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Meditations on the Meditations

I finished reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations a few days ago, though in my reading, I read through it fairly quickly, focused primarily on the surface content of the meditations rather than, well, meditating on them. I’m glad I did that, It serves to give me a good overview of a work, and build a sense of context for various parts of the work. However, in a move rather uncharacteristic of me, I’m going back and re-reading it almost immediately after finishing, this time at a slower pace to try to absorb much more nuance, and for this especially, to “meet” Marcus through this encounter with a dialogue between himself and himself - perhaps contrasting who he hopes to be with who he his, though I don’t think the two are always so distinct in this work.

Book 1 of the meditations is a list of acknowledgements of people and the particular qualities that they had that Marcus admired and perhaps attempted to emulate. It is interesting to see the things that he admired in others - patience, focus, compassion, serenity, centeredness, justice, and something like a sense of scale. In the acknowledgment to his adoptive father Antoninus Pius, one of the things he picks out is his willingness to ungrudgingly defer to those with some special ability. I take this to be willingness to hear the reasonings of experts and learn from and be guided by them - this from a Roman Emperor. This speaks to me of an acknowledgement of some good and some truth beyond one’s own will, and a humility before that which would permit one to be guided and learn from another, even though in a position of authority. This sheds light on a particular idea of humility, which seems usually to be taken to mean something like a modest estimation of one’s own ability, position, etc. But in the ideal Marcus mentions here (and I would say supported by other things he says throughout the meditations) there is a sort of humility which comes by not focusing on on oneself at all, but focusing rather on bigger things. For Marcus, this would certainly be virtue and the “will of the Gods” - such a focus causes the self to fade into the background. If one loves truth, one will defer to experts, if one loves oneself, one will expect the deference of experts. Popular humility would retain a focus on the self, if only to say “I am not that great.”

This idea of humility fits organically with a few other things from the Meditations - the idea of focused action - acting according to reasons and in accordance with god/nature. Humility of this sort follows, because of the focus on action in accord with reason, rather than self aggrandizement. So to the frequent exhortations against the opinion of others, against fame as a motivating force, against shame before others, etc.  All of these things shift one’s focus of attention out into the world in a strange sort of way. Strange, because the stated goal is really a kind of turning away from the world (the low opinion of “externals”). But I suppose the world comes back in as the locus of action - where the will works and is tested, and a person comes to know themselves not by the opinions of others - fame and acclaim - but through their work in the world and in resisting the pressures of the world. In this way, Stoicism, and especially Marcus Aurelius seems incredibly focused on the human being as agent, and minimizes the importance of human being as consciousness.

Another thought that strikes me in reflecting on the Meditations is the idea of surrender. In the beginning of book 2, Marcus exhorts himself: “Today, I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, trecherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil… I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsaman or hate him…” This exemplifies a kind of Stoic surrender - a surrender to all of the ways and workings of the world, the “love of fate”, all of that surrendered, though, as not part of one’s own nature, over which one is absolutely soverign. Our “nature” comprises, in part, the judgments we make about externals (ie. getting angry at the meddling ungrateful people) and over that we have absolute control, but here too, there is a sort of surrender involved. One “surrenders” to one’s own divine nature, one’s reason - the “power” relationship in the fortress of the self reminds me of Kant’s kingdom of ends - one is both ruler and subject. For the Stoic, reason and integrity (which are deeply linked, I think) generate the laws of action, and to be reasonable and integral is to follow those laws with a fully committed heart.

It is this surrender that contributes greatly to the sense of tranquil sadness that permeates the Meditations. It is both a turning away from life, and a full embrace of it, it remins me of what little I understand of the Taoist principle of Wei Wu Wei, which I heard translated as “acting-non-acting”, a sort of emptiness that allows one to accord with nature, and perhaps in some sense “to be acted by nature” rather than “acting naturally.” The sadness, perhaps comes from the nature of the surrender that Marcus seems to talk about - perhaps born of depression, of a disgust at the world that does not even reject the world, but simply relaxes his grip on it as the strength of attachment bleeds out his arm. For Marcus it would seem life is not hell, however, it is a sort of purgatory - I think back to Dante, and the difference between hell and purgatory in the divine comedy.

