9/29/2012 Christian Atheism and Radical Theology

by Benny Mattis

In 1882, with the publication of his book The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche declared the death of God through the words of a character called "The madman."  The death in question was not the literal death of a being who was once alive, but rather the shrinking ability of foundational belief systems to help people make sense of the world they live in.  The Enlightenment showed us the various discoveries to be found by asking, "Why?"  However, when unmitigated skepticism undermines foundational belief systems without providing acceptable alternatives, a nihilistic sense of meaninglessness may take hold.

It may seem that when everything is questionable, nothing is sacred.  However, it is the case that, especially following the Enlightenment, everything is indeed questionable, regardless of whether one personally resolves to question everything or anything.  But don't humans need the sacred?  Isn't nihilism a problem that ought to be solved?  Those who answer "yes" to this question have come up with various responses, which include merely negating meaninglessness ("meaninglessness itself is meaningless, therefore it doesn't matter that life is meaningless!"), positing a "hidden meaning" ("things may look terrible and chaotic at first glance, but from a God's-eye view everything is just fine"), and attempting to return to a pre-skeptical state (taking foundational beliefs back, and keeping them "on faith").  But there is a group of theologians who are trying to find religious symbolism in meaninglessness itself--these include the proponents of what is called "Death of God theology," which will be the topic of discussion this week.

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On 9/29/2012, the discussion of Christian Atheism went as planned.  We discussed an excerpt from Slavoj Zizek's Only a Suffering God Can Save Us.  Discussion questions included:

-Is it possible to be both a Christian and an Atheist?

This question garnered varied responses from people of different backgrounds--some said that the word "Christian" implies a specific set of beliefs about the supernatural, whereas others suggested that, as it sufficiently resembled traditional Christian culture, Christian Atheism could well be considered as such.

-Is any system of beliefs capable of justifying itself?

This question was not discussed as much as the others, but Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem was brought up as evidence against this possibility.

-Does Zizek succeed in finding meaning in meaninglessness?

Because of Zizek's dependence on religious imagery, some of us concluded that the inspirational power of his ideas are somewhat confined to ex-Christians.  A more critical view suggested that Zizek is actually worsening the nihilism that results from a death of God--if God is suffering, as opposed to just us humans, then things may seem to be even more truly hopeless than before.  A more analytic perspective offered the notion that this question--as well as the question of the "meaning of life"--is essentially meaningless itself, i.e. nonsensical.

-What is it that belief and value systems derive motivational power from?

Responses to this question included an evolutionary-biological explanation (beliefs hold people together, which helps them survive) as well as the idea that motivational power is produced primarily by vigorous and charismatic religious leaders.

Despite the rain, a decent turnout showed up to the meeting this week.  We concluded with an announcement that ideas for future discussions should be brought to Quimby.  The meeting was followed by dinner at Worcester Dining Commons and several rounds of "Cards Against Humanity" afterwards.

9/21/2012 Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

by Kyle VanderWerf

This week's Philosophy Club topic is Ludwig Wittgenstein's theories, specifically those found in Philosophical Investigations. In this book, he tries to answer various philosophical questions by examining how human language works. He focuses on language because he believes it's the only tool we currently have to answer philosophical questions, so looking at how it functions can lead to all kinds of insights. At philosophy club, we'll discuss, evaluate, and criticize how he uses his philosophy of language to consider the question, “Is the color red that I see the same as the color red that you see?”

First, consider two construction workers, A and B, who have a very simple language. When A says “slab!” B hands a slab over to A, when A says “brick!” B hands over a brick, and so on. The combination of the words of the language that are used, and the actions that accompany them, are what Wittgenstein terms a “language-game.”

Wittgenstein argues that all languages are fundamentally similar to the construction worker language. That is, the purpose of a language is to influence how people act. All languages serve an accompanying “language-game.” A word doesn't have any meaning outside of the context of the rules of action that are associated with it in a given language-game. So how do you learn what words mean? Other people teach you using whatever methods work to get you to act correctly according to the rules of the language-game.

So for a word or phrase to have any meaning in a language, it must correspond to rules for action that people can empirically evaluate. In other words, people have to be able to tell you if you're using a word incorrectly. For example, if I took my cat out for a walk, and told my friends I was walking my dog, they could observe my pet to determine that it's a cat and not a dog, giving them justification to tell me I'm using the word “dog” incorrectly.

Let us now look at the word “qualia.” According to many philosophers, this word refers to raw feelings or sensations, aka subjective experiences. For example, the sensation of pain, and the experience of seeing the color red, are both qualia. Let's just examine pain for a moment. Most people in pain exhibit outward symptoms, such as crying or yelling. However, if the inner sensation of pain always corresponds to these symptoms, then the word may as well just refer to the symptoms themselves, since the rules for action are the same in either case. The sensation of pain itself is irrelevant to the language-game, so you can't refer to it directly with words. Furthermore, if someone in pain exhibits no symptoms, and acts the same as they would without being in pain, a word for their feeling would be meaningless, as it would have no rules for action; it would be impossible for someone else to tell if they were using the word correctly.

Thus, the word “qualia” in the English language is either meaningless, or it simply refers to the effects of raw feelings/sensations, and not the feelings/sensations themselves. In fact, Wittgenstein argues that constructing words in a language that actually refer to subjective experiences is impossible. It is therefore impossible to answer the question, “Is the color red that I see the same as the color red that you see?” with the tools we currently have, namely language-games.

