The New York Times Starts New Philosophy Blog

in Media, Philosophy | May 18th, 2010

This week, The New York Times began a phi­los­o­phy blog called The Stone, mod­er­at­ed by Simon Critch­ley. The series will address “issues both time­ly and time­less – art, war, ethics, gen­der, pop­u­lar cul­ture and more.” And it will ask: “What does phi­los­o­phy look like today? Who are philoso­phers, what are their con­cerns and what role do they play in the 21st cen­tu­ry?”

Not every­one is hap­py with the choice of Critch­ley as mod­er­a­tor, but it looks like there will be par­tic­i­pants to suit all tem­pera­ments: “Nan­cy Bauer, Jay Bern­stein, Arthur C. Dan­to, Todd May, Nan­cy Sher­man, Peter Singer and oth­ers.”

Critch­ley begins with a ques­tion bound to invite snarky com­ments: What is a Philoso­pher? Such com­ments have a long his­to­ry (I’ve includ­ed a YouTube clip of my all-time favorite par­o­dy above). And so the nat­ur­al start­ing point for any answer to that ques­tion is the pop­u­lar con­cep­tion of philoso­pher as bull­shit artist and “absent-mind­ed buf­foon”: “Socrates tells the sto­ry of Thales, who … was look­ing so intent­ly at the stars that he fell into a well.” That’s a con­cep­tion that, I have to admit, trou­bled me when I was a phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate stu­dent and led me to drop out. And it has trou­bled philoso­phers his­tor­i­cal­ly: many a sober trea­tise begins with the unflat­ter­ing com­par­i­son of phi­los­o­phy to the empir­i­cal sci­ences and the stat­ed goal of rem­e­dy­ing this defi­cien­cy. And some strains of ana­lyt­ic phi­los­o­phy argue that the solu­tion to philo­soph­i­cal prob­lems is to real­ize that there are no such prob­lems, and that phi­los­o­phy has a rel­a­tive­ly mod­est sup­port­ing role in clar­i­fy­ing the foun­da­tions of sci­ence.

True to my philo­soph­i­cal pedi­gree, I think that the ques­tion is in a way its own answer: philo­soph­i­cal prob­lems nat­u­ral­ly elide into the prob­lem of what phi­los­o­phy is and what it is that philoso­phers do. One lev­el of reflec­tion tends to lead to the next, and doubt to self-doubt. Philoso­phers are peo­ple who spend their time try­ing to fig­ure out what they’re doing with their time and why they’re doing it. And so for instance, ques­tions about how we should live (ethics) and what we can know (epis­te­mol­o­gy) are also ques­tions about whether the life of the mind is worth­while and whether philo­soph­i­cal pur­suits are prop­er­ly sci­en­tif­ic. The unavoid­able state of affairs here is that phi­los­o­phy falls per­pet­u­al­ly into one cri­sis (or well) after anoth­er –recent depart­ment clo­sures are just one exam­ple.

One way of rem­e­dy­ing the nag­ging thought that phi­los­o­phy is mere­ly a retreat from world­ly affairs, prac­ti­cal­i­ty, and life in gen­er­al is to do pre­cise­ly what The New York Times has done here, and try to ini­ti­ate more pop­u­lar and less aca­d­e­m­ic con­ver­sa­tions about the sub­ject. (And to get in a plug, it’s what I and two oth­er phi­los­o­phy grad school dropouts have tried to do with our pod­cast, The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life; and what I think Open Cul­ture does with its focus on the inter­sec­tion of edu­ca­tion and new media).

For Critch­ley, the ques­tion of time is para­mount to answer­ing his open­ing ques­tion: news­pa­pers and blogs are typ­i­cal­ly focused on time­li­ness rather than time­less­ness, and they’re meant for busy peo­ple who want to quick­ly absorb “infor­ma­tion.”

But that ten­sion is inher­ent­ly philo­soph­i­cal.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

James Dean and Ronald Reagan Clash in Newly Discovered Video

in Television | April 26th, 2010

Recent­ly a friend of John Meroney at The Atlantic dis­cov­ered this 1954 episode of Gen­er­al Elec­tric The­ater fea­tur­ing Ronald Rea­gan and James Dean.

Dean’s per­for­mance is superb, and the episode (edit­ed to 6 min­utes) is a para­ble of the cul­tur­al ten­sions of the time — with drugged up, beat­nik delin­quents invad­ing the home of a decent cou­ple to sub­ject them at gun­point to jazz and slang: “man,” “fake it, Dad,” “you dig me,” “that’s crazy,” “don’t goof on me now.” It’s a quite fit­ting scene, espe­cial­ly giv­en that Rea­gan went on to be the icon of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, while Dean became emblem­at­ic of the rebel­lious youth cul­ture to which Rea­gan’s move­ment was a reac­tion. But while the overt moral les­son of this episode is anti-rebel, there’s no doubt that pow­er­ful depic­tions like these–in which Dean’s expres­sive­ness is as charis­mat­ic as it is frightening–only con­tributed to mak­ing rebel­lion cool.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Life: Creeper Plants Climb Trees

in Science | April 23rd, 2010

Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel’s Life series has been receiv­ing a lot of rave reviews for its stun­ning footage of plants and ani­mals.  This excerpt show­ing creep­er plants climb­ing trees lives up to the hype. Leave it to a lit­tle time-lapse video–not to men­tion a voice-over by Oprah Winfrey–to blur the line between plant and ani­mal.

