| 1. | How I entered Philosophy field? |
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At times, non academy men& women enter Philosophical field. I am one of them.
I think the existentialist literature that was the norm during my college days in the southern state of India, Kerala, was most instrumental in leading me to Philosophy. Who am i, what is life etc questions troubled my young mind constantly. My intellectual guide during those days was one of my professors, who was also a leading fiction writer of the time in my said state,prof.Paul Zachariah.
I learned hypnosis during those days and conducted dozens of valuable experiments. Few of my subjects showed clairvoyance faculty,that is their faculty to see and report persons and events at distant places. I reverified their stories, and all found real! This altered my impression about human mind and theories of science.i shared my thoughts with my country's Philosophy council and they were very kind to award me a residential fellowship inspite of I not belonging to academy Philosophy field. Philosophy of science, Faculty of Reason, self and identy, 'world' and Ego, Democracy etc were my favourite subjects. I started writing my ideas in the form of blogs, under Google domain name Voice of Philosophy. There are 300 plus of them. Though I shared my papers often with many philosophy journals, universities and many leading philosophers, none took interest. Now I am convinced, ideas of non academy philosophy guys will fail to convince academy field! Their language, style etc different, so how original their ideas are, it is impossible for Philosophy to notice them.
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Abraham Joseph
N/A
Not applicable (now retired)
Gurgaon
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| 2. | Re: The value of philosophy |
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Philosophy is a science of wisdom and as such should be present in education level during high school.
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------Original Message------
I am encouraged by seeing a growing interest and involvement in public philosophy, philosophy taken to the streets, the boardrooms, and to schools. This might be the first step to see both an intrinsic value to philosophy as a quintessential human endeavor and as skill of thinking and questioning that every citizen needs to function as true citizens and to think above the din of political rhetoric--all too prevalent and powerful today.
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Wendy Turgeon
Professor
St. Joseph's College
Saint James NY
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I completely agree with need to involve the public in philosophy. I have been hosting a series of Death Salons and have been able to interest many in the philosophy of death.
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Amy White
Associate Professor
Ohio University Zanesville
Zanesville OH
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-13-2019 18:09
From: Wendy Turgeon
Subject: The value of philosophy
I am encouraged by seeing a growing interest and involvement in public philosophy, philosophy taken to the streets, the boardrooms, and to schools. This might be the first step to see both an intrinsic value to philosophy as a quintessential human endeavor and as skill of thinking and questioning that every citizen needs to function as true citizens and to think above the din of political rhetoric--all too prevalent and powerful today.
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Wendy Turgeon
Professor
St. Joseph's College
Saint James NY |
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| 4. | Re: The value of philosophy |
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I am talking about philosophy as science of wisdom not Death, Amy.
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------Original Message------
I completely agree with need to involve the public in philosophy. I have been hosting a series of Death Salons and have been able to interest many in the philosophy of death.
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Amy White
Associate Professor
Ohio University Zanesville
Zanesville OH
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| 5. | Re: Interesting Philosophy-Related Sites |
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Thanks Adam. Welcome back... Some of these links are well known, but some are new. Appreciate it. P.s. An old friend is out there in Seattle with you, Debadeepta Dey. Warm hellos to all from Roger Williams U. in RI.
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Christina Rawls
Roger Williams University
Tiverton MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2019 19:50
From: Adam Gerard
Subject: Interesting Philosophy-Related Sites
Hi All!
I'm Adam (Northern Illinois University - M.A. 2014)! www.linkedin.com/in/adamintaegerard
Just joined the American Philosophical Association. It's been a while since I've been even marginally active in the philosophy community but I'm interested in diving back-in for additional education in the not-so-distant future.
Great community and service through APA Connect!
Wanted to create a quick post summarizing some great resources that are quite interesting. I'd be very grateful for suggestions or recommendations, as well!
The sites below also represent potential opportunities for you to publish content directly to a wider audience while keeping intellectual property ownership (I have no stake in and do not materially benefit from these endorsements - genuinely excited about seeing an active philosophy community all over):
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Adam Gerard
Content Developer
Aquent at Microsoft
Seattle WA
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| 6. | Re: Changes within subfields of philosophy |
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In reply to Richard Bett's original question, I believe that a very important new subfield -- perhaps even central to philosophy in the future -- will be the philosophy of information (see, for example, philosophical developments associated with the research and publications of Luciano Floridi). The so-called "Information Revolution" is changing the world more quickly and more profoundly than any previous scientific/technological revolution. Physics seems now to have decided that the entire universe, and every object and process in it, essentially involves -- consists of -- energy and information. If everything consists of these two things, then whatever topic, object, process, entity that philosophers might wish to think about, analyze, explain, interrelate, comprehend will depend upon the energy of which everything is composed and the data structures that constitute their fundamental natures.
