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Notes for 12/4/2025

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  12/4/2025 [Please complete the course evaluation.] What is your most useless talent?     What, exactly, is art ?   As with many concepts, dictionary definitions are inadequate. (Example: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects” – Merriam-Webster)     Some forms of art do seem to involve skill or technique.   (La Pieta by Michelangelo) (Great wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai) Other works of art emphasize ‘creative imagination’:   (Les Voyageurs by Bruno Catalano)   (Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen) But then there are pieces of art that don’t seem to require either skill or creative imagination (though the crucial question is what, exactly, is meant by ‘creative imagination’):   (My bed by Tracy Emin)   (Artist’s shit by Piero Manzoni)     (Untit...
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Notes for 12/2/2025

  12/2/2025 Is Batman Bruce Wayne?   Is this statement TRUE?   Batman = Bruce Wayne   Correspondence theory of truth: A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts.   Problem of fictional truth (truth in fiction)   “Sherlock Holmes was a plumber.”   Fictional truth involves a statement being true “in a story.”   What is it to be true in a story?   S is true in a story if and only if the story says that S. (S is represented as an assertion in the text.)   Implied truths in works of fiction?   Stories/texts can be contradictory.   “The following is a true story.”   “Sherlock Holmes was human.”   David Lewis: S is true in a text T if and only if S is true in the possible world that is most similar to the actual world in respect of T.   It is true in the Batman stories that Eric Sotnak is a philosopher.   S is true i...
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Notes for 11/25/2025

  11/25/2025 [Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")] [Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.] Suppose you are offered a mysterious lottery ticket for $1. You are told that IF the lottery gets 1 billion players, there will be ONE winner who will receive $1 billion. But one other randomly selected player will die. If fewer than 1 billion tickets are sold, the lottery will be canceled. Would you play? Would it be WRONG to play?   Deontology Virtue ethics       Normative/applied ethics   Bypasses defenses of ethical theories.     Broad theory-independent heuristics/principles.   e.g., “First of all, do no harm” (Principle of non-maleficence)   or: “respect people’s rights” ACED   Affirm The foundation of the ethical mindset is the affirmation of the other .   What is involved in affirming the o...
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Notes for 11/20/2025

  11/20/2025 [Philosophy Club every Tuesday at 5:00pm in CAS 436 ("The Cave")] [Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.]   Have you ever been a victim or perpetrator of bullying?     Why, exactly, is bullying wrong? If authoritarian ethics is wrong, then what alternatives are there?   1.           Consequentialism 2.           Deontologism (ethics of duty/rules) 3.           Virtue theory (character ethics)         Consequentialism: Actions are made right/wrong by their consequences. What makes an action good is that it has good consequences.     Good how?   Good for whom?       Utilitarianism: Actions are good to the extent that promote happiness/pleasure/desire-satisf...
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