DOCSLIB.ORG

Philosophical Haiku

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Philosophical Haiku Philosophical Haiku Scepticism Richard Rorty Immanuel Kant If doubt’s uncertain, The test of truth is The key to making should I be doubting the whether it works or not sense of Reality is doubt and our imprint on it. that my doubt is true? pragmatism works. Daniel Dennett The Transcendental Sidney Morgenbesser Philosophy Argument Pragmatism is or science are your If it must be true, fine except for the small options does that mean it really is fact ‘I think I’ll try both!’ true? that it doesn’t work. or just true for us? Bernard Williams Freedom vs. Theory’s point is not Moral Relativism Determinism to justify ethics but When in Rome do as Person walks in a to be true to it. they do even if their easterly direction on might a ship heading west. Barry Stroud may not be your right. Values may seem more Freedom and than subjective but are Moral Objectivism Determinism no When in Rome only Person decides to more real in nature do as the Romans do if take a walk southward on they are behaving. a John Rawls ship heading northward To buy justice at The Prisoner’s Dilemma? . the price of relevance The answer lies in David Hume may making it the prisoners’ Little is as it still be good value. dilemma, of course. appears but that shouldn’t stop Plato Socrates us being who we are. Love of wisdom is The recognition gained not by being told that profound ignorance Hilary Putnam truths but is Giving up the view by finding them out. the source of knowledge. from nowhere lets in the view Thomas Nagel Isaiah Berlin of humanity. Seeing the subjective I am a fox who relate to the objective knows the rightness of and vice versa. one thing: that monism is wrong. © Johnny Lyons 2019 Une femme fatale (in memory of Doug) This affair wasn't what you’d describe as love at first sight, Quite the opposite in fact. I hardly even noticed her at first, I never thought someone like her Would want someone like me, Not at my age anyway. How wrong we can be about these things, hey! She said that she fell for me Well before I even knew she was there, She was confident that I would fall for her if I just gave it some time, “Once I’d worked my initial charms on you” she confessed in a dream much later, She wasn’t wrong about that. The first time I felt her presence wasn't one of my proudest moments if I’m honest. But it was definitely memorable and life-changing as they say, And it was pretty clear from then on That we would be an item for a while, If not longer. There were times Few and far in-between I might add, When I felt we might end up going our separate ways, That we might grow out of each other. But for some reason beyond me, That wasn't to be. My family and friends have never warmed to her. Some say she's a bad influence, That she’s made me moody and irascible, And a few, I suspect, have grown bored of us, Yet they all seem at one that I haven’t been myself since she showed up, Perhaps they're right. © Johnny Lyons 2019 But then they don't know her like I do, She may well have entered my cells As an unexpected and uninvited guest, But she's now part of me To the very marrow of my bone. So when everyone has left and returned to their busy lives, And the room turns still and silent, She remains inseparable to the last, Keeping me company, Never letting me go. I used to think you got to choose your own companion, But, of course, they can choose you, Either way, it’s now clear that we’re both in this together To the bitter end, Till death do us part. © Johnny Lyons 2019 Keeping Watch Sitting in the chair that's nearest his bed, The one with its back to the window, The other with his sky blue fleece half-draped over its arm, And a bag of fresh linen busily occupying its seat, His mobile phone on the bedside locker Recharging itself from the night before, Beside it a glass of water Standing still and attentive, Their familiar companion fast asleep Untroubled by what the day will bring. Soon the human world will make its presence felt In all its noisy, smelly, touchy, frenetic self. And as the day gets tired and runs out of light The night takes over and darkness arrives. By then his fleece, linen bag, phone have been gathered up, The half-drunk glass of water emptied, rinsed and reshelved, The chair with its back to the window unmoved, facing an empty bed. © Johnny Lyons 2019 Philip Larkin Philip A. Larkin made extraordinary the ordinary. © Johnny Lyons 2019 Philosophy Lessons Socrates says profound ignorance is wisdom In that case why didn’t I get A+ in maths, David Hume claims we‘re not the same selves we began from Yet I’m pretty sure the awkward kid in the photo isn’t anyone else. Johannes Kepler taught us the earth orbits the sun But that’s not how it feels at night looking at a star, Hume (again!) says