Walt Whitman - Song of Myself

The poetic style of free verse was born from the iconoclastic mind of Walt Whitman, an American poet who embodied the concepts of individualism and defiance to his core.

On the one hand, the invention of free verse made it possible for geniuses such as William Butler Yeats, T.S. Elliot, Wallace Stevens and Thomas Hardy to explore and harvest a fascinating literary space previously uncharted. On the other hand, and because of its apparent lack of constraint, free style may have also marked the slow death and collapse of poetry as a fine art: just look at much of what passes for "poetry" today.

However you may feel about free verse, though, it is hard to deny Walt Whitman's  brilliance, which we get to celebrate today (this being his birthday) with a short excerpt from his famous poem "Song of Myself," read by none other than Darth Va... I mean James Earl Jones

Go ahead and contradict yourself, Walt, it's your birthday :)

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Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - Matter and Void

In his fascinating book, The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt tells the gripping story of the rediscovery, during the Middle Ages, of one of the philosophical masterpieces of the Classical period in Rome: Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), an epic exploration and development of Epicurus' materialist, empiricist and soteriologically hedonistic philosophy, all set to the most beautiful of Latin poetry.

Greenblatt shows how the Christian obsession with asceticism, suffering and self-righteousness came perilously close to annihilating any traces of a philosophy that eschews the supernatural, and that celebrates life and sees it as worth living and enjoying. It was by sheer chance that an Italian humanist scholar, Gian Francesco Poggio, discovered Lucretius in a palimpsest and started circulating it. In Greenblatt's opinion, the dissemination of this beautiful work of antiquity (measured by the famous thinkers who managed to get their hands on and were inspired by it), may have been one of the leading factors that gave rise to modernity.

In the following audio rendition, read by the inimitable Charlton Griffin, you'll get a sense of the piercing power of Lucretius' philosophy and poetry as he sets down the basics of Epicurus' metaphysical materialism and his fight against religion. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but in Lucretius' hands, it's more like a nuclear bomb!

This is just the beginning... stay tuned for more excerpts from this fascinating work!

And if you're interested in the text of the above excerpt, you can find a copy here.

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Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions

If you believe in reincarnation, you could reasonably believe that Kurt Vonnegut was the reincarnated soul of Mark Twain. With their brief and minimalist styles, as well as their no-holes-barred aphorisms, these two authors managed to drive American literature to a place where substance could take a front seat in our collective consciousness in a way that's rarely accessible through other authors. In the process, they got us to question many of the sacred cows we usually take for granted. In the following reading of an excerpt from Breakfast of Champions, we get to see Vonnegut touch, in his uniquely hilarious way, on the American experience of racism, capitalism, free will, family values, patriotism, religion, parenthood and personhood. Best of all, we get to see that he was so funny he could make himself crack up :)

How awesome was that? :)

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What Is Philosophy?

Believe it or not, the question of what philosophy is, while itself a philosophical question, is actually kind of difficult to answer. You could say that philosophy is what philosophers do, but when you ask what philosophers do, you'd realize the first answer was pretty circular... and yet it's not so off the mark as one might expect...

Anyway, the folks at Philosophy Bites decided to ask this question to a good number of leading philosophers, and here are their answers:

And if my own take is at all worth your time, I would probably say that philosophy, broadly speaking, is the recursive activity of working out the right way to think about any particular subject. And in case you're confused, this meta aspect of philosophy (thinking correctly about the correct way to think) refers to the investigation of the conditions under which a particular way of thinking is appropriate or inappropriate, and why.

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Propositional Logic - Connectives and Truth Tables

The Stoic philosophers bequeathed us with an important theory of ethics and a very respectable account of the nature of the good life. What's less well known, outside of philosophical circles, is that they are also responsible for developing a theory of logic that can impressively deal with most forms of everyday reasoning. Logicians and mathematicians, especially over the pasts two hundred years, have come up with more sophisticated theories of logic, but the stoic propositional logic is good enough for most ordinary purposes.

