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.