Minutes


October 6th, 2010
Room : Smith 105
Time : 3:30-5:20pm

'Meno'

Welcome to a new year of Lyceum Philosophy Club! Our first meeting was full of life as well as some new faces. This week we explored the roots of western philosophy, from one of its greatest minds, Plato. We read his classic work Meno. This dialogue is filled with all sorts of historical treats including: Plato's theory of the forms, his theory of learning as recalling or remembering things from a past life when our souls mingled with the forms in Plato's heaven (basically an ancient doctrine of innate ideas), his definition of virtue of as right opinion, and his assertion that everyone naturally desire the good. This last point was a contentious one amongst the members of the group. It seems as though not everyone desires the good, but there are those who desire bad things. The group discussed some distinctions that Aristotle made in order to discuss what this might look like. For Aristotle a person can desire something they know is bad, x, while their rational principle or reasoning believes this particular act, x, is wrong. This is called incontinence. There seemed to be more agreement on this, but some wondered how this was possible. Self-deception was discussed in association with this, though the group, as usual, did not reach a consensus. It was a great first meeting! We hope to see even more new people next time!


May 19th, 2010
Room : Savery 136
Time : 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance : 12

'How to Read Kant'

It was a pizza day PLUS a guest lecturer, Amos Nascimento, who kindly agreed to talk to us about Kant. As normal custom, we began with short introductions, where it became clear there was not such a breadth of knowledge about Immanuel Kant as maybe one would have suspected there to be. Thus, Amos Nascimento gave us a quick overview of Kant history. This ranged from the religious atmosphere Kant grew up with in Germany, where everyone was either a catholic or protestant, to the influence of the 30 year war and Prussia. Then, he drew our attention to dogma and German rationalism. Asking the question "What is the critique of reason?" we looked at the way Kant, during the enlightenment, came to find a middle ground between dogma and indifference, which he called kritik. We discussed what 'pure reason' means in terms of the critique of pure reason. After a quick look at the reality that a lot is lost in translation, particularly with Kant, the discussion wound down. To oversimplify it all: "sensibility - reason - understanding" is the basic idea of Kant, where Empirical vs. Speculative is equivalent to indifference vs. dogma.

Post Notes:
Amos Nascimento Contact : here


May 12th, 2010
Room : Savery 136
Time : 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance - 12

"How much do you know about Quine?"

Today, we were lucky enough to have Lynn Hankinson Nelson come in and lead a discussion on Quine. She used a PowerPoint as an aide, and is willing to make it available in hard-copy form for anyone who wants it. She is also contemplating teaching a class about Quine, seeing as Quine is one of her top three favorite philosophers. She even wrote her dissertation on Quine. About an hour after going through the slideshow which featured topics such as what we believe to be true is what we say to be true, empiricism vs. theory of experience, Chomsky comparisons, and naturalism, we had an open air discussion. She would love it if you e-mailed her, so feel free to get a hold of her if you have any lingering questions or comments.

Post-Notes:
Lynn Hankinson Nelson’s
website
Her e-mail : lynnhank@uw.edu


Wednesday April 21, 2010
Room - Savery 136
Time - 3:30-5:20pm
The Lyceum Philosophy Club presents: Lauren Hartzell.

Lauren is a postdoctoral fellow jointly appointed with the program on Values in Society and the program on Environment. In her presentation, Lauren Hartzell discussed both her career beginning from her undergraduate experience to her current position at the UW, as well as her current research regarding environmental protection and ethics.

Lauren provided advice and information regarding the process of studying philosophy at the collegiate level, inclining both the option of continuing on to graduate school as well as the importance of maintaining a "balance" between school and enjoyable activities. We were able to ask her many questions concerning such matters, and gain advice for how to continue succeeding academically. In addition, Lauren advocated and advised the group to take advantage of as many academic opportunities as possible, and if necessary, create opportunities, such as getting to know your professors.

In presenting her research, Lauren presented the key aspects of her book entitled "Precautionary Principles: Catastrophes and Climate Change". She explained that the standard notion of "precautionary principles" can be ambiguous, as they lead people to have varying interpretations of the principles and diverse ideas of who should respond to such catastrophes. In her explanation, she discusses how such problems have led her to realize that there is no "the" within the title "precautionary principles" and we would be better off if people were no longer morally obligated to invest in each precautionary principle. Rather, before we can say that we have a moral obligation to prevent catastrophes and take precautions, we must limit the scope of each principle, as well as justify and identify them.

