Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What Obama Says and What he means
This quote is taken out of context with the whole speech made by Obama and published in a local Chicago newspaper eight days after 9/11:
"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with the humanity and suffering of others."
"Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."
Perhaps some who read the above may refer to the total speech made by Obama, and thereby balance these excerpts with a hopefully more reality based response on his part. Obama's method, in many of his speeches, includes an attempt to transcend all conflicts, regardless of any of the particular details; that is, Obama may believe that he can grasp the precepts involved in the conflict and somehow find a universal solution to it, using a humanitarian common denominator, disavowing any national singularity. Personally, I don't understand how any American can transcend three thousand innocent lives. But I have not read the whole speech, and as an American, I must give him the benefit of the doubt until I have more information on what he said in the entire speech.
"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with the humanity and suffering of others."
"Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."
Perhaps some who read the above may refer to the total speech made by Obama, and thereby balance these excerpts with a hopefully more reality based response on his part. Obama's method, in many of his speeches, includes an attempt to transcend all conflicts, regardless of any of the particular details; that is, Obama may believe that he can grasp the precepts involved in the conflict and somehow find a universal solution to it, using a humanitarian common denominator, disavowing any national singularity. Personally, I don't understand how any American can transcend three thousand innocent lives. But I have not read the whole speech, and as an American, I must give him the benefit of the doubt until I have more information on what he said in the entire speech.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
What is philosophy?
Dear Cafe 101
This is not a book review, obviously, but I just want to see if I'm initially following the procedures correctly.
Philosophy addresses all things in the universe which we seek as real and meaningful; that which we can know, that which we ought to do (that is, all of our actions), that which is pleasurable and beautiful to us, and that which simply is; that is , what is the nature of all existence, especially, of course, our own species. Philosophy also addresses anything we may possibly imagine. In addition, philosophy deals with the search for the divine and knowledge of the divine. Everything is subsumed under these categories, which are the realm of philosophy. Philosophy also must deal with the linguistic (written , spoken, silent), artifactual, natural, and graphic way in which all of these are expressed. In addition in seeking these things and expressing them, philosophy needs a medium or instrument to structure the questions and possible answers. The medium in itself is a philosophical problem. To further challenge the philosopher, questions of human subjectivity and objectivity are applied to all questions and answers. That is, what emanates only from us and what is completely alien to us, and how can we connect the two? Consciousness takes on a considerable role in this overall scheme of understanding the universe, and the unconscious also comes into play. There are some, especially in post modern times, who have argued that philosophy has lost its reason for being. I think not.
Regards,
Bob Fanelli
This is not a book review, obviously, but I just want to see if I'm initially following the procedures correctly.
Philosophy addresses all things in the universe which we seek as real and meaningful; that which we can know, that which we ought to do (that is, all of our actions), that which is pleasurable and beautiful to us, and that which simply is; that is , what is the nature of all existence, especially, of course, our own species. Philosophy also addresses anything we may possibly imagine. In addition, philosophy deals with the search for the divine and knowledge of the divine. Everything is subsumed under these categories, which are the realm of philosophy. Philosophy also must deal with the linguistic (written , spoken, silent), artifactual, natural, and graphic way in which all of these are expressed. In addition in seeking these things and expressing them, philosophy needs a medium or instrument to structure the questions and possible answers. The medium in itself is a philosophical problem. To further challenge the philosopher, questions of human subjectivity and objectivity are applied to all questions and answers. That is, what emanates only from us and what is completely alien to us, and how can we connect the two? Consciousness takes on a considerable role in this overall scheme of understanding the universe, and the unconscious also comes into play. There are some, especially in post modern times, who have argued that philosophy has lost its reason for being. I think not.
Regards,
Bob Fanelli
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Commentary on Infinity
Some additional problems with the concept of infinity:
It is impossible that an absolutely infinite series of different facts, each of them consisting of the existence of something at a different moment of time, should have elapsed in given moments. An infinite series of this sort is impossible. These impossible unending phenomena are just that, phenomena in a factual world. They are supported by a series of facts. In other words, facts can not be infinite.
