Mrs. Whitson

Monday, May 14, 2012

Notes: Spinoza, Locke and Hume

11th Grade Philosophy Class

Notes:

Spinoza:

A philosopher must help people to see life in a new perspective. One of the pillars of Spinoza's philosophy was indeed to see things from the perspective of eternity. page 245
The teachings of Jesus therefore represented a liberation from the orthodoxy of Judaism. page 245
Jesus preached a 'religion of reason' which valued love higher than all humanity. page 245
I don't mean only the infinity of space. I mean the eternity of time as well. page 246
He identified nature with God. He said God is all, and all is in God. page 246
Spinoza wanted his ethics to show human life is subject to the universal laws of nature. page 246-247
He believed that there is only one substance. Everything that exists can be reduced to. page 247
"But when Spinoza uses the word 'nature', he doesn't only mean extended nature. By substance, God, or nature, he means everything that exists, including all things spiritual." page 247
Thus Spinoza does not have the dualistic view of reality that Descartes had. We say he was a monist. page 247

Locke:

"And a rationalist believes in reason as the primary source of knowledge, and he may also believe that man has certain innate ideas that exist in the mind prior to all experience. page 257
Rationalist thinking of this kind was typical for philosophy of the seventeenth century. page 258
"There is nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses." page 258
"We have no innate ideas or conceptions about the world we are brought into before we have seen it. page 258
We see the world around us, we smell, taste, feel, and hear. And nobody does this more intensely than infants. page 259
So he distinguished between 'sensation' and 'reflection'. page 259
"Locke emphasized that the only things we can perceive are simple sensations. page 260
He believed that the idea of God was born of human reason. That was a rationalistic feature. page 262

Hume:

David Hume lived from 1711-1776. He stands as the most important of the empiricists.
His main work. A Treatise if Human Nature, was published when Hume was twenty-eight years old.
Hume proposed the return to our spontaneous experience of the world.
In the time of Hume there was a widespread beliefs in angels.
According to Hume, an 'angel' is a complex idea. It consists of two different experiences which are not in fact related.
Man have two different perceptions, namely impressions and ideas. impressions: the immediate sensation of external reality. Ideas recollection of such impressions. page 265
A person who has never seen gold will never be able to visualize streets of gold.
Hume's point is that we sometimes form complex ideas for which there is no corresponding object in the physical world. page 266
Comparing Hume to Buddha page 269
agnostic: is someone who holds that the existence of God or god can neither be proved nor disproved. page 270
He only accepted what he had perceived through senses.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

8th Grade: William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare:

While Shakespeare caused much controversy, he also earned lavish praise and has profoundly impacted the world over in areas of literature, culture, art, theatre, and film and is considered one of the best English language writers ever. From the Preface of the First Folio (1623) "To the memory of my beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and what he hath left us"--Ben Jonson;

"Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give."

Click on the link to watch a short video about William Shakespeare.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW86UuKqrPQ

Influence:

Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential ofcharacterisation, plot, language, and genre.Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds. His work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes."^[146]

In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now,^[151] and his use of language helped shape modern English.^[152] Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type.^[153] Expressions such as "with bated breath" (Merchant of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech.^[154]

Saturday, April 21, 2012

11th Grade: The Renaissance, The Baroque, Descartes

11A-11B: You must have these notes/questions printed out or in your notebook for CLASS next week. If you don't have this next week for class then you will lose points.

Thank You! -Mrs. Whitson

THE RENAISSANCE

ANTIQUITY = CHILDHOOD.
MIDDLE AGES = SCHOOL DAYS.
RENAISSANCE = THE TEEN YEARS AFTER SCHOOL:--WHAT DOES THE ANALOGY MEAN?

ALBERTO ‘SLIPS’ AND CALLS SOPHIE HILDE!!!(p. 210), BUT IS IT REALLY A SLIP SINCE HILDE'S DAD IS PUTTING WORDS IN THEIR MOUTHS, AND IS EXPLOITING THEIR WEAKNESSES.

SOPHIE FINDS A COIN ON THE STREET THAT SHE NEEDS TO GET HOME AND WONDERS IF ______LEFT IT THERE? RECALL THE CHAPTER ON FATE. MUST ALL OF THIS BE? (AND REMEMBER WE ARE CONSIDERING THE RENAISSANCE).

The Renaissance: It was a time characterized by a belief in humanity, with a focus on the individual. All cultural life flourished, and Rome was rebuilt. People felt that God was present throughout nature, a belief called pantheism.

Pantheism: is the view that the Universe (or Nature) and God (or divinity) are identical.

The Baroque

***The Baroque: is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. The style started around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe.

On Tuesday, May 29th, a major in the Norwegian UN Battalion is killed in Lebanon and Sophie thinks it may have been Hilde's father.

Philosophy was characterized by conflict between idealism, the belief that existence is spiritual, and materialism, the belief that only material phenomena really exist.

However, materialists have historically held that everything is made of matter, but physics has shown that gravity, for example, is not made of matter in the traditional sense of "'an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist'…

RMY OFFICER DIES IN LEBANON, - QUESTIONS FROM DAUGHTER TO MOTHER. THE ACCUSATIONS ARE INTENSE. SHOULD THEY BE?

MOTHER TO DAUGHTER--IS SOPHIE SEEING AN OLDER MAN? IN WHAT SENSE IS SOPHIE'S MOM RIGHT AND WRONG ABOUT 'LOVE'?
DAUGHTER TO MOTHER--DIVORCE? WHERE IS DAD?
NOTICE THAT SOPHIE IS QUITE POINTED IN REFUSING TO TELL HER MOTHER ABOUT___? (P. 214) WHY?
SOPHIE WILL CELEBRATE HER 15TH BIRTHDAY PARTY, WITH ALBERTO AS A GUEST AT A PHILOSOPHICAL GARDEN PARTY?

Epistemology: meaning "knowledge, science" is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge It addresses the questions:

What is knowledge?
How is knowledge acquired?
To what extent is it possible for a given subject or entity to be known?

Descartes

Alberto continues talking to Sophie, and he describes the life of Descartes. Descartes decided, much like Socrates, that he did not know very much.

He doubted the many philosophical works that had been handed through the Middle Ages and he set out to build his own philosophical system. Descartes was the first philosopher in a long time to attempt to bring all knowledge into a coherent (theory of truth) philosophy.

The mind and body interact, but the goal is to get the mind to operate solely according to reason.

****Alberto shows Sophie an artificial intelligence program and Sophie has a conversation with it. Major Albert Knag, Hilde's father, sneaks onto the hard drive and talks to them briefly through the computer.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

7th Grade: Sketching Someone

This next week (April 23-27) We will be working on sketching someone (writing a character sketch)

You need to choose an individual you know well and you will be able to write about. So by Monday I need you to have someone in your mind that you want to use in this activity.

On Monday I will give you the worksheet and the steps we will take to make this activity successful.

***Don't think in sketching like drawing something...this is a writing activity. I will explain it all on Monday just make sure you have a person in mind that you can write about it.

8th Grade: The Gift of the Magi

You need to click on the link. Then you need to print off the short story. You need to have the short story for MONDAY April 23, 2012. If you don't have it then you will lose the points. If you have an questions leave me a comment on my blog. Please make sure you don't forget this.

Click on the link.

http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/magi.html