2010 03 03 Notebooks
Philosophy
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Epictetus Pt 2

I finished reading Epictetus yesterday. There was really nothing especially new later on in the book - mostly it was just different ways of approaching the same themes, questioning and applying the themes in different concrete situations. I’m sure a more careful and erudite reading would reveal nuance between passages that I’m not picking up on, but at least for my level, there is very little more to report on. I have a general idea of how Epictetus thinks, and the major philosophical themes, and the details are in there somewhere, ready to germinate and flower after more digesting, remembering, etc.

I did, however, have an opportunity to think a bit more about what I’ve found troubling about Epictetus, and Bernard Williams has come in to help, especially his criticism of utilitarianism. One of William’s more damning critiques has to do with the concept of a “life project”. This life project is what makes life worth living for an individual - it may be their family, it may be playing chess, it may be any number of things. These things can change in the span of one’s life, there may be more than one of them, they may come into conflict in various ways, etc. Now, this creates a problem for Utilitarianism, according to Williams, because it is only in reference to a life project that life becomes worth living in the first place - that things come to be valuable, and perhaps to some extent even pleasurable. However, because Utilitarianism requires that we treat our own life projects as simply “one good among many” that we have no special relation to, we can be easily put into situations where our own life projects must entirely be put aside because we are near the right “causal levers” to raise overall utility at the expense of our own life project. The problem for the Utilitarian is that it seems to require that we undermine the source of all value in pursuit of value because it fails to respect the primacy of life projects.

Now, there are I think all sorts of questions, and perhaps challenges for William’s account of a life project. However, I also think that there is something fundamentally correct about this. But how does it relate to Epictetus and Stoic ethics? I think Stoicism actually faces a similar problem with respect to life projects, because of the attitude it takes towards “externals.” Anything outside of our own wil and attitude is an external, and as such, we should not view it as a good or an evil. So, the stoic should be indifferent toward pain, because pain is an external, it is only the judgment that pain is bad which is really bad. Now, setting aside whether this is actually true (I suspect it may not be), there is the question of what remains as “good” one the stoic has become detached from all externals. The remaining good seems to be something between “freedom” and a sort of serenity, being undisturbed by life.

Now both of these have problems associated with them. The stoic “apetheia” - this calm and tranquility in the face of life’s problems seems at first to be a pretty unproblematic goal. However, the essential orientation of apetheia seems to take life itself as a sort of problem that one must endure - the goal seems to be primarily not to get “knocked about” by the pains and pleasures of life, and maintain a sort of quiet poise. The question here, however, is why one should bother with life at all, if this is the fundamental orientation toward life? Indeed, Epictetus addresses the question of suicide a number of times through the discourses and Enchiridion, and there seem to be two messages. The first is that life is not “yours” to dispose of in the first place - it belongs to the gods to call you away from when they see fit. The second is the repeated refrain that “the door is open” - so that if life puts you into a situation that is utterly unredeemable, then one may, in fact, kill oneself. But I’m not sure how one is supposed to distinguish the bearable from the unbearable given that the world is full of “indifferents”, and anything else is absolutely under one’s own control, so in principle, nothing should be worrisome enough to force a person to take their own life (though, like Socrates, one may unflinchingly allow for another to take one’s own life rather than betray one’s principles, for example).

The only remaining response seems to be that “life is not yours to dispose of” in the first place - but this is pretty unsatisfying at first blush, especially if one does not accept that one does not “own” one’s own life. But we can give a consistent stoic “defense” of this - that proper stoic detachment from externals would not give one a positive reason to commit suicide either, but here, life is just a matter of utter indifference (something Epictetus says numerous times). All that matters is maintaining one’s virtue, though it’s not clear from the stoics why this should even be the case, except that virtue protects one from the problems of life. I don’t think the Stoics believed in an eternal soul - at least not a personal one, perhaps something more like an absorbtion into the whole of “mind”, so it seems like if life doesn’t matter, then neither does virtue.

This dovetails into the second problem - which is the value of freedom itself. Freedom is supposed to be valuable because it allows one to “do what one wills” and experience only what they want, and avoid what they do not want. Of course, Stoic freedom amounts to putting one’s will in accord with what actually happens - amor fati. However, again, it isn’t quite clear why any of this should matter either, because the freedom of the will is simply the option to remain unperturbed by life - that is the only thing that should really matter for a Stoic, and indifferents can be dealt with, but never truly valued. But without anything of real value - why bother. In Platonic terms, all “goodness” for the Stoic seems to be a kind of relief from suffering - a negative good. There seems to be no room for positive goods at all.

