Baruch // English 2150 // Fall 2012Class Notes

CLASS I // 8/28/2012I. Introductions

- Roll Call

- E-mail List (Write your name and e-mail address; make sure to use the e-mail address you check most frequently).

- Handout Syllabus

- Show Blog/Class Website = http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/authenticityandastonishment/

- First readings (Plato dialogues) and syllabus are on course site.

II. Discussion of Authenticity

- In order to philosophically and critically uncover things, we will use the following framework: (1) the ontological, then, (2) the epistemological.

- Ontology = the study of reality // Epistemology = the study of knowledge

- Ontology answers the questions: what, when, where; epistemology answers the questions: why and how. Once we uncover and discover reality, we can then find and further all that we know about various essences, things, etc.

- Read the course synopsis in the syllabus. Ask any questions or provide any comments you might have.

- *** In-Class Writing *** Introduce a quotation or an idea that you love. Write it out, state its origin and then offer a professional (non-personal) interpretation of the quotation/idea. What does it mean? How could/can it be explained to the “general public?” Write this in your journal and revise it for Thursday.

- Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C0_jDBxJ8w (The Dark Knight) film clip and discuss what makes an authentic hero, or an authentic villain.

- Discuss the debate/divide between Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche (faith and immorality) . . .

III. Assignment(s)- Read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and “Meno” (We will discuss them

for the next week.)

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- Revise your quotation/idea short essay, in your journal. Bring to class to share.

CLASS II // 8.30.2012 (Thurs.)

I. Review/Recap and Questions

- Prepare your revisions to be shared. If you have not revised them, take the time now and do so.

- Roll Call

- http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/29/160244277/what- americans-actually-do-all-day-long-in-2-graphics (interesting stats, in light of Plato and Socrates, and our investigative model – the ontological, then the epistemological)

- Any questions about the course, in general, or the syllabus?

- Any volunteers to read their revised great idea short essay?

- Comments . . .

- Ideas about revision = Check for spelling errors, capitalization errors, punctuation errors; activate your sentences by beginning them with the thing the whole sentence refers to (not prepositional phrases).

II. Discussion of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (The average view, Heideger’s view, and, hopefully, our own)

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTWwY8Ok5I0&feature=related (animated feat)

- Being a prisoner in the cave is several times removed from the actual. This occurs in three stages

1. Images (shadows on the wall // forms)2. The sources of those images3. The ultimate reality behind both 1 and 2

- At the first common stage of understanding, we form opinions—doxa—which reflect how we’ve taken in reality’s superficial appearance; in general, we absorb the sights and sounds of experiences to constitute reality. BUT, it

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requires a significant turn of mind/thought to distinguish this apparent reality from actual conditions, objects and events that may in fact produce it.

- Ex: the greenness of grass or that which makes it appear green to us. (Grass hit by sunlight gives off a radioactive wavelength of “green light” which measures 510 nanometers. This is both image and truth behind image explaining a cause.

- A second stage in understanding (intellectual development) for Plato occurs when we distinguish and recognize the distinction between an illusory object of knowledge (the shadows of the carvings on the wall) and a truer one (the carvings themselves). This is Plato’s implication that nature (not just trees and the moon or the outdoors but the material world and all its elements along with their inherent qualities) has a true essence that examining only means-ends relationships does not quite finish the process of. Even with all our knowledge, we have yet to come to a perfect understanding of the things behind mere appearances. For that, we must move outside the cave and encounter the intense light of the sun which will blind us and the light of that sun will then dissipate and display further possibilities of reality.

- So, pay attention to all the symbols in the dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates. Let’s list the symbols . . .

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRNMZEDOBrM (The Matrix and Plato)

- Martin Heidegger, twentieth century ontologist/essentialist philosopher and author of Being and Time discusses Plato’s Allegory in the vein of (his coinage) the unhidden. Unhidden is a great term (he compares it to truth) because it contains the word hidden which is immediately juxtaposed by the prefix un. . .