Lastly, Lauren has created what she terms "The Catastrophic Precautionary Principles", are the key principles describing catastrophes and the appropriate measures to take against such disasters. Such explanations include:

  1. Threats of catastrophe are those in which many millions of people could suffer severely harmful outcomes (defined as severely detrimental to human health, livelihood or existence)
  2. Appropriate precautionary measures must not create further threats of catastrophe & must aim to prevent the potential catastrophe in question.
  3. Immanent threats of catastrophe require immediate precautionary actions.
  4. Threats of catastrophe that involve an immanent threshold or point-of-no-return for effective precautionary action (beyond which precautionary measures are limited or unavailable) also require immediate precautionary action aimed at preventing this threshold being crossed.
  5. Non-immanent threats of catastrophe might warrant further study before further precautionary measures are implemented, provided a delay in taking precautionary measures will not prevent such measures from effectively preventing the catastrophic outcome in question.


April 14, 2010
Room : Lawn between Smith and Savery
Time : 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance : 13

After moving to the lawn to enjoy the sunlight, the club discussed the philosophy of humor. Our preliminary discussion involved: International Laughter/Humor/Smile Days, jokes, and then we got more serious. Asking questions like ‘How is humor different than laughter?’ or ‘Can animals have smiles and laugh, or is that just a stimulus response?’ Also, we discussed the implications of expected humor versus unexpected, such as possible raised stakes in what the audience is looking for when it is expected. From here, the group began to go through the article and discuss the points brought up by Tony Veale. The group seemed to come to a consensus that jokes are effective based on their timing and delievery. Which lead to a discussion on the questions: ‘Can jokes be funny even if it isn’t unexpected?’ and ‘Can you be forced to laugh at a joke?’ The article does a very good job at explaining its statements, so if one has not read the article it is very encouraged for them to do so. Lastly, the group finished off the sunny meeting by going around and telling jokes. Some were funny, and some not so much, but they all provoked us to inquire about the philosophy of humor.

Post Notes:
Article in reference: Incongruity in humor: Root cause or epiphenomenon? By Tony Veale
Recommended UW class : Philosophy of Mind


March 10th, 2010
Room : 137
Time : 3:30-5:20pm

A special treat for it being the last meeting of Winter Quarter... there was PIZZA! Also, Professor Carole Lee stopped by to lend her knowledge in the discussion of personal identity.

Post Notes:
Article used during the meeting: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-3915%28198921%2918%3A2%3C101%3APIATUO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
More about Prof Carole Lee: http://www.phil.washington.edu/people_lee.htm


March 3rd, 2010
Room : 137
Time : 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance : 10

In short, we went through the article and tried to figure out the approach offered to explaining identity.

Post Notes:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28197101%2980%3A1%3C3%3API%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R


February 24th, 2010
Room : 137
Time : 3:30-5:20pm

The discussion revolved around personal identity. All of the members were asked to be familiar with the article (found in the post notes) prior to attending the meeting.

Post Notes:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/


February 17th, 2010
Room : Savery 137
Time : 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance : 9

To begin the meeting, members reflected on their experiences at both the colloquium and the movie night. At the acquired perception colloquium, there was an example used to understand perception which included wine tasting. Basically, what happens when a neophyte has wine versus when an experienced wine drinker drinks. The main theme of the reviews was that it was “really cool” and interesting to see the professors in that type of a setting. At this point the conversation became distracted and became about dreams, sleeping, and sight. Then, members began to discuss Rebecca Copenhaver’s claims and whether or not they believed in them. It seemed that there were several problems for many members at comprehending the totality of all the concepts offered at the colloquium.

Note to club: NEXT TIME GO TO THE COLLIOQUIUM!


February 12th, 2010
Room : 264
Time : 3:30

Rather than having a meeting on this week, the Philosophy club was to attend a colloquium. The colloquium is on "Berkeley and Reid on Acquired Perception."

A quick blurb about what was happening: Professor Copenhaver’s research interests are in Early Modern Philosophy, Reid, and Philosophy of Mind, in particular, perception which includes articles in Philosophical Quarterly, History of Philosophy Quarterly, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Philosophy Compass, Reid Studies and the Proceedings of the Ninth International Kant Congress. In teaching, she engages the traditional liberal arts, in which broad and deep intellectual engagement is regarded as a good in and of itself independent of its practical uses. Professor Copenhaver encourages people to love the power of their minds. The mind, like the body, must be exercised and exercised through work. Philosophy is the most extreme of extreme sports. It allows us to expand our sphere of concern and focus less on our own narrow subjectivites. She is currently working on a series of articles on Thomas Reid's philosophy of mind, with the hopes of revising and collecting them for a book length manuscript, as well as, working on a book, with Brian P. Copenhaver: From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy, ‘The Lorenzo da Ponte Library’ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).

