Friday, June 15, 2012

Advice on War and Peace from "A Dance With Dragons"

 George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is full of intriguing characters and fascinating places, but it also has room for some very insightful philosophical and political ideas as well. While recently reading the latest book of the series, A Dance with Dragons, I came upon one of the best articulations of a philosophical caution about war yet in this series. Prince Doran Martell, while speaking to his vengeance-seeking nieces the Sand Snakes, makes the following observation:

"It is an easy thing for a prince to call the spears, but in the end the children pay the price. For their sake, the wise prince will wage no war without good cause, nor any war he cannot hope to win." ADWD 510

Something to think about when considering real-world situations, when there are those voices urging a rush to war at every perceived slight.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

MacIntyre on Voting

 Although written in 2004, Alasdair MacIntyre's article The Only Vote Worth Casting in November, is just as prescient now, if not more so when examining the options Americans have this year for presidential candidates. Here is a fascinating and important account of how we ought to view the lack of options for good candidates this election cycle.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Hegel

This is a great piece on reading Hegel, the notoriously difficult German philosopher. How to fake your way through Hegel Enjoy!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Preparing Classes

For a blog with the title, Thinking Outside the Classroom, it may seem strange that I am talking about preparing for some upcoming classes, but since this is part of my life as a philosopher I reserve the right to blog about it.

I have been spending some time preparing the materials for the three classes I'm teaching in the Fall semester. Prepping for the two logic courses this time has been much easier than the first time I prepped for logic last winter. It also helps that I will be using Copi rather than (the-book-that-shall-not-be-named-because-it-sucked), which I unfortunately used last semester. Prepping for the first year seminar (God: Is there one and how would we know?) is turning out to be a lot of fun, especially since it ties into much of what I have been writing for the past few years. As an undergrad and then as a grad student, I never wanted to pursue work in philosophy of religion, but I have realized more and more that it is an area I have a decent amount of competence in, and one where I have (unintentionally) spent a considerable amount of time writing, speaking, and thinking about lately.

My logic students will be using Copi, while the seminar students get to read selections from the anthology.