Happy Holidays!

"A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will." -Immanuel Kant

To my friends, all of whom are men and women of good will: may you have peace and eudaimonia this holiday season, and in the year ahead.

Nuclear Batteries

Researchers at the University of Missouri have created tiny nuclear batteries (about the size of a coin) that have the potential to power devices for millions of years. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8297934.stm)

Smooth Criminal...Corvid

A raven in Germany was recently detained for stalking a woman...and is now at large after escaping from detention.

The bird has either taken a particular dislike to the woman, or it has a
split personality, Köller said, explaining that the raven had got on well with
its victim's neighbor.

A Bit of Academic Self-Aggrandizement...

I recently attended a lecture, at Williams College, given by Daniel Dennett, the philosopher and Tufts professor most well-known for his work on consciousness and his vigorous defense of evolutionary theory. During the presentation, Dennett referred to those seemingly ubiquitous chrome fish that people put on their car bumpers, either the original verion (the symbol of early Christianity) or the more modern 'Darwin fish'. Of course, the reason the fish was chosen by the early Christians was because the letters of the Greek word for 'fish', ichthus, formed an acronym for the phrase (again, in ancient Greek) 'Jesus Christ, lord, son of God'. Dennett said that, although he did not have ancient Greek, nevertheless an acquaintance had provided him with a Latin acronym for the Darwin fish.

How could I pass up such an opportunity?

For the remainder of the talk (as I was listening attentively, of course), I was busily drafting an ancient Greek DARWIN acronym that would be suitable for the Darwin fish. By the end of the night, it was done, and I offered it (and its translation, of course) to Dennett with my compliments. He has graciously posted it on his homepage - check it out! (It's a link to a *.ppt PowerPoint file.)

So many blogs, so little time...

My posting here has been sparse of late, though you may have noticed it pick up on my other blogs. Unsurprisingly, once the semester starts, my available free time diminishes, and any posting I do tends to relate to one of my classes. I will try to post interesting tidbits, as has been my wont; but they're more likely to go on one of the other three than this one. At least until Thanksgiving break.

Play It Again, Amartya Sen

A Chronicle of Higher Education review of The Idea of Justice.

One significant reference to Rawls (significant for my own philosophical work, at least):

Another challenge to justice—the chanciness of life—occurred closer to home
and similarly left a profound impact on him.

Durable Goods, anyone? (Don't worry, this reference makes sense to fewer than 6 people in the world.)

"Game-Changing" Energy Technology in the Works?

Well, it seems defense mega-corp Lockheed-Martin thinks so. They've partnered with Texas company EEstor, which claims to be on track to produce battery technology by next year that has at least 10x standard lithium ion capacity. Their claims are ambitious enough to be raising more than their fair share of skeptical eyebrows, and cries of "hoax!", but the fact that Lockheed-Martin has, so far, filed for two patents with them at least speaks well of their chances. Green commuter car company Zenn is also working with EEstor on their next generation of vehicles.

Somewhat hilariously (but, I suppose, unsurprisingly, given the secrecy inherent in the workings of Big Industry), the best apparent source of information about the science purportedly underlying this new battery technology is at the Wikipedia article on EEstor. The article suffers from a lack of verifiable sources (bad, bad!) but seems, at least to this layperson, to explain the fundamentals of concepts like permittivity.

Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, 77, Dies of Brain Cancer

The brother of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, who spent over 45 years in the Senate, considered labor, civil rights, immigration, and social welfare programs, particularly health care (as early as 1966!), to be the most important causes he could champion using his influence and political power. No saint - q.v. the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 - nevertheless he achieved much of significance in his political life, including passing minimum-wage legislation twice over, among other acts.

Requiescat in pace.

A Brief History of Craigslist

A neat article at Wired on the origin and history of craigslist and its eponymous creator, Craig Newmark.

Stylometric Scholarship Shaky

From New Scientist via Slashdot: standard techniques of stylometric analysis are "easily fooled" by rank amateurs.

[T]he features that stylometry techniques rely on can be easy to imitate,
say Michael Brennan and Rachel Greenstadt at Drexel University in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. They have shown that people can successfully confuse stylometry
software and hide their identity by imitating the writing style of another
person.

Let's set aside the legal questions the article raises. The reliability of stylometry has consequences for issues in ancient scholarship as well. One example: the question of the development of Plato's metaphysical and ethical thought has been addressed with stylometric techniques by scholars such as C.M. Young. If, for example, we can no longer confidently assert that the Philebus post-dates the Republic, we suddenly have far less evidence with which to understand and interpret the growth of Platonic philosophy.

Philosophy a 'failed discipline'?

So says Michéle Lamont in n+1 magazine:

The two unsuccessful disciplines are philosophy, which Lamont calls a
"problem field," and English, which she claims is in crisis. Both fail to secure
their share of fellowships because they fail to describe themselves in ways that
other disciplines find persuasive.

Naumachia in NYC!!

The Queens Museum of Art presented Those Who Are About To Die Salute You, a (misnamed, by the way - it should be 'We') mock naval battle last Thursday, August 13. From the Queens Museum website:

Those About to Die Salute You, a battle on water wielded with baguette swords and watermelon cannon balls by New York’s art dignitaries, will take place on Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 6 pm in a flooded World’s Fair-era reflecting pool in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, just outside of the Queens Museum of Art. Various types of vessels have been designed and constructed by artist
provocateur Duke Riley and his collaborators: the galleons, some made of reeds
harvested in the park, will be used to stage a citywide battle of the art
museums in which representatives from the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn
Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio will battle before a
toga-clad crowd of frenzied onlookers. The event is free and open to public.
Dress code: Toga. Live music by Hell-Bent Hooker. Beverages will be served. RAIN
OR SHINE.

An article in WSJ; photos from the event; a Flickr slideshow.

Real-life Basis for Aesop's Fable

Check out the BBC News article about researchers demonstrating that Aesop's fable of the crow and the pitcher is factual. Nifty vids, too.

My favorite quote from the article: "In folklore, it is rarely possible to know with certainty which corvid is being referred to."

LOL, as they say these days.

Archaeologists Discover Lost Roman City

In BBC News today:

Aerial photographs have revealed the streetplan of a lost Roman city called
Altinum, which some scholars regard as a forerunner of Venice.

Under the summer sun...

This New England boy is having an amazing time here in sunny CA. I've never experienced weather quite like this; the combination of constant, intense blazing heat, a perfectly blue sky, and the ease afforded by being on vacation tallies to a very pleasant sum indeed.

We of course did the touristy things in San Francisco - the Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, the cable cars, etc. Here is yours truly posing with a sculpture on the Wharf.

The sojourn in San Francisco was all too brief; Sunday we (I and my compatriots on this adventure) drove north to UC Davis, where we are now, enjoying a week on campus for the NJCL Convention. Latin-themed posts will follow...

Five Roman Shipwrecks Found

From BBC News:

Underwater archaeologists in Italy have discovered the wrecks of five
ancient Roman ships in the Mediterranean, with their cargo still largely
intact.

The ships are lying in up to 150 metres (500 feet) of water off the tiny
island of Ventotene, between Rome and Naples.

They are between 1,600 and 1,900 years old, and were laden with - among
other things - jars for carrying wine, olive oil and fish sauce.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...

(Kudos to you if you get the reference in the title without Googling it.)

I will be in sunny CA for the next week, basking in the Sacramento sun, surrounded by the corona of classical studies. (Couldn't resist the alliteration.) Yes, it's once again time for the annual National JCL Convention, this year held at UC Davis.

I will have internet access, but make no guarantees that I'll have the energy to post. (To anyone who's never been, believe me when I say that it's intense.) I'll post pics if I get a chance.

Open Teaching

Here's an example of a contemporary topic - open-source information - that leads directly to a philosophical discussion.