And here is where the Williams style critique comes in -  life projects are positive goods, and perhaps good by stipulation, but for anything to become a positive good, one must get involved - deeply involved - with stoic “externals.” And that means opening oneself up to the possibility of tragedy,of suffering, as well as to joy and perhaps a kind of attachment. Now, I don’t think that this derails Stoicism entirely - I think there is much to be said for Stoicism as a way of ordering one’s life and stripping away what doesn’t really matter. On the other hand, I think that there is a place where such stripping away needs to stop - one strips away the value of “indifferents” for the sake of something that does matter. For the Stoic, all that matters seems to be a kind of tranquility, a retreating from life in order to preserve oneself as a kind of person. I think, however, there is something stunted and incomplete about Stoic personhood - it seems to turn into a merely formal integrity, bought by keeping away anything that could violate it. But what use is strength if it goes unused? It seems like Stoicism is a technique, a discipline, a kind of spiritual practice, but again, in the furtherance of other ends. I think Stoicism, in essence, faces the same problem as Kantianism is accused of - being an empty formalism. However, like Kantianism, I think there is probably a fix if one simply treats it as a part of the ethical whole, rather than itself the ethical whole.

I realize that much of thismay be based on a poor reading of epicterus - and indeed, perhaps mycriticisms are off the mark, and Epictetus is actually aiming for something more like what I take the solution to be (at times, he seems to be, at times he seems to be aiming more at what I targeted for ciriticism). However, this process does help me to think through Epictetus a bit more.

2010 02 27 Philosophy Comments (0) Permalink

Epictetus Pt 1

Among other things this week, I’ve been reading some Epictetus - “Discourses and Selected Writings”, and I’m just about through the Discourses. I’ve chosen to read Epictetus in part because of the desire to have a good foundation in ancient Greek philosophy for its own sake and in part because of the importance that such a foundation has for understanding what has come after. Aside from knowing that Epictetus is a Stoic, and having a fairly nebulous idea of what that meant, I didn’t really know what to expect from this reading. Thus far, however, it’s been incredibly interesting, both for the strengths exhibited, as well as the deep flaws, which seem to be one in the same thing.

The central “point” of the Discourses thus far has been the Stoic idea of the good, which is nothing more than to be virtuous. Virtue consists only in things you have direct control over - things are only good or bad insofar as they reflect qualities of the will. “Externals” - anything external to the will is neither good nor bad. Wealth, health, pain, power, sex, friendship - all of these things count as externals to the Stoic, and thus are not good or bad in any sense. All that is good is the way you respond to these things, which are “impressions”. To be brave in the face of pain is good, to complain is bad - to be temperate in food and sex is good, to be intemprate is bad. The Stoic ideal seems to be an aloofness from all worldly considerations - a complete and thoroughgoing “non-attachment” that is not ascetic, but indifferent. There are certainly some strong parallells to what I know of Taoist and Buddhist thought. Aside from the doctrine of non-attachment, there is also a compassion borne of the fact that all wrongdoing by others is seen to come from a state of ignorance of what is good. If a person steals from you, they are ignorant of the good, and are to be the objects of pity, not scorn. the only things that truly matter (for Epictetus, if not all Stoics) are living according to the will of God - which means an acceptance of whatever happens without a resignation to pure fatalism (which would prompt us not to act at all). One cares about what one does, because that is under your control - the consequences of these actions are indifferent, since that is not under one’s control.

This is a really interesting world-view for a number of reasons, both personal and professional. On the professional level, this reveals a drastically different understanding of will than that which underlies the free will debate. The questions of the free will debate would be utterly incoherent to this way of thinking, because the Stoic will has much less to do with causality, and much more to do with identity. This certainly accords with the sort of move I want to make in my own work in dealing with moral responsibility. One thing that is really interesting about this, however, is that the will is non-corporeal. It is held in opposition to the body and the physical, and thus anything “of the world” is contrasted with the spiritual. Now, I’ not sure of the metaphysics that underlie this claim either way (I don’t think contemporary Cartesian categories would map on in any way to the Stoic distinction). What is interesting, however, is the fact that the metaphysics don’t really seem to matter, because this Stoic seperation of the will is not done to bring the will of the Stoic out of the causal chain, but simply to distinguish it from the “non-self” - that over which one has no control.