- He notes, further, “the prisoners do indeed see the shadows but not as shadows of something.” (20)

- As readers, we must carefully pay attention to things like prepositions. All the weight in that previous statement falls on the word as. Sure, that is a shadow but not a shadow of something. If I can see a person walking outside in the brightness of a sunny day and I can see their shadow cast on the sidewalk, I can make the distinction between figure of person and figure of shadow. This is key when picturing Plato’s image in our minds, as readers, because we then have to imagine what it is like to only see shadows but not see anything else, basically, as Heidegger claims, “the absence of distinction.”

- Now, think about people who have never traveled, never left their neighborhood, or, think about a racist person who has never met someone of another race. Where might they get a distinction?

- We should stop here and note that, generally speaking, there are three kinds of comparisons: similes, metaphors, and analogies. If we think in

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comparative (and critically creative) terms, what can we compare (in our contemporary reality) to Plato’s prisoners?

III. Assignments

- Go back. Re-read “The Allegory of the Cave” and read “Meno” (by Tuesday)

- Revise your short essay, checking for all errors and correct sentence structure. Use the “Submit Comment” box on our class website (see Class I) and type or paste in your essay. If you paste it, make sure the formatting of paragraphs and sentences is correct. . .

CLASS III // 9/4/12, Tues.

I. Recap // Roll Call // Discussion Question

- Any questions regarding syllabus, readings, etc. . .

- Discussion question: ** Is cheating (infidelity) a virtuous act? **In order to legitimately explore this conversation, we will need to work out an ontological understanding of cheating—what it is, what it is not, where and when it occurs, etc. Then, we can address scenarios . . .

How much of not-cheating/being virtuous in our relationships is just common sense?

II. Plato’s “Meno” (Notes and Discussion Credits)

- These are rules of inquiry, perhaps a development of a code of virtuous ethics. They get at the problem of sustaining real learning. Inquiry is the main element of the Socratic method—to question until further understanding is gained.

Yet, the question arises: How can one inquire into something if one cannot even (intend to) say anything about it?

Again, this goes back to “The Allegory of the Cave” and the importance of distinction.

Meno offers a paradox (a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth): An individual cannot look for what he or she already knows, because he or she has it. One cannot look for what one does not know because one does not know what to look for.

- Meno acts as the interlocutor which provides grounding for Socrates to deliver solutions to his ethical quandaries. Socrates then, sort of coyly, offers the theory of recollection—that we may not know what we are looking for yet but we will recognize it when we see it. For Socrates, then, there is

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and must be a distinction between true opinion, knowledge (and ignorance, as well).

- This is a philosophical inquiry that begins as ontological (reality) and eventually turns epistemological (knowledge). Philosophical inquiry, to Plato (via Socrates and Meno) helps people improve the: consistency, justification, and coherence of any statement or further action.

- Socrates claims: However common or numerous the virtues may be (temperance, courage, justice, etc…), they all have “a common nature,” an ontological essence that makes them distributable to all human beings, no matter how each culture may use them, etc.

- Virtuous motivations should produce good actions. The four main Greek virtues (through Aristotle’s readings of Plato and through Ancient Greek cultural practice) are: temperance, courage, justice, piety. In Greek, virtue is translated into the term arěte (meaning “human excellence”) . . . Socrates, however, says that he lacks knowledge of what virtue is and we can take this at least two ways: he is trying to expose Meno’s ignorance or he is fronting because he wants interlocutors to dsicover or uncover it for themselves. . . or, truthfully, he literally means that he does not know.

Basically, if we take him at his word, he definitely wants more than true opinions (doxa) about virtue.

- This is an examination of the possibilities of what we: understand, know, say, and do. In light of that, they are interwoven into the individual, but none of them are the same.

- Now to go back to our original question: can cheating (in a relationship) be a virtuous act? If so, how?

III. Revision Handout

- Go over number 1 and number 2 together. Read directions. Do #3 and #4 on your own.

- Homework: Re-read both “the Allegory of the Cave” and “Meno” and bring them, annotated.

CLASS IV // 9.6.2012 //

I. Roll Call and In-Class Writing

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- Describe a virtuous act or person which you have witnessed or been a part of? What makes it virtuous? What can other people learn from this act, encounter or person?