In yesterday's Wired Campus feature in the Chronicle of Higher Education, David Wiley offers his perspective on the value of 'open teaching' - that is, making course materials, readings, assignments, and even lectures freely accessible not only to students in the course, but to anyone at all on the web.

Oratorical style, ancient and modern

A story in today's BBC News Magazine points out successful techniques used in modern rhetoric. As any scholar of antiquity knows, the ancients had a lock on masterful oratory and its principles. BBC readers commenting on the website note the connections:

Ah yes. We like a good bit of "tricolon" and "tricolon crescendo". Popular trick in the works of Virgil, Juvenal, Martial et al. Good to see the occasional bit of classical rhetoric still appearing in the increasingly sound-bitten fluff that passes as oratory amongst our illustrious leaders.

And now a word on the eternal antagonism between rhetoric and philosophy:

As an ex-student of philosophy, I have to say speechwriting is not truly persuasion, as in all forms of oratory, the orator has to make concessions to the crowd to make them think what he says is what they are thinking already. The best way to change someone's mind is through discussion and debate, where ideas can be analysed and demolished to show the other person that your method is the "true way". See the Phaedo by Plato for more.

Obama, Philosopher-in-Chief

Carlin Romano writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education [06/26/2009], describing how President Obama's foreign policy positions are informed by a commitment to philosophical principles from pragmatism to Stoic cosmopolitanism. A selection:

At its core, his teaching was ethical and political, using the intellectual tools of logic to illuminate hypocrisy and contradiction.

Sounds like philosophy to me!

Can linguists avoid dementia?

BBC News reports today on a study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University suggesting that having highly developed language skills early in life might somehow neutralize the effects of physical brain problems in later life that typically produce the symptoms of dementia.

Researchers

"analysed essays that 14 of the women wrote as they entered the convent in their late teens or early 20s, assessing them for complexity of language and grammar. The study showed that language scores were 20% higher in women without memory problems than those with signs of a malfunctioning memory."

Deep Thought...in a high school?!?

As I mentioned back in February on this very blog, I'll be piloting an Intro to Philosophy semester course at Mt. Greylock Regional High School in spring 2010, thanks to a grant from the Squire Family Foundation, as well as logistical support from Williams College. The course is designed to give high school juniors and seniors a taste of the discipline of philosophy, using both traditional readings and curriculum (when appropriate) and contemporary, digital-age points of contact (whenever possible!). Logic/critical thinking and ethics will be two of the areas we'll investigate, along with a smattering of metaphysics, political philosophy, and aesthetics (whew!).

I'll be using my newly-created MG Philosophy blog as one of the main foci for course activity. Also check out the official Mt. Greylock webpage for the course, also maintained by me; it has a few links to get started on investigating what it's all about. Students, the syllabus and other course documents will be up sometime this summer - check these sites often! (But you do that anyway, right? :-)

Galactic cycles might cause mass extinctions

University of Kansas Professor of physics and astronomy Adrian Melott has written a fascinating and accessible piece in Seed magazine noting a correlation between the oscillation of our solar system and an apparent 62-million year cycle of mass extinctions visible in the fossil record. Evidence seems to indicate that, as the solar system 'bobs' up into the Galactic north of the Milky Way's disk plane, it's bombarded with extra cosmic rays originating from the local supercluster. Cosmic rays can contribute to mutation (usually deadly - superheroes notwithstanding), as well as degrading of the ozone layer - both nasty effects which could, just conceivably, trigger mass extinctions on a (cosmologically) regular basis.

In case you were wondering...

about the time lapse between the last entry and the one previous, the last month of the school year is ever a time of frolicsome (and not-so-) chaos. My dear blog suffered massively from neglect as I spent my time in such pursuits as grading large piles of end-of-year papers and projects, meeting bureaucratic deadlines, and so forth. Now that I've got the opportunity to spend time somewhere with wireless internet and no firewall, I intend happily to blog away once more, so that you, dear readers, may be informed about the fascinating tidbits of classical literature, philosophy, technology, and popular culture which I happen to dredge up from trawling the web.