Part of the stoic insight comes from the fact that they devised methods for organizing, systematizing, formalizing and evaluating compound statements (such as "if it's raining, then it's wet, but since it's not wet, then it can't be raining"). Sure, that one may seem obvious, but their brilliance comes from the fact that no matter how long or complex an argument is (or what the argument is about), it can be systematically broken down into simple statements, allowing us to do a thorough analysis of each of its parts, and then systematically evaluating whether the argument as a whole makes logical sense or not.

But before we learn how to do that, we need to have a little introduction to the idea of connectives and truth tables. Once you know these basic ideas, we'll start to apply them to complex arguments of the kind you are likely to come across daily.

Click here for the next lesson: using truth tables to determine the validity of complex arguments, no matter how complex they are.

If you're interested in how the stoics contributed to the study of logic, how they departed from Aristotle's logic of predication, and why this was important for their materialistic philosophy, you'll find the following audio fascinating:

And don't forget to check out all our related posts in the logic tag, especially our hilarious primer on logical fallacies.

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Three Minute Philosophy - Aristotle

When scholars refer to you as "the philosopher" for about two thousand years, and everyone understands what that means, you're kind of a big deal. That's exactly what happened to Aristotle because, let's face it, the man's depth and breath of intellectual sophistication simply blew everyone out of the water for two millennia.

If you want a nice introduction to his thought, you could go the comedic route with Mark Steel. For the more ambitious of you, there's always the eloquent Martha Nussbaum discussing Aristotle with Bryan Magee, or Barry Schwarts lecturing on Aristotle's virtue ethics and practical wisdom, or Michael Sandel's teaching his excellent Harvard course on Justice.

But if you have absolutely no idea who Aristotle was, give us 3 minutes:

Ok, so he's too important to distill in only 3 minutes, so give us 3 more:

And to get an even better idea, here is an explanation of Aristotle's four causes:

If you liked that, check out the excellent History of Philosophy podcast; your brain will thank you.

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Woody Allen reads "My (Socratic) Apologies"

If you follow me on Google+, you may have noticed that there was recently a new trial for Socrates in which the previous verdict of guilty was overturned (by an impressively small margin). Philosophy was just barely vindicated by the new ruling. And people say we don't make progress :)

If that's too much seriousness, however, you may enjoy the following short story, written and read by none other than that philosophically-minded comic, Woody Allen, about certain dreams he's been having recently:

Hat tip to Tony!

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A Brief History of Mathematical Geniuses

Math, unfortunately, is usually taught, and consequently thought of, as a set of cold, bloodless tools to solve practical and theoretical problems that are somehow removed from real lived experience.

However, the truth of the matter is that math has a fascinating and mesmerizing life of its own, and those who have really confronted its secrets have found it to be a source of love, respect, admiration, inspiration, despair, confusion and wonder. Whatever else it may be, math is not boring... not if you actually pay attention.

In the following set of short documentaries, which you should definitely share with your mathophobe friends, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores the lives, the insights, the contributions and the influence of some of history's greatest mathematicians.

Newton and Leibniz:
     

Leonard Euler:
     

Joseph Fourier:
     

Evariste Galois:
     

Carl Friedrich Gauss:
     

The Mathematicians who helped Einstein:
     

Georg Cantor:
     

Henri Poincare:
     

Hardy and Ramanujan:
     

Nicolas Bourbaki:
     


What other mathematicians would you have included in this list?

And for a touching and fascinating biography/tribute to Cantor, don't forget to check out the spectacular documentary Dangerous Knowledge.

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"Dear Professor Hawking"

I had some surgery yesterday, nothing major, but my present inability to move around as much as I'd like may result in fewer blog entries in the near future... or more than usual; we'll see. In any case, as today's entry shows, when you're bed-ridden, there are few better ways to spend your time than listening to an homage to Stephen Hawking :)

Defying medical expectations for an early death by decades, Professor Hawking, perhaps the most famous and popular of all scientists alive, recently celebrated his 70th birthday.