- Roll Call

II. TED Talk Video // Further Discussion of Plato’s “Meno” & “The Allegory of the Cave”

- http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html

- We must make distinctions between things, especially knowledge and true opinions (doxa). This helps us decide how close we have come into the arena of the questions being placed before us. In the sense that, if I ask, what is happiness, and the response is “a brain reaction” or “an emotion” . . . which of those is a more accurate response? Truly, neither. They are categorical responses. So, science and the scientific method do not really tell us what something is (the ontological), rather, they tell us what we know about something. Let’s discuss that in light of the Paul Zak talk. . .

- Is it by teaching or by practice that we come to know things? That is still the big, paradoxical question.

- Early in the dialogue, Socrates discusses the idea of the figure with Meno and Meno’s young slave. That the figure is understood, both, as a form and as a reality encompassed by variant details is vital to a combined learned experience of understanding and knowing about whatever figure one examines.

- If we examine the figure of business operation through the lens of “Meno,” we can understand a successful business ethic, better.

- (1) Every business is an agent of its own trajectory. (2) This abstract free will means that it is also possibly moral. (3) Sociopolitically and legally, businesses are treated as legal “persons” (in the US, the Constitution granted business personhood status in 1796). (4) A business has many angles an sides but does not cease at its own borders. (5) Those who operate the business possess an understanding of the business and of the market, but, must look to competitors and to similar agents for further knowledge to increase innate understanding. Basically, understanding is the guide and knowledge is the advice. (6) A business must be carried out according to the main Platonic virtues—courage, temperance, piety and justice.

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(7) Since a business is an organization, as well as a legal person, it must be understood that the organization is only as ethical as the human individuals involved in all its operations and thus if ethical practices carry out virtues and the virtues are timeless, or at least, sustainable, then it can be understood that any business not engaging its own ethical practices in a virtual manner will, in fact, fail. (8) Ethical practices benefit all parties involved—consumer/employee/management, etc.

- Think of any business that has been involved in a public ethic scandal – WorldCom, Enron, Lehman Brothers, GoldmanSachs, Firestone, Toyota, Gap, Big Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, etc.) and then think about those companies’s recovery strategies. Ethics are always immediately engaged following a scandal and when they are not, profitability, corporate-evolution, the Market itself, all are affected in negative and further unethical ways.

- Ethical business practices do not simply imply: Do the right thing. What we gather from “Meno” is that a business must both know and understand the internal workings and the external factors.

- This requires a thorough examination of the organization’s LoC (locus of control).

- Constant enquiry (Socratic/Platonic) is required. This includes: perpetual knowledge of market-patterns, cultural adherence (what do consumers need/want, not need, not want), resource understanding, cultural respect, among many other facets of business operation.

III. Assignments

- Post your in-class writing on the blog, anonymously (if you need to) by the beginning of Tuesday’s class.

- Re-read Plato’s works; listen again to the TED talk and watch for the next reading which I will post on Tuesday of next week – two pieces from The New York Times.

CLASS V // 9.11.12 // Tuesday

I. In-Class Writing + Roll Call

Prompt: Write the best thing a business (service, or one of its products) have ever done for you. Name the business, describe it (and/or its service, product). Is there any

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virtue involved in this exchange from business to consumer? If there was a virtue involved (or not), state what made it virtuous or what provided this exchange with a lack of virtue.

II. Recap of Plato, Move into the work of Steven Strogatz

- Distinction, awareness, Form, Idea, soul as a theory of recollection, that value comes through the reformation of an idea or where true opinions (doxa) meet knowledge and the understanding of which . . .

- How does an individual come to know something, especially a formed abstract idea?

- (Close/Slow) Reading of Strogatz’s first piece, “From Fish to Infinity”

- Questions: What voice is it in? What tense is he using most often? Broad topic, defined thesis?

- Example of a signal phrase (bottom of page one) – how to introduce an idea or phrase or summary of someone else’s…

- The last sentence there offers us a similar idea to that of Plato – further inquiry combined with a system of didactic recollection can merge both knowledge and true opinions.