that causation's an illusion Try telling that to my mum when I got hit on my bike by a car. Immanuel Kant thinks that reality is what we make it But thinking that never got me to school any quicker, A.J. Ayer argues that morals are cognitively vapid The victims of our class bully would beg to differ. Plato says the examined life is the only one worth living, That’s all very well but it’s not much good for anything © Johnny Lyons 2019 Old friends You can’t make old friends. They’re leather shoes shaped over time to the contours and movement of our step, and though they may not be as shiny as they once were or worn as much as they could, you’d be loath to lose them. © Johnny Lyons 2019 Both Sides I can't remember the reason why we fell out, It wasn't one big thing of course, Lots of little things that piled up to create a fence between us. There were times I tried to sort things out, But you never listened of course, More interested in the fence than anything else. I guess there were times I shut you out, I wouldn't have listened of course, Too busy seeing things from my side of the fence. But now that you've gone and I'm here alone, The fence each of us built together Looks as silly as an old-style telephone. © Johnny Lyons 2019 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Philosophy of A.J. Ayer, with Replies 55 1
    TABLE OF CONTENTS FRONTISPIECE iv INTRODUCTION vii FOUNDER'S GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBRARY OF LIVING PHILOSOPHERS ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xii PREFACE XVll PART ONE: INTELLECTUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A.J. AYER 1 Facsimile of Ayer's Handwriting 2 A.J. Ayer: My Mental Development 3 Still More of My Life 41 PART TWO: DESCRIPTIVE AND CRITICAL ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF A.J. AYER, WITH REPLIES 55 1. Evandro Agazzi: Varieties of Meaning and Truth 57 2. James Campbell: Ayer and Pragmatism 83 REPLY TO JAMES CAMPBELL 105 3. David S. Clarke, Jr.: On Judging Sufficiency of Evidence 109 REPLY TO DAVID S. CLARKE, JR. 125 4. Michael Dummett: The Metaphysics of Verificationism 128 REPLY TO MICHAEL DUMMETT 149 5. Elizabeth R. Eames: A.J. Ayer's Philosophical Method 157 REPLY TO ELIZABETH R. EAMES 175 6. John Foster: The Construction of the Physical World 179 REPLY TO JOHN FOSTER 198 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 7. Paul Gochet: On Sir Alfred Ayer's Theory of Truth 201 REPLY TO PAUL GOCHET 220 8. Martin Hollis: Man as a Subject for Social Science 225 REPLY TO MARTIN HOLLIS 237 9. Ted Honderich: Causation: One Thing Just Happens After Another 243 REPLY TO TED HONDERICH 271 lO. Tscha Hung: Ayer and the Vienna Circle 279 REPLY TO TSCHA HUNG 301 1l. Peter Kivy: Oh Boy! You Too!: Aesthetic Emotivism Reexamined 309 REPLY TO PETER KIVY 326 12. Arne Naess: Ayer on Metaphysics, a Critical Commentary by a Kind of Metaphysician 329 REPLY TO ARNE NAESS 341 13. D.J. O'Connor: Ayer on Free Will and Determinism 347 REPLY TO D.J.
    [Show full text]
  • Barry Stroud 1935-2019
    BARRY STROUD 1935-2019 ized in frame of the WISDOM Journal. I am in great grief that we have lost such an important philosopher and member of our Editorial Board. Stroud passed away on Friday, August 9, 2019 of brain cancer1. He earned his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. from Harvard University2. While most popular for his work in epistemology and philosophical incredu- lity - just as his compositions on such logicians as David Hume and Ludwig Wittgenstein - Stroud's general heritage, fellow philosophers state, was his capacity to see the comprehensive view and get to the core of reasoning. Stroud was The loss of Barry Stroud affected the com- a provocative scholar. As a thinker, Stroud be- munity of philosophers in a very harsh way. One came an adult during when the overall Western of the great philosophers of the past half-century frame of mind was that philosophical inquiries was a key member of the editorial board at the could be replied by the sociologies, and he tested WISDOM journal. Stroud‟s cooperation with the those thoughts. WISDOM journal started the day the journal was Stroud's own work indicated another way: found, in 2013, with the help of his strong he connected without a moment's delay with in- friendship with academician Georg Brutian, the quiries in metaphysics, epistemology, the philos- Founder and Chief Editor of the periodi- ophy of our intellect, the hypothesis of signifi- cal WISDOM and founder-president of the Inter- cant worth, and more, declining to offer thought national Research Institute for Metaphilosophy, to any alleged limits between these subjects or to Transformational Logic and Theory of Argumen- concede to the supposed ability of those with a tation at Khachatur Abovian Armenian State specialist‟s command of them.