In light of his genius, the obstacles he's had to overcome, his scientific contributions, his celebrity status, his passion for popularizing his love of science in books and documentaries, his correspondence with children and adults throughout the world, and his appearances on The Simpsons, the BBC recently put together a series of audio programs dedicated to celebrating this remarkable man.

He's sold more books than Madonna has had sex... Classic!

But I'm not sure I can let that "philosophy is dead" comment go by without protest :(

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The Chinese Room Thought Experiment

The rise of computers in the 20th century, and especially their exponentially increasing computational capacity and speed, has gotten many curious minds to speculate as to whether it is possible at some point to create computers that can think. Those who believe in things like the computational singularity, such as David Chalmers, think it's just a matter of time before we have to bow down to our new mechanized overlords.

Here is a Philosophy Bites interview with Chalmers on just such a question:

Others, like philosopher John Searle, however, think that, given everything we know about computation, it is impossible, even in principle, for computers ever to think, no matter their computational capacity. To prove this point, Searle came up with what has come to be regarded, by supporters and detractors alike, as a classic thought experiment: the Chinese room, which you get to learn about in the following 60 seconds.

For more on questions of mind, consciousness, personal identity, etc., visit the Brainspotting tag.

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Wanna Live Forever? Become a Noun

Woody Allen once quipped that while most people want to achieve immortality through their work, he'd rather achieve it through not dying. I think I'm with him on that one, but while we wait for people like Aubrey De Grey to figure out how to achieve radical life extension, your best next bet might be to do something remarkable so that your name is forever associated with your contribution.

So, try to do it right because, as Robert Krulwich and Adam Cole show in the following song, if you don't, you'll achieve infamy and no one will like you... forever!

If you want the fuller version, you'll want to listen to this:

And for a sample of people who achieved immortality by becoming nouns, check out the following photo essay

And for more info on these folks, visit Life.

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Richard Dawkins - So Who Was the First Person Really?

Richard Dawkins is coming out with a great new illustrated book about how scientists come to have the knowledge they do, and it'll be released here in the US on my little niece's birthday, so guess what she'll be getting from her favorite uncle? :)

The following excerpt from the audio version of the book (read, as usual, by Dawkins himself and Lalla Ward) explores the kind of question that a young inquiring mind might ask her parents: who was the first person really?

Dawkins provides a wonderfully clear explanation not only of the answer but of the thought process required to try to come to grips with the significance of such a question. The greatest accomplishment, I think, is that the very same excerpt can be understood by children and it can stimulate adults to think about some of the philosophical implications of the answer, such as the sorites problem of what a species really is if no one's parents are ever members of a different species... and yet most of our ancestors do belong to different species.

Maybe I'll have to end up getting a copy for myself too :)

Update: Here's Dawkins briefly explaining what the book is about

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Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

Political philosophy is tough business. One of its aims, for instance, is to understand how to balance the interests and rights of individual citizens with those of the state of which they are a part. Another has to do with figuring out the basis for the legitimacy of the state, as well as its limits. Even if we just stopped there, I'm sure you can see how difficult such endeavors must be.

Interestingly, much of our modern way of looking at questions of rights, obligations, authority and the legitimacy of the state can be traced back to Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, undoubtedly one of the greatest works on political philosophy ever written.

Part of the reason this is interesting is that Hobbes starts from a basic set of facts about human equality and competition for limited resources with which almost no one would disagree, and then draws inferences that inform a political system that, however totalitarian and outrageous you might find it to be, somehow manages to solve a great number of conceptual problems that have eluded most other ethical and political theories. And even when you think something is wrong with his point of view, it's almost impossible not to find it interesting anyway :)

Here's a quick introduction to Hobbes' Leviathan from Nigel Warburton's book Philosophy: The Classics:

And here's a Philosophy Bites episode in which Nigel Warburton discusses the importance and influence of Hobbes' philosophy with Quentin Skinner:

For a deeper analysis of Hobbes' Social Contract theory, listen to this fascinating discussion (iTunes only, sorry) with Quentin Skinner.