- Question: What’s so interesting about infinity? If it is based on a notion, imagination, and language, then it is just a concept outside the realm of individual consciousness, is it not? What could it possibly matter?

III. Assignment(s)

- Read Strogatz’s texts. Annotate them. Bring them in with questions for discussion.

- Complete the revision handout.

- Post your in-class writing regarding virtue.

- By Thursday, 9/20, bring in your first short essay (revised, without first or 2nd person pronouns) regarding the quotation (from Class I). Have it ready to turn in.

CLASS VI // 9.14.2012 // THURSDAY

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Baruch // English 2150 // Fall 2012Class Notes

I. In-Class Writing // Roll Call

- Respond to any or all of the following questions: How would you explain infinity in your own terms? If infinity exists, why would it be valuable to you? What about infinity is authentic?

II. Further Discussion of Infinity // Steven Strogatz’s “The Hilbert Hotel”

- http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video/infinity-bigger-9608228 (w/ Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VF5P7qLaEQ (Groundhog Day, “I am a god . . .”

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NjNOAncIlI (Groundhog Day homeless man scenes)

- Realizing paradoxes and contradictions clearly help us clean up the level of epistemic understanding (how much we know about a given thing). Paradoxes help us know more, increase our knowledge of things (Think: the cave escapee from Plato’s allegory). One of the greatest paradoxes is infinity. Contemplating it, in fact, puts much on display.

- The Infinite Replication paradox brings up much about what drives our use of choice, of - decision, of paradox itself, etc…Infinity is already a paradox in itself; it offers numerous contradictions of its own self.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, in 1886, offers an idea to the Infinite Replication Paradox, and wrote that every individual should act as if he or she is aware that every action will be repeated infinitely. He was, basically considering personal/individual existence in a universe that repeats itself in time, forever, so that eventually each of us will be “reborn” and repeat our same actions, again, with the same effects, infinitely often. This is also known as the idea of “Eternal Return.”

- Why is this idea valuable?

- If we go to those Groundhog Day clips, we can see that both time and space can confuse an individual into thinking he or she is something he or she isn’t. And paradoxes go abound; is it possible to save someone’s life? Does infinity imply that doing something better is worthless being that something better is always “out there” being done, infinitely, already?

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- Should coincidence matter or take on heavy importance (think: degrees of separation, Kevin Bacon, “small world” happenings).

- Most importantly, how can we operate meaning knowing (or at least the possibility of knowing) that infinity is replicating, repeating, expanding, contracting, unending, non-beginning? Why should anything matter?

- ** Examine the Strogatz piece, “The Hilbert Hotel.”—a quick close-reading. **

III. Passive Voice & Assignments

- Some sentence comments about the passive voice.

- Post your in-class writing (revise it) to the course blog in the comments field where you see the painting of Socrates. There are already two up that are great examples. This should be done by Tuesday, 9/18.

- Revise your short essay about the favorite idea/quotation. Remove all the pronouns. Double space it. Print it out. Bring it in. Due: Thursday 9/20.

- Download the next reading (Diogenes’s Fragments). Do not print the Heraclitus section; only print the Diogenes section!

** CLASS VII // 9.20.2012 // THURSDAY **

I. In-Class Writing + Roll Call

- Turn in revised quotation/favorite idea essay

- Writing Prompt: List your three favorite objects. Name them. Write them down. Choose ONE. Then, describe its personal value. Then, acknowledge and describe its significance to your own culture; basically, describe the objects cultural significance; as well, if

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possible, describe its national significance.

- Definition of paradox: (1) a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. (2) a self-contradictory and false proposition. (3) any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.

II. Introduction to Diogenes and Cynicism

- Diogenes was the founder/father of the Greek movement of thought known as Cynicism (which generally implied that one rejected all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame, and by living a simple life free from all possessions).

- Think Cynical (Cynicism and Cynic vs. cynicism and cynic) versus cynical. How does the capitalized C change the interpretation?

- “I’ve come to debase the coinage” (p. 39, fragment 1). This may be the absolute key to Diogenes’ philosophy and way.