The other interesting  feature is the focus on control itself, and how the idea of control in Epictetus is really “controled by reason.” Again and again I’ve seenpreludes to Kant, especially on the focus on control and luck - and that which results from luck is irrelevant (morally for Kant, and for the Stoic irrelevant period.) Now, there is something both alluring and disturbing about this view. By limiting the domain of the good to the will, the Stoic becomes all-powerful within that limited domain. Epictetus repeatedly says that”not even Zeus” can interfere with the will, that’s how free it is. However, the domain is fairly limited, and there is prescribed a great deal of disengagement with the world in order to retain calm and control. One is to be indifferent to imprisonment, death, friendships, life, and love - one’s only concern is how one chooses to exercise ones will in the various situations in life. Now, as it turns out, having a good will entails certain attitudes towards others - fellow feeling, friendship, etc can grow out of these things, but as soon as these things go wrong, one is really not supposed to care (and indeed, also if they go well). The focus on the will and the will alone detaches from the world in a way that is at least insular, if not downright quietism.

Now, this doesn’t prescribe a disengagement with the world, or a lack of trying. One engages in projects, one tries to do things, but emotional engagement and valuation stop and end with the will. One tries to be a friend, but if that doesn’t work out, then the Stoic is indifferent. This ideal seems at once appealing and appalling. It is appealing because it basically says that once one has done whatever one can do, there is no sense worrying or fretting and creating difficulty by suffering over the success and failure of one’s enterprises.  It is appaling because there seems to be something of value missing connected to the idea of emotional investment - the Stoic seems to march through life concerned only with personal efficacy, but somehow missing the fact that efficacy matters because of the world one lives in. It seems to the stoic that living in the world is something like an inconvenience (though not one worthy of complaint) that one simply deals with until one dies. One defines trouble away rather than endure it as trouble, as suffering, as pain - the ideal of plucking out ones eye if it gives you trouble. Something about this seems dehumanizing and personally mutilating - excessively “on defense” and never engaging to grow into the world and truly engage it. This criticism is difficult to voice because in some sense, it seems to be a stoic critique itself - accusing stoicism of being too self-involved with virtue, rather than risking an engagement with life where one might really and truly suffer. But to treat that suffering as somehow justified by life seems itself a kind of stoicism.

I’ll certainly be thinking about this more as I continue to read, and I’ve got at least one more Stoic to read after this (Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations).  I may also read a bit of Seneca and Cicero, before moving on (eventually) to Plotinus.

2010 02 26 Philosophy Comments (0) Permalink

Emerson Redux

I just finished reading the “Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson” - a fairly large hunk of assorted essays, poems, and political speeches that Emerson gave in his lifetime. I’ve blogged about Emerson before - at all times having gotten partway through this 850 page book, this is the first time I ever finished it, and with it (and with the previous partial readings, and bits of Emerson that I’ve read elsewhere) I think I am starting to have a context of Emerson in which I can read individual essays within, a “large scope” picture of the man’s thought, which is to say, I’m starting to really get to know him.

The central spine of my understanding centers around the high regard that Emerson had for authenticity, which found its way into his writing in a number of ways: the regard for independant thinking, the view of religion vs a sort of natural spirituality, his acclaim for nature, for labor, for liberty. These things were all symbols for this sort of authenticity (and that everything was a symbol was his very interesting form of Platonism) - but it’s important to note that this symbolism was not mistaken for authenticity itself. He used the idea of folksy wisdom to contrast against the sort of learned pretensions of the scholar, but this was not a condemnation of the scholar, just he pretensions that seemed to often attend upon that office. Emerson was at times a Platonist, very much a Kantian, and beneath it all a pragmatist - and I certainly feel a sense of resonance with all of these aspects of him.

He also seems to have deep libertarian commitments. This is something I both struggle with, and learn from. Emerson’s libertarianism is counterbalanced by a sincere commitment to the good of others, of individual charity, kindness, and goodness that plays the role that the state is supposed to play in liberal thought. The trouble, of course, is that people seem to rarely be that kind and good, and if the state does not intervene, the poor suffer. But I can at least understand that libertarianism as a sort of idealism - not mere selfishness, but a sincere belief that it is everyone’s duty to help each other out without the coercive influence of the state. That such a scheme does not work is more testament to the need for more development of our character - in an ideal world, we would be free in all the ways that libertarians like, and the role of the state would be filled by a robust and honest conscience. It is good to be able to occupy that state of mind, to understand that position without villifying it as selfishness.