Post-Notes:
To find out more about Rebecca Copenhaver: http://legacy.lclark.edu/~rebeccac/


February 3rd, 2010
Room - Adventure off-campus
Time : 3:30-5:20pm

Movie night! The film that was watched was "Waking Life."

Post-Notes:

Reference for the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/


January 27th, 2010
Room - Savery 137
Time - 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance - 21

"Why do we need truth? Why not be pragmatic and go live life without philosophy? We need philosophy in our lives."

The club was treated today with three types of Pagliacci Pizza! William J. Talbott, a professor of epistemology, came to lead our discussion on epistemology. His main interest is in normative inquiry/judgments. Generally defining epistemology as the rationality of belief/knowledge, we discussed quite a lot. From the rational reason and morality to self deception. Then, Mr. Talbott suggested that western epistemology is based on a major mistake. Thus, those studying it either make the mistake or overreact to it. The mistake is something to the effect that "reasoning matches proof in mathematics." Moving forward with this, we discussed top-bottom reasoning and bottom-up reasoning, maintaining that the problem began with Socrates who used bottom-up reasoning. Other arguments and examples were brought up to continue the point, including Hume and Gettier.

Now for an example to stress the point of the discussion even more: ‘You’re sitting at the end of a hallway and it seems at the other end of the hallway there is a candle lit. So you proclaim that there IS a candle at the end of the hallway. But there is a candle above your head that is being reflected in a mirror halfway down the hallway. However, there is a candle at the end of the hallway, but from your position it is concealed behind the mirror. So were you justified in thinking the candle was there?"

The western goal is ‘to never make a mistake’ but that is an impossible goal. The problem with the way Western thought goes, is that after 2000 years we still have people saying "we can’t know if that’s true." So the discussion went on the try and define, or simply get a better understanding, of knowledge and Knowledge (with a capital K). The example was thrown in there that the probability that all crows are black is 0% but the probability that the next crow you see will be black gets increasingly higher as each crow you come across continues to be black.

There is simply never enough time to discuss philosophy. As our meeting drew to a close, we went over plans for our next meeting. Either a discussion on free will or a movie (Mind Walk, My Dinner with Andre, or Waking Life).

Post Notes:
Professor Talbott's UW webpage
Professor Talbott's Book


January 20th, 2010
Room - Savery 137
Time - 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance - 13

A very important guest came to our meeting today: The Chair of the Philosophy Department! After introductions and a few brief announcements, namely about the new website, we began a discussion on epistemology. In general, the discussion obviously revolved around how and whether knowledge is possible. We spent a bit of time on ‘Justified True Belief’ or JTB. Then we moved on to how to exclude accidental knowledge. Furthermore, both Locke and Descartes came up. Questions arose: Is Locke an imperialist? Can we experience ‘the thing’ through ideas? Imperialism versus rationalism. Naturalist versus physicalist. Dualist versus monotheist. Mind versus body. Towards the end of the time, our conversation and minds began to drift from the topic of the meeting. There was a brief renewal of sign language skills. Then the topic shifted again, this time to God. Deciding if believing in God means that you have to be a dualist. Which lead to an atheism versus agnostic debate. Finally, the conversation went to the website and promotional needs for the club, and then people began to leave.

Post Notes:
Recommended Read: Plato’s "The Allegory of the Cave" - Can be found in The Republic Book VII
The Allegory Of the Cave


January 13th, 2010
Room - Savery 137
Time - 3:30-5:20pm
Attendance - 12

Started with a brief introduction by everyone present, there were several new faces. Then we participated in an activity called "Philosophy in a Hat." This involved us passing a very chic hat around and taking out questions pertaining to philosophy. Then we went around and discussed the question we pulled out, respectively.

Topics included: "What is Philosophy? And what is its value?," "Free will? Are we free? Freedom versus Free Will," "What is God? Does God exist?," "Do we have knowledge of the external world?," "What is the best theory of morality?," "Are minds and mental states distinct from bodies and material states? What is a soul?," "What is the good life and why should we pursue it?," "What makes you who you are?"

There were several other questions, as well. There wasn’t enough time to go in depth into each question, but we attempted to touch on each one the best we could. After the discussion, a poll was taken and the general focus of our club for the next quarter was decided to be epistemology, free will, and metaphysics. Though this is viable to change as we progress and find things that turn us on intellectually.

Post Notes:
Brief bit on Kant and his position : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
Recommended UW class : Philosophy of Religion

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