4.0991 Rs: Core Curriculum; Philosophy... (4/84)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 6 Feb 91 17:09:44 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0991. Wednesday, 6 Feb 1991.
(1) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:11:21 GMT (29 lines)
From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK>
Subject: Politics of a Core Curriculum
(2) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:03:17 GMT (11 lines)
From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK>
Subject: languages on humanist
(3) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 09:23:35 EST (29 lines)
From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA
Subject: Progress in Philosophy
(4) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:25:10 MDT (15 lines)
From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU
Subject: Re: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:11:21 GMT
From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK>
Subject: Politics of a Core Curriculum
I should have thought that it would be reasonably straightforward to
teach philosophy as a Great Tradition, stressing the dependence of
Medieval Islamic philosophy on the greeks (this isn't contentious, they
admitted it themselves) and the dependence of medieval scholastic
philosophy on both Muslim translators of Greek works and Muslim
philosophers themselves (again uncontentious), and the further
dependence of early modern Western philosophers on the Scholastic
tradition (which many of them were at pains to deny, but unconvincingly
so).
The contentious questions would be a) why in the early M.A. Muslims were
so much more successful than the Latin West in absorbing and expanding
Greek science and philosophy and b) why the opposite was the case from
the later M.A. onwards. Can we simply get away with blaming barbarian
(Germanic, Turkish, Mongol) invasions? Has Islam abandoned certain
aspects of its own tradition which made it more flexible and fruitful in
the past than it is now? If so, can the students themselves suggest any
remedies? (That approach might defuse the dynamite to some extent).
In any case it would surely be more helpful to treat the western and
Islamic traditions as two parallel and interdependent cultures rather
than as fundamentally opposed to one another. I fear that the latter
presentation is the truer nowadays, but it wasn't always so.
Christopher
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:03:17 GMT
From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK>
Subject: languages on humanist
If we're going to standardize on a language, shouldn't it be that used
by the original humanists? It has the advantage of no accents and a
character set which is a subset of ASCII. The disadvantage is that though
most of us no doubt read it, very few can nowadays write it fluently -
I haven't even tried.
Christopher
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 09:23:35 EST
From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA
Subject: Progress in Philosophy
The recent comment that whether philosophy has value depends on whether
it makes progress and Stephen Clark's response brought to mind something
I have observed many other times in many other contexts: a great many
non-philosopher academics know virtually nothing about what contemporary
philosophy is. Example: our School of Business recently created a course
in Business Ethics. Ethics being one of the things philosophers are sup-
posed to know something about, we (the Philosophy Dept) wished some role
in this course (the details are complicated and don't matter). We lost
in the Senate. Reason: it was clear that many of our colleagues firmly
believed that anyone of good will with a sense of propriety could
teach Ethics perfectly adequately. That is to say: there is no
significant theory in Ethics, just good-will-based opinion and
intuition. No one would dream about making such an assumption about
physics -- or political science -- or even logic. Obviously the people
voting on our proposal had never heard of Kant or Mill or Locke (or knew
nothing of how they argued for their positions), let alone Rawls, Nozick
or MacIntyre. Moral: People should not takes stands on things they do
not know enough about to judge rationally -- in university Senates or on
Humanist. (If I say this, however, I should also acknowledge that
contemporary philosophy, which is very in- ward looking and often
displays an attitude of narcissistic superiority, has to shoulder a lot
of the blame for others knowing little about it. Though just reading
the New York Review of Books or TLS would be enough to correct this
problem.)
Andrew Brook (ABROOK@CARLETON.BITNET)
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:25:10 MDT
From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU
Subject: Re: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric (3/57)
Germaine's admonition is duly noted. We need a good word for that
particular misuse of "rhetoric" as in "that's just rhetoric." Bombast
comes close, but is too overblown. Now there would be a truly useful
job for linguists: word manufacturing!
(grateful for the chance to write any sort of message that's
lighthearted)
Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D.
Historian, Data Center Associate
Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU