Philosophy Deck - Finally Completed

 So I'm finally drawing this 10 year project to a close. Ha. A lot has changed since the last post:

- Updated the art to a higher quality look

- Fixed typos

- Changed out some philosophers (removed Euclid, Paul Kripke, Jacques Derrida)

- Have a "2 thoughts" format for the deck, one for each direction of the card.

- Provided new art for G. E. M. Anscombe and Margaret Cavendish

- Reworked art on card back

- Revised tuckbox

 - Updated Joker symbol with a *

 

You can see the results below:

I am pretty excited about them in their finished state -- good to get something off of my back at least!

I've listed the cards to purchase over on Etsy.

Prototype for Philosophy Themed Deck Completed

I have finished the prototype for my philosophy themed playing cards and am ready to go to press with a POD to see how they turn out in the flesh. I will keep you posted on the end result. I am thinking of kickstarting a project on these cards to have a nicer print and finish done by the USPC. Here are some previews of the finished product. I "watermarked" the sheets somewhat, so ignore the crosshatching. You should notice that I upgraded the art quality on almost all of the philosophers.

1. Tuckbox.

2. Card Sheets.

3. Card Back Design.

4. Individual Card Examples.

5. Art Progression. This shows the progression from the original art portraying the philosopher (whether a sculpture, drawing, photo, or painting) to the hand drawn sketch to the altered vectorized sketch to the finished digitally painted piece.

6. Alternate Designs. Some other possibilities for card faces that have two-way orientations.

Undecided Quotes for Philosophy Themed Deck

So, I have decided to include on each card face for a philosopher the art, his name, his birth/date dates, and a short quote. However, on a couple of the philosophers, I am debating on what quotes to use for them. Your input would be very helpful in reaching a decision! The difficulty is mostly on deciding which quote is more characteristic or unique to that philosopher, or deciding between a funny or more philosophical quote.

Friedrich Nietzsche: 1. "I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous... I am no man, I am dynamite."

2. "Whatever has value in our world now does not have value in itself… it was we who gave and bestowed it."

Blaise Pascal: 1. "All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling."

2. "Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false?"

Bertrand Russell: 1. "The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture."

2. "There is no logical impossibility… that the world sprang into being five minutes ago... with a population that 'remembered' a wholly unreal past."

Karl Popper: 1. "No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white."

2. "Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one... [then] you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve."

Jean Paul Sartre: 1. "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

2. "If I became a philosopher… it's all been to seduce women basically."

Arthur Schopenhauer: 1. "If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."

2. "The will to live everywhere preys upon itself… the human race… reveals in itself with most terrible distinctness this variance of the will with itself."

Baruch Spinoza: 1. "Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature."

2. "Mind and body are one and the same individual which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, and now under extension."

Ludwig Wittgenstein: 1. "The meaning of a question is the method of answering it... Tell me how you are searching, and I will tell you what you are searching for."

2. “The aim... is to set a limit to thought, or rather — not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts.”

3. "It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems."

4. "Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it."

Please leave a comment that states the quote number for each philosopher that you prefer. Thanks!

Philosophy Themed Card Deck: Card Face Content

As I have been working on the philosophy-themed card deck (see a post on the art here), I have struggled to determine the exact content of the card faces. Besides the art, the name of the philosopher, and the reversible suit and value in opposite corners what should be included (if anything)? Some possibilities are as follows:

(1) Birth and death dates to help contextualize the philosopher in history.

(2) Quotes. I thought it could be fun to include a quote from each philosophy that either typifies one of their philosophical ideas or says something funny. The difficulty with the former is that it is hard to gain a direct quote from some of the pre-socratics. Of course, I can borrow from later sources, but it isn't the same, and there is some questions of authenticity. Oh well, it isn't a breaker. I also am concerned about sharing an obscure quote that may seem to ridicule the philosopher as being nonsensical, even if it is somewhat fun to do so. The problem with the latter is that I don't want to be suggesting that they do not have anything interesting to contribute, especially if the joke is not philosophically related. I have thought that perhaps if I choose a funny quote that I should try to pick a short one and then have a more serious line included with it. Perhaps some examples will be helpful.

Picturesque quotes: "The condition of man...is a condition of war of everyone against everyone." - Thomas Hobbes

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

"There is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself." - Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Quotes that could ridicule the philosopher: "The nothing itself nothings." - Martin Heidegger

"Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is." - Jean Paul Sartre

"Until philosophers are kings... cities [and the human race] will never have rest from their evils and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day." - Plato

Funny quote (not philosophically related): "A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine." - Thomas Aquinas

"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." - Augustine of Hippo

"If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.” - Alfred North Whitehead

Funny quote (somewhat philosophically related): "If I became a philosopher… it's all been to seduce women basically." - Jean Paul Sartre

"I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous... I am no man, I am dynamite." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Any suggestions on how to do quotes (if you think they should be done)? Should quotes not be done?

(3) Notable ideas and contributions. Instead of quoting a philosopher, I could give a short list of their notable ideas. This is somewhat difficult for philosophers that did not have as many novel ideas or for whom we know little about (little of their work has survived), but not all philosophers are equal. Here would be some ideas:

Peter Abelard: truth-functional propositional logic, intentionalistic deontology, moral luck, moral theory of atonement, nominalism, direct reference, adverbial theory of thought, supervenience of form on matter.

Jacques Derrida: deconstruction, post-structuralism, Différance, metaphysics of presence.

Euclid: Euclidian axiomatic geometry, number theory, optical perspective.

David Hume: reason as slave to passions, Hume's Fork, sentimental basis of morals (moral sense), constant conjunction, impossibility of miracles, association of ideas, bundle theory of the self, compatibilism.

Saul Kripke: Modality and modal logic, deontic logic, rigid designators, necessary a posteriori, admissible ordinals, Strong Kleene valuation scheme.

Is this a good alternative to the quotes? Is it better or worse?


I know that I should make sure the cards are not too busy, but it seems useful to have more than just the names and pictures of the philosophers. Any other suggestions for content?

Jolly Pirates: A Lengthy Exposé of a Board Game in “Dump Phase” Part 1

As some of you may know, I have been working on designing my own board game for a few months now. The project began back when I was working on expansions to the BANG! Card Game, and has evolved a lot since then. I enjoyed the strong theme in BANG!, the variable player powers, and roleplaying elements, but was dissatisfied with the large number of chaotic elements in the game that made it far less strategic (amongst other things). I decided to create my own game to solve the problems I saw inherent in BANG!, as well as incorporate elements I have noted in other games that I really like. The result has been the creation of a pirate-themed strategy game with RPG elements. Right now, the game is in sort of a “dump” phase with far too many elements. I plan on pruning a good number of them, while still allowing enough complication for both "basic" and "advanced" modes of play. This will help introduce new players to the game, and accommodate more casual versus hardcore board game players. Anyway, I hope that you will help me out with pruning; I would love feedback! The name for the game is still not decided: I have thought of "Arrr!", "Jolly Pirates," "Filthy Pirates," and "Raiders of the 7 Seas." Perhaps you could help me pick a name or suggest one yourself! For the purpose of the current discussion, I will adopt the name Jolly Pirates (JP, my personal favorite for the amusing tone I want in the game) to refer to the game. I recognize that this project is probably a gamer’s game, and will not make money, but I hope it will be fun!


This first part in the series explaining Jolly Pirates will focus on player-team setups and possible gameplay scenarios.

Player and Cooperative Team Setups. Differing from mainstream strategy games (say Risk or even Small World), players in Jolly Pirates do not control vast armies and gather resources to sustain or grow them. Rather each player controls 1 or more characters depending on the number of players in the game, and players are often teamed up with others to augment the amount of forces playing against another sizeable force.


In 2-player, each player controls 3 characters and is on his own team. In 3-player, each player controls 2 characters and is on his own team. In 4-player, each player controls 1 (perhaps 2, haven't decided) character and 2 players are on a team. In 5-player, each player controls 1 character and 2 players on a team, while 1 player is on his own team. He is known as the "Hand of the Black Admiral" ("of the Black" is a term used to refer to pirates in the past; the Black Admiral or "Admiral of the Black" was often seen as the leader of the groups of pirates) and is there to punish both of the opposing teams for their disobedience. His victory conditions are different from the other teams. Alternatively, if the Hand ends up being just too complicated, a player on a 2-player team could control an additional character. In 6-player, each player controls 1 character and 3 players are on a team. In addition, there is 1 6-player mode in a scenario where each player controls 1 character and 2 players are on a team. When 1 team is beaten, its players are subjugated, with 1 player getting absorbed into each of the remaining teams. Then 1 of 3-player teams must beat the other.

Scenarios. Jolly Pirates is composed of various scenarios (I am planning on 3 main scenarios) that have generally unique player objectives. The scenarios are in place to both encourage variety in gameplay (and thus enhance replayability), encourage strategic thought, as well as provide more flexibility for number of players. Certain scenarios fit a larger or smaller amount of players better than others do. Thus, at the beginning of the game, players decide which scenario they will do. While I have not picked exactly which scenarios I will include, the following 5 are being considered:


(1) Elimination Match. Objective: All the original characters on the other players' teams are eliminated OR 3 (2 characters a team) /4 (2 characters a team + the Hand of the Black)/5 (3 characters a team) characters on the other players’ teams. Hand of the Black Admiral’s Objective: Kill 3 characters, with at least 1 character being from each of the rival pirate teams. For 2 - 6 players. This is the basic “kill them all” scenario, but adjusted to accommodate respawning characters. There are 2 possible victory conditions: (a) Kill all of the other teams’ original characters. This means that all of the characters controlled by that team’s players at the beginning of the game are eliminated. (b) Kill 3/4/5 characters on the other players’ teams. These 2 conditions balance out the respawning, so that a remaining character does not simply run away and hide for the rest of the game in a corner to help his team achieve victory. However, victory cannot be achieved by killing the same player’s characters a couple of times. It is to your advantage to attack the other player characters.

(2) Base Destruction. Objective: Destroy the Enemy Pirate Ship OR their 2 Campsites. For 2, 4, or 6 players. Instead of having to kill player characters, in this game you have to kill non-player units (NPUs), namely either the enemy’s pirate ship or 2 of their base site tokens. Players of DOTA should be familiar with this idea, although in this scenario you have to defend more than your ancient (the ship), but also your campsites. Needing to defend the 2 NPUs keeps your forces from camping in one spot. Any player characters that die in this scenario can respawn infinitely until the conditions are met.

(3) Kill the Player with the Keys. Objective: Kill the player character on the enemy team who holds the keys, acquire the keys and then take them back to your campsite. For 2, 4, or 6 players. This scenario plans to add a twist on the typical kill the leader (like BANG!’s kill the Sheriff) and capture the flag arrangements; the “leader” is the player character who holds the keys (the flag), a card placed next to the character card and that is visible to all. Each team chooses which of their characters holds the keys first. Once the character holds the keys, he must hold on to them for at least 2 rounds at a time. After that, he can pass on the keys to another character on his team, so that the “leader” to eliminate shifts around. Passing is done by occupying the same space as a team mate. If the keyholder is eliminated, his killer immediately gains the keys (perhaps even if the killer is on his own team?). He then must take the keys to his campsite for his team to win. Player characters infinitely respawn until this condition is met. I am not exactly sure what the item should be –a flag, keys, a map for buried treasure, scandalous letters, or some silly amusing object like an ornate bath brush. Suggestions?

(4) Acquire the Buried Treasure/Medical Supplies. Objective: Teams vie to acquire the most buried treasure; those with the most at the end of the game win. For 2, 3, 4, or 6 players. This is an area control scenario. There are 2 tiles with buried treasure spaces marked on them which will be in the scenario by default. By occupying one of these spaces at the beginning of his turn, a player gains a buried treasure token for his team. There are a finite number of these tokens, which are odd in number. As soon as one team possesses a majority of the tokens, that team wins. If by the end there is a tie (as might be the case in 3-player), the game moves to a quasi-sudden death mode. Tokens are earned until 1 team has more tokens than the others. Player characters infinitely respawn until these conditions are met. I am not certain whether the teams should be trying to get buried treasure (the traditional pirate fiction plot) or medical supplies that had washed up on the island after a ship was taken down (a more historically accurate plot for pirates). What do you think?

(5) Marooned Captain’s Escape. Objective: Team 1--Extract the Captain to your ship. Team 2--Kill the marooned captain. For 2, 4, or 6 players. This scenario is more unusual in that teams have different goals. Team 1 starts on one side of the board and has to get to the other side to extract the marooned captain (a NPU). The ship will arrive in 10 rounds, so they have to survive that long and then get the captain to the ship. Team 2 starts in the center of the board and their goal is to kill the marooned captain before he can get away. Player characters infinitely respawn until one of these conditions is met.

Once a scenario is selected, there is a map diagram provided showing how the tiles should be arranged as a whole (the map’s shape), but not in any particular order (not the map’s content). It also notes each team’s territory. There is also a “recommended map” that tries to arrange terrain features in a more interesting way for the scenario. Players are free to choose to arrange the map however they wish; they make their choice and lay down the map tiles. 


Look forward to part 2!

Another religious phenomenon worth consideration

At church today, I was struck again and again by the structure, power, and significance of the prayers we offer in public settings. Their ability to set a mood or structure a gathering is incredible. They have all the makings of a focal practice as outlined by Borgmann. Pretty nifty!

I suggest that you add that to your list of religious things to devote further thought to, Marty.

Even More Art for the Philosophy Themed Deck

UPDATED 07/20/2012: Started proofing the prototype and asked the POD a few printing questions. Improved some of the artwork. My wife thinks that my tuck box art is better than the Flammarion colored engraving and so I should just use it for the back as well. What do you think? I have it in the card back format below.
UPDATED 07/19/2012: Finished the tuck box art! The original part of the School of Athens that inspired this work is also posted here, so you can see how I tried to model the "new school" on the old one. I also placed the art in a rough template to get an idea of the look I am going for. Take a look below.
UPDATED 07/18/2012: Finished a good chunk of the tuck box art coloring. Finished placing cards in templates. All backgrounds completed (samples below).
UPDATED 07/17/2012: Finished sketch for tuck box art. I chose to recreate the School of Athens by Raphael. I only kept Aristotle, Plato, and Hypatia from the ancient Greeks, and added in Kant, Wittgenstein, Descartes, Husserl, Russell, Nietzsche, Thomas Aquinas, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Hume. I tried to pose them mostly correctly into the piece, and studied some clothing from the different time periods to place them in it. You will have to tell me what you think. Now, I need to vectorize and color it. Ugh, another 10 hours, here we come!
UPDATED 07/11/2012: Started putting art into card templates. Decided on quotes. Created card face backgrounds for ancient/medieval, modern, and analytic philosophers. Progress shown below.
UPDATED 07/10/2012: Added Hypatia and G. E. M. Anscombe. Replaced Austin with William James. Although I originally did not include James due to being unable to easily identify him in one of the camps, I compared his novel ideas and philosophical contributions and saw that they far outweighed J. L. Austin. It felt wrong to include Austin comparatively speaking, and so I stuck James in the analytic camp as his replacement. IMO, while James has definitely had influence in Continental philosophy, and his pragmatism is often a middle road, his scientific background makes him fit more in the analytic camp anyway. This concludes the portraits for philosophers! Now there is just color formatting, standardization, and creating the cards themselves. I also plan on doing an art for a tuckbox.
UPDATED 07/09/2012: Adjusted Card Back art (Flammarion engraving).
UPDATED 07/08/2012: Added the Brain in a Vat and Plato.
UPDATED 07/05/2012: Added new Merleau-Ponty. Worked on card content.
UPDATED 07/02/2012: Added Thales and Parmenides. Revised Aristotle.
UPDATED 07/01/2012: Further cleaning up and revision of continentals.
UPDATED 06/30/2012: Further cleaning up and revision of continentals.
UPDATED 06/29/2012: Added Peter Abelard.
UPDATED 06/28/2012: Further cleaning up and revision of continentals.
UPDATED 06/27/2012: Added Chrysippus and Euclid.
UPDATED 06/26/2012: Cleaned up line work and coloring on lots of philosophers. Also improved the quality of older artwork; the greeks and medievals were looking too good comparitively speaking! More will have to be done in the future.
UPDATED 06/25/2012: Added Anaximander and Augustine.
UPDATED 06/22/2012: Added Rudolf Carnap and Socrates.

This post I will continue to update with art work as I finish more drawings of philosophers, as mentioned in the prior post.

Abstract for my Term Paper

Philosophersof the modern era, typified by Immanuel Kant, defined objects interms of human perception. Arguing that we could never have arelationship with the thing-in-itself, these thinkers felt it moreproductive to focus on our cognition of the objects. This ontology ofobjects, woven through human thought for centuries, has led to manyresults both good and bad, including scientific, medical, andtechnological advances. However, this ontology comes with a cost; ittends to abstract us from the world of objects, fragmenting ourexistence. The disconnect is apparent in our uncertainty-plagued foodsystem. Contemporary continental philosophers have rejected Kant'sontology begun to propose new theories of objects, theories thatilluminate the nature of objects and how they structure ourexistence. The concepts outlined by these philosophers of technologyand objects are refocusing our ontological gaze back to the thingsthemselves. New perspective arms us with tools to understand thecrucial part food plays in our life, an understanding that can be used to develop coping methods and solutions to the current foodcrises.

Art for the Philosophy Playing Card Decks

I wanted to give you the idea I had for the art of the playing card decks. For me, art is an important part of any game, providing the body for the concept and gameplay. Everyone is familiar with poker playing cards, and so adding something artistic for this philosophic theme is crucial. For the art, I chose to find what I thought were the most common or characteristic portraits of the philosophers (for recognition purposes), and then I drew them in a slightly cartoonish style. I chose to add color to the drawings, with each color introduced having both a light and dark shade. Hegel shown above is my first, generally finished art piece to exhibit (it still will be tweeked somewhat). I have finished the line drawings for all of the continental philosophers and I am in the process of adding color to them. What do you think of this style? Just looking for some feedback before I move ahead.

Here are 4 others that I just finished: Martin Heidegger, Soren Kierkegaard, F. W. J. Schelling, and Emmanuel Levinas.









This group may help you think of the art more as a series.

Critical Review of "Food Inc."

     The movie Food, Inc. effectively accomplishes its goal of alerting the viewer of the precariousness and unsustainability of the modern food system. Whether its mono-cropping practices, loss of genetic diversity, or bacterial resistance of antibiotics, the producers of Food Inc. make it very clear that maintaining the current system of food production will ultimately lead to ruin. It is abundantly clear that change is necessary. However, the food system does not exist in a vacuum, and how that change is enacted and what tradeoffs are required are integral questions. Several political ideological questions arise in connection with implied solutions to the problems manifested in Food, Inc.

     A frequently recurring idea for reforming the American food system is to cancel or overhaul the subsidies of industries and foods that are detrimental to the health and the ecosystem. However, these systems of subsidies directly affect the bottom line of food producers, and increases in cost will often be transferred to the consumer. Are we willing to accept a significant increase in price in staple foods that have become incredibly cheap relative to income levels? Will any politician or legislative group that passes laws that result in dramatically higher prices in milk, bread, or eggs be excoriated and removed from their positions of influence? It is possible to utilize local farmers and local distribution to offer quality food at cheaper prices, but it would require a major “backward” step in the long, steady migration away from farms among American workers. Are Americans willing to return to an agricultural lifestyle?

     Gary Hirshberg argues that the only way to achieve the desired results of the organic/local/sustainable movement is to work through the current capitalist system. This leads to major food conglomerates, whose goals and motivations appear to be more closely aligned with profits than with the safety and sustainability of the American food system, owning and operating most of the organic brands. Can the ideals of the minority alternative food groups be enacted on a large scale through companies like Wal-Mart or is a rejection of these massive systems necessary?

     Tony Airoso, Chief Dairy Purchaser for Wal-Mart, argues that customer demand dictates Wal-Mart's purchasing and supply process. Can consumer choice bring about the sort of change that is needed? Albert Borgmann, in his book Crossing the Postmodern Divide, argues that consumer choice is a poor political motivator. The decisions made by consumers, from the producer's perspective, are vague. “Does the purchase of an article signal approval, thoughtlessness, or a lack of a better alternative? Does the refusal to buy show dissatisfaction with the style of the article, its safety, durability, or its very existence?” queries Borgmann. Additionally, consumers are at the mercy of marketing and availability of products when they enter a market. Consumers are not, effectively, free to choose whatever they want. They are only free to choose among the alternatives offered them by the company that they are purchasing from. With these considerations in mind, is it prudent to rely on consumer choice to enact change? Certainly over the course of time good things stem from this theory, such as the proliferation of organic products in Wal-Mart, but is it enough?

    Each of these problems is accompanied by a host of complications and ideological difficulties: Conservative vs. Liberal, Libertarian vs. Communitarian, Invisible Hand vs. Controlled Markets... Given the pressing need to address the massive and unrelenting issues in our food system, it seems we would do well to pursue as many avenues as possible that offer a glimpse of helping solve the problem. In addition to good intentions and exuberant effort, however, the situation requires serious discussion about our goals, what we are willing to change to achieve them, designing the framework of our food system, and what sort of systemic changes can be put into place to promote lasting and substantive change.

Cool contemporary philosopher

I'm always on the lookout for contemporary philosophers and I found a doozy - Levi Bryant. For my current project exploring the objecthood of food, I've bumped into object-oriented ontology, an interesting theory of understanding objects as themselves in sort of a rejection-of-Kantian-theory-but-differently-than-Heidegger-did way. It's worth several long looks.

http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/

Great post on the Analytic/Continental divide

http://bebereignis.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-analyticcontinental-divide.html

Philosophy Playing Card Deck Project

So, as a fun project for myself, I have wanted to create a custom playing card deck (poker deck) with a philosophy theme. I want it to be fun and creative, and something that would be appeal broadly to those that have studied philosophy. My plan is to pick 52 philosophers, and use the colors and suits as categories. Thus, the blacks will refer to older philosophers and the reds to newer philosophers. Within the blacks, I want the clubs to be ancient philosophers and the spades to be either medieval or modern philosophers. While the medivals are older, I do not believe they are as well known as the moderns. Modern philosophers are also difficult to fit into a different category than their own. You will have to tell me what you think. As for the reds, they are subdivided into analytics (diamonds) and continentals (hearts). In line with traditional playing card decks, I will have a female philosopher for the Queens of each suit. For fun, I will try to have a deck with a Joker, and that will be Descartes' evil genie. I have preliminarily selected philosophers for the suits and assigned them card values. I would appreciate your input on any philosophers I should remove or include. Some didn't fit very well in any of the categories, and so they were sadly not included (even my buddy, William James!). I wanted the philosophers to be characteristic of their category. My list of philosophers are below:

Joker: Evil Demon

Diamonds (Analytics):
A - Bertrand Russell
K - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Q - G. E. M. Anscombe
J - Charles Sanders Peirce
10 - Gottlob Frege
9 - J. L. Austin
8 - Kurt Godel
7 - Saul Kripke
6 - G. E. Moore
5 - Alfred North Whitehead
4 - W. V. O. Quine
3 - Edmund Gettier
2 - Rudolf Carnap
Others I thought of including - John Stuart Mill, David K. Lewis, Daniel Dennett

Hearts (Continentals):
A - Martin Heidegger
K - Friedrich Nietzsche
Q - Hannah Arendt
J - Edmund Husserl
10 - G. W. F. Hegel
9 - Emmanuel Levinas
8 - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
7 - Jean Paul Sartre
6 - Hans-Georg Gadamer
5 - Jacques Derrida
4 - F. W. J. Schelling
3 - Arthur Schopenhauer
2 - Soren Kierkegaard
Others I thought of including - Miguel de Unamuno, Richard Rorty, Simone de Beauvoir, Franz Brentano

Spades (Moderns):
A - Immanuel Kant
K - David Hume
Q - Anne Conway/Margaret Cavendish [Any opinion here?]
J - Rene Descartes
10 - Gottfried Leibniz
9 - John Locke
8 - George Berkeley
7 - Baruch Spinoza
6 - Thomas Hobbes
5 - Nicolas Malebranche
4 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
3 - Blaise Pascal
2 - Thomas Reid/Francis Bacon [Any opinion here?]
Others I thought of including - Francisco Suarez, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christian Wolff, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke

OR

Spades (Medievals):
A - Thomas Aquinas
K - Pierre Abelard
Q - Hypatia/Hildegard of Bingen [Any opinion here?]
10 - Augustine of Hippo
9 - Duns Scotus
8 - Roger Bacon
7 - William of Ockham
6 - Anselm of Canterbury
5 - Boethius
4 - Plotinus
3 - Averroes
2 - Meister Eckhart/Machiavelli/Maimonides [Any opinion here?]
Others I thought of including - John Scotus Eriugena, Albertus Magnus, Al-Ghazali, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Nicolas of Cusa

Clubs (Ancients):
A - Aristotle
K - Plato
Q - Hipparchia/Aspasia [Any opinion here?]
J - Socrates
10 - Parmenides
9 - Heraclitus
8 - Thales
7 - Anaximander
6 - Euclid
5 - Pythagoras
4 - Democritus
3 - Epicurus
2 - Epictetus
Others I thought of including - Protagoras, Anaxagoras, Theophrastus, Xenophanes

On each of the cards, I plan to have a caricature of the philosopher, their name, birth/death dates, a note of the main branches of philosophy they studied, and a pithy quote. Anything else you think I should add/remove?

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy Chapter 3 The Elements in the Numinous

Summary: Otto asks the reader to direct himself towards a moment of what he would believe to be a quintessentially religious moment. If this cannot be done, Otto requests the reader to go no further. While not blameworthy, the ignorant often view aesthetics in terms of sensuous pleasure and religion as a funtion of gregarious instinct, but an artist will decline such a theory, and the religious uncompromisingly dismiss it. Otto takes one moment of numinous experience, that of solemn worship, and tries to isolate what is unique about it. Solemn worship no doubt shares common features with being morally uplifted, with feelings of "gratitude, trust, love, reliance, humble submission, and dedication." But solemn worship is not exhausted by these terms; there is something in the being "rapt" that is more. Schleiermacher focused on the "feeling of dependence," and while important, Otto believes this feeling is not unique to numinous experience: such as when one recognizes one is determined by societal circumstances and the environment (think of people's judgments about their power to change during economic depressions). Schleiermacher recognized that the religious dependence was different from the other forms, and suggested the difference was between absolute and relative dependence. Otto thinks Schleiermacher made a mistake in having the distinction being a matter of degree; it is a matter of intrinsic quality. While it provides a close analogy, mental analysis shows that the religious feeling is so primary a datum that it can only be defined via itself. Otto sees this numinous feeling in the biblical text, where Abraham asserts that he will speak to the Lord, recognizing that he himself is "but dust and ashes" (Genesis 18:27). There is dependence, but something more/other than just dependence, and so Otto labels this experience "creature-consciousness" (or "creature-feeling"). The creature is overwhelmed by its nothingness in contrast to the supreme. Otto argues that the term is not a conceptual explanation of the experience, since everything revolves around the character of the supreme, which is ineffable, only suggested via the tone and content of man's feeling-response to it. Otto further faults Schleiermacher by reducing the religious emotion to self-depreciation, and having God appear through inference to a cause beyond the self for this sense of dependence. Otto believes this is opposed to the psychological facts. Creature-consciousness is derived from another feeling-element that has immediate (not inferred) reference to a sensed numinous object outside the self. With an unjustifiably poor understanding of William James' philosophic position, Otto yet correctly observes that James concluded that accounts of religious experience suggest that in consciousness there is a "sense of reality" (in Varieties, this is the "consciousness of a presence") that is deeper in perceiving the real than the five senses. Otto sees creature-consciousness again as deriving from and presupposed by this feeling of a numinous object objectively given. The depreciation comes in recognition of that object, and is carried out by the subject.

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy Chapter 2 Numen and the Numinous

Summary: Holiness is a valuation peculiar to religion, even though it has been applied in spheres such as ethics by transplant. Kantian thought had tied holiness with complete goodness, so that the will acting on the moral law alone was the holy will. But this transformation obscures the original significance of the holy. Like the beautiful, the holy contains an element or feeling-response "moment" that eludes apprehension in terms of concepts. This "overplus of meaning" is what the term holiness denoted foremostly in ancient languages; it was neutral in terms of moral significance. We need to disregard the moral and rational factors in investigating the term, and to help in that regard, Otto adopts the term "Numen" (and corresponding "numinous") for this focus on the holy. Otto believes the numinous state of mind is irreducible to another mental state, and as a primary one, cannot be strictly defined. Understanding is brought by consideration and discussion of the matter through one's own mind until the numinous in one may stir and be brought to life. The process can be advanced via comparing and contrasting it with other mental states/experiences.

Consumer-driven change?

In one of my gastronomy classes, we are currently studying classes and political influence. The current issue I am trying to wrap my head around is this: proponents of market economics (and western thought in general) suggest that consumer-driven choice can affect change in a society. For instance, if we want to change our food system to something healthier and more sustainable, "voting with our dollars" is the way to go. Basically, the theory is that by giving money to those producers that are aligning themselves with our ideals that those ideals will take over in a market setting. This is often done through shopping at very conscientious markets like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. We assume that producers will eventually change their offerings to meet our monetary demands.

