Descartes Was So Like Four Hundred Years Ago
Because our house was designed by an electrician so the windows face south & south-east and so the temperature averages about 13C during the day (I'm writing this from the comfort of our fridge), yesterday I studied at the Arnotts. Libby Arnott (who is year 10) had two friends around. It was total Teen Girl Squad at the dinner table. I guess I don't know (m)any teenagers at all, (which is wierd to say, given I'm not long out of my teens) but it was a wierd experience. Three blonde, skinny, pretty girls saying things like "If I eat the rest of this wrap, I'll be sooo obese!" "There are sooo no good looking guys at our school." Except in the art of Being A Teen, you have to say such things without emphasis, because they're sooo like, given. Teenagers are such funny creatures /she says patronisingly/ no wonder everyone makes movies about them.
Just so you Taswegians know, I'm visiting home from the 11th-24th July. Please be at large or at small, so that I may see you.
I'm reading Tim Thornton on John McDowell for my thesis. I hadn't heard of McDowell until coming to Umelb, but apparently he's a significant figure in modern philosophy. He's an anti-reductionist and he follows in Wittgenstien's footsteps in seeing philosophy as questioning the assumptions that produce the philosophical problems in the first place. He sees most of philosophy as fundamentally Cartesian (and he's probably right) and it seems he possibly has a good argument against the Cartesian worldview. So, if he can convince me, it might be time for me to move on too. Although I won't give up my scepticism without a fight.
Today's wacky question: Would you rather live in a castle hewn from ice or a castle built with human skulls? Give reasons for your answer.
posted by The Borg @ 12:17 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Wacky answer: ice, being more secure (unless temperature rises above freezing). I can't really see the point of a castle made of human skulls.
I think if I had sisters, my house would have been Teen Girl Squad all over (sans-creative death, though).
And, why is Descartes so four hundred years ago? Besides the obvious, I mean.
Wacky answer - ice. While I admit skulls would be good at deterring enemy attacks, there are so many good things about ice:
- you could add food colouring and have a technicolour ice castle
- you could have a huge slippery ice slide
- you could drill holes in it and have a miniature golf course, or go skating around the living room
- you could eat it if you got hungry
And, if it all melted on a hot day, you'd have a kick arse swimming pool :)
i wannna come to your ice castle emi! also, with ice, you can play stunts and smash ice over your head or jump through ice window panes and it looks like glass.
Shiloh, Just for all of those ( theoretical) people who haven't studied philosophy or have forgotten most of the buzz words, can you explian "cartesian" in lay people terms???
Ice, just to avoid the creepy bones factor. Apparently igloos have great insulation, you could wear your teenybopper dresses inside if you have a little fire going. And YES it is safe to have a fire inside an igloo, so I imagine an ice castle would be okay.
Ice castles remind me of "Superman" movies that i grew up with, and I always wanted one :)
Skulls, for no good reason...
Cartesian refers to the Philosophy developed (and perhaps assumed) by Descartes. It is characterized by scepticism of the external world, eg "How can I be sure what I percieve with my senses is real? An evil demon could be decieving me." Descartes then reasoned to the famous conclusion Cogito Ergo Sum. The consequence of which is a dualism (a separation) of mind as distinct from world, where the mind imposes "reasons" (such as natural kinds) on the world which is structureless.
I'm not exactly sure how yet, but McDowell (drawing on Kant) argues against this dualism; he believes that things like norms and natural kinds can be derived from the external world.
Oh, and...
Emi dig your answer! I'm visiting. :)
Bron ice stunts: LOL
Ben Descartes is just undergoing a fair bit of implicit critcism lately, as I understand it.
Ice, ice, baby.
Skulls wouldn't be cool at all (ice would of course be very cool... cool to the point of freezing! ba-dom ching!)
What makes McDowell's philosophy particularly interesting is his aim to dissolve philosophical problems rather than to answer them on their own terms. Thus he thinks, eg, that the problems which stem from Descartes's split of mind and body, or his split between me and you have a deeper philosophical source that can be identitified and neutalised. The uber dualism seems to be between norms that structure eg reasons and the laws that structure the world of natural science. Hence we can't find space in nature for norms and thus supernaturalise them instead. But we shouldn't!It's all good, if difficult, stuff.
Thank you Tim.
Are you the real Tim Thornton?
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