Fishily yours,

Dr. P.

Networking and its critics, ancient and modern

The following is an excerpt from an article that ran in the Boston Globe on June 14, adapted from Duncan Watts in the Harvard Business Review. He's making the point that the more complex a system becomes, the less predictable - and sustainable - it is, and that this is an inherent feature of its very complexity:

It may be true, in fact, that complex networks such as financial systems face an inescapable trade-off - between size and efficiency on one hand, and global stability on the other. Once they have been assembled, in other words, globally interconnected and integrated financial networks just may be too complex to prevent crises like the current one from reoccurring.

It is interesting to recall and compare Aristotle's criterion of the polis eusunoptos in both the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics - the ideal city should be able to be 'taken in at one glance' - at least, not too big to be wieldy. Aristotle not only considered an obvious target - the monstrous Babylon, in which, anecdotally, one part of the city did not know it had been conquered in war until some days had passed - but even criticized Socrates for proposing a city with 5000 male citizens.

The Computer Delusion

This article was written in 1997, but it remains relevant - perhaps moreso today than at its original publication. Considering the nearly-universal public acceptance of the educational value of technology in the classroom, a thoughtful and rigorous dissenting position is worth considering seriously.

Breaking News: Virgil [sic] in Video Game

A review in the Telegraph introduces a forthcoming video game, Dante's Inferno, recasting Alighieri as the game's swashbuckling hero, accompanied by... wait for it... "the disembodied voice of Virgil provid[ing] instructive quotations from the poem."

Should you find this worth a look, the site is here.

The Vaunted 'Reboot' of Trek

I've never admitted it on these pages, but this statement will come as no surprise to those who know me - I'm a fan of Star Trek in all its incarnations (some more than others, of course; sorry, but DS9 doesn't hold a candle to TOS). Having gone to see the new ST movie this past week with some friends, I thought I'd weigh in with some personal thoughts about the film and its concept. The idea of a 'reboot' was a bit off-putting at first, but upon reflection it's a better idea than trying to make the movie canon-compatible, given the little matter of ALL OF VULCAN BEING DESTROYED...I will be very intrigued to see the development of Spock's character in the new timeline. I imagine there will be a whole new set of conflicts; he might feel even more pressure to 'be Vulcan', as a member of an endangered species. But then there's his encounter with the older and wiser Spock Prime. The acting was true to TOS - campy and idealistic, just the way I like it, but in moderation - it doesn't shade off into parody (no mean feat). And of course as a longtime fan, I appreciate all the nods to memorable features of the original (e.g. Owen as the first 'red shirt' away team casualty). Small details were got right too - Admiral Komack on young Kirk's disciplinary board, for instance. They did a good job with the visual presentation, finding an appropriate balance between TOS's vision of 23rd c. tech and what we've seen develop in the 3 decades since.

Problems: the movie continues the Trek franchise's ongoing confusion about the economic philosophy of the UFP - in spite of frequent indications (and outright protestations) in the various series that the Federation is socialist, the trappings of capitalism keep popping up. Perhaps we can forgive the movie this since, after all, at this early date in the ST chronology, Earth's economy might still be transitional. Secondly (but by no means secondarily), the issue of gender parity. Many in the blogosphere are already hashing this out; opinions and passions vary widely on the matter. Do the roles of Nyota, Amanda, and Kirk's mother reflect unreconstructed mid-20th century chauvinism, or not? Worth considering.

Eugepae!

In less than an hour, I'll be boarding a bus to Hyannis, MA, for a weekend of LATIN!