UPDATE: A read­er in Europe informed me that this video is appar­ent­ly being blocked out­side of the US. It’s extreme­ly rare that this hap­pens with YouTube videos (I’ve only seen it hap­pen with full movies), but for some rea­son, it hap­pened here. My apolo­gies. [Dan]

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Record Making With Duke Ellington (1937)

in Music, Technology | April 8th, 2010

We’re mov­ing back in time. Before the iPod, and before the CD. We’re going back to the ana­log age, a moment when the vinyl record reigned supreme. (That moment last­ed most of the 20th cen­tu­ry.)  The clip above, which fea­tures the great Duke Elling­ton, shows you how records were actu­al­ly record­ed, plat­ed and pressed. Alois Havril­la, a pio­neer radio announc­er, nar­rates.

Marlon Brando Opens Up to Tennessee Williams

in Film, Literature, Theatre | March 27th, 2010

I had no idea that Mar­lon Bran­do was much of a writer, but this 1955 let­ter to Ten­nessee Williams is superb. Per­haps I just can’t help iden­ti­fy­ing him with Stan­ley Kowal­s­ki of the “Napoleon­ic code,” Stel­la!” and “Hoity-toity, describ­in’ me like a ape.” Espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing is his atti­tude towards suc­cess. (Note some of the lan­guage is a lit­tle strong/racy):

I have been afraid for you some­times, because suc­cess sings a dead­ly lul­la­by to most peo­ple. Suc­cess is a real and sub­tle whore, who would like noth­ing bet­ter than to catch you sleep­ing and bite your cock off. You have been as brave as any­body I’ve known, and it is com­fort­ing to think about it. You prob­a­bly don’t think of your­self as brave because nobody who real­ly has courage does, but I know you are and I get food from that.

This pas­sage echoes Williams’ own views on suc­cess, espe­cial­ly his beau­ti­ful (and iron­i­cal­ly inspir­ing) essay On a Street­car Named Suc­cess, writ­ten eight years ear­li­er:

It is nev­er alto­geth­er too late, unless you embrace the Bitch God­dess, as William James called her, with both arms and find in her smoth­er­ing caress­es exact­ly what the home­sick lit­tle boy in you always want­ed, absolute pro­tec­tion and utter effort­less­ness. Secu­ri­ty is a kind of death, I think, and it can come to you in a storm of roy­al­ty checks beside a kid­ney-shaped pool in Bev­er­ly Hills or any­where at all that is removed from the con­di­tions that made you an artist, if that’s what you are or were intend­ed to be. Ask any­one who has expe­ri­enced the kind of suc­cess I am talk­ing about–What good is it? Per­haps to get an hon­est answer you will have to give him a shot of truth-serum but the word he will final­ly groan is unprint­able in gen­teel pub­li­ca­tions.

You’ll find the rest of Bran­do’s let­ter (includ­ing an image of the orig­i­nal) — which includes reflec­tions on actors Anna Mag­nani and Burt Lan­cast­er — here.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Harvard Comes to iTunes U

in Apple, Education, Harvard | March 23rd, 2010

Since 2007, Apple has offered uni­ver­si­ties around the world a way to dis­trib­ute edu­ca­tion­al media via iTunes U. Fast for­ward to 2010, Har­vard has now set up its own iTunes U sec­tion, with more than 200 audio and video tracks cov­er­ing every­thing from the Har­vard Kuum­ba Singers to a course on Jus­tice with promi­nent polit­i­cal philoso­pher Michael Sandel. Oth­er high­lights include:

• Brief (one to two-minute) high-def­i­n­i­tion video tours of hard-to-see astro­nom­i­cal objects observed by the Chan­dra X‑ray Obser­va­to­ry — we’re talk­ing explod­ed stars and black holes. High­lights include: Galac­tic Cen­ter in 60 Sec­onds (there’s a black hole at the cen­ter of the Milky Way), Chan­dra’s Extra­or­di­nary Uni­verse (an overview of the Chan­dra project), and Best of the Beau­ti­ful Uni­verse (the pic­tures of galaxy clus­ters are stun­ning).
• A Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press pod­cast fea­tur­ing 10–20 minute long inter­views with authors of such titles as: Nam­ing Infin­i­ty: A True Sto­ry of Reli­gious Mys­ti­cism and Math­e­mat­i­cal Cre­ativ­i­ty; Hys­ter­i­cal Men: The Hid­den His­to­ry of Male Ner­vous Ill­ness; and The Anno­tat­ed Wind in the Wil­lows.
• Videos of John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum speech­es and pan­el dis­cus­sions fea­tur­ing promi­nent lead­ers, aca­d­e­mics, and artists. As a fol­low-up to Michael Sandel’s Jus­tice course linked to above, there’s a pan­el dis­cus­sion with him and Niall Fer­gu­son, Lani Guinier, and Peg­gy Noo­nan: JUSTICE: What’s the Right Thing to Do? There’s also a con­ver­sa­tion with Dustin Lance Black, screen­writer of the movie MILK.

