Draft of MMP Talk

August 31, 2012 By in availability/disposability, Cavell, Emerson, leavis, Merleau-Ponty, Metaphilosophy, Philosophy, Plato, skepticism, Socrates, Wittgenstein, writing Tags: , , , , , , 10 Comments

Here is a draft of a talk I am to give soon.  I was asked to present something that might inspire majors and non-majors, and to do something more like what I would do in a class than what I would do giving a conference paper.  This is the result so far.  It is a  formalization of the sort of thing I might do in an upper-level class.  Since I think of it as a talk and not a paper, it is not bedecked with all the scholarly niceties–footnotes or full footnotes, etc.  Most of the footnotes are really just drawers in which I have stashed useful quotations or (I hope) brief, helpful clarifications.  Comments welcome.

10 responses

  3. It’s a lovely gesture and reminds me of edmooney’s bit on why teach ‘religion’ at a secular school. Also this paper reminds me of questions in art education, especially at the MFA level, about whether one is as much teaching art as one might teach say grammar as one is fine-tuning/cultivating existing talents and in this sense part of a very narrow (in terms of population) field of endeavor.
    My sense is increasingly the latter is true of the kinds of response-abilities/tastes that you outline as being philosophical are not widely distributed and to the degree that there is a spectrum that the sorts of mentoring interactions/relationships provided by higher-ed are poorly designed to bring about such developments, which in some ways are contrary to the habits of socialization as students (emphasizing a confident knowing/expressing) that most people are suited to.

  4. I forgot to say how much I liked this (yes, I clicked ‘like’ but that hardly counts). If you don’t mind, I’ll quote a sentence or two for a paper I’m doing. Your writing has more than merit — it is indeed, wonderful!

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