- Here, we really want to examine the use of the metaphor coinage to arrive at the various interpretations necessary to apply this ancient fragment. What could “coinage” possibly stand for?

- “I am a citizen of the world” (p. 40, fragment 7). Is that possible? And, if so, why should it matter?

- “Even with a lamp in daylight, I cannot find an honest man” (p. 50, fragment 66). What does this say about Diogenes’s view of the world, view of his self?

- Cynicism was born in the 4th century BCE with  the thought and fragmentary writing of both Antisthenes and Diogenes.

- The early Cynics mocked abstract principles and codified philosophies in favor of a lived philosophy.

- The felt the goal of philosophy was to teach one to face the contingencies of life. 

- Plato famously labeled Diogenes a "Socrates gone mad."

- Many early Cynics favored the spoken over the written word, for many reasons. 

- The Cynic gospel can be summarized in two terms -- simplicity and defiance.

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- Other notable Cynics (beyond Diogenes) are:  Menippus, Lucian, Cicero and some of Marcus Aurelius's writings.

- The basic Cynic principles, even through the movement's transformations, are:  an ascetic, independent life; a commitment to the drastic reduction of needs to the simple basics of an animal existence; a missionary zeal in their criticism of society; a sharp, scouring tongue (parrhesia, or free speech); an open defiance of tradition, rituals, and organized religion; a scorn for idealist theories and for head teachers (Plato) in particular; a cosmopolitan attitude born from a critique of contemporary politics and nationalism…

- The name Cynic captures the threefold character of the movement . . . the noun, itself, claims two roots -- one in Kynosarges (the name of an Ancient Greek gymnasium where Antisthenes is said to have held his lessons, and the other in the Greek kyon --- dog. 

- ** The transvaluation of values . . . (point of discussion)

- The Cynic shuns long discourses in favor of quips, aphorisms, and physical gestures.

- Most Cynicism scholars agree that, for Diogenes, cosmopolitanism signifies a form of apoliticism, of antipoliticism. Nature over culture.  A rejection, not only of the polis (city, state, etc...) but of all social ties. Look at this as an ideological way out of the ghetto, off the farm, a way of communal reformation . . . This helps us seek new ways of relating to ourselves and to the world. This helps us free ourselves from the many opaque illusions and achieve further clarity and a less filtered state of mind. 

- Think: Diogenes behaves like an animal to negate the state and the social ties but this helps him become more of a human being.

III. Assignment(s)

- Make sure you have read each Diogenes fragment 2-3 times. If you have comments or questions, write them in your notebook, immediately.

- Look for next reading: excerpts from Kwame Appiah’s The Ethics of Identity. Pay careful attention to which pages you are supposed to read.

- Post your in-class writing about the object (from today), just the one, on the blog by Tuesday 9/25 at 5:00p.

** CLASS VIII // 10.2.2012 // TUESDAY **

I. In-Class Writing + Roll

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- We will make a class-list of abstract terms to collectively use for argument construction.

- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abstract?s=t

- Write a statement (1 to 3 sentences) that argues for one of your objects (from your personal list, last week) as a comparison (best representation) with one of the abstractions from the list. Think about what makes the object what it is; think about what makes it what it is not, as well. ** You may not use personal or 2nd person pronouns (no me, I, my, mine, we, our, ours, you, or yours). ** Turn your personal connection into a professional connection.

Ex: A baseball glove best represents the truth in that it is made to last, to endure harsh weather patterns, to be forgotten, to soak up dirt and water, to bend, to adjust, and of course, in some cases, to die.

II. Discussion of Kwame Appiah’s “Rooted Cosmopolitanism,” from The Ethics of Identity

- The critic and essayist, William Desmond, writes that we should not learn merely of the Cynics (capital C) but from them (as they may have been one of no philosophical movement that seeked to press philosophy into a standard, a way of life). Desmond notes that the Cynics desired and implemented “carefree living in the present;” a generalized rejection of social customs -- clothing, housing, diet, sex and marriage, slavery, work; a process toward the direction of an utter simplification of life (and living according to nature); a common rejection of intellectual confusion. . .