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Terrell Bynum
Distinguished CSU Professor
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven CT
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-07-2019 13:41
From: Richard Bett
Subject: Changes within subfields of philosophy
Which new subfields are emerging as important; which traditional subfields are dead or dying; and which established subfields can be expected to remain of enduring importance?
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Richard Bett
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore MD
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| 7. | Re: Changes within subfields of philosophy |
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Responding to Terrell Bynum on philosophy of information: A.N. Whitehead notes that we can have facts without wisdom, not not wisdom without facts. Possibly we can have wisdom with at least minimal facts. If fact is information, maybe wisdom is the (philo-) sophia which helps us discern correct from wrong info, and helps us coordinate and systematize info. I think Massey and Bellman have independentally (in Philosophy and Cybernetics) said that info or data ought consider the context of wisdom or the metaphysical. Being informed is good, but being informed ought be within the perspective of being wise. Shannon and Weaver have said much about quantitative communications. There are the sender (transmitter) and recepient of data; but community and the intersubjective forms the foundations of communication. Can we have communication without community? Kant might say communication (information) without community is blind, community without communication is empty. Ricoeur could say we need to reintroduce communication (info) into community.
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Michael Kazanjian
Instructor
Triton College
Chicago IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-14-2019 11:56
From: Terrell Bynum
Subject: Changes within subfields of philosophy
In reply to Richard Bett's original question, I believe that a very important new subfield -- perhaps even central to philosophy in the future -- will be the philosophy of information (see, for example, philosophical developments associated with the research and publications of Luciano Floridi). The so-called "Information Revolution" is changing the world more quickly and more profoundly than any previous scientific/technological revolution. Physics seems now to have decided that the entire universe, and every object and process in it, essentially involves -- consists of -- energy and information. If everything consists of these two things, then whatever topic, object, process, entity that philosophers might wish to think about, analyze, explain, interrelate, comprehend will depend upon the energy of which everything is composed and the data structures that constitute their fundamental natures.
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Terrell Bynum
Distinguished CSU Professor
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven CT |
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| 8. | Re: Changes within subfields of philosophy |
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At risk of mentioning something everybody knows, Amos Bronson Alcott and later Elizabeth Peabody might be considered to be doing philosophy of childhood in his radical educational experiments in early-mid nineteenth century Massachusetts. The Kindergarten movement is underpinned by a philosophy of childhood. The European romantics and the Victorians were both interested in the figure of the child and "child-life." Interesting subject!
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Carol Bensick
Research Affiliate
UCLA
Los Angeles CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2019 09:17
From: Wendy Turgeon
Subject: Changes within subfields of philosophy
I would suggest the area of philosophy of childhood. Since the 70s there has been some interesting work here and abroad which explores from a philosophical angle the experiences of children and their status as persons vis a vis education and rights issues. Philosophers have tended for centuries to depict "person" as adult white male and we have seen the challenge of that assumption with the experiences of women and people of color being now included as 'worthy' of inclusion/reflection and as an invitation to expand our notion of human being-ness. Now we are focusing on the nature of childhood, and in the same multiple contexts we address in third wave feminism. Bachelard has written some provocative accounts as has many international philosophers who also work in the area of philosophy *with* children but here in the US I would recommend David Kennedy's work for supporting this new area in philosophy.
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Wendy Turgeon
Professor
St. Joseph's College
Saint James NY |
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| 9. | Re: Changes within subfields of philosophy |
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In response to Carol Bensick regarding philosophy of childhood, and the work of Alcott and then Peabody, the notion of Kindergarten or as we say, Kindergarden, is fascinating. Thanks for bringing this up. "Kinder" means children, and garten or garden is the childrens' garden. The kindergarden is childrens' play area, denoting a place of probably pre-reflective, pre-cognitive activity, maybe play. To be accurate, children do think, reflect, are cognitive probably even before and during kindergarden. But kindergarden is our view of a playground, if you will, fundamental to classroom and lab, where the reflective/cognitive is put in the context of the garden instead of specifically and formally the classroom. Kindergarden is not West Point, Annapolis, USAFA, Navy SEALs or Army Green Berets. It is the "pre-classroom" sequence where learning occurs in an open air garden or park, as a prelude to a classroom's enclosed space. This vaguely sounds like phenomenology where the garden embodies the classroom, and certainly the lab. Possibly a parallel to the kindergarden/classroom-lab, is industry's R&D relative to and underlying actual production of goods and services.
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Michael Kazanjian
Instructor
Triton College
Chicago IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-14-2019 18:23
From: Carol Bensick
Subject: Changes within subfields of philosophy
At risk of mentioning something everybody knows, Amos Bronson Alcott and later Elizabeth Peabody might be considered to be doing philosophy of childhood in his radical educational experiments in early-mid nineteenth century Massachusetts. The Kindergarten movement is underpinned by a philosophy of childhood. The European romantics and the Victorians were both interested in the figure of the child and "child-life." Interesting subject!
