Wacka Wacka

When a philosopher announced that the title of his talk was “Why is there Something rather than Nothing?” Sydney Morgenbesser said to the man sitting next to him, “If there was Nothing he would still complain.”

-from Gerald Dworkin's list of philosophy quips

Why Is Anything Anything?

The website Closer to Truth has a ton of short interviews with modern-day philosophers (and other smart people) on their thoughts about god. For instance, there's a whole section on the cosmological argument titled "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Here are some videos from that section:

• Theist John Leslie says God best explains why there is something.
  
• Theist Peter van Inwagen believes in God, but doesn't like this arg.
  
• Atheist Colin McGinn thinks it's a meaningless question.
• Physicist Steven Weisberg says we should wait for science's answer.
• Apatheist Master Shake uses it as an excuse to be lazy.
  

And here's a video on the relationship between philosophy and religion:

• Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?

Group Presentations

Here are the groups for the end-of-the-semester presentations. I've also included some helpful starter links on your topics. I don't expect you to read them all, but you should at least browse them to see what you might be interested in specifically regarding your topic.

Pascal's Wager (1st on Wednesday, December 9th)
[beginner (plus lots of links)] [intermediate] [advanced] [fun links]
Andrea, Ariel, Caitlyn, Chris, Glenn, Scott

Philosophy of Art (2nd on Wednesday, December 9th)
[beginner] [intermediate] [defining art] [judging art] [music] [conceptual art]
Brian, Charity, Elizabeth, Matt D., Robyn, Todd

Meaning of Life (1st on Friday, December 11th)
[intermediate] [religion links] [Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus"] [Nagel's "The Absurd"] ["Love and Death"] [42?]
Becca, Dan, Dave, Donald, Jim, Kristina

Faith and Reason (1st on Friday, December 11th)
[intermediate] [nonevidentialism] [evidentialism: intermediate, advanced] ["Believing Without Evidence"] ["The Ethics of Belief"] ["The Will to Believe"] [Flew, Hare (reply), & Mitchell (summary)] [lots of links]
Charles, Daisy, Jeff S., Nicole, Sam

Personal Identity (1st on Monday, December 14th)
[intermediate] [advanced] [summary of "A Dialogue on Personal Identity & Immortality"] [identity in general] [Ship of Theseus] [personal identity & ethics]
Eric, Jessica, Joe, L, Marina, Mia, Ta'Neya

Nietzsche (2nd on Monday, December 14th)
[intermediate] [advanced] [common misconceptions] [his ethics & politics] [mega-tons of links]
A.J., Adam, Jeff A., Matt M., Tim

God Stuff

If you've read a good article on god stuff, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, I have some stuff for you.

How should we approach our discussions about god? Here's one of my favorite essays on this:

• "Reasonable Religious Disagreements" [pdf] by Richard Feldman
  

The National Public Radio show Fresh Air ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. (Since they're not trained philosophers, some of their arguments aren't the best. Try to spot their mistakes!) The conversations touch on a lot of things we'll be discussing in class.

• Richard Dawkins pushing atheism
  
• Francis Collins pushing theism
  

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? The media are so biased toward those with opinions.

Midterm Reminder

Just a reminder: the midterm will be held on Wednesday, October 28th. It's worth 20% of your overall grade. There will be a review in class on Monday. It will cover the topics we discussed in class so far:

• philosophy in general
• doing philosophy
• understanding and evaluating arguments
• types of arguments: deductive, example, analogy, causal, authority
  
• what is knowledge?
• Plato on knowledge vs. true belief
  
• skepticism (specifically external world skepticism)
  
• Descartes battling skepticism
• Descartes's certainty: his arg that "I exist"
  
• Nick Bostrom's simulation arg for skepticism
  

BE THERE.

Virtual Dino Comic?

Here's a more advanced version of the Nick Bostrom article we're discussing in class about the potentially high probability that we're actually living in a Matrix-like virtual reality. If you get really into Bostrom's argument, there's a whole website devoted to debating it (including a FAQ written by Bostrom).

Of course, T-Rex has read this article, too:

I'm Certain I'm Doubting

Here are some links related to our discussion of René Descartes and skepticism from class.

• Optical illusion time! Here is a pair of collections of Julian Beever's sidewalk art that looks three-dimensional when viewed from a certain angle. That's a picture of one of his creations above.
  
• The search for truth is tough. Let's get the FBI on the case!
• Here's an audio interview about Descartes's famous argument that he's certain he exists.
  
• Can we be abolutely certain of math claims like 2 + 3 = 5? This cartoon dinosaur says we can't!

By the way, if you have any links you think I or others in class might find interesting, let me know. And feel free to comment on any of these posts.

We're All Skeptics Now

Here are some links related to our discussion of knowledge and skepticism from class.

• What are the philosophical implications of the movie The Matrix?
  
• Here's a summary of the cool argument (pdf) for what I called "unsettled debate" skepticism in class. There's also an entire book on it.
  
• I recently interviewed the author of that book for the Owning Our Ignorance club. Here's the audio interview.
  
  

BS

Want to learn more about bullshit? You can buy Harry Frankfurt's book On Bullshit here... or read it online for free here. Or, be lazy and watch Frankfurt's appearance on The Daily Show.


Some more interviews with Frankfurt about the book are here and here. What do you think? Is not caring about whether you're telling the truth worse than deliberately lying?

K = JTB?

I wonder whether Plato would agree with T-Rex's analysis of knowledge:


In panel 5, Utahraptor is bringing up a Gettier case counterexample to the claim that knowledge = justified true belief. If you're looking for FUN TIMES, ask me about the Gettier problem in class!