This term, when I am listening to student presentations, I find myself wanting to give feedback more and more on the form and style of presentation. What kind of feedback? Look at your classmates (at least occasionally). Don’t dismiss yourself and your presentation at the outset. Don’t dismiss the possibility that someone might be interested,…
Out of Service
Here is a sentence by Alva Noë (2015) which hints at the distinction between philosophy and practical problem-solving. … if there is a pornographic art, whatever else is true of it, it will not be good for masturbating. (from Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, p. 116) The “function” of art, similar to the “function” of philosophy, involves being anti-functional, as it moves us against the…
J. D. Caputo
Postmodern hermeneutics, in which we reserve the right to ask any questions, is constitutionally anti-authoritarian and democratic. Without [presupposing] hermeneutics, you would never be able to explain what a democracy is. Without democracy, you would never be able to practice hermeneutics; you would end up in jail, or worse. (from Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in…
First Day of New Semester
I arrived back in Macau last night. I started cleaning before starting to prepare my lectures. Mold everywhere due to humidity. It’s surprising how dirty a place can get in such a short span of time. And, yes, there were also three dead cockroaches. Why are they always upside down when found dead? Is it…
Dialogue
What we are doing continually in our lives is […] “encountering difference,” and then allowing the moral understandings of the other to place our own understandings into question. In this approach, we are continually tacking back and forth between our beliefs, commitments, perspectives, and moral understandings and those of others. It is that tacking back…