The Massachusetts Junior Classical League annual State Convention is taking place at Barnstable HS. Latin students from around the state converge upon this sleepy little Cape Cod town once a year, bringing the joys of classicism to an otherwise weary world. Their adult Latin teachers and other chaperones are there too, and are just as likely (if not moreso) to crack a corny Latin joke, wear a toga, or engage in heated debate about the appropriate use of the middle voice in the Aeneid.

Pics will follow.

A critical analysis of the "Multiple Intelligences" theory

A segment from Christopher Chabris' review in the Wall Street Journal of Daniel Willinghams' Why Don't Students Like School:

The trendy notion that each person has a unique learning style comes under an especially withering assault. "How should I adjust my teaching for different types of learners?" asks Mr. Willingham's hypothetical teacher. The disillusioning reply: "No one has found consistent evidence supporting a theory describing such a difference. . . Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn."

Teaching at a public high school, I've certainly heard my fair share of proponents of the 'learning styles' approach. It's refreshing to see the orthodoxy challenged once in a while.

Musings on External Goods

Prosperity and leisure are two states which can be either ethically praiseworthy or not. When the natural outcome or result of an agent's behavior, they properly attract praise. As such, they are more to be desired than the mere makaria to which they devolve when the result of tuche. But even then, prosperity and leisure are mere markers of the behavior (and, more fundamentally, the intentional state/character of the agent underlying the behavior). They are, however, natural markers of the makar (as a subset of the eudaimon); they reciprocally flow from, and allow for, the fullest expression or instantiation of the aretai. Considered from this perspective, it is (potentially dangerously) misleading to dismiss them as external goods in the pejorative sense often seen in the philosophical literature. Though not ethically significant per se, it is important to remember that precious few concepts are relevant per se - the worth of ethical thought arises from applied relations. Ethical theory is a derivative of applied ethics, not vice versa.

Thoughts on education and civics, part 4

Here's the fourth installment of the series I began in my post on March 2, and have continued here and here. As previously, it should be read as a continuation of the same overall essay. Comments welcome, of course.

We must, then, consider the possibility that it is the government which is (or at least should be) both competent and empowered to distribute educational resources to students in ways which maximize the good of the society. Such, for example, might be a system of 'tracking', in which, responsive to performance on standardized tests, students are assigned to sequences of courses designed to match and strengthen their aptitudes as demonstrated on said tests. Thus, in principle, students whose natural proclivities and skill sets are generally well suited to successful, productive, and satisfying engagement in, say, the legal profession will receive an educational experience tailored to this specific set of characteristics, and will be spared the wasted time and frustration of struggling through irrelevant classes. The government will be spared the wasted expense, supplying exactly the right education to the students who will most benefit from it, without paying for future artists to take trigonometry or future physicians to take computer-aided drafting. Students will, at a younger age, experience the camaraderie of like-minded and -talented peers, benefiting from cooperation and competition with fellows who are striving for similar goals and whose interests coincide closely with their own. Such homogeneous grouping will also allow for inculcation of a sense of the value of the particular vocation or pursuit particular to the group. Thus, the apparent second option, its features and consequences.

Dido and Aeneas in space

As seen today on nytimes.com:

‘LA DIDONE’ In previews; opens on Sunday. The Wooster Group melds Baroque opera with a Mario Bava sci-fi film in its new mash-up. Elizabeth LeCompte directs (1:35). St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn, (718) 254-8779.

I don't think I need to say anything more.

A new paradigm in ethical thought?

"The End of Philosophy" by David Brooks, in Monday's New York Times. (Nicely playing with the double sense of "end" common in philosophical contexts...) Proposing an emotion-based, rather than "hyper-rational" methodology for making ethical decisions, without thereby devolving into a mere preference-based approach.

Thoughts on education and civics, part 3

Here's the third installment of the series I began in my post on March 2, and continued on March 14. It should be read as a continuation of the same overall essay.