We must apply the notion of the infinite to real things and to facts; that is to the things that exist in time, and when we do this, the notion of infinity has no factual meaning for us. We can, of course, approach infinity factually, as is done in mathematics (calculus etc), but this is a tool for measurements etc., and we never actually reach infinity in mathematics.
We may speak about the movement of ideas, the relation of ideas, and the rational development of these ideas as they logically relate to each other as human constructs. We may speak of these thoughts in infinite terms, but if they are related to facts in the universe, then there is no infinite knowledge that can be determined, based upon the above statements.
We can not apply factual properties to the concept of an infinite God, since the concept of God contains the attribute of infinity, which attribute is inseparable from the concept of God. Since this infinity concept can not be excluded from any conclusion about the deity’s existence, then we may only include the existence of God as an idea and not a fact. This places the existence of God in a separate domain of being, that is, that God is not a fact, but an idea.
Hegel would agree that factual properties can not be used to establish the existence of an infinite God and he uses this to attempt to refute Kant. But Kant did not use factual properties to challenge the arguments for the existence of the deity. Kant merely showed that we do have some sense of realty with these factual properties, but we have no cognitive sense of the reality without factual properties and thus no cognitive sense of reality of God. Kant also showed that these factual properties could not lead to the proof for the existence of God.
Some of these thoughts come from G.E.Moore’s “Some Main Problems in Philosophy.”
It is impossible that an absolutely infinite series of different facts, each of them consisting of the existence of something at a different moment of time, should have elapsed in given moments. An infinite series of this sort is impossible. These impossible unending phenomena are just that, phenomena in a factual world. They are supported by a series of facts. In other words, facts can not be infinite.
We must apply the notion of the infinite to real things and to facts; that is to the things that exist in time, and when we do this, the notion of infinity has no factual meaning for us. We can, of course, approach infinity factually, as is done in mathematics (calculus etc), but this is a tool for measurements etc., and we never actually reach infinity in mathematics.
We may speak about the movement of ideas, the relation of ideas, and the rational development of these ideas as they logically relate to each other as human constructs. We may speak of these thoughts in infinite terms, but if they are related to facts in the universe, then there is no infinite knowledge that can be determined, based upon the above statements.
We can not apply factual properties to the concept of an infinite God, since the concept of God contains the attribute of infinity, which attribute is inseparable from the concept of God. Since this infinity concept can not be excluded from any conclusion about the deity’s existence, then we may only include the existence of God as an idea and not a fact. This places the existence of God in a separate domain of being, that is, that God is not a fact, but an idea.
Hegel would agree that factual properties can not be used to establish the existence of an infinite God and he uses this to attempt to refute Kant. But Kant did not use factual properties to challenge the arguments for the existence of the deity. Kant merely showed that we do have some sense of realty with these factual properties, but we have no cognitive sense of the reality without factual properties and thus no cognitive sense of reality of God. Kant also showed that these factual properties could not lead to the proof for the existence of God.
Some of these thoughts come from G.E.Moore’s “Some Main Problems in Philosophy.”
Friday, March 21, 2008
A Transcendent Address-Obama's Speech Mar 18, 2008
“Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” So says Aristotle in his famous treatise on Rhetoric, which he equated to the traditional dialectic of his day, and which we must not equate with the additional modern meaning of ‘Rhetoric’ as insincere or empty ‘bull’ type of discourse. Aristotle goes on to emphasize three very important attributes of ‘good rhetoric.’ One is “the personal character of the speaker,” two is “putting the audience into a certain frame of mind,” and three is “on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself:” that is, the substance or persuasive dynamics of the oration.
Senator Obama has presented and demonstrated his ‘personal character’ and has offered considerable ‘persuasive proof’ in his moving speech. The mood of his audiences is another matter.