His Platonism, too, is very interesting, both fantastic and realistic - ambitious and wild in its claims, but borne out not through enthusiasm or even argument, but by simply pointing at the world. I get the sense sometimes of a thought on the threshold of Emerson’s Platonism - never stated, perhaps not even thought by him, but germinating in the fertile ground of what he did write. It is a practical Platonism - where these forms are real not because passively recieved, but because actively lived by us. These things become symbols because we live them as symbols, and navigate the world using the magical lines they trace across nature - a tracing that we cannot do willy-nilly, but which must track the truth in it’s own way even as it constructs it. Perhaps it constructs, but must be true to the materials it uses.

I am anxious to read more emerson now, actually - though maybe a biography or some of the surrounding history, to expand my context a bit to his world.

2010 02 20 Art
Literature
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To Teach

Today has been a good day thus far - it’s my first “real” day off in quite a while. I sent my supervisor a draft of Chapter 3 on Monday (and dropped off a hard copy yesterday), and so I’ve taken today as a honest to goodness day off (rather than a day where I do no real work due to exhaustion, but feel bad about that all day). I have played video games for a bit, and did a bit of reading (Emerson, who doesn’t count as work). All in all, it’s been very pleasant.

I also got some interesting news today - I will be teaching a course this summer. Teaching. Not TAing. This will be the first class of my own that I’ll have the opportunity to teach, and it will be intro to ethics (which is about as comfortable a course as I could hope to teach).  The idea of it is both exciting, as well as a bit nervous. I’ve spent lots of time training to teach at the teaching center, and I’ve gotten lots of TA experience, done a fill in lecture here and there, but this will be the first time I’ll have the opportunity to design a course, and have my own students for a full term (though the summer terms are also accelerated, which is unfortunate). I’ll need to pick a textbook, pick the readings I want them to do, make lesson plans for 20 classes (I think), and go in and give lessons twice per week. The pay will also be a bit better than my TA rate, and it will be much more than I typically make over the summer (given that if I TA at all over the summer, its typically fairly sparse), so that will be nice. But its going to be my own class, and I’ll really get an opportunity to see if I am a good teacher, and if, having a consistent experience of it, whether I truly love teaching as I think I do.

I’ve actually thought about what I would do in teaching a course many times over - planning the overall idea of the course, how I would introduce and teach certain material. I have always tended to focus on phil 100 - The idea of introducing new people to philosophy is an enchanting idea to me, but intro to ethics gives me the opportunity to focus in an area that I’ve come to know quite well by now. I think the opportunity to teach it will further increase my knowledge and understanding - especially figures I’m less focused on, like Hobbes (if I even do Hobbes), and Aristotle, who I feel like I’m on the cusp of having a fairly good understanding of. But really, the joy will be in teaching, in having the opportunity to test whether this desire to teach which has been with me for quite some time now will carry through, whether my abilities match my ambitions.

We will see come Summer.

2010 02 10 Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

On Reading Emerson

I have been getting work done on my dissertation - yesterday I revised my draft of chapter 3, and I think I will be able to get it out by the end of the weekend to my supervisor. Aside from this, I’ve also gone back to doing some of my own reading (as opposed to the reading I do for my work). Earlier this week, I decided to go back to Emerson - I have a large volume of “essential” essays and poems he wrote that I’ve never finished. And, as I’ve consistently found, Emerson is wonderful to read when I’m feeling down, disconnected, or listless, because he always re-inspires me.

As I’ve been reading, I’ve been keeping an eye to picking out a clearer understanding of Emerson’s thought. As I’m sure I’ve written here before, reading Emerson is different than reading most other philosophy. There are clear differences on the surface - Emerson is much more poetic, much more taken to metaphor and rhetorical flair than most philosophers. Reading him like one might read most philosophers can leave things seemingly incomplete or baseless - the “points” he makes are not argued according to some deductive fashion. Instead, Emerson’s writing pulls on the heart. For me, he seems mostly to write by attempting to remind people of things they already know through their own experience. His writing is incomplete in itself because it points back - out into the world, into the reader’s own life. One cannot read Emerson without living - though most any life will do. Emerson seems often to point back at the power of authenticity - of a life lived in accord with a quiet inner light or clarity that is rich with both purpose and wisdom. I think that his prose and his arguments are impenetrable insofar as one is alienated from the things Emerson attempts to point at in our own lives - when we pretend we don’t understand, expecting to be led through some deductive argument to a conclusion that we need contribute nothing to. Despite it’s rhetorical flair, Emerson’s writing is austere and stoic, simply because it refuses to provide all that might be needed in itself. It respects the reader by expecting of him or her a certain self reliance. It points without holding hands, and at its best, it absolutely refuses to lead.