However, as we do so, a question arises. Are we really affecting change or merely setting ourselves and our class (well-off financially, educated, and frequently white) apart from general consumption? Will Whole Foods really change american buying patterns or just help us feel superior in our organic, sustainable, educated, white store? Will our consumer decisions do anything for the less well-heeled? Can systemic change be brought about effectively through individual actions or is a more holistic and politic approach called for?

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy Chapter 1 The Rational and the Non-Rational

Summary: Theists, by analogy, project and perfect their human rationality and personality on to their idea of God. The attributes that they apply to God can be understood and analyzed by the mind, and are thus what Otto calls "rational." Religions, such as Christianity, applying such attributes to God are rational religions and summon a belief and faith-based knowledge in their doctrines in contrast to vague, propositionless feelings. Yet it is wrong to suppose that God's essence can fully be understood through rational attributions, even though the rational occupies the foreground of discourse. Otto urges that the rational attributions imply a non-rational subject of which they are predicates. The rational elements are essential, but also "synthetic." Otto's explanation is dense: we have to attribute these rational elements to the God-subject, but this subject "in its deeper sense" is not comprehended by these elements. Comprehending it requires a different mode of understanding. Otto believes this mode must be utilized by mankind or we would not be able to assert anything of the God-subject, and we do this. Mysticism, in its assertions of experiential ineffability, does not mean nothing can be asserted of the object of religious consciousness, but their copious writings suggest there is something beyond the effable. Otto takes this as the first distinction between religious "rationalism" and "profounder religion." It is not the rejection of the miraculous that distinguishes them, but a difference regarding the "quality in the mental attitude and emotional content of the religious life itself." Orthodoxy constructed dogma/doctrine, and in the meantime failed to value the non-rational element in religion and so gave God an unbalanced intellectualistic spin. Eyes have been shut to the uniqueness of religious experience, but Otto believes it is one of the most unique of phenomena. In what follows, Otto will try to unpack the category of the holy or sacred.

Investigations into Religious Phenomena

A common topic amongst some of you and other philosophical friends in the past was what is philosophy of religion, its method, and what can it accomplish? We have discussed the place of theology (and "physical theology"), James' science of religion, transcendental philosophy of religion, and other possible avenues that might be unique (such as the ontological argument; not that I buy the argument, but it does take a different route). In general, I imagine our philosophical thinking in religion (amongst others) shows and attempts to remove contradiction and ellucidates/explains particulars, often through greater distinctions. These particulars are often done theologically (or intra-religiously), working and explaining a text or doctrinal propositions based on revelation claims. I have been interested, ever since reading James' Varieties of Religious Experience, in thinking about and explaining less "textual" religious matters, which are more external, in the sense of at least being intersubjective phenomena. And then I am interested in all elements of subjective religious consciousness. To poorly use "phenomenology" (as honestly it feels all do), I like trying to look at and explain phenomena that have a quasi-religious character about them(religious phenomenology). I wrote a quick list down of some of these (inluding more general thoughts) that probably needs to be pruned somewhat:

• The holy


• Beauty of existence


• Conversion


• Prayerfulness


• Revelation


• Religious testimony


• The ideal (heaven) and the longing for it


• Harmony


• Perfection


• Life's "purpose"


• Duty to the divine and religious guilt.


• The mystery of being (why do I exist, and in a greater sense, why is there anything at all instead of the nothing that might be in its place?). This one is strange, because it seems semi-religious, and yet also a place where the strictly philosophical emerge too. Perhaps it is a place of shared kinship?


• Covenant relationship and Covenant community


• The limits of reason and the feeling of something "more"


• Other "religious" values

Any others you might add to this list? My personal "acquaintance" with these things has made me want to examine them more fully, and the study of them seems a different track (investigatory) than other religious thought (which feels more puzzle piece fitting). I have started my study with a famous book that I haven't wanted to read for some time: Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy. In it Otto, tries to isolate the unique content and feeling of holiness, which he will call the "numinous." You can find it for free off of archive.org if you want to follow along with me. I have finished the first 3 chapters and will start throwing up summaries as I go. After Otto's book, I will probably return (again) to James' Varieties, and from there I am open to suggestions. Some my old Faulconer readings come to mind...

The Appearance of People in Dreams

One thing I have been thinking about recently is when and why people start to appear in dreams, and also when they disappear from them. This morning I had my first dream (at least that I can recall, I suppose) where my baby Liam was conceptually and visually in it. Liam, as of yesterday, is 5 months old. Before then, I had talked with my wife Lindsay on how I hadn't had a dream with him in it yet; Lindsay hadn't either. We talked about how even with each other, we didn't have dreams of the other person until in our marriages, although we had dated for 11-12 months before marrying. It has got me thinking about what tends to hold for a person to appear in our "dream space." I remember that I use to dream of high school friends, and still do of some of them from time to time, but the majority of them no longer come into my dreams. This is certainly the case of middle school or very young childhood friends. I haven't dreamed of my grandmother who passed away almost 4 years ago in a very long time.