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Carol Bensick
Research Affiliate
UCLA
Los Angeles CA |
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| 10. | Re: Changes within subfields of philosophy |
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Responding to Michael Kazanjian on philosophy of information. Your comments mention wisdom, the metaphysical, community, the intersubjective. These concepts are certainly very important to philosophy. To understand them, analyze them, etc. we will need to clearly distinguish between syntactic information (data) and semantic information (which has meaning), including for example thoughts, meanings, sharing of knowledge and beliefs among members of a community, and so on. From the physicists' point of view, the world is made of energy and syntactic information, not semantic information. But they believe that the human brain is made of energy and syntactic information. So if processes and states within human brains somehow become thoughts and meanings (semantic information), then philosophers and psychologists should try to understand how this is possible, and thereby have a much "deeper" understanding of thinking, knowing, believing, sharing meanings among communities of thinkers, and so on. Perhaps the earliest philosophical thinker to take on this challenge, aided by his foundational knowledge of information theory, is Norbert Wiener in his books, Cybernetics, The Human Use of Human Beings, and God and Golem, Inc.
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Terrell Ward (Terry) Bynum
CSU Professor Emeritus
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-14-2019 15:14
From: Michael Kazanjian
Subject: Changes within subfields of philosophy
Responding to Terrell Bynum on philosophy of information: A.N. Whitehead notes that we can have facts without wisdom, not not wisdom without facts. Possibly we can have wisdom with at least minimal facts. If fact is information, maybe wisdom is the (philo-) sophia which helps us discern correct from wrong info, and helps us coordinate and systematize info. I think Massey and Bellman have independentally (in Philosophy and Cybernetics) said that info or data ought consider the context of wisdom or the metaphysical. Being informed is good, but being informed ought be within the perspective of being wise. Shannon and Weaver have said much about quantitative communications. There are the sender (transmitter) and recepient of data; but community and the intersubjective forms the foundations of communication. Can we have communication without community? Kant might say communication (information) without community is blind, community without communication is empty. Ricoeur could say we need to reintroduce communication (info) into community.
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Michael Kazanjian
Instructor
Triton College
Chicago IL |
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| 11. | Re: What led you to philosophy? |
At 15, I asked my high school English teacher, What is it all about anyway? Here we are on this planet in a universe,..
She said, Oh, Arnold, don't worry about such things. I decided then I would find out and when I did I wouldn't keep it a secret.
I and 21 other students were kicked out of high school after a rumble following a basketball game. I had broken my ankle being pushed of a curb, but was a known smart ass. I sold Bibles door to door, worked for a PR firm in Manhattan, dug oil wells, was a union ironworker and teamster, and joined the Navy helping train pilots destined for Vietnam.
As I was ready to get out my high school chum who was in grad Philosophy at Cornell asked what I planned to do. I said I might roughneck in the summers in Wyoming and spend the winters on the beach in Mexico. That would get old fast he said. You like to read -- I had been reading Mill, Sartre, and Kant -- why not become a professor, they will pay you to read. And so I did.
But in teaching, I quickly learned that you cannot TELL people the truth. And so I became the founding editor of the journal Teaching Philosophy 45 years ago. It was an effort that has professionalized the profession.
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------Original Message------
I've had a pretty interesting journey toward philosophy, and I don't know that I could actually qualify myself as a philosopher by vocation--I am an educator (specifically, a k-12 educator) by vocation, but I like to think of myself as a 'closet philosopher' despite the fact that I have (yet) to officially publish, publicly, anything I've written in philosophy.
My AP English teacher in high school taught us some (looking back on it, now) pretty general stuff in Existentialism, and used the word 'philosophy' on occasion, and at that point I had a pretty vague idea that I would enjoy it in college. I began as a double major, but dropped Philosophy to a minor in order to finish school early--knowing my intention was to teach high school English. Big mistake--should've kept the major, and dropped English to a minor instead... but I rectified that with a Masters in Philosophy a few years later (so I tell myself).
I have been a high school teacher now for about eight years. I love what I do and have no desire to leave it, especially given that it has become my personal mission to teach philosophy at the high school level. I've been teaching a Philosophy in Literature English class to seniors for four years now, and it's a HUGE success--now if only I could find some time to write curriculum for an Honors (or AP???) Philosophy elective so that I could do even more with it. I even teach my regular junior (and when I had them, freshmen) classes with a philosophical approach (side note: I'd love to do an doctorate of education with the specific purpose of doing the research to prove that not only is teaching philosophy itself of utmost importance, but teaching all subjects philosophically JUST as important). I've had as many as a handful to nearly a score of students each school year go on to upper division philosophy courses in college, and many go on to minor or major in philosophy as a result of the positive experience we had together in class. It's been a really exciting journey, and I feel like I'm absolutely in the right place at the right time.
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Stacy Cabrera
English/Philosophy Teacher, AP Capstone Advisor
Mira Costa High School, Manhattan Beach Unified
Manhattan Beach CA
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