up some ambiguities in current discussion involving the two disciplines. I'll also do some case studies. One popular example of the purported connection between science and metaphysics is the special theory of relativity in physics and presentism in metaphysics. Does the former defeat justification for the latter? If so, how? Armed with the theory given in this paper, we'll see what's really going in these sorts of discussions.

The Context 
This paper will be a chapter in my dissertation, which is about the epistemology of metaphysics. Of course, I'll be trying to get as much mileage out of this paper as possible, and thus preparing it for conference presentation and hopefully publication.

The most convincing argument against the existence of a Christian God

For me that argument goes like this:

1.  If the God of Christianity exists, then sincere Christians would be significantly morally better than everyone else.
2.  Sincere Christians are not significantly morally better than everyone else.
3.  Therefore, the God of Christianity does not exist.

The argument itself springs from a question.  If the God of Christianity exists, then why aren't Christians better people?  This is of course not to say that Christians are bad people.  It is to say that morally speaking, they are not noticeably different from people of other faith traditions and people of no faith at all.  The spiritual transformation of individuals resulting in people who are more loving towards God and others seems to be an essential part of the Christian message.  So why don't we see it?

A common response to this line of inquiry is the "user error" response.  God desires for people to be more loving, but people because of their free will, disobey and remain in a state of moral mediocrity.  There's some merit to this response, but it seems ultimately dissatisfying.  Surely there are at least a significant minority of self-identifying Christians who sincerely desire to be more loving and to pattern their behavior after Jesus Christ.  Why does it seem that most of these individuals ultimately fail to develop the kind of character that others would immediately identify as being Christlike?  Second, in most Christian theology, transformation character is primarily attributed to the Holy Spirit.  If this is the case, then the user error response seems misguided.  If God is ultimately responsible for character transformation, and there are sincere Christians who make informed attempts at initiating this transformation, then where are the Christlike Christians?  This is even more troubling if you adhere to a Reformed theology.  If God has already chosen who's going to heaven, then why doesn't he go ahead and choose to make them into selflessly loving individuals?

Perhaps the second premise is false.  This premise is an empirical claim.  Of course, I can only speak from my own observations.  I have met and am friends with many Christians who are good people.  But, they really aren't noticeably more loving or charitable than people whom I've met who are atheists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc.  Perhaps someone out there can point me to some data showing Christians to be noticeably more loving than others.

Ultimately I don't think that this argument is sound.  But, it's very compelling, and I don't have a good objection to it.

My teaching statement

Below is a draft of my teaching statement.  It's part of my application dossier that I'll be sending to schools when I apply for jobs.
______________________________

The Definition of Philosophy 
I define philosophy very broadly as simply the study of ideas and the relations between ideas. I find this rough definition pedagogically useful, as it allows me to draw from a variety of sources, both traditional and unconventional, ordinary and esoteric, in order to illustrate philosophy at work, and to give my students different ways to practice philosophy.

The Value of Philosophy 
If you are reading this, then you probably already believe that philosophy is valuable. If you do not believe that philosophy is valuable, then I probably won't convince you otherwise. I will however, give you two arguments that I give my students when I discuss the value of philosophy. 

James's Dad's Argument
1. Philosophy is valuable only if it directly provides some sort of substantial material gain.
2. Philosophy does not directly provide some sort of substantial material gain.
3. Therefore, philosophy is not valuable.

 James's Brother's Argument
1. Philosophy is valuable only if resolves long standing issues and debates that are part of its subject matter.
2. Philosophy has not resolved (at least not to my knowledge) such long standing issues and debates.
3. Therefore, philosophy is not valuable.

Understanding why both of these arguments are unsound goes some way into understanding the value of philosophy. Most of my students will agree that philosophy is instrumentally valuable. It strengthens the ability to participate in rational investigation, which is indispensible in just about every career field. Some of my students might even believe, as I do, that philosophy is intrinsically valuable. However, the former is sufficient to motivate the study of philosophy.