Of course, Emerson also writes sometimes as if the personal was transpersonal - that his insights are themselves universal - times where he does less pointing back at the reader, and more speculating and attempting to lay out a system of knowledge (if anything so threadbare can be a system). This writing I am somewhat less sympathetic to - this is where I think some of the worries of philosphers are legitimate - that his writing contains some empty reassurances and frail arguments to support those reassurances. Though all this means is that he too is possessed of a philosopher’s vanity, though not nearly so much as others.

His “Self Reliance” is of a piece with all of this. In some ways, it is one of the more difficult pieces I’ve read - difficult because of a certain coldness and harshness it reccommends - almost a selfishness. There is something of contemporary Republican “virtues” built up in that essay, but really, I think that those virtues and that reading are both a distortion of what Emerson is saying.  In the end, Emerson seems to be expressing a profound love and respect for the inner light he finds in himself and believes is available in each one of us - our own soverignty in our lives coupled with a refusal of that role in the life of any other. There is an attention to some divine spark within, the voice of god immanent and commanding, but never issuing forth from the lips of another.

Part of that self reliance is an independance from the opinions of others. It is a willingness to chart one’s own course despite all the clucking of tongues and reproachful gazesthat might attend to ones own course of action. There is primarily an attention here to the resilliance one must show in resiting forms of disapprobation, but there is another element, I think - the resistance to the seduction of praise. This is not, I think, a kind of individualist libertarian manifesto - to do what one wants and let the rest of the world fend for itself. Instead, I think it is a plea to be who one is in the world, and not to rely on ones reflection in the gazes of others to determine one’s course of action and identity in the world, because so many will use that power - the power of the mirror - to subject others to their own will. To act from within, from authenticity, does not mean selfishness - but a generosity that extends from love rather than the desire that the world reflect through its gaze the image of a generous man back at you, for you to identify yourself with.

I’ll probably have more to say about Emerson as my reading continues. For now, I will set this aside and get back to my dissertation, with the words of that long dead friend of mine echoing in my soul.

2010 02 06 Philosophy
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What about Philosophy of Education?

I am finished with a rather intense 10 days, where I had 3 workshops (one that was 1 day, one that was 2 days, and one that was 3 days). Alongside this, I had my usual workload of TAing and working at the teaching center, and trying to write my dissertation (my “end of January” deadline is gone for chapter 3 - I’m hoping by the end of this next weekend that I’ve sent out what I’ve got.) Today is my first day off in a while. While I was planning to work all day on my dissertation when I was planning things more than a week ago, I think I really need today to recover a bit of my metal and emotional strength.

I have been too tired to have much in the way of particular insights over these past workshops. I think that, of the ones I facilitated (all but the one day workshop) I did a fair job, though no more than that. I think that the participants gained something from the workshop, and that things that I did probably helped to make that happen. These workshops, however, are becoming a bit more routine for me now. I’ve done enough of them (I think these last two put me up to 10) that there is nothing altogether new or surprising when I do one. I had a few insights about development of the workshop itself in the one this past weekend, but nothing major.

One thing I did think a bit about on the way home yesterday was the Philosophy of Eduication as a professional “track” for me to try to get aboard. As of now, this is only an idea that is fuzzy in my mind, but if I did some work in Phil of Ed, I could have a fairly logical transition out of academic philosophy and into education - possibly trying to do some work in a faculty of education for a while (so, still academia), work in educational development (which is also connected to what I do now in the teaching center), with possibilties to establish myself and get into other areas of education (government or administration, professional development, etc). Something like that would certainly give me options, and it would also be an opportunity to work on something I care deeply about (educating), while keeping me connected to something else I care deeply about (philosophy) without neccessarily being beholden to the kinds of professionalizing pressures that drive me away from academic philosophy.

Of course, this would add a whole other “track” to my reading list, though from what I can tell, there isn’t a whole lot of reading I would need to do to attain a passable degree of literacy in the area - a handful of core works. It also seems to have a desirable interdisciplinary aspect to it, psychology certainly overlaps at the very least, as well as things like politics. It’s something I’m going to spend some time investigating for a bit. This may well be the next move for me - though I won’t get my hopes too high until I’ve done some more investigation beyond “what about phil of ed?”

