Great job introducing us to "the happiest man in the world," Damon, Caroline, and Jessica! Podcast... Spinoza @dawn
1. Spinoza's symbol of continuity was what?
2. From what "cruel illusion" did Spinoza want to free us?
3. For Spinoza there's nothing more absurd than what?
4. What is the role of reason in securing happiness, for Spinoza?
5. Beyond eliminating obstacles, what must we do to be happy?
6. What does Spinoza mean by "joy"?
More?
DQ:
1. Will you have any particular dying requests? 155
2. Can we freely choose to renounce free will? Or freely choose to affirm it? Or seek new desires? (Remember Schopenhauer's "We can do what we want, but not want what we want.")
3. Why shouldn't we expect a pantheistic universe to yield universal rules of behavior?
4. Can a rationalist pantheist endorse delusional sources of happiness? 178
5. Was Einstein being disingenous when he affirmed "Spinoza's God"?
6. Comment: "There isn't an inch of earth where God is not."
More?
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Postscript. The anti-Ricard, novelist Michel Houellebecq - much closer to the French stereotype than Frederic Lenoir, who introduced us to him a few classes back - was interviewed in the Times. I prefer the Monk, myself.
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Postscript. The anti-Ricard, novelist Michel Houellebecq - much closer to the French stereotype than Frederic Lenoir, who introduced us to him a few classes back - was interviewed in the Times. I prefer the Monk, myself.
PARIS — Michel Houellebecq was seated with his legs crossed in a chair in his publishers’ office here, chain-smoking and flicking away criticism that his latest novel, “Submission,” is Islamophobic, or at least critical of Islam. “I really couldn’t care less, to be honest,” said Mr. Houellebecq, France’s best-known world-weary bad-boy novelist, letting out a little laugh that interrupted his usual deadpan delivery.
Islam itself doesn’t interest him, he continued during a recent interviewbefore the novel’s release in the United States next Tuesday by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. “What interests me is the fear that it creates, not the contents,” he said.
“Submission,” which is set in 2022 and imagines France under its first Muslim president, was published in France on Jan. 7, the day jihadists killed 12 people at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, whose cover that week featured Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck) in a magician’s hat, as if predicting the future.
Since then, he has been under 24-hour police protection, a fate that, he dryly said, “could be worse.” Among those killed was his friend the economist Bernard Maris. “It’s the first time someone I knew died for political reasons,” he added. Of the attack on the publication, he said, “I was sad, but I wasn’t surprised.”
A best seller across Europe, “Submission” hit a nerve in France, where it has sold an impressive 650,000 copies. Literary critics praised it. Feminists condemned its depiction of women (supine, in all senses of the word, including in not standing up to the imposition of Shariah law). The right called it prescient. The left called it a gift to the right-wing National Front. Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced it, saying: “France isn’t Michel Houellebecq. It isn’t intolerance, hate, fear.” In August, France’s establishment dailies, Le Figaro and Le Monde, published five- and six-part series on him... (continues)
Quiz Question:
ReplyDelete1.Unlike Descartes who views the mind/body as two different substances, Spinoza vies the mind/body as what?
2.Humans are subject to what universal law?
Quiz Question
ReplyDeleteIn what two ways can one view joy?
Discussion Question
ReplyDeleteLenoir changes his definition of happiness from "to be happy is to love the life we are leading" to "love of life," which do you prefer and why?
I prefer "love of life" because the "... Love the life we are leading." doesn't seems as ambitious. It almost seems that he saying, you know, what ever you're doing, wherever you are, love it. Which to me doesn't necessarily scream out happiness, it's leaning more towards dealing with the life you are leading rather than fighting for the life you want to live, the life you should love.
DeleteThe latter, because "the life we are leading" is always one of myriad possibilities. The love of life impels us to seek improvement, the life we are leading at any given time might not be our best.. But if you take Spinoza to heart, it's hard to see how we'd ever actualize any of those other possible lives. So, I admire much about Spinoza but can't be a Spinozist.
ReplyDeleteI chose my Ted Talk by David Stiendl-Rast. He is a been a Monk at Mount Saviour Benedictine monastery since 1953. In Brother David’s TED talk he discussed how gratitude is what brings happiness. I enjoyed how he presented the idea of gratitude as not being the “key” to happiness, but more as the by-product. If we experience our world with grateful eyes we will be happy individuals. He explains how we tend to experience like moment by moment, and instead we should view it as gift by gift. Brother David is not naïve to think we can be grateful for everything but we can find gratefulness in every moment. Stop, look, then go is what he expresses is what we are taught to do from our youngest years and we should apply this to our lives throughout.
ReplyDeleteDilvin chose her Ted Talk by Nancy Etcoff “Happiness and it’s Surprises.” Ms. Etcoff discussed many different things such as human beings being wired to pursue happiness and how genes don’t hold all the cards in how happy you turn out to be. The thing Dilvin found most interesting about her talk though, was when Etcoff said that individuals who were suicidal used singular pronouns a lot more than most people, and how that was representative of aloneness and isolation. Etcoff related this back to how human beings need social interaction and to feel like you belong. That being self-focused can cause your mood to be down and essentially make you unhappy. The whole concept was really neat, and the entire talk was enjoyable.
DQ- Will you have a dying wish?
ReplyDeleteIn my eyes, I am already dying, as we all are. Should we not all strive to grant any wish we have before? Why wait till we do not have the strength and/or health to go out and do what we want? Should we not live each day as if it's our last? Why should we procrastinate to the point where we feel as if our life is incomplete without doing that one final act, saying those words you've never said, mending a relationship you never thought was broken. If you live each day like it's your last, you (perhaps) won't feel the need for a dying wish. If you live each day like it's your last, one of these days you'll be right.
Possible DQ:
ReplyDeleteDo you think that your happiness is based off the things you want to do, or the things you feel obligated to do? Which are you doing, and why?