For free cours­es from Har­vard and oth­er fine insti­tu­tions, vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

via Mac­World

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Where Is Technology Taking Us?

in Economics, Web/Tech | March 4th, 2010

A recent Front­line doc­u­men­tary, Dig­i­tal Nation: A Life on the Vir­tu­al Fron­tier, asks just this question–particularly with regard to edu­ca­tion. Sub­jects include atten­tion span, mul­ti-task­ing, and the doubts of one-time tech­nol­o­gy evan­ge­list Dou­glas Rushkoff. But while some see tech­nol­o­gy as an obsta­cle to clear think­ing and human inter­ac­tion, oth­ers see it as essen­tial to con­tem­po­rary edu­ca­tion.

I have to say the whole sub­ject res­onates with my own ambiva­lent technophil­ia. You can watch the doc­u­men­tary above or here (and the trail­er fol­lows), but don’t for­get to check your news feeds, twit­ter, and face­book while it’s on in the back­ground.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Google Lit Trips

in Google, Literature | February 19th, 2010

For three years, Eng­lish teacher Jerome Burg has been using Google Earth to teach lit­er­a­ture. Each “Lit Trip” involves map­ping the move­ments of char­ac­ters over a plot’s time­line and pro­vid­ing excerpts, pic­tures, and links at each loca­tion. I found a lit trip for one of my favorite nov­els, Cor­mac McCarthy’s Blood Merid­i­an, which involves a lot of move­ment across the old West. McCarthy him­self is said to have spent years trac­ing these paths and study­ing loca­tions in prepa­ra­tion for writ­ing the nov­el. You’ll find a com­plete list of lit trips here, includ­ing such clas­sics as Mac­beth, Por­trait of the Artist as a Young Man, and The Odyssey. It’s dif­fi­cult to get a sense of the fan­tas­tic effect of visu­al­ly unpack­ing a plot with­out down­load­ing a lit trip and try­ing it with­in Google Earth (down­load here). But here’s a video of a lit trip for Make Way for Duck­lings by Robert McCloskey. It will give you a quick taste of the lit trip expe­ri­ence:

Final­ly, you can find a two-part video intro­duc­tion to Lit Trips by Kate Reavey, a pro­fes­sor at Penin­su­la Col­lege, here and here.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Time Travel with Google Earth

in Google, History | February 8th, 2010

Google Earth­’s his­tor­i­cal imagery fea­ture now includes aer­i­al footage of the after­math of World War II, allow­ing users to com­pre­hend the extent of post-war destruc­tion by com­par­ing pho­tos of cities as they are today to those of bombed out cities imme­di­ate­ly after the war.

Here’s War­saw in 1935, dev­as­tat­ed in 1943, and restored today. You can click here to see the pic­tures in a big­ger size.

For more imagery, includ­ing pic­tures of Stuttgart, Naples and Lyon, see the Google Earth blog.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Introduction to New Testament History and Literature: A Free Yale Course

in Religion, Yale | January 24th, 2010

Taught by Yale pro­fes­sor Dale B. Mar­tin, this course offers an intro­duc­tion to New Tes­ta­ment His­to­ry and Lit­er­a­ture, and cov­ers the fol­low­ing ground:

This course pro­vides a his­tor­i­cal study of the ori­gins of Chris­tian­i­ty by ana­lyz­ing the lit­er­a­ture of the ear­li­est Chris­t­ian move­ments in his­tor­i­cal con­text, con­cen­trat­ing on the New Tes­ta­ment. Although the­o­log­i­cal themes will occu­py much of our atten­tion, the course does not attempt a the­o­log­i­cal appro­pri­a­tion of the New Tes­ta­ment as scrip­ture. Rather, the impor­tance of the New Tes­ta­ment and oth­er ear­ly Chris­t­ian doc­u­ments as ancient lit­er­a­ture and as sources for his­tor­i­cal study will be empha­sized. A cen­tral orga­niz­ing theme of the course will focus on the dif­fer­ences with­in ear­ly Chris­tian­i­ty (-ies).

You can watch the 26 lec­tures from the course above, or find them on YouTube and iTunes. To get more infor­ma­tion on the course, includ­ing the syl­labus, vis­it this Yale web­site.

Intro­duc­tion to New Tes­ta­ment His­to­ry and Lit­er­a­ture will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. There you can find a spe­cial­ized list of Free Online Reli­gion Cours­es.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!