2010 02 01 Philosophy Comments (0) Permalink

Halfway Through Hell Week

I am tired, and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do. I’m not going to be finishing my chapter 3 by the end of the month, because I have to work every day until the end of the month. On the plus side, I’m fairly close to being finished. I have one very bad draft, but it is technically complete (but not ready to send). I think 2 or 3 more solid sessions should end with something ready to send to my committee. Now I hope to have things done after the first week of February, and start on chapter 4 on the second week of February. I’m not sure if I’m still going to finish on schedule or not - but I really just want to be done with this.

It’s tempting to feel sometimes like this is a big waste of time. I have no pretensions of getting a reesearch job in academia, and even a teaching job that is steady and live-able seems remote. There is very little else that a PhD in philosophy will get you, in terms of opening doors and opportunities. Indeed, a PhD, especially in a field like philosophy is often detrimental for getting a job outside of academia, because a PhD often signals “no employable skills” to employers. But sitting here, under the pressure of deadlines and work to do, I have thought what I would rather be doing. The thought that came to my mind first was reading - in particular I feel like reading a book about American History - a “mainstream” book on the founding fathers, and then Zinn’s “A People’s History” as a point of contrast. This desire, to read, to learn, and to take enjoyment in this isn’t something that I would have had 8 years ago. Practically speaking, I never read anything unless it was gaming (D&D) related or I had to read it. Indeed, when I started going back to university, this was true of me for quite a while - it was really the Critique of Pure Reason that was a sort of “crossover” where I started reading on my own (it was technically assigned, but it was an assignment I didn’t have to do). I did a bit of “additional” reading here and there - I read all of the World as Will and Representation instead of the assigned excerpts in one class, and some additional Nietzsche here and there.

It was really after moving out here that I grew in curiosity, getting a bit fed up with what I was reading (all analytic or post-analytic philosophy) and I started going back to stuff in the History of Philosophy, and then into Literature, and reading serious stuff became something I enjoyed doing for its own sake. Coming back to school, doing this degree has awakened (or reawakened) a curiosity which Is one of the great joys in my life. It woke me up to the life of the mind in new ways - both through reading stuff within academia, and then eventually resisting academia by reading with my own agenda.

My hopes for the dissertation are not simply that it will finish my degree here. I hope also to use this experience to learn about myself both as a writer and a researcher, so that I can write on my own after this. It is a test of endurance, and of my will to stick with this project and really put myself into it (I quite notoriously handed in some garbage for my “thesis” in art school, in part because I was so digusted by the experience, and in no small part because I was a lazy kid). The process may not make me into an academic, but I hope that it makes me into a scholar. I don’t know what use that will have for me in the future, but it seems like something ripe with potential.

2010 01 27 Venting Comments (0) Permalink

Keeping On

My dissertation writing has been coming along at a pretty good clip. I have about 80-90% of a full rough draft of chapter 3, which I’ll probably need to rewrite at least 2-3 times before I’m ready to send it to my committee members. It is within the realm of possibility that this is something I could do before the end of the month. My really firm goal is to be on to writing chapter 4 by the second week of February, which means having gathered research that I need to do before then (probably piling things together during the first week of February). If I can devote February to finishing chapter 4, I’ll be in a good way for finishing up my draft version of the dissertation by the summer - though mid to late summer seems likely. That leaves me with a month or two to do revisions, and then the final 2 months of 2010 to schedule and defend. If all goes well, I’ll be done with it by December 2010, and hopefully won’t have too much in terms of revisions to do (passing without revisions is, as I understand it, pretty rare).

I feel pretty good, though nervous about the project. Oddly enough for me, I’ve been sticking pretty close to my outline for my dissertation as I’ve been writing, though I’ll really need to go back in and fill in a bit for the later chapters (which I say almost nothing about in the original outline, as contrasted with chapters 2 and 3. 4 I have some stuff, but less, 5 very little, and 6 almost nothing). Having that outline has really helped me though, and I’m also finding that in a project like this, my propensity for global thinking is really a strength. The project has three major elements - two distinct kinds of defense for free will, and then an account of identity - and thus far they are fitting together in a nice tight way (I say as I’ve only developed 2 of the 3 pieces at all). I still think I’m going to have to give some deeper and more “analytic” arguments for some of this stuff, and I should also plunge into reading a bit more existentialism for the later chapters - those are also the chapters where I’m likely to get into trouble with my committee.