And this is the original cover of the Leviathan, representing "that mortal God, to which we owe... our peace and defence":



There is a youtube video of an introduction to Hobbes, from Yale University, which I have not had a chance to check out yet. If it's worth its salt, I'll be posting it soon.

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Peter Singer vs. Don Marquis - Abortion Debate

Outside of philosophical circles, I'm sorry to say, arguments concerning the issue of abortion, for and against it, usually take place within the context of strong emotional prejudices rather than with the aim to develop a deeper understanding of the issue (not to say anything about the constant conflation of the moral with the legal question). Both sides frame the issue in convenient sound-bites: the sanctity of human life on the one side, and women's right to autonomy over their own bodies on the other. Both approaches are, in my view, rather narrow and one-sided: one side focuses only on the fetuses, while the other focuses only on the mothers. Good luck getting the other side to agree with you...

Interestingly, some of the most thought-provoking and promising arguments actually agree that the question of whether a fetus is a person is actually somewhat irrelevant, and in the following fascinating debate, you'll get to hear two professional philosophers, Peter Singer and Don Marquis, present well thought-out theories concerning the moral status of abortion. Agree or disagree with their views, they present a beautiful model of how issues as emotionally laden as abortion can be argued for in a cool and amiably rational fashion, developing in the process a better understanding and appreciation of the complexity behind this issue.

If you can't get the video to work, you can at least listen to it:

Hope your mind has been challenged and stimulated.

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Julian Baggini - What Does It Mean to Be "You"?

The metaphysical question of personal identity is, to my mind, one of the most interesting and important there are in the philosophical literature. An obvious part of its importance has to do with the fact that many other philosophical, psychological, social and ethical issues depend on the answer to the question of whether the self exists and what it is.

Consider a thought experiment formulated by Leibniz: suppose you have the option to choose to have all the riches, talents, fame, good looks and lovers you desire, but on one condition: that you forget absolutely everything about yourself up to that point. Would you do it? If you answer is no, that implies that you think that whatever you are, your conscious experience and memories seem to be a necessary part of being you. So, no memories = no you. The new rich, talented, beautiful person would effectively be someone else. Imagine then a case of assault in which the victim loses all memory. Should this now count as murder?

In the following presentation, Julian Baggini explores the question of the self, whether it exists, whether it's an illusion, and whether we should understand an illusion as something that's not there, or as something that's simply not quite what we normally take it to be, but which is there nevertheless.

And if you want to listen to the whole thing, including an interesting Q&A, you can listen to it here:

For more on this issue, check out the Brainspotting series.

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Go the F**k to Sleep, read by Samuel L. Jackson

I have no kids of my own... that I know of :), but I have been around enough new parents to know that the happily-ever-after fairy tales adults tell themselves before having children are never quite what they anticipated... for better and worse.

And it is with sympathy for the sake of parents in the real world that Adam Mansbach has just published a hilarious children's book for grown-ups, which you get to hear today as Samuel L. Jackson reads it the way only he can.

If I ever become a parent, someone'd better get me this book!!!

But if reading stories is not your thing, Tim Minchin has a great lullaby to capture the same basic experience:

And if you want to understand more about the science of parenting, and how it relates to happiness and fulfillment, check out Jennifer Senior's New York Magazine excellent article All Joy and No Fun.

Hat tip to Heidi and Tony!

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Sarah Palin's History Lesson on Paul Revere

You'd think a tea-bagger who professes to love America and who decides to travel through every state with her family to "celebrate" our traditions, landscapes, institutions and history, would read up on the basics of our history...