And so, we posit that the government is obliged to provide an education which is responsive to the various diversities of its population. Let us ignore, for the sake of argument, the very real pragmatic problems one might raise here (paying for such a program, for instance). Even assuming that a civil government is fully able to fund and staff such a system of education, nothing can come of it until a central question is answered: who is empowered, and competent, to decide which students receive which education, among they myriad possibilities? Society as a whole (in practical terms, this means the representatives of the government), or individuals? Our intuitive, reflexive response is toward the latter: only parents, teachers, and the students themselves have the relevant knowledge to make appropriate choices for individual students' education. But by appealing to such justification, we have surreptitiously changed our goals and our point of view. Up to now, recall, we have been constructing our hypothetical educational system based on considering the needs of civil society, not of individuals. Parents and students may indeed be the most competent judges of what education is best for individual students. But are they at all competent to determine the needs of society as a whole? Does any given parent, teacher or student have the necessary knowledge, insight, or objectivity to recognize, analyze, predict, and privilege the elements required to provide society with the maximal pool of civically prepared citizens? Perhaps. Yet even if we grant it so, this conclusion rests on the prima facie unrealistic assumption that, in the immortal words, 'the good of the many' and 'the good of the few, or the one' will align. It is far too clear to anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of humanity that this assumption is unworkable.

I took a break to get CANEd.

Boston is a lovely town. All the more when the Classical Association of New England is holding its annual conference at UMass Boston. Among my personal highlights from the conference I attended last weekend:

*a talk on the use of graphic novels (in particular, Gaiman's Sandman series) in undergraduate classics curricula.
*meeting up for an evening with a good friend of mine from grad school who now lives in Boston.
*the use of the term "asshood" - seriously and without any verbal scare quotes whatsoever - in a scholarly presentation. (context keyword: Apuleius.)
*the opportunity to purchase a set of Scrabble tiles designed and scored specifically for playing the game in Latin. (Though I admit that I did, in fact, pass up this opportunity.)
*simply connecting with colleagues. Teaching Latin can be an isolating experience, especially in a small school with no one who shares one's area of expertise.
*generally geeking out, speaking Latin and making awful mythological puns (and laughing at them without irony).

Was Einstein Wrong?

An article across which I've just stumbled in Scientific American, co-written by David Z. Albert, the guy who wrote the textbook I used in my Quantum Mechanics and Philosophy seminar as an undergrad. While the common wisdom about QM is that, while not compatible with the world of relativistic effects, at least it leaves the macro-level world alone. This article suggests it might not be so after all...

Thoughts on education and civics, part 2

Here's the next installment of the series I began in my post on March 2. It should be read as a continuation of the same overall essay.


Any analysis of public education automatically starts with a fundamental tension. For although the ideal goals of the liberal tradition rest on education as the betterment of the individual human being, a government brings its own ulterior motives as a condition for providing such education. The ultimate goal of public education must be the cultivation of educated individuals qua citizens, and not qua individuals. But what practical siginificance does this have? Is this distinction not a matter of hair-splitting, after all? Why can't a government provide an education which, in fact, meets the requirements of both a liberal education and, as it were, 'collectivist' civic training? On an individual or case-by-case particular basis, it does seem obvious that liberal and civic education are far from incompatible.

The full answer to the above objection, however, forces us to think beyond the individual case. Civil government is responsible for the education of 'the youth', that is, the sum total (or as near as is practical) of all its citizens' offspring, regardless of social, intellectual, cultural, or any other feature or ability. We are comfortable admitting this; nay more, we celebrate it (and rightly so) as morally right. Less frequently, and less comfortably, do we ask the natural subsequent question: how should civil government appropriately match students' abilities and educational pursuits? As we have already granted, it is in the government's interest to maximize the capacity of its citizenship for informed participation in the vital functions of democracy; and it is surely unrealistic to suppose, given the significant and multifaceted diversity of our society, that a one-size-fits-all educational program would be anywhere near adequate to provide even an approximation of a generally informed electorate. (At least, this last consequence follows readily given our contemporary commitment to the pragmatic significance of diversity. Should this commitment be reconsidered, the conclusions dependent upon it would of course bear similar rethinking.)