213

-          Remember that you are citizens of the world…endeavor to leave that place “better than you found it.”-          Citizenship (what is it?)-          Responsible solidarity with all humanity

214

-          poses a congeries of paradoxes (why might cosmopolitanism do this)

215

-          The nomadic urge is deep within us.

216

-          Calling this process “globalization,” as we often do, is all very well but tells us very little about how it is either novel or significant. For, as I have suggested, you could describe the history of the human species as a process of globalization, if

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you like, of the longue duree—in fact, of the longest humanly possible duree, that of the period within which we have been fully human.-          The world is a web. . . and that web is physical, biological, electronic, artistic, literary, musical, linguistic, juridical, religious, economic, and familial.

217

-          Romans were bound not by a mutual knowledge or a recognition of each other, but by language, law, and literature.-          Relations between citizens must be relations between strangers.

222

-          A sympathetic representative, Appiah exemplifies, in Virginia Woolf, where she writes of ridding oneself of the various forms of pride (school, nation, family, sex, etc.), calling them “unreal.” He compares this to Tolstoy’s phrase, “To destroy war, destroy patriotism.” Here, readers can see that the nature of “sympathetic” cosmopolitanism abolishes the notion that one particular section of pride is too extreme and destroys these more intriguing notions of existing with strangers.-          Appiah claims that he wants to resist the sharp distinction sometimes made between moral and cultural cosmopolitanism.-          He alludes to the notion that to change the world, one must understand it.

223

-          There should be some forms of partiality. Here, he disagrees with, but acknowledges both Woolf and Tolstoy’s anti-war, anti-pride stances.-          This is the first setup where we see that Appiah, like Diogenes, stumps for absolute honesty; a citizen must be aware of his or her own existence and what it is tied to, then abolish those ties, then rebuild those ties…

224

** Note the signal phrases in the second full paragraph.

-          Liberalism’s paradox:  if all people are equal, then who should I give preference to?

225

-          You don’t value your wife because you value wives, generally.

227

-          There is, to be sure, a truth buried within the effort to universalize partiality.-          What does this mean? Be partial, to the things that you can absolutely be partial to, but one must possess and offer a recognition that other folks with also possess similar as well as different partialities.

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228

-          ** The range of things we care about . . . cannot be underdetermined. **-          Again, this requires each citizen to make demands, but to make sure those are based on an absolutely honest perspective, of which…

231

-  “The interests that entrain the “ethical self” are those of specific, encumbred human beings who are members of particular communities. To create a life, I’ve said, is to create a life out of the materials that history has given you.”232

- the two separate projects:  well-ordered society and personally-good life . . .

233

- in the forest of our obligations, it can be hard to distinguish bough from vine.- there will be compilcated tradeoffs between these different normative registers

236

- “Who you are is constituted, in part, by what you care about; to cease to care about those things would be to cease to care about the sort of person you are.” How can we discuss this in light of crazed, violent individuals? Perhaps if we can converse and discuss enough with Islamic radicals and James Holmes, perhaps that conversation would decimate the “sort of person” he or they are . . . ?- Relationships are an important good, “objectively valuable” . . .

238

- nationalism posits a relation among strangers . . . if I say I am an American patriot, one who would consider his self a nationalist, then I am aligning my self, “the sort of person” I am with all those others who would say so, as well. Yet, I have never had a conversation with all of them so that positing, is to a certain degree, fallacious . . .

242

-  these idenitifications (identifying what you care about) will help determine your projects, what you do to better/improve the world, and “help provide reasons for action” and honest ones at that . . . That I get pleasure out of healing aids in the Congo is just as well as that I once had aids and healed from that, etc . . .

243

- many of the things we care about in life are the result of accident . . . by accident . . . what do you think you care about, as a result of an accident . . . - Individuals Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction .  . .

