Do Philosophy Classes Have "Labs"?

When I was preparing to go to grad school I was torn between two choices: Ph.D. in marine/riparian biology, or Ph.D. in philosophy?  I love fish, aquatic invertebrates,

(well, most of them, anyway) and the environments they live in.  Wouldn't it be great to make freestone streams and tidal pools into my classrooms?

But I also love philosophy.  Philosophy has connections to every other discipline; it offers a unique perspective on human activities; and it promotes some of the most interesting and fruitful conversations I know of.  (Yes, I admit some professional bias here, and don't begrudge others a similar bias towards what they love.)  Philosophy classes take on questions about truth, value, meaning, religion, justice, science, language, reason, history, relationships, and much more.  It can be very difficult, but there's usually a huge payoff for the effort you put into it.

Now that I teach philosophy, I often find myself lurking around the biology department at my school, to read their journals, to talk with the professors there (who patiently put up with my presence there), and to eye their labs with envy.


Now, I think bio labs are great places, but it's not the places themselves that I most like.  It's rather the idea of the place.  Labs are spaces set apart for learning by experience.  We have labs for the sciences, and we have labs for the arts as well (though we usually call those "studios").  In the social sciences they use labs for observing human activities, and foreign languages have (or ought to have) labs for practicing language.  Writers have workshops, historians have museums and archives, and other disciplines have internships.

Philosophy, unlike all these other disciplines, does not appear to have any labs at all.  At least, not at first glance.

Partly this is due to the reflective nature of philosophy: philosophers have often understood our discipline as a step back from experience in order to gain a cool, disinterested view of the world.  To some degree, we still think that, but that idea of having a privileged access to reality through the use of the right kind of language, or through a scientific worldview, has fallen under suspicion.  Pace Descartes, we don't necessarily understand the world better by turning completely away from it.

Contrary to popular opinion, "philosophy" is not a synonym for "opinion."  Nor is it a synonym for "doctrines."  Philosophy has grown and changed quite a lot in the last few centuries, which means that is not always easy to define.  One thing that is common to all philosophers, however, is that philosophy is an activity.  Doing philosophy is not the mere rehearsal of past views, nor is it merely an attempt to present our already established opinions in clearer or more persuasive language.

Philosophers do, in fact, set aside spaces and times for practicing philosophy.  One important kind of lab philosophers have is the seminar, which has its roots in Plato's practice of philosophy.  Whatever else we might say about Plato, he knew how important good conversation is to advancing philosophy.  In his dialogues, Plato uses conversation to illustrate two points:  first, we need to spend at least some of our time in serious, sustained conversation and reflection with others.  Second, when we do so, we need to follow the argument where it leads and not just where we want it to go.

A brook trout I photographed in Maine.

In future posts I'll take up several other kinds of "labs" philosophers use, which I'll mention briefly here.  First, recently, some philosophers have begun doing what they call "experimental philosophy."  Second, I find that teaching philosophy "in the field" (for environmental philosophy or ethics, for instance) or teaching abroad provides a special experience for animating philosophical conversations.  Third, I've come up with several "hands-on" (or, just as often, "eyes-on") projects for my classes in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Environmental Philosophy that are helpful pedagogical tools.

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[Images: Raphael's "School of Athens," showing famous Greek philosophers "at work"; two mayflies photgraphed in the summer of 2009 in Gravenhurst, Ontario; one of the tributaries to Lake Muskoka in Ontario; a brook trout photographed on the Magalloway River in Maine, 2009 while fishing and doing some research with Matt Dickerson.  The Raphael image is in the public domain; the others are my own photos.  I think mayflies are especially lovely creatures.  The adult stage shown above is a very brief period of their lives; most of their lives are spent underwater, and their appearance is quite different then from what it is as adults.] 

Mike Wanous, Great Professor!

Augustana College Biology Professor Mike Wanous has once again lived up to Augie's slogan "Great Professors." challenged his lab sections to raise money for microlending website kiva.org this year.  Between the two sections, they raised over $3000.  The payoff?  The winning lab section won the right to style Dr. Wanous' hair. Here's the coiffure he was sporting last week:

He tells me that my haircut last spring served as an inspiration.  (I let the Colleges Against Cancer group I advise do the same thing with my hair.  They also raised quite a lot of money for cancer research and prevention - we have very philanthropic students!)  Frankly, I don't see the resemblance at all:

 

Google Wave and My Course in Greece

Each year I teach a course in Greece, and I require my students to make presentations at a variety of archaeological and cultural sites.