Cool yet creepy

Well, folks, resistance really is futile. From Reuters: A Canadian filmmaker plans to have a mini camera installed in his prosthetic eye. Locutus, eat your heart out.

(How) Are Minds (Un)Like Computers?

As I sit and await a scintillating evening at a school budget meeting, I'm doing a bit of surfing (yay wireless!), and have happened across two bits of intellectual flotsam worth perusing...

1. A philosophical and scientifically-informed discussion for the intelligent layperson in The New Atlantis magazine.

2. On a (we hope) unrelated note, a provocative opinion piece from the Standpoint online magazine about the growth of the culture of 'nice' in public education, and the consequences thereof. One of my favorite paragraphs comes near the beginning:

It is also hard to understand one's own time because the realities come encrusted within such a distracting array of circumstance. The Romans lived through the long and peaceful reign of Augustus, barely recognising, until Tiberius and Caligula, how, with the most delicate republican tactfulness in shuffling offices, he had equipped them, if not with a king, certainly with a master. Under Augustus, they had even developed, without quite realising it, some of the sycophancy needed to play the new game of despotism. Even changes of this kind in oneself can be hard to recognise, except in hindsight.

Thoughts on education and civics

What appears below may or may not be the beginning of a series of mini-essays ruminating on the nature of education - in theory, in practice, and in relation to the existence of a civilization. Make of it what you will.

It’s a truism, I think, to say that an individual’s education – his upbringing, background, the axioms of his fundamental beliefs, his knowledge of history (both the history of persons and events and the history of ideas), his awareness of the accidental facts of the world and culture he inhabits – inescapably influences, if not directs, the development of the sort of person he makes himself. A fortiori, education exercises the same degree of influence on the development of the sort of citizen an individual becomes. This very basic, yet fundamental, recognition of the relation between education and citizenship is among the central starting points of the political theory and thought behind the United States as an entity. One of the primary reasons providing public education has been seen historically as a quintessentially appropriate function of the American federal government is that, since the type of education one receives goes far to determine one’s capacity to shoulder one’s responsibilities of civic participation, and since a democracy requires its citizens to maintain such participation, it is not only in a democracy’s best interests to provide education to its citizens, but it is also an obligation.

Thus far, I’ve not stated anything at all new (although it is important that even the most evident truths be periodically revisited and restated in public dialogue, in order to prevent them from being lost by attrition over the generations). However, to say that government is obliged to provide education to its citizens is to make a claim so broad as to be useless. (Compare the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle reminds us that everyone agrees that happiness is the end of the good life – but it is precisely in determining what constitutes happiness where people diverge widely.) Similarly, we must first pose the question: What kind of education is the government obliged to provide? Not only must we pose this question, but we must answer it, and provide an answer which is directly applicable in policy and in practice.

Trying something new...

My intent has always been to make this a bit of a multi-media blog (its nomen is a clue to this effect, as is the early video post), and I'm experimenting, in this post, with having audio. Hope it works...!

Wanna publish?

If you're one of my phi-lunch-ophers, and/or are planning to take my Intro to Philosophy course next spring, AND you think you might like to have your work PUBLISHED, check out the following announcement from the journal Questions:

Questions publishes philosophical work by and for young people,
including stories, essays, poems, photographs and drawings, etc. In
addition, articles related to doing philosophy with young people, reviews of
books and materials useful for doing the same, lesson plans (include description
or transcripts of student responses), classic thought experiments
redefined/modified for modern audience interests and demographics, transcripts
of philosophy discussions, photographs of classroom discussions, and more are
sought.

Images, whether photographs, drawings, paintings, et al. should be sent as
uncompressed TIFF files (with at least 300 dpi resolution). Written submissions
should be sent in Word, WordPerfect, or Rich TextFile formats (as .doc, .wpd, or
.rtf). Scholarly articles should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style
for textual and citation manners; please use endnotes rather than
footnotes.