I have entitled this message, ‘A Transcendent Address’ because Obama’s words have an extraordinary way of going beyond the politics of his quest and going beyond the words themselves. He has the capability of presenting the core of whatever is problematic, in a universal sense and in an appealing vein. Moreover, this particular apologetic for Reverend Wright presents, especially to the non-black community, a rare insight into the condition and perspective of African Americans today. I, as a non-black, am able to see, a bit, into the life of things for the black community. Upon initially reading or hearing the speech, I must, of course, put aside, or bracket, the obscene and inflammatory remarks of what Reverend Wright has said. I do not condone it by doing this. I simply must suspend my judgment until I finish and understand the speech. This includes casting aside the obnoxious handling of this matter by most media, especially in the way they have presented only the inflammatory remarks of the Reverend. The media has presented only the hate images of the Reverend. The media obviously has not suspended their judgment and thus all of which they present to the public is pure bias and rotten journalism.
What has Oabam’s Lincoln like speech presented about blacks and whites in America today and how has Obama gone far beyond the politics of the election and presented some insights into the black community?
“That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.”
Those who are non-black can not possibly empathize with the black community. They can not grasp the solidarity and spirit of the experience of those who carry with them the years of degradation, inherited sense of slavery, servitude, and hatred. But Obama’s words manage to place us within the domain of a thriving dynamic ‘Sunday-go-to-meeting’ moment of joy and fellowship, which elevate the congregation to levels of both ‘shocking ignorance’ and ‘sense of struggles and successes, bitterness and bias.’ We can, for a moment, capture the mood of the tragic sense of life in their past history, and with Obama’s descriptions , the joyous sense of this brave notion of hope.
“This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.”
Senator Obama has offered a pathway for all who must uplift themselves today. If the people of Wright’s generation while still firmly in entrenched segregation were able to improve themselves, then the road to improvement is quite viable, and of course, more so today.
“For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.”
Again, we gain some insight into the sense of humiliation and anger. African Americans are more comfortable venting their discontent and anger within their own mileau, just as well as we non-blacks feel free to say what’s on our minds about other ethnic groups when we are within our own ethnic social settings. How many of us can recall off color things said about other ethnic groups? How many of us can recall a bit of the Reverend Wright type rantings? How many of us can remember saying such things, or perhaps just thinking such things? How can we hold Obama responsible for the obscene harangue of such a speaker? Excuse the pun, but he is not his brother’s keeper.
“The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
The above is the most transcendent feature of the Senator’s speech. There is no cunning and deception nor any political mendacity in what he says. It is a simple fact that Obama is close to getting the nomination and he is an African American. What other country is this possible in? Our society is not static. It is a dynamic living entity of our living Constitution, and it is a society filled with the promises and statements of the Declaration of Independence, of which Obama himself mentions; that its theme of unalienable rights did not come to immediate fruition. This is Obama’s sense of change; he is the living proof of the change, as well as, of course, Senator Clinton’s role, as the first female in all this to do.
The senator’s speech is in the Aristotelian sense well put, but it is a speech that must be read or listened to in its entirety. We can not take any part of it out of its context. It is filled with an immense sense of what we may call the ‘archeology of hidden meanings beyond the words themselves.’ That is an archeology of cultural artifacts which contain the abstract human constructs of meaning and values so embedded in our country’s ethnic groups, and so much a part of the whole of what makes America what it is. Senator Obama has given us a splendid oration.
Senator Obama has presented and demonstrated his ‘personal character’ and has offered considerable ‘persuasive proof’ in his moving speech. The mood of his audiences is another matter.