I’m currently taking a little break from writing - I’m at a bit of a wall - one where I usually stop wirting and start a new draft (I always seem to get a bit stuck at the 80-90% mark, and it takes a rewrite for me to finish). I’m going to try and get a bit more out, so the rewrite is easier and more polished (since it will be a rewrite, rather than a rewrite with 20% new stuff that will also need to be rewritten. I’m really just checking in here, trying to psych myself up.

2010 01 18 Academia Comments (0) Permalink

Let Loose the Gates

The drop-off in my posting here can only mean that I’m back into the spirit of working on my dissertation. I’ve actually gotten a fair bit done - I’m probably about three or four revisions away from a full draft of chapter 3, and probably about eight or ten away from the next one I’m sending out. I’ve also been going back and incorporating changes in chapter 2, which is actually helping me in writing chapter 3 - writing chapter 3 helps to clarify what is most important in chapter 2, and vice versa. I think part of my “block” in writing before this has been that I actively resisted going back and working on 2 again before getting to 3, and so I couldn’t start. What got me moving was actually writing as an introduction to chapter 3 a summary of what I did (or intended to do) in chapter 2. Some if it I have to go back and bring out more clearly so that I’ve actually done what I claimed to do (and indeed, what I need to do to build chapter 3). I’ve got a bit of reading I’m going to need to do again - though I’m going to avoid reading books and try and stick to articles, which are much faster. If I find I need more, I’ll go back and read the book along the way and work that material in through revisions. I’d really like to send this out before the 22nd, though I don’t know if that is really possible. I’ve got a busy couple of weeks ahead of me, but it would again be a spiritual victory (or at least, the mitigation of a spiritual defeat) to get this out well before the end of January, since the original plan was to have it out before the end of December.

The pace, though, is pretty good given that (unlike chapter 2) these are arguments I’ve not written out before.  The slowest thing, as always, is going back into the literature to make sure I’m explicitly talking to a few people, rather than talking to a general position. It’s probably a really good thing that I do that anyway - responding to articles and arguments from other philosophers prevents me from attacking straw men, etc. I don’t really enjoy reading this stuff much anymore, though. Most philosophy at this level is a frustrating exercise in hair-splitting, and I feel most keenly the fact that my immediate experience of philosophy isn’t verbal, and its a struggle to present the ideas that I experience more like “things” than like sentences.

I’ve also been wanting to draw more recently - I’ve not indulged (much) in the past couple of weeks, mostly because I’ve put most of my energy into writing my dissertation when I have energy at all. But I would like to just that part of my brain more frequently again, and retrain my eye and my hand to do the kinds of things I used to be able to do with pen and pencil. In a perfect world, I’d move on to painting with oils as well, though I don’t know if and when that will ever be possible (I did a bit with oils in my art school days - it is time consuming, difficult, and requires space with ventelation.)  Perhaps watercolors will be a nice shorter term goal, though. I got myself a nice new sketchbook which I’m going to try to use with a bit more discipline - not so much for doodling, but for creating in - things that I work to finish, and perhaps art that takes more than one sitting to complete (I’ve done very few drawings or paitings in my life that spanned multiple creative sessions. Those that were I did for school). I’m feeling a bit of the old claw of my experience in art school loosen, perhaps freeing up my creative spirit once again.

I used to draw all of the time - I loved it, I would escape into it. The need to professionalize destroyed my desire to draw and my creative impulse. I think that my struggles in philosophy have helped me to face the negative impact of professionalization though. I love philosophy despite the need to professionalize - and in some sense I have rejected the need for professionalization and have committed myself to engaging with philosophy in a way that feeds my soul. I think that becoming the kind of person that can do that has helped me to start at least thinking about drawing again without the feeling of listlessness that would hit me in the past. I’m still intimidated, because neither my eye nor my hand are what they used to be. My hand was actually never that great to begin with - I usually drew with short sketchy lines - I had no confidence in the ability to just draw a line as I wanted to in a single stroke. My eye got quite good though - I became very sensitive to differences in light especially, though my attention to spatial relationships was also quite good. To go back to drawing again isn’t quite starting over, but it’s not far from it.

Still, the drawing, writing, literature and music  that I’ve been immersing myself in over the past few months has been really rewarding, and in some strange sense also a healing experience. (Healing from what, I’m not sure).

2010 01 11 Academia
Art
Introspection Comments (0) Permalink