The Goal of Teaching Philosophy 
My goal in teaching philosophy is to train students to become philosophers. Of course, there is distinction between philosophy as an activity and philosophy as a profession. I don't teach with the expectation that all of my students will pursue a career in philosophy, but I do teach with the expectation (or at least hope) that my students will continue to practice philosophy in some form throughout their post-college life.

I hold that what distinguishes philosophy is its method, not its subject matter. While the methods of philosophy may not be as easily codified as the scientific method, it is clear that how philosophy is done is distinct from how the sciences are done. (Whether the methods of philosophy are distinct from other humanistic disciplines is less clear.) So, when I claim that the goal of teaching philosophy is to train students to become philosophers, I mean more specifically that the goal of teaching philosophy is to train students to become proficient in a certain method of inquiry. The difference between an amateur and a professional philosopher is simply a difference of degree of mastery, similar to the difference between an amateur and professional athlete. My task as a college instructor is to train my students to attain a certain degree of proficiency in the philosophical method which they can further hone in graduate school, or apply to other career fields.

The Method of Teaching Philosophy 
Now that I've stated what the goal of teaching philosophy, the question that follows is how this is to be done. As it is for all instructors, this is very much a work in progress. What I can say here is what I've tried, what seems to work, and what I'd like to try in the future.

At most universities, an Intro to Philosophy course briefly surveys topics in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. In Syracuse, there is no such course. Instead ethics is covered in its own intro course, and there is an intro to metaphysics and epistemology course. I've taught both types of classes. I have two goals when I teach these classes: to pique their interest in philosophy, and to introduce them to an assortment of philosophical tools. I try to meet both goals by having my students apply such philosophical tools to situations that might be familiar or relevant to them. For example, one such philosophical tool is conceptual analysis. I often have my students perform conceptual analyses on ordinary concepts like sport or art.

Along with the two goals mentioned above, I also have the goal of exposing my students to well known issues in philosophy. This includes subject matter like skepticism, the existence of God, the mind-body problem, utilitarianism, ethical relativism, etc. This goal, however, is subservient to the two aforementioned goals. So, in order to pique their interest in philosophical issues, I will bring in sources to supplement primary sources. For example, science fiction movies can illustrative of the problem of skepticism in ways that are more accessible than reading Descartes' Meditations. I also use these topics as a vehicle for the introduction and application of philosophical tools. For instance, I use arguments for and against the existence of God to introduce Inference to the Best Explanation.

This approach may depart from the way many instructors teach introductory courses. Most instructors teach these classes by focusing primarily on the exegesis of primary texts. I have no problems with this method. You learn philosophy by doing philosophy. However, this seems sub-optimal to me. Consider an analogy from sports and music. One can learn to be proficient at playing the piano or playing basketball simply by learning songs or playing basketball games. But, you'd be hard-pressed to find a professional pianist or basketball player who didn't spend a considerable amount of time performing activities whose sole focus was to develop mastery of fundamental techniques. A good basketball player has likely done countless drills. Similarly, a good piano player has likely played numerous etudes.

I hold that philosophy is analogous to activities in music and sport. People can become good philosophers just by doing philosophy, but it seems that an explicit focus on philosophical method would yield even better results. I believe that the practice of doing philosophy, i.e. becoming aware of the ongoing discussions occurring among philosophers in person or in the literature and making one's own contributions to the discussion, can be supplemented with activities that sharpen fundamental techniques essential to the practice of philosophy. It seems clear that such an approach would move us closer to a more fruitful pedagogy of philosophy.

My dissertation abstract

Metaphysics has experienced a productive resurgence in analytic philosophy over the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty first century. I don't have anything to say about what "analytic philosophy" is other than that it is the kind of philosophy you see done at most English speaking universities. This renewed popularity is not without its skeptics and naysayers. In various ways, people question whether metaphysics is a legitimate epistemic project, i.e. whether or not the discipline provides us with knowledge. Questions related to this concern regarding metaphysics include, but are not limited to the following.