9/14/2012 The Non-Bullshit Life

by Tyler Blevins

Hey guys, just going to outline what happened in class to prompt this question and I will give the complete response I gave to submit to the teacher. Hopefully we can expand on that.

The concept of a bullshit life came from a TV show clip where a man is going to a date, but he gets attacked by a homeless man. The homeless man run at him, misses him, keeps running into the street due to momentum, and a car hits him and he dies. The man goes to his date and goes on a monologue about how our lives can be erased at any second, and therefore, all human action is “bullshit.” Our teacher challenged us to come up with answers to “What isn’t a bullshit life?” The answer I gave is below:

I have thought about this question during a few intellectual discussions with some of my colleagues, and I believe I have come up with a satisfactory answer, at least in my own life. I will attempt to explain my position in this essay.

The Romans had the deity Hilaritas, who was the goddess of good nature and humor. This was also an extension of the Greek concept of Hilarita, which simply acknowledged the inevitability of death for all human beings, and that the passage of time would lead to the collapse of all things that humans have ever built, dreamed, and thought. While this immediately may seem pessimistic and nihilistic on the surface, if analyzed, this can lead to the realization that all worrying is ineffective and without merit. In effect, this philosophy can eliminate all worry because all causes of human worry will eventually be nonexistent in the grand scheme of things. This allows for an upsurge in humor in the largest case of dramatic irony possible so that the person experiencing this realization finds humor in everything in existence and is able to communicate that quality to others that want it. This, I think, is one of the greatest ways for a person to find legitimate meaning in life: finding humor in this great game of life and transferring that good nature to others.

My own personal philosophy of what gives my life meaning is to be as happy and compassionate as possible to everyone I come into contact with. I always try to help anyone whenever I can and going the extra mile all the time, and I get great joy out of doing that. I suppose I could measure the success of this principle by considering how many people will show up at my funeral and what they will have to say about me after I am gone. Yet despite all of this, I try to remain as humble as possible, yet I realize that even that statement pumps up my sense of self-worth. In essence, I suppose one could say I try to be as happy and helpful as possible.

To close, I wish to use Horace Mann’s statement: “We should be ashamed to die until we have made our mark upon humanity.” I think that statement adds tremendously to clarity in what we should be striving for in our day-to-day lives. This, in essence, wraps up my philosophy on this subject based on what I currently know. I plan to read Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” at some point very soon, so I may have more to say on it later. But for now, this encompasses my position, as flawed or as solid it may be.

In essence, I think a non-bullshit life consists of leaving a mark on humanity that transcends your own death. I will expand on this more in the club, and I hope we can get a good discussion going from this. Cheers!

9/7/2012 Theses on the Philosophy of History

by Nathan Turowsky

Walter Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, born in Berlin in 1892. He is a seminal figure in socialist theory, continental philosophy, and modern theology, known for his synthesis of German idealism, Marxism, and mystical Judaism. A committed socialist in the general sense, his relationship was the orthodox Marxist-Leninist thinkers and governments of his time was complex and fraught, and he ended his life opposing both Soviet-style state socialism and the liberal left of the Western countries; he died in a seaside town in Spain in 1940 attempting to flee Europe after the fall of Paris (his adopted home), either by his own hand or that of a Stalinist sleeper agent in his traveling party.

Benjamin was interested in how a society could regain an appreciation of religion and myth after losing it and was the founder of inverse theology, a type of religious thought distinguished by the twin recognitions that religion is or was a humanizing influence in the development of civilization and that the modern secularization process is probably not reversible. Over the course of his short lifetime he became convinced that the way back to religion, myths, and gods was through aesthetics, but remained unsure of how this would be accomplished.

‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ is Benjamin’s last work, written in Paris shortly before its fall. In it, Benjamin eviscerates the notion of ‘progress’ and attempts to dissolve Marxist theory back into the mystical interests that he believes preceded it over the course of twenty numbered paragraphs, some of them with epigraphs from other thinkers and artists, some without. The tradition of critical theory is in part predicated upon the opinion that Benjamin was more or less successful at this and the question of where one ought to go from there.

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On Friday, September 7, the plenary Philosophy Club reconvened after a summer of sporadic and sparsely attended "meetings". First Kyle and Melanie led us in an icebreaker activity in which different tables were given different rules for a card game, then the attendees, who included about ten or a dozen new prospective members, were told to mix up their table placements between rounds and forbidden from talking to each other. As an experiment in nonverbal communication and in communication from different basic assumptions, this was interesting, because it demonstrated that some of us preferred to fall back upon established or common lexicons when it became too difficult to agree upon or negotiate a new one, with many members electing to determine "winners" by rock-paper-scissors (a piece of knowledge and cultural capital that we all held in common) rather than by actually trying to play the game.

Next, Nathan led a reading of paragraphs IX and XVI and Addenda A and B from Walter Benjamin's 'Theses on the Philosophy of History'. Points of interest included what Benjamin means by 'progress' and his general reticence to define his terms. Arguments over whether or not Benjamin had any actual point and a discussion of Nathan's attempt to draw attention to the unfortunate sexist undertones of XVI by having Melanie and Annie read it ensued. After the reading, the club split into two groups, one of which Doug, a new member, helped lead to the conclusion, using paragraph I and connecting it with the Addenda, that Benjamin here is taking a leap back into theology, which he (Benjamin) views as an underpinning or precursor to Marxist historical materialism rather than a necessarily competing viewpoint. The other group had a conversation about feminism stemming from the questions over Nathan's choices in emphasizing the genderedness of Benjamin's prose, and several members floated ideas for next week.