| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 1:51:11 PM
|
| So what's the question? Is it just this: "How does consistency affect knowledge?" If so, I think that's hopelessly vague. Do you really think that there's some particular way in which consistency affects knowledge?" And what does "affects" mean here anyway? Sorry, but I can't approve anything as vague as this. |
 |
|
|
Christine Gylling
Fledgling
18 Posts |
|
|
Stephanie Miller
Fledgling
13 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 2:06:54 PM
|
| Why is consistency, or lack there of, a deciding factor in proving a point? In a way, I would like to focus my paper on our discussion about "beauty being in the eye of the beholder". Not about whether that is true or not, but more so focus on the structure of the argument and how being inconsistent makes one's argument unreliable, that in no way can it be true unless it is supported by all consistent thoughts. Do you have any suggestions about how I can put that into better wording? And I hope this makes sense. |
|
|
|
Christine Gylling
Fledgling
18 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 2:56:40 PM
|
Christine, I've got the same reservations about your writing on realism that I've already expressed to John. The defensibility of philosophical realism doesn't actually have anything to do with any of our three main questions. The fact that the word "reality" shows up both the debate regarding realism and our discussion of what Sokrates calls "the realities" might make it see that there's a connection, but there is really isn't. The topic you propose would be an interesting one if we were readings, say, Descartes, but we're not. So I can't approve that topic.
The question "What is truth"? does relate to our first main question, the one about what logical consistency's got to do with knowledge. The relation is not tremendously direct, but it's there. After all, we saw that the connection that logical consistency has with knowledge has to do with truth: logical consistency is a necessary condition of truth, and truth is a necessary condition of knowledge. So truth is definitely relevant to that whole issue. But look: this is an enormously difficult question--one I think you'd be really hard put to do justice to in an essay of 800-1,600 pages. If you really want to do it, go ahead, but I'd advise that you take a look at this article on truth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to get a feel for just what you're getting yourself into. I really don't think I'd recommend your trying to write on this question.
The appeal of the "really big questions" in philosophy is undeniable, but you're not going to be writing a book or a doctoral dissertation. You're going to be writing a two- to four-page essay. |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 3:04:42 PM
|
Stephanie, how about this: "Why is it desirable that all the statements one wants to make at any particular time -- in the context, for example, of an attempt to give a definition in a Sokratic conversation -- be logically consistent with one another?" That would seem to capture what you want to write on, and I think it'd be a really nice question for your essay. There's a really closely related question you could consider alongside that one: "What's wrong with defining something in a way that's logically inconsistent with things one thinks are undeniably true?"
|
|
|
|
John Koban
Apprentice
40 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 4:32:01 PM
|
John, I like the first one of those three questions a lot, and hereby approve it for your essay! It presupposes that beautiful things do turn one on, and since we're talking about the Symposium, it makes sense to presuppose that. (The other questions would make more sense if you were thinking about beauty in almost any of the modern senses of the term and you weren't thinking about ancient Greek philosophy.) Of course you're going to have to ask yourself what the term "kalos" must actually mean -- which might not at all be what we usually mean by "beautiful" -- for it to be the case that what is kalos has this effect. My own hunch is that it's best to think of the term as meaning "attractive." Attractive things do attract -- that's why we call them "attractive" -- and the question just what it is about the attractive that attracts us is actually very interesting and connects with really interesting dimensions of the central ideas of the Symposium.
Let me remind you of that very nice discussion of all this at the beginning of Collingwood's The Principles of Art. I think it might be well worth taking another look at in this context. He's interested there in trying to make it clear just what the Greek's conception of beauty amounted to, and I think he's pretty good on the subject. |
|
|
|
Katie Contreras
Apprentice
29 Posts |
Posted - Jul 06 2010 : 10:25:58 PM
|
| OK, sounds good. Nope, I have no other questions. I understand what it is we are supposed to be doing now. Thanks. |
|
|
|
Christine Gylling
Fledgling
18 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2010 : 06:00:39 AM
|
| Christine, I like that very much: "Is the conscious pursuit of virtue something that can be taught?" What this is actually most closely connected with is our third main question, I think. The connection has to do with the question whether the path to virtue is something people can be turned on to -- whether it's possible to kindle a conscious desire in folks to take that path. Any questions about strategy or anything? |
|
|
|
Eliott Dimond
Fledgling
19 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2010 : 08:06:25 AM
|
| To know something it must be consistent but if your whole community is wrong about something, would it be better to be wrong and fit in or logically consistent and shunned? |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2010 : 09:06:45 AM
|
Eliott, it seems to me that the real core of your question has very little to do in any direct way with logical consistency. Why not just ask "Which should come first: what your community requires of you or what reason requires of you?" The one of our main questions this connects with most closely is, I think, the second one, not the first one. Another way to put the question that would bring that connection out more clearly would this: Is it the reality of the philosopher -- the being of beings -- or the reality with which we are confronted in our everyday lives -- the factuality of the fact of public opinion -- that we ought to care about most? Yet another version of the question might be this: "Which must be sacrificed when one of the two must go: popularity or reason?" and that suggests connections with our third main question: "To whose tune should one dance? The people's tune or reason's tune?" or even: "Is it better to be the beloved of the people or a lover of wisdom and reason?"
Anyway, while the question may need a little bit of tweaking, it'd be a great question for your essay. |
|
|
|
Christine Gylling
Fledgling
18 Posts |
|
|
John Koban
Apprentice
40 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2010 : 11:33:03 AM
|
| Is the paper due at 5, or at the end of the day? |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 07 2010 : 12:29:27 PM
|
Your first draft is due at 5:00 p.m. today.
|
|
|
|
Topic |
|
Essay Topics: Submit 'Em Right Here!