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246

- perhaps part of the challenge of being the member of a Cosmopolis is that it feels merely figurative. We are not “literal” citizens of the Cosmopolis . . . - debate and conversation across nations

247

- How can we best “defend difference?” And, where do ideas and practices of “multiculturalism” or color-blindness fail at this?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/normative?s=t

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interlocutor?s=t

252

- a separation of real life and the meaningful representations of real life:  “We give birth not to organisms but to kin; we copulate not with other bodies but with lovers and spouses.” . . . Life possesses a meaning that comes from both facts and values . . .

253

We can “identify points of agreement.”

255

“Disagreement pre-supposes the cognitive option of agreement.”  We should, obviously, then seek the presupposition and begin to break down barriers beyond their horizons, to use conversation as a mode to contingently find arenas of agreement, to use conversation as a tool, a device, not of convincing, but of finding more honesty, more meeting ground.

- agreement about particular things of course . . .

267

- “The roots of the cosmopolitanism I am defending are liberal:  and they are responsive to liberalism’s insistence on human dignity.”- “Human beings are naturally and inevtiably social.”

268

-  . . . “the ethics of identity without losing sight of the values of personal autonomy.”- Cosmopolitanism values human variety . . . (and, so, obviously anything that does not value human variety should be shunned -- not eradiacted or disappeared, but shunned, nevertheless)- centered on values without coercion

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III. Assignment(s)

- Post your in-class writing (comparative argument/statement) to the blog by Thursday, 10/4 at 5:30pm.

- Download, print, and bring in next reading: an excerpt from Kwame Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism

** CLASS VIII // 10.4.2012 // THURSDAY **

I. In-Class Writing

- Think about your object. Get a good mental image of it. Then, attend to the sensual offerings of the object—the five senses of it; how does it feel, what does it look like, does it smell like anything, how might it taste, and are there any sounds to it? Think about its shapes, tones, colors, etc. List all these details. EX: hat (velvety, steel rivets = cold, silver, smells musty, of sweat, bill is bent, colored black and red, etc…)

- Once you have listed every detail you can think of, possible, then list any meaning it has provided – particular situations, etc… What has this object participated in?

II. Kwame Anthony Appiah // Cosmopolitanism

- An important question for Appiah (and all of us): How real are values?

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjMnyP142b8 ((an excerpt from the documentary, The Examined Life ))

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Baruch // English 2150 // Fall 2012Class Notes

- Here is another interesting question from Appiah: “Without a shared world, what is there to discuss?” (p. 31)

- Appiah writes, on page 163, “People have needs—health, food, shelter, education—that must be met if they are to lead decent lives. There are certain options that they ought to have: to seek sexual satisfaction with consenting partners; to have children if they wish to; to move from place to place; to express and share ideas; to help manage their societies; to exercise their imaginations. (These are options. People should also be free not to exercise them.)

- Where and how are the above freedoms and options removed, taken, not given, not provided. And, who or what does the taking, providing, option-making, etc. Who allows? Think in specific terms in answering this.

- As you finish reading Appiah’s work, think about the above citation, from pg. 163 and apply to what you read and think and do.

III. Some Notes on Forming Arguments + Argument Sheet (handout)

- Michael Gilbert, in How to Win An Argument, writes

"In a creative argument both parties are more interested in finding the truth or solving the problem than in being right. When you argue creatively you are interested in your partner’s arguments, and you listen to them carefully to see if there is helpful information or insights. Your partner is also listening to you, and you work together to come up with the best solution or correct answer. Creative argument minimizes the role of the arguers’ egos and maximizes their commitment to inquiry" (14).

- Know why you are arguing: What is your purpose? Do you believe you can achieve your purpose?

- Know what you are arguing about: What is the topic? What is YOUR claim? What is your co-arguer’s claim? What reasons support your claim? your co-arguer’s claim?

- Do not argue from popularity; don’t generalize; use concrete details and comparisons to fully drive the argument.

- Make sure you notice what is a claim or a conclusive statement, and, what is a reason or support for a claim. Without that, it will jumble and confuse.

IV. Assignment(s)

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Baruch // English 2150 // Fall 2012Class Notes

- Read all of Kwame Appiah and post FIVE questions and/or comments to the latest comment field.

- ** Complete the object argument handout and bring that in Tuesday.

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