I have entitled this message, ‘A Transcendent Address’ because Obama’s words have an extraordinary way of going beyond the politics of his quest and going beyond the words themselves. He has the capability of presenting the core of whatever is problematic, in a universal sense and in an appealing vein. Moreover, this particular apologetic for Reverend Wright presents, especially to the non-black community, a rare insight into the condition and perspective of African Americans today. I, as a non-black, am able to see, a bit, into the life of things for the black community. Upon initially reading or hearing the speech, I must, of course, put aside, or bracket, the obscene and inflammatory remarks of what Reverend Wright has said. I do not condone it by doing this. I simply must suspend my judgment until I finish and understand the speech. This includes casting aside the obnoxious handling of this matter by most media, especially in the way they have presented only the inflammatory remarks of the Reverend. The media has presented only the hate images of the Reverend. The media obviously has not suspended their judgment and thus all of which they present to the public is pure bias and rotten journalism.
What has Oabam’s Lincoln like speech presented about blacks and whites in America today and how has Obama gone far beyond the politics of the election and presented some insights into the black community?
“That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.”
Those who are non-black can not possibly empathize with the black community. They can not grasp the solidarity and spirit of the experience of those who carry with them the years of degradation, inherited sense of slavery, servitude, and hatred. But Obama’s words manage to place us within the domain of a thriving dynamic ‘Sunday-go-to-meeting’ moment of joy and fellowship, which elevate the congregation to levels of both ‘shocking ignorance’ and ‘sense of struggles and successes, bitterness and bias.’ We can, for a moment, capture the mood of the tragic sense of life in their past history, and with Obama’s descriptions , the joyous sense of this brave notion of hope.
“This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.”
Senator Obama has offered a pathway for all who must uplift themselves today. If the people of Wright’s generation while still firmly in entrenched segregation were able to improve themselves, then the road to improvement is quite viable, and of course, more so today.
“For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.”
Again, we gain some insight into the sense of humiliation and anger. African Americans are more comfortable venting their discontent and anger within their own mileau, just as well as we non-blacks feel free to say what’s on our minds about other ethnic groups when we are within our own ethnic social settings. How many of us can recall off color things said about other ethnic groups? How many of us can recall a bit of the Reverend Wright type rantings? How many of us can remember saying such things, or perhaps just thinking such things? How can we hold Obama responsible for the obscene harangue of such a speaker? Excuse the pun, but he is not his brother’s keeper.
“The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
The above is the most transcendent feature of the Senator’s speech. There is no cunning and deception nor any political mendacity in what he says. It is a simple fact that Obama is close to getting the nomination and he is an African American. What other country is this possible in? Our society is not static. It is a dynamic living entity of our living Constitution, and it is a society filled with the promises and statements of the Declaration of Independence, of which Obama himself mentions; that its theme of unalienable rights did not come to immediate fruition. This is Obama’s sense of change; he is the living proof of the change, as well as, of course, Senator Clinton’s role, as the first female in all this to do.
The senator’s speech is in the Aristotelian sense well put, but it is a speech that must be read or listened to in its entirety. We can not take any part of it out of its context. It is filled with an immense sense of what we may call the ‘archeology of hidden meanings beyond the words themselves.’ That is an archeology of cultural artifacts which contain the abstract human constructs of meaning and values so embedded in our country’s ethnic groups, and so much a part of the whole of what makes America what it is. Senator Obama has given us a splendid oration.
Monday, March 17, 2008
The Beautiful and the Ugly
The philosophy of aesthetics is an ongoing process and continuously heightens our interest with paradox after paradox.
What is beautiful is ugly and what is ugly is beautiful; perhaps an aesthetic nightmare or perhaps a clue to the sublime; certainly this can evoke some philosophical thinking.
“Il n’est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l’art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux,
D’un pinceau délicat l’artifice agréable
Du plus affreux objet fait un objet aimable.”
Boileau (1636-1711), “L’art poétique” chant 3
My meager translation:
It is not the point that the serpent or hated monster is such which art has imitated, nor is it that this type of art is directly attractive visually; this delicate artistic form is most agreeable to us as the hideous objects become the most pleasant objects.
My friend Paul’s translation:
There is absolutely no loathsome serpent or monster
Which, through the imitation of art, could not be made pleasing to the eye.