    [Show full text]
  • An Anthology of Philosophical Studies
    Introduction AN ANTHOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES Edited by PATRICIA HANNA ADRIANNE L. MCEVOY PENELOPE VOUTSINA ATINER 2006 1 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies 2 Introduction Athens Institute for Education and Research 2006 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies Edited by Patricia Hanna Adrianne L. McEvoy Penelope Voutsina 3 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies PUBLISHED BY ATHENS INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 14 Solomou Street, 10683 Athens, Greece Tel. +30 210 36.34.210 Fax +30 210.36.34.209 Email: [email protected] URL: www.atiner.gr This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of the Athens Institute for Education and Research. First Published: 2006 ISBN: 978-960-6672-11-8 Typeset, printed and binding by Theta Co. 4 Introduction Table of Contents List of Contributors i Introduction 1 Voutsina, P. PART I EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Imagination in Descartes’ Skepticism 7 Scholl, A. 2. Descartes on Sensations and Ideas of Sensations 17 Cunning, D. 3. The Myth of Hume’s Compatibilism 33 Morris, E.W. 4. From Contextualism to Skepticism 43 Wilburn, R. 5. The Puzzle of Self-Knowledge 51 Voutsina, P. 6. Unconfined Rationality: A Normative yet Realistic Model of 59 Inference Morado, R. and Savion, L. PART II METAPHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 7. Language as Community Property: What’s Wrong with 75 Chomsky’s Individualism? Hanna, P. 8. What do Concepts Consist of? The Role of Geometric and 93 Proprioceptive Information in Categorization Dellantonio, S. and Pastore, L.
    [Show full text]
  • Making Reality Bite: a Peircean Approach to Epistemology
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Commons@Waikato Letting Reality Bite: A Peircean Approach to Teaching Undergraduate Epistemology Catherine Legg, University of Waikato 1) Introduction: Academic philosophers who have a research passion for Peirce and who suspect that he has the potential to revolutionize philosophy sometimes wonder how they might bring his ideas more into the teaching of undergraduates − where he frequently doesn’t feature at all, except in the US where a token coverage of his early papers seems to result largely from patriotism. Much could be said about specific Peircean ideas and theories which, if included in philosophy curricula, would expand and complicate the vision of philosophy to which students are exposed, and would most likely be greatly appreciated by many who feel troubled and undermined by a sense of narrowness in the current curriculum which they lack the resources to articulate.1 Just a few examples are Peirce’s understanding of pragmatism as a faith in the capacity of experimentation to deliver stable answers to our questions which − in ironic contrast to an understanding of pragmatism as a claim of ‘anything-goes’ − is in fact the most complete form of realism, his belief in final causes and its potential to resurrect ethical realism against positivism’s lingering nihilist onslaught, his distinctive objective idealism, so illuminatingly intermingled with his vision of (mathematical, logical and metaphysical) ‘continuity’, his belief in real chance, and his most elegant and ambitious theory of signs. Having said all this, however, in my opinion the most valuable legacy Peirce has given me as a teacher of undergraduate philosophy is not any of his theories but one of his instructions.
    [Show full text]
  • John Dewey's Legacy for the 21 Century
    John Dewey's Legacy for the 21st Century Larry A. Hickman Center for Dewey Studies Southern Illinois University Carbondale Why would anyone today think that John Dewey's ideas are still relevant to the problems of the second decade of the 21st century? For one thing, the six decades since his death in 1952 have seen enormous technical, demographic, climatic, economic, and cultural changes, to name just a few. For another, at the time of death his ideas had already been out of fashion for more than a decade. Nor would they get much in the way of respect during the remainder of the 20th century. Nostalgia aside, do we have any good reasons for continuing to read Dewey with an eye to our current situation? Tracing Lines of Intellectual Influence. Historians of philosophy and intellectual historians might answer this question by reminding us that there is still much that we do not understand about Dewey's role in the history of philosophy, and more specifically about his contributions to the development of American pragmatism and the philosophy of education. Examination of the ways his ideas relate to those of Peirce, James, Mead, Addams, and others, and especially to the many female teachers and school principals who were his collaborators and, as he said, his inspiration as well – all of this holds the promise of expanding our understanding not only of the past, but of our present and future as well. Lines of influence between Dewey and William James, for example are at this point far from clear. Since Dewey was not particularly keen on preserving his correspondence, the entire known extant James/Dewey correspondence comprises only 26 letters.