• What is metaphysics, precisely?
• How is one epistemically justified in believing a claim that is part of a metaphysical theory?
• How are metaphysics and science epistemically related? Put another way, do claims in one field enter into an implication relation with claims in the other field?
• Is there an epistemic procedure in metaphysics, as there is to some degree in science (i.e. scientific method).
• How does one decide between competing metaphysical theories? 

My project is to answer questions like these. I will do so by developing a theory of epistemic justification with respect to beliefs in metaphysical propositions. Metaphysical propositions are those that are at least implicitly agreed by self-identifying professional metaphysicians to constitute the subject matter of metaphysics. I will investigate the sorts of things that might go into the conferral of epistemic justification on beliefs of metaphysical propositions. I'll also investigate what sorts of things might defeat said justification. The plan is as follows.

The first chapter deals with intuitions and beliefs in metaphysical propositions. What are intuitions? In this chapter I go over the literature on intuitions and provide some commentary on what I take intuitions to be which will then be useful for understanding how beliefs in metaphysics are justified. I show how intuition can confer at least prima facie justification on beliefs in metaphysical propositions. I also respond to skeptics about intuition and its justificatory role in metaphysics.

The second chapter is about the relationship between metaphysics and science. In many discussion, there is an implicit assumption that a prima facie justified belief in a metaphysical proposition can be defeated by a well supported claim in science that is somehow not compatible with the aforementioned belief. I look further into what this assumption is all about. Does science have epistemic priority over metaphysics? Can any claim in science serve as a potential defeater for a metaphysical belief? Does relationship work the other way around, i.e. can claims in metaphysics defeat justification for scientific beliefs? Why or why not?

In the third chapter, I discuss the phenomenon of competing theories. Suppose that you have two theories that make logically incompatible claims. Both are supported by intuition and both are compatible with our best science. How do you decide between these two theories? A popular move that theorists make is to appeal to what are called "theoretical virtues." Theoretical virtues are properties that theories possess that supposedly make them more likely to be truth conducive. Examples of theoretical virtues include simplicity, explanatory power, fruitfulness for further research, fit with previous theories, etc. Are these sorts of properties really truth conducive? If so, how? The focus of this chapter will be a further exploration of these virtues, and how they might be used in order to break ties between competing theories.

(The foregoing three chapters constitute the core of my dissertation. Later chapters will be mainly about tying loose ends, such as applications, considering certain key objections, and generalizing this approach to other areas in philosophy. Once it becomes clearer what I'll be doing in these later chapters, I'll update this dissertation abstract.)

Marks of a good food town

Here's my criteria for determining whether a city or town is a worthwhile culinary destination.

Indigenous food
Is there something unique to the city?  Does the city have a dish that originated there that the city is famous for?  For example, you have the Cheesesteak in Philadelphia, Chicago Red Hot, Buffalo Wings, etc.  Or, is there a notable food that is grown or harvested in the region that the city is located?  Food like cheese in Wisconsin, hard shell crabs in Maryland, or wine in Northern California.  Maybe it's a kind of style or way of preparing well known dishes, like pizza in New York City, barbecue in Eastern North Carolina, or clam chowder in New England.

Ethnic populations
Does the city have a relatively high population of certain ethnic groups?  Ethnic demographics affects a city's food scene in the following ways.  First it will determine in part a restaurant's clientele.  A Korean restaurant in a town with few Koreans will have mostly non-Koreans as customers.  Likewise, the same restaurant in a city with a large Korean population will likely have mostly Koreans as customers.  This in turn affects demand and supply.  A predominantly Korean customer base will be more sensitive to price and quality, and will thus force a Korean restaurant to be "honest."  A predominantly non-Korean customer base will be less sensitive to price and quality.  So, a Korean restaurant with a predominantly non-Korean customer base can overcharge for mediocre food.  If this is true, then a city with large ethnic group populations will have better ethnic food.