Of course, if the tour is really just a back-alley way to secure funding for her as-yet-undeclared presidential run (because once she does declare her candidacy, she'd have to reveal all financial contributions, especially those of corporations bent on reducing taxes for the rich while screwing the rest of us), then the fact she has no freaking clue what the hell she's talking about should be no surprise to anyone...

Here is Sarah Palin's revisionary history on the significance of Paul Revere and his Midnight Run, which she declared while visiting... wait for it... the focal point for Paul Revere's ride!!!

So, he warned the British to protect our Second Amendment before we even had a Second Amendment... or a First, or a Constitution, or even a Declaration of Independence?

Anyway, if you need a reminder of Paul Revere's story, listen to this:

I wonder if Sarah Palin will characterize this latest failure as yet another "lame-stream-media gotcha moment"...

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Julia Sweeney - Letting Go of God

Religious faith has at least one thing going for it: it gives you comfort... as long as you don't think about it. My own intellectual journey into eventual atheism started with a serendipitous reading of Nietzsche (which also hooked me into philosophy). Once he raised certain questions, I went to 'the greats' for answers: Aquinas, Leibniz, Avicenna, Kierkegaard, Anselm, Berkeley, Augustine, Lewis, etc. These thinkers were fascinating, and had lots of great things to say, but their answers to the big question never seemed quite satisfactory... more like rationalizations of certain prejudices and already-held beliefs than real discoveries of truth.

For comedian Julia Sweeney, this roller-coaster journey of questioning and spiritual growth started when two Mormons rang her doorbell one day. In her efforts to find the nature of God, she went to Bible class, tried to become an altar boy, then a nun, became intimately acquainted with Jesus -in more ways than one :), traveled to the East and learned about the undiluted non-California version of Buddhism, read Karen Armstrong, got into Deepak Chopra and new-age mysticism, until eventually she hit upon the study of nature itself, science, and (once she overcame her previous misconceptions about it) finally started seeing the world with new eyes, full of wonder, curiosity and courage... and then she had to deal with mom and dad :)

The general story is probably familiar to many nonbelievers, but it's the hilarity with which Sweeney tells this coming-of-age story that makes this a must-listen. So sit back, relax and prepare to question, think and laugh:

And if you're curious about how things are going with her daughter, listen to what happened when she asked Sweeney about the birds and the bees...
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Pendulum Waves

Pendulums have been around for a very long time, at least since the 1st century, when the Chinese polymath Zhang Heng used one to build what is widely considered to be the very first seismometer in history.

The rigorous and scientific study of the properties of pendulums, however, didn't start until the 17th century, when Galileo took up the question. Undeniably, Galileo did some great and unprecedented work, but one can't help but wonder how much easier and productive his time could have been if he had thought up of this beautiful little experiment (without just becoming mesmerized by the optical illusion created by it):

And here is another beautiful version of the same basic idea.

And if you're curious about how seismometers, including Zhang Hen's, work, listen to this:

And if you want more on pendulums, I'll post an awesome entry on Foucault's pendulum soon. Stay tuned.
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Annual Valentine's Day Stoning of Annoyingly Happy Couple

As we all know, today is the day everyone gets to celebrate the commercialization of love, and lovers all around the world get a whole day (minus all the time it takes them to sleep and go to work) to make up for taking their loved ones for granted the rest of the year. This is also the day those really annoying couples who are normally all up on each other's business get to flaunt their co-dependent obsession to the rest of the world.

I know what you're thinking... wouldn't it be great if this day also included a tradition involving stoning at least one of those disgustingly annoying couples to death? Well, wish no more, The Onion has listened to your prayers...

And if that reminded you of Shirley Jackson's macabre short story "The Lottery," have a listen:

Or you can read the original story as it appeared in The New Yorker, and if you're still hungry for more, why don't you check out the literature tag?
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