    [Show full text]
  • A Weakly Pragmatic Defense of Authoritatively Normative Reasons
    NIHILISM AND ARGUMENTATION: A WEAKLY PRAGMATIC DEFENSE OF AUTHORITATIVELY NORMATIVE REASONS Scott Simmons A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2020 Committee: Michael Weber, Advisor Verner Bingman Graduate Faculty Representative Christian Coons Molly Gardner Sara Worley ii ABSTRACT Michael Weber, Advisor Global normative error theorists argue that there are no authoritative normative reasons of any kind. Thus, according to the error theory, the normative demands of law, prudence, morality, etc. are of no greater normative significance than the most absurd standards we can conceive of. Because the error theory is a radically revisionary view, theorists who accept it only do so because they maintain the view is supported by the best available arguments. In this dissertation, I argue that error theory entails that it is impossible that there are successful arguments for anything, thus defenses of error theory are in tension with the view, itself. My argument begins with the observation that it is natural to think a successful argument is one that gives us an authoritative normative reason to believe its conclusion. Error theory entails that there are no authoritative reasons to believe anything. What are arguments for error theory even supposed to accomplish? Error theorists may respond that their arguments are solely intended to get at the truth. I argue that this reply fails. One problem is that it cannot make sense of why in practice even error theorists still want evidence for the premises of sound arguments. Error theorists may try to capture the importance of evidence by appeal to our social norms or goals.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Skepticism and Beyond
    Skepticism and Beyond Skepticism and beyond: A primer on Stroud’s later epistemology In Sképsis VII.14: 76-99. October 2016 Jason Bridges University of Chicago 1. Understanding the skeptical challenge A. The initial reflections in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy purport to reveal that we are incapable of acquiring knowledge of the world around us. How is such an extraordinarily sweeping, and devastating, result supposed to be reached? Whatever we make of the details, the general strategy, at least, seems straightforward. In the course of his reflections, Descartes raises a question that we might express as follows, “How is it possible for us to have knowledge, by means of the senses, of things located outside us?” He then brings to bear an array of related considerations on this question, and on their basis arrives at an answer that can be put as follows: “Sorry to say, but it’s not in fact possible for us to have any knowledge, by means of the senses, of things located outside us.” The assessment, then, seems to be reached in an eminently familiar way: by argument. If we don’t like the assessment, it falls to us to find some error in the arguments for it. Central to Barry Stroud’s approach to skepticism is a suspicion of this straightforward accounting of the skeptic’s progress. Certainly it appears as if the skeptic raises a general question about our capacity for knowledge, and then argues toward a negative answer to that question. But are things as they appear? 1 Skepticism and Beyond B.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Practical Reasoning, the First Person and Impartialism About
    1 Practical Reasoning, the First Person and Impartialism about Reasons Alan Thomas Tilburg University Abstract This paper considers the problem posed for impartialism about reasons by the claim that practical reasoning is essentially first personal. This argument, first put forward by Bernard Williams, has an obscure rationale. Barry Stroud has suggested that in the only sense in which it is true it is misrepresents the issue. The issue is that substituting a particular identity into a conclusion true of anyone can change the degree of support for a practical conclusion. This paper develops a complementary line of argument. Developing Stroud’s point and interpreting it as highlighting the non-monotonicity of practical reasoning, it is argued that the distinguishing feature of practical reasoning is that it terminates in an action as its conclusion. Actions are the expression of one’s all things considered judgement and the expression of intentional states in action. The obvious rejoinders to this view are canvassed and deflected. This Aristotelian thesis is independently motivated as making best sense of the fact that practical questions may “turn out variously”. This paper evaluates Bernard Williams’s claim that practical reasoning is “essentially first personal” in a way that ethical impartialism cannot accommodate.1 [Williams, 1985, pp. 67-68] Williams’s target is reasons impartialism, a view that can naturally be formulated as a thesis about an informational restriction on moral judgement. [Sen, 1979] This view claims that the content of reasoning, taking the standard patterns of inference for granted, can be fully accurately represented as reasoning by anyone in a way that excludes information about any particular individual.