Cheap food
Cheap food includes street food, homestyle cooking methods like soul food and southern food, fast food, bar food, post-bar food, and pretty much anything else that you can usually get for around $10 or less.  When I evaluate a city based on this criterion, I look for cheap eating establishments that are not chains.  I look for food trucks or pop ups.  This category is also tied up with ethnic cuisine, since a lot of great ethnic food will also be cheap.

Haute cuisine
This includes the fancy pants food in a city.  This is basically any kind of dining experience that'll cost you at least $100 per person.  Here it's usually about the chefs.  Does the city have notable chefs doing all kinds of awesome things with food?

In my mind, only two cities in the United States score well in all four categories:  New York City and Chicago.  Most other cities don't really have anything that's uniquely indigenous to it, like Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Dallas, Phoenix, or Denver.  Some cities are lacking in ethnic diversity, like San Antonio, Detroit, Minneapolis, or Boston (where are the Asians?).  I might be wrong, though.  Of course these measures are all relative.  These cities will of course have a higher ethnic group population than small towns scattered across the US.  Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Atlanta might contend for cities that score highly in all four categories.

The Great Existential Question

I recently finished reading Why Does the World Exist? by Jim Holt.  It was enjoyable read.  It's a book that I would give to anyone who wanted to know what metaphysics was and what kind of research I do in philosophy.

The book addresses the following question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"  This question is about as fundamental as you can get.  The book is basically an exploration of the nature of existence itself.  What explains the fact that anything exists at all?  Why isn't there just absolutely nothing?

My own take on this issue is that the concept of absolute nothingness is incoherent.  Holt talks about the concept of nothingness in chapter 3, but I find his discussion unsatisfying.

My opinion is that nothingness in everyday talk is a local concept.  When talk about nothing, we talk about it relative to some context, like a region of space.  We might say that there nothing in the refrigerator, or that there's nothing to do in Syracuse.  In this respect, the concept of nothingness is similar to the concept of a hole.  A hole is a local phenomenon.  We use the term to refer to particular regions of space.

Is absolute nothingness conceivable?  What is absolute nothingness?  When most people imagine absolute nothingness, they imagine empty space.  But is that really nothing?  Couldn't empty space itself be something?  In fact this is a view that's argued for in metaphysics.  It's called "substantivalism."  Suppose that empty space itself is something.  Then can imagine a reality without empty space?  What it be like?  Seems inconceivable to me.

It's kind of like trying to imagine a reality with no color.  People say that black is the absence of color.  This never made sense to me.  If black is the absence of color, then what color is a piece of glass?  It's not black.  Since it's not black, is it therefore colored?  That seems absurd.  I hold, therefore, that black is indeed a color, and to be colorless is to be completely transparent, like a piece of glass.  Suppose, then, that the universe was completely colorless, i.e. completely transparent.  Is this imaginable?  It wouldn't be black, it wouldn't be white, just transparent.  Seems inconceivable to me.  I think that absolute nothingness is like complete transparency.

Numbers in Korean

In the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, large numbers are grouped into digits of three.  For instance, one million is expressed as 1,000,000.  It's not a surprise, then, that in English, you names of numbers that have groups of three digits.  For instance, you have thousand for 1,000, million for 1,000,000, billion for 1,000,000,000, and so on.

Koreans use the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.  They have a name for ten ("ship" in Korean), a name for hundred (bhek), and a name for thousand (chun).  So far, so good.  Here's where I get fucked up.  Koreans have a name for ten thousand (mahn).  From there, the give names to large numbers in a manner similar to English.  Hundred thousand is "ship mahn" (ten + ten thousand).  Million is "bhek mahn" (hundred + ten thousand).  Ten million is "chun mahn" (thousand + ten thousand).  From here Koreans introduce a new word for hundred million: "uhk."  Then they do the same for numbers that are larger by orders of ten (ship uhk, bhek uhk, and so forth).   You see now how this shit can get confusing when you're trying to translate quickly from English to Korean.  That extra zero messes everything up.

So why do Koreans have a name for ten thousand?  Did they use a different numeral system when they made these names?