From an artist's delicate brush, beguiling artifice
Transforms a most hideous object into a likable one.
The serpent and hated monster, by themselves are most offensive to us, and would be unpleasant for us to experience them, but the delicacy (and genius) of the artistic form as an aesthetic instrument elevates such hideous objects to a pleasant aesthetic experience. The key to all this is the aesthetic instrument itself as it transcends all ugliness and baseness. Paul’s translation does this to the original French. It carries through some of the aesthetic tour de force of the original French. In other words, Paul has, at least in part, given us the beauty of the Boileau verse. He most likely could even put it into English meter-verse form and lend an even more aesthetic result.
Some comments on the beautiful and the ugly:
“Beautiful art shows its superiority in this, that it describes, as beautiful things which may be in nature ugly or displeasing. The Furies, diseases, the devastations of war, etc., may (even regarded as calamitous) be described as very beautiful as they are represented in a picture…” Kant, KU 155 (Critique of Aesthetic Judgment)
“…though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art…” Aristotle, Poetics, 1448b
I welcome any comments.
What is beautiful is ugly and what is ugly is beautiful; perhaps an aesthetic nightmare or perhaps a clue to the sublime; certainly this can evoke some philosophical thinking.
“Il n’est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l’art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux,
D’un pinceau délicat l’artifice agréable
Du plus affreux objet fait un objet aimable.”
Boileau (1636-1711), “L’art poétique” chant 3
My meager translation:
It is not the point that the serpent or hated monster is such which art has imitated, nor is it that this type of art is directly attractive visually; this delicate artistic form is most agreeable to us as the hideous objects become the most pleasant objects.
My friend Paul’s translation:
There is absolutely no loathsome serpent or monster
Which, through the imitation of art, could not be made pleasing to the eye.
From an artist's delicate brush, beguiling artifice
Transforms a most hideous object into a likable one.
The serpent and hated monster, by themselves are most offensive to us, and would be unpleasant for us to experience them, but the delicacy (and genius) of the artistic form as an aesthetic instrument elevates such hideous objects to a pleasant aesthetic experience. The key to all this is the aesthetic instrument itself as it transcends all ugliness and baseness. Paul’s translation does this to the original French. It carries through some of the aesthetic tour de force of the original French. In other words, Paul has, at least in part, given us the beauty of the Boileau verse. He most likely could even put it into English meter-verse form and lend an even more aesthetic result.
Some comments on the beautiful and the ugly:
“Beautiful art shows its superiority in this, that it describes, as beautiful things which may be in nature ugly or displeasing. The Furies, diseases, the devastations of war, etc., may (even regarded as calamitous) be described as very beautiful as they are represented in a picture…” Kant, KU 155 (Critique of Aesthetic Judgment)
“…though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art…” Aristotle, Poetics, 1448b
I welcome any comments.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Philosophy
Philosophy addresses all things in the universe which we seek as real and meaningful; that which we can know, that which we ought to do (that is, all of our actions), that which is pleasurable and beautiful to us, and that which simply is; that is , what is the nature of all existence, especially, of course, our own species. Philosophy also addresses anything we may possibly imagine. In addition, philosophy deals with the search for the divine and knowledge of the divine. Everything is subsumed under these categories, which are the realm of philosophy. Philosophy also must deal with the linguistic (written , spoken, silent), artifactual, natural, and graphic way in which all of these are expressed. In addition in seeking these things and expressing them, philosophy needs a medium or instrument to structure the questions and possible answers. The medium in itself is a philosophical problem. To further challenge the philosopher, questions of human subjectivity and objectivity are applied to all questions and answers. That is, what emanates only from us and what is completely alien to us, and how can we connect the two? Consciousness takes on a considerable role in this overall scheme of understanding the universe, and the unconscious also comes into play. There are some, especially in post modern times, who have argued that philosophy has lost its reason for being. I think not. Look at the above and join me by participating in this Blog.
Regards,
Bob
Regards,
Bob
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