This year I am playing around with Google Wave's map feature and wondering if I can use Wave to help prepare my students to make the most of our limited time in Greece.

Do you have suggestions for how I can use this for my course?  Are you also new to Wave and interested in Greece?  If so, send me a wave at dr.dlohara@googlewave.com and I'll include you in my "sandbox" where I'm playing around with the possibilities.

(Photo credit: Dr. Jeffrey A. Johnson, Providence College)

IAPS meeting at APA in NYC, December 2009

In case you're interested in the philosophy of sport:

IAPS meeting at APA in NYC

John E. Smith, RIP

I just heard the very sad news that John E. Smith, a past president of the Charles S. Peirce Society, died last night.  The few times I corresponded with him, he was remarkably generous with his time.  As a graduate student I spoke with him about Peirce and about the philosophy of religion.  Rather than speaking down to me as was his right, he spoke to me as a fellow inquirer, and his words were both words of wisdom and words of welcome.  Later, as a young professor, I corresponded with him about one of his books when I was teaching my first seminar in American philosophy.  He wrote back quickly and offered me both help and encouragement.  The world was better for having him in it, and I am deeply saddened by his passing.  I hope one day to meet him again, if only to thank him once again for all he did for me.  May he rest in peace, enfolded to the Bosom of Abraham.

I Cannot Tell A Lie

American mythology tells us that Washington said that.  Of course, if someone says "I never lie," you cannot tell from that statement whether it is true or not.  And if they say "I always lie," it's hard to make sense of what they are saying.  But that is beside my point here.  There are a number of ethicists and theologians who tell us that we should never lie.  Kant, for instance, says that lying is a violation of the Categorical Imperative.  That is, when you lie you are acting according to a rule that you wouldn't want others to adhere to, and you're manipulating what others believe, which is a way of using them as means rather than respecting them as ends.  Augustine and Aquinas both tell us that all lies, even "jocose" or humorous lies, are sinful because they are ways of bearing false witness, something we're commanded not to do.

Are they right?  Is there never a time when lying is justified?  What do you think?

Socrates and the Trees

It's always dangerous to assume one knows what Plato thinks, since Plato goes out of his way not to tell us what he thinks.  Nevertheless, inasmuch as Socrates is his mouthpiece, here is one place where I think Socrates is mistaken.  Socrates, speaking to Phaedrus, says, "I'm a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do." (230d)

I disagree with what Socrates says here, and it is an unfortunate fact of history that many Platonists have taken a similar position to this one.  I just read this line in an otherwise very good book, David Keller and Frank Golley's The Philosophy of Ecology: From Science To Synthesis.

It's a fine collection of key articles in environmental philosophy.  In the introduction, however, they contrast Socrates with Thoreau - something Thoreau himself did - and make Thoreau out to be the one more interested in trees.  Thoreau was interested in trees, especially at the end of his life, but that does not make the comparison apt.

The irony of this line is that it comes from a dialogue in which Socrates continues to point out to his interlocutor just how much one can learn from a close observation of nature.  He repeatedly draws attention to the trees, the water, and the cicadas.  Socrates and Plato are not known as fathers of empiricism, but the view that their heads are so far in the Clouds that they cannot see the well they're about to step into has occupied too much of our attention.  We would do better to notice that Socrates pays attention to the trees.  We would do better still to pay some attention to the trees ourselves.

Lying and Letters of Recommendation

Each fall I write a lot of letters of recommendation for my students.  This fall is no exception.  In fact, I'm writing more this fall than ever before, and I'm happy to report that I think all the students I'm writing for are in fact worthy of strong recommendations.

I'm also reading Sissela Bok's book Lying, in which she has a sub-chapter on letters of recommendation.  She makes the very sensible point that inflated letters of recommendation do some harm to everyone involved, and urges us to consider being far more honest than we tend to be in such letters.  The problem is that as this kind of letter has become mandatory, there has been something like "grade-inflation" across the board with these letters.  Arguably, no one expects letters to do much more than give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.  But the form of the letter implies that the recommendation is not a binary decision but a nuanced exposition of the character of the recommendee.

Now, my principle has been to avoid saying behind someone's back what I would not say to their face.  But maybe I have the wrong orientation; maybe I should be more concerned about the person to whom the letter is addressed than the one about whom it is written.

I take my role as an advocate for my students seriously, and I attempt to do so with integrity.  I will not lie about my students, or so I tell myself.  But if I fail to point out small character flaws, does that count as a lie?  Am I obligated to make letters of recommendation into tell-all sessions?  What obligation do I have to scrutinize my students' weaknesses for future employers and for graduate schools?  What do you think?