What is it that qualifies one to be a character in one's dream space? Is it that they have a certain enough "reality" in one's mind, or that they are an important enough figure in one's life? There may be something to this, but I have had many dreams in the past couple of years where the characters in the dreams have no resemblance to anyone I am close to. It is possible they were pulled from someone I glanced at in passing, or it possible I simply conjured their looks up, them having no correspond figure in the waking world. If the former, it is not the intensity of familiarity that draws a person into the dream space. Though perhaps the intensity affects the probability of appearing in the space. After all, I cannot say that I have recognized a person that was not in the waking world as reappearing in another dream. However, Lindsay, my parents and many friends have been recurring characters in my dreams. What makes them more recurring? The familiarity/intimacy with these people? Often people point to dream symbolism, and here they might suggest that one associates that person more with a certain thing about life. I think we tend to over-symbolize the dreams, since many of my dreams are also straight-forward narratives. There are no "caged eagles," suggesting my lack of freedom, for instance. Anyway, thinking about the appearance of Liam in my dreams has been a source of amusement. Have any of you thought about this?

William James: "What the Will Effects" Part 1

Summary: James begins his article by asserting that all animal activity belongs to reflex action; consciousness is simply an adjustment to the environment. Some reactions to the environment are voluntary and others are not. Surprisingly, James argues that the voluntary actions are derived from the involuntary. With involuntary action, the action is not mentally seen or understood until afterwards. In voluntary action properly called, the act is foreseen, the idea preceding its execution. Hence, no action can be voluntary the first time it is performed. Until we have done it, we have no idea of what sort of a thing it is like, and do not know in what direction to set our will to bring it about. We could not picture it, and one cannot will into the void. Once we get a sense for the feeling and what needs to be done, then we can train our voluntary power. Voluntary action is thus a secondary action, not of a primary sort. The consequence is that a creature with no memory can have no will, and that volitional utterances are built out of the automatic. James specifies that he does not mean a man cannot commit a murder voluntarily until he commits one involuntarily. Murder is a complex combination of movements, including crouching, springing, stabbing and the like. These elementary movements cannot voluntarily be performed unless already involuntarily performed.

Psychology’s second point is that our will needs nothing else but a recollection of how movements feel to execute its desires. They are sufficient conditions. All of us experience ideomotor actions. For example, while having a conversation we might become conscious of a pen on the floor, or of some dust on the sleeve. Without interrupting the conversation we brush away the dust or pick up the pen. No express resolve is made; the perception of the object and the fleeting notion of the act seem to bring the action about. James includes amongst these acts snacking on nuts when one is no longer hungry and they meet no express contradiction in the mind (if nothing stops it from having its way). With such actions, no separate fiat of the will is required. James generalizes his claim: anywhere and everywhere the sole known cause for the execution of a movement is the bare idea of the movement’s execution, and that if the idea occurs in a mind empty of other leading ideas, an attempted movement will fatally and infallibly take place. James suggests this is why the hypnotic subject passively acts out nearly every suggestion his operator makes. When ideas harmonize they reinforce a movement, but when they conflict, they block the path of its discharge and inhibit its motor efficacy. James urges that all our thoughts correspond to processes in the cerebral hemispheres. We know that certain thoughts conflict with others and that certain acts are only possible so long as objections to them do not arise. In fact, James thinks that most of our activity is not best described by a creative architectural volition, but by a nodding consent. Most of the time (James gives an arbitrary 75%) our conduct consists in taking off the brakes, and letting ideas and impulses have their way. Volition would in these cases lie in refusing consent. This refusal need not always be energetic either. Either consent or inhibition may require energy, but not as much as we think.

The ideas that most inhibit muscular activity, keep us quiet, are those of pains and pleasures. Think of the paralyzing effects of the bed’s warmth and of the cold in the room when you awaken. Pains and pleasures most urge us to action or to avoid an action. However, James denies psychological egoism: he declares it is absolutely false that pain and pleasure are the only possible or rational inciters to voluntary action. We can act from abstract goods and duties. Thus pleasure/pain regulates, but need not operate; steers, but need not propel. James believes experience alone can decide which ideas have power, and innumerable objects stimulate us. Ninety‐nine times out of a hundred we no more act for the pleasure connected with the action, than we do for the pleasure of the frowning, or blush for the pleasure of the blush. Often blind reactive impulses are there. A drunkard cannot often tell why so often falls prey to temptation. His nerve‐centers are unlocked by every passing conception of a bottle and a glass. He does not thirst for the beverage; the taste of it may even appear repugnant; and he perfectly foresees the morrow’s remorse. But when he thinks of or sees liquor, he finds himself preparing to drink and does not stop himself; more than this he cannot say. James summarizes his thoughts: We are mobile organisms placed in environments full of things that pull and clamp the triggers of our muscular machinery in various pre‐appointed ways. This is the involuntary life. But these involuntary actions form likenesses in images and pleasure‐pain consequences (amongst others). These images in turn incite to new discharges and reinforce and inhibit each other like the originals. This is the volitional life of consent.