    [Show full text]
  • A New Reading of Kant's Theory of Punishment
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 A New Reading of Kant's Theory of Punishment Robert Hoffman University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Hoffman, Robert, "A New Reading of Kant's Theory of Punishment" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1063. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1063 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1063 For more information, please contact [email protected]. A New Reading of Kant's Theory of Punishment Abstract There are deep, insurmountable difficulties with the aditionaltr interpretation of Immanuel Kantâ??s writings on the subject of punishment. Although it is undeniable that throughout his published writings on practical philosophy â?? and in particular in his Metaphysics of Morals â?? he consistently advocates for the view that punishment can only be justified as a direct response to an individualâ??s act of wrongdoing, his status as one of the foremost theorists in the retributivist pantheon is philosophically untenable. In this dissertation, I articulate the ways in which Kantâ??s explicit support for retributivism directly contradicts more foundational elements of his practical philosophy and argue instead that he has the resources to consistently construct a deterrent theory of punishment. In particular, I highlight Kantâ??s division
    [Show full text]
  • Continental Philosophy Since 1750* C
    0 PUS General Editors A History of Western Philosophy: 7 Keith Thomas Alan Ryan Continental Philosophy Walter Bodmer since 1750 OPUS books provide concise, original, and authoritative introductions to a wide range of subjects in the humanities and sciences. They are The Rise and Fall of the Self written by experts for the general reader as well as for students. A History of Western Philosophy ROBERT C. SOLOMON This series of OPUS books offers a comprehensive and up-to-date sur­ vey of the history of philosophical ideas from earliest times. Its aim is not only to set those ideas in their immediate cultural context, but also to focus on their value and relevance to twentieth-century thinking. Classical Thought The Empiricists* Terence Irwin R. S. Woolhouse Medieval Philosophy English-Language Philosophy 1750-1945 David Luscombe John Skorupski Renaissance Philosophy Continental Philosophy since 1750* C. B. Schmitt Robert C. Solomon The Rationalists English Language Philosophy since 1945 John Cottingham Barry Stroud *Already published Oxford New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1988 Hegel 57 imagined world might be asreal as any other. The dialectic is not so much a method as it is the central idea of Hegel's philosophy, 4 and its purpose, in each of his works, is to demonstrate the ulti­ mate necessity of an all-encompassing acceptance of the self as Hegel and the Apotheosis of Self as absolute-which Hegel calls 'Spirit' (Geist). Hegel is the apotheosis of German idealism, and he bas been Spirit called 'the Aristotle of our post-Renaissance
    [Show full text]
  • In the Possibility of Philosophical Understanding
    147 In The Possibility of Philosophical Understanding: Reflections on the Thought of Barry Stroud, edited by Jason Bridges, Niko Kolodny & Wai-Hung Wong (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 147-181). Pagination follows the published text. Inside and Outside Language: Stroud's Nonreductionism about Meaning Hannah Ginsborg In the Blue Book, Wittgenstein describes a certain general view of understanding and meaning, namely as mental processes which accompany the signs of our language, and which “give them life.” We are tempted, he says, “to think that the action of language consists of two parts: an inorganic part, the handling of signs, and an organic part, which we may call understanding these signs, meaning them, interpreting them, thinking” (Wittgenstein 1958, 3). Wittgenstein thinks that this temptation is to be avoided. In the place of the view he has described, he goes on to suggest an alternative answer to the question of what gives “life” to the otherwise dead signs of language: “if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say it was its use” (1958, 4). The idea that a sign's having meaning is a matter of its being used in a particular kind of way reappears in a famous passage from Philosophical Investigations: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be explained thus: the meaning of a sign is its use in the language” (1953, §43). Wittgenstein's rejection of the idea that meaning and understanding are mental processes which have to be added
    [Show full text]
  • The Logical Effects of Theory on Observational Categories and Methodology in Verbal Learning Theory
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 043 927 24 CG 006 047 AUTHOR Petrie, Hugh G. TITLE The Logical Effects of Theory on Observational Categories and Methodology in Verbal Learning Theory. Final Report.. INSTITUTION Northwestern Univ., Evanston, Ill.. SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. BUREAU NO BR -8.E -023 PUB DATE Jul 59 CONTRACT °EC-4-8-080023-3569(010) NOTE 152p. EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.75 HC-$7.70 DESCRIPTORS Definitions, *Learning Theories, Linguistics, Philosophy, Psycholinguistics, Psychology, *Verbal Development, *Verbal Learning ABSTRACT This report attempts to determine to what extent the thesis that observation is theory-dependent holds in the area of verbal learning theory. This area was chosen because: (1) a philosophical criticism of verbal learning theory will contribute to the difficult task of investigating the border area between philosophy and psychology; and (2)no one theory has yet emerged as pre-eminent so that the difficulties of handling competing theories are not existent. While no "theory" has yet been produced three general positions have emerged: gestaltism, functional associationism, and transformational linguistics. Discussed are: (1) some of the grounds for suspecting that the theory-dependency thesis holds for verbal learning theory; (2) that theoretical terms must be ultimately definable in terms of operations describable in some theory-neutral observation language; (3) some of the criticisms of operationalism to the more general question of whether there can be a theory-neutral observation language at all; and (4) details of the controversy between Skinner for the associationists and Chomsky for the transformational linguists. An appendix includes a paper which explains the philosophical underpinnings of the theory-dependency thesis as presented by Wittgenstein.
    [Show full text]