Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Tenacious Posts

As with all things, it started with games.  The first was Betwixt, a game that lacked only the insights we later gained from playing The Dasein Methods of Ordering Game.  Not long after that, we went to Pictures at an Exposition, which proved that appearances are often deceiving and that the answer to the question of "what is real" can be tricky.   At that point we graduated to real content and were introduced to Quantum Week, an exciting exploration of the quantum world.  This series was so well conceived and produced that I understand that one could obtain college credit for it from several prestigious universities.  Next came Kidnapped!  This was a serial adventure of one man's courage pitted against a sad example of human incompetence.  Unfortunately, like The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the story remains unfinished, and we are despairing over whether we will ever learn the final outcome.  ("Does Little Nell yet live?")  The next bit of serial writing was somewhat offbeat:  The Hermeneutics of Wishes.  Here, we learned what wishes were, why we have them and why we should worry about what we wish for.  If nothing else, we now know that every wish you make forecloses a thousand other wishes.  Finally, we have the most ambitious project to date:  The Top Ten Definitions of God.    As one commenter observed:  This series "delivered up for us a -- shall I say, joyous? -- array of views of the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds."  Once you've read this series, you can skip seminary altogether and just send away for your ordination certificate.  And the beauty of this series is that it will qualify you for ordination in just about any religion.

These are what we might call the "series posts."  I've also called them chronic posts or tenacious posts:  they are persistent.  Up to now only Jim has offered them.  But, for the first time in the history of this blog, someone else will be posting a series, namely me.  The content I assure you will be totally new.  It goes by an inauspicious name:  The Practical Benefits of Philosophy.  I know it sounds a bit dry but, stay with it and I promise you that the rewards will be great.  Sure, it tackles philosophy, but it also considers psychology, education and even takes slight detours to Chester, Pennsylvania and Chicago.

I can't say exactly when each of the posts will appear.  Like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in George C. Scott's "A Christmas Carol," being "more mercurial, [they] will arrive in [their] own time."

1 comment:

James R said...

I don't know half of philosophy as well as I should like; and I like less than half of it as well as it deserves. Oh, no, that's not it. I meant to say if the tenacious posts on "The Practical Benefits of Philosophy" are half as good as the teaser, it will be as greatly rewarding as you promise.

Philosophy is the great dinner table bond we all shared growing up. I assume the tradition is being passed on to future generations.

Recently I viewed the popular Harvard course "Justice" by Michael Sandel on iTunes U. (James took it live.) I knew Steve was teaching a similar course and asked him if he had seen it. He assured me he had—four years ago. It is a nice introduction and is done extremely well.

I also recently saw a question on the Web: What are the benefits of majoring in Philosophy. I thought of Myk (successful lawyer), Spencer (successful entrepreneur), and that I read somewhere that philosophy majors were the smartest people in college.

I can't wait.