Philosophy and the Incomplete Cube

Awesome Philosophy Professor.  Accept No Substitutes.

My philosophy professor for this semester was awesome.  We disagreed often, she challenged my perspectives whenever possible, and I am glad to have had her. 




When giving her advice to the class for how to handle the essay question on the final, she said to be brief.

This, then, is the net instruction for the essay question for my final exam in Philosophy this semester, which I reproduce for you now only because I am sure she will never use this exact question again:

"Explain what it means to be a person, a "you," a "me," using ideas from Luijpen, Sokolowski, and Wallace.  Talk about what it means to be philosophical and why is it important to our individual future.  From Sokolowski's "What is Intentionality," be sure to talk about how persons search for truth and how it is related to ethics.  From Wallace, be sure to explain and use Wallace's account of "operative perfection,"how it is developed in person, and how it is related to ethics.  From Sokolowski's "Soul and the Transcendence of the Human Person," explain and use Sokolowski's account of soul and spirit, being sure to talk about why spirit is different from soul and what makes it so important for our human actions.  From his account of "The Self," talk about what it means to have both am empirical and a transcendental ego, and how they are differently related to the world and what it means to be an "I."  Be sure to talk about human freedom and the resulting responsibility from either Sokolowski or Wallace.  Finally, explain a theory from one of these texts that you have not already talked about and why you think it is important to you as a person here and now.  Be precise, give some real detail and give explenations for all the ideas first as the authors discuss them, and then in your own words.

. . . be brief."



(Now, this alone, of course, is laugh-worthy.  And even as I prepared for this essay (and we were all well prepared, I think), I was laughing at the irony inherent between the verbal and written instructions.  However, since the rest of you were not there, let us have a bit of context if you please.  For one thing, it was a timed test, and all things are relative.  Any student who got too wrapped up in one point would not have time to finish the rest.  And for another . . . well . . . frankly, I was in the class.

Egad, why write a dirty limerick when there are entire ribald novels waiting to be composed...!

So do not let my jest paint her in a poor light.  For all that, upon consideration, I misread her instructions and therefore did at least part of the test improperly (wups), all in all I think everyone did well.  All her students knew what they were in for, and walked away wiser for having taken her class.  It is the apparent contrast in directions that amused me.)

And that being said, just as phrasing can paint anyone in any light, good or ill or indifferent, let us remember the joys of context, innuendo, and incomplete data this coming season.  The Politics are coming upon us once again - or still - and disinformation continues to be the world's biggest business.  And, like cars cranking out rap tunes with too much bass, it is everywhere.






Sometime again,
--Coyote

(Calvin and Hobbes are (c) Bill Watterson; ACME and WILE E Coyote are (c) Warner Brothers.  All rights reserved by those who rightfully reserve them.)

In Defence of the Study of History

When I was a child, I knew a man

His name was Mister Forgetful.

And he lived in a hotel in upstate New York

In the second-best suite that they had.

Nobody knew where the money came from,

But his bills were always paid

And the staff always took good care of him;

He could only remember back three days.

We made it a point to have dinner every night

So that we could have a history together,

And I wouldn’t be just some kid

That he’d treated once to a meal.

Speaking with Mister Forgetful . . .

Everything he said was new,

And I learned more of simplicity from him

Than a lifetime of Tao meditations.

But he spent his life on a lonely rock

That was only three days wide

Surrounded by an abyss of I can’t know

With not even a name to sustain him.

Then, one night, he got a package;

A gift-wrapped box with a fine silk bow.

Here, was proof someone knew who he was.

Here, was proof someone cared.

His hands shook a little as he pulled loose the bow

He unwrapped his package in wonder

And when at last he’d folded the parchment away

The present was cold-wrought iron.

He opened the lid

Looked in

Blinked

And I waited, what clue was he seeing?

As he reached in, and pulled out

An old .45, with a scope

An address

A man’s photo

And a silencer.

I said, “Forgetful, don’t do it.”

He said, “This is all that I know!

And besides: in three days, I’ll forget.”

 “Well, that’s true, Mister Forgetful.

But if you do this

In three days you’ll be eating alone.”

 

Sometime Again,

--Coyote.

An Old Play Story

One fine day about eight years ago, I started my oldest two children on algebra.  While they worked, I played toys with my youngest.  It was two different faces of school, in a way.

In the process of introducing them to the concepts of “order of operations” and “balance of equations” and the like, I swiftly determined that what we really need for this was a good easel-style dry-erase board.  We've been needing one for a while, always putting off the purchase for financial reasons, and, well . . . 
 Trying to explain algebra to two kids using a single text book as a visual aid leaves a great deal to be desired.  Still, they were getting it.

There are skills to thought, and to different types of thought. One step at a time, they were learning those skills. And yes, sometimes after class their heads would tend to hurt.  It's like building a muscle, kids.  What can you do.  They were starting to truly appreciate just how vital reading comprehension can be, since we were using reading skills to learn mathematics.  

I was then and I continue to be now of the opinion that if you can read, and understand what you read, you can learn anything that has been written.

But while the Lioness and Laughing Mouse were hard at work, I played with the Wolf Cub - who was quite a bit younger then than she is today.  Aside from being its own reward, this also gave me an idea of my children's anticipated behavior, “physics”, fantasies, hang-ups, and the like.  Not a perfect view, mind you, but a small-if-distorted-by-circumstances-of-play glimpse.  

So, the Wolf Cub and I played toys.  She led the plot, and I followed.

On this day, the game was about a herd of horses and their friend / protector, The Basilisk (we had the toy from the Harry Potter playset).  There were also various dinosaurs, “evil poachers” who kept trying to hunt the horses.  We spent a reasonable amount of time developing the different characters, and having a few comedic turns here and there while the foals made fools of the dinosaur-poachers in a Looney-Tunes kind of way. Notice that it was the foals, not the stallions and mares, who were the heroes of the piece.

Eventually, I asked that we wrap the game soon.  Much as I wanted to keep playing, I had other things I needed to do to that day.  

At that point, we reached the real conflict in the story.  The dinosaur-poachers killed the lead stallion, “took off his blood”, ate half the meat and sold the other half to an armored dinosaur and a black panther for a fortune in American Cherries (“Two hundred and forty one: that’s a fortune in cherries, Coyote”).

The game ultimately ended with the dinosaur-poachers being hunted down by the lead stallion’s children and slaughtered.  The ending scene was the entire herd, with the Basilisk, dancing in celebration upon a vast mound of burning skulls-- all that remained of their foes.
 
(At first, she decided that the lead stallion came back to life because it was Easter... but she changed her mind and said that that toy was now a different horse instead.)

And so, having killed all their enemies and secured their revenge, the horses lived happily ever after. 


The End.


It's easy sometimes to forget that children often feel just as fiercely protective of their parents as their folks do towards them.  And it was certainly good to see that she wasn't afraid of her own power.  But I recall wishing she would pay a little more attention in real life when we tried to caution her about things.  I never blamed her for wanting more power and freedom in her life.  She was five at the time and thus got to exercise precious little of either-- certainly far less than she can today.  However, unlike the foals in our game, she was not indestructible.  It is that illusion of indestructibility that forms the jagged line in the sand between childhood fantasy and adult freedom.  And when she was ready, they were for her and her alone to face.    

--Coyote







(Dinosaur pic courtesy of sodahead.com; celebrating horses courtesy of thewildhorsespirit.com.  All rights reserved by thse who rightfully reserve them.)