Be sure to include contact information with your submissions. A
copyright release is needed for publication. All submissions should go to QuestionsJournal@gmail.com.

Submissions for the next issue should be received by March 31, 2009.

Battlestar Galactica as Sci-Fi Aeneid?

I kid you not. The parallels are presented at the RogueClassicism blog, following up articles in the Guardian UK and the National Post.

Good Lord. I never imagined, in my most fevered imaginings, that two of my most cherished interests would converge in such a way.

Anyone from AP Vergil who does a paper or project on this topic will earn my undying admiration, and possibly a signed first-edition edition of the Supplementum Aeneidos (just kidding on this last). :-)

New Philosophy Elective Offered @ MGRHS

If you're reading this, chances are that you know I teach at the above-referenced high school. I've been running a lunchtime philosophical discussion group, open to any and all students interested. We sit around for a half hour every Monday and ponder the imponderable, address the curious and confounding issues of modern society, try to prove that the universe exists, and such fun things. Now, thanks to a grant from the Squire Family Foundation and logistical support from MG administration, Williams College, and the Philosophy Department at MCLA, I'll be teaching a 1-semester Intro to Philosophy elective in Spring '10 at MG. It's very gratifying personally, and I'm quite pleased that so many students have evinced a great deal of excitement about taking the class. An official announcement/press release will likely come out in the local press towards the beginning of April, but I couldn't wait to crow a bit in advance. :-)

Will the Bionic Woman be there?

Check out the website for the Human Enhancement & Nanotechnology Conference, coming up March 27-29. I won't be able to go myself, but it sounds excellent. From their website:

As an example of an ethical issue, bionic limbs (e.g., for greater
strength or vision) and neural chips implanted into one's head (e.g., for
on-demand access to the Internet and software applications) may give the
individual significant advantages in many areas, from sports to jobs to academia.
But these technologies may hold health risks-similar to steroid or Ritalin usefor
enhancement purposes, as distinct from therapy-as well as raise ethical concerns
related to fairness, access, and general societal disruption.Therefore, it is no
surprise that, on both sides of the debate, the ethics of human enhancement is
believed to be the single most important issue inscience & society in this
century.

Titular Tomfoolery

The Diagram Prize, awarded since 1978, honors annually the 'oddest' book title published in the previous year. Among this year's nominees:

Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth
Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski
The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Philip M. Parker

The winner will be revealed on March 27. Last year's nominees included Cheese Problems Solved and If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.

A daily dose of brain food

I've said it before elsewhere (see here), and I'll say it again: bookmark Arts and Letters Daily, a daily-updated website of the Chronicle of Higher Ed. It links to massive numbers of intriguing and thoughtful and provocative posts around the web. Interested in contemporary culture, politics, the GRE, sex reform, yoga versus lawn chemicals, John Milton, Karl Marx, the definition of liberalism, graphic novels? Then investigate this site. You'll be hooked.

Philosophy-Latin Connection of the Day

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Prussian (German, more or less; nit-pickers on this point reveal themselves as perhaps too well-read in European history) philosopher known for the development of deontological ethics and transcendental idealism (look 'em up, folks, they're fascinating).

Anyway, in his 1784 work "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?", Kant appropriates as a rallying-cry of sorts a Latin phrase, as follows:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity
is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This
immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but
in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere
Aude! "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the
motto of enlightenment.

Mirabile visu!

It's true - I've not posted since October. But I hope to resume, starting with this very post.

A nifty link for anyone interested in contemporary, accessible, non-jargon-y philosophical writing is www.philosophynow.org. It is a subscription service, but their site offers more than a few freely readable links to fun and brain-stimulating stuff, like their Dear Socrates advice column.

Speaking of stimuli... President Obama's administration has been active in keeping the White House blog updated, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/. Keeping yourself informed about public affairs is one of the most crucial (and interesting!) things a smart and curious individual can do. Give it a try.