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Index for this page...
All The Following Items Were Posted On November 1, 2008 Soul: The word "soul" is used by almost everyone with the negative understanding that, unlike physical and material bodies, it represents something that is not physical and not material. But that understanding of soul, in itself and in relation to body, leaves many philosophical questions unanswered. The most important issue in the understanding of soul occurred early in the history of philosophy. It is the difference between the views of Plato and Aristotle. For Plato, the soul was a spiritual substance conjoined with a material or physical body. In addition, for Plato that union of soul and body occurs only in human beings. Plants, animals, and other living organisms do not have souls. In the Platonic view, the immortality of the human soul is self-evident, or at least easily demonstrated, because when death occurs, the soul, being a simple substance, is released and continues in existence. Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" speaks of the soul as coming from heaven, which is its home; and refers to the body as "the prison house of the soul." The Platonic doctrine of body and soul takes on another form in modern times with Decartes's distinction between res extensa and res cogitans. As for Plato, so for Descartes, the human being is an almost inexplicable union of two separate substances -- body and mind. Since Descartes, the mind-body problem has obsessed modern philosophy. As stated by Descartes, that problem is insoluble. For Aristotle, the word "soul" names the form to be found in the substance of all living matter. A living organism, as opposed to an inanimate substance, is "besouled" -- which is to say "alive." These two words are interchangeable. For Aristotle, the question of the immortality of the human soul is not raised, even though Aristotle declares that the intellect, which is one of the soul's specific powers, is immortal because it is immaterial. However, when Christian theologians consider the immortality of the human soul, they must also affirm the resurrection of the body, because the imagination is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the exercise of human conceptual thought. From the purely philosophical as opposed to the theological point of view, the most that can be said is that the immortality of the human soul is possible, but its actuality cannot be philosophically demonstrated. Source: Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon. Have you a copy of this book in your personal library? If not, consider getting one. Read Max Weismann's review of this book by Clicking Here.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809), British/American political & social philosopher Paine was a revolutionary philosopher and writer who was born in England but had an immense impact on American thought and action during the revolutionary period. Originally a corset-maker, he became a sailor, a schoolmaster, and an exciseman. In 1774 he sailed for America, where his pamphlet Common Sense (1776) argued for complete independence. In 1787 he returned to England, where he wrote The Rights of Man (1791-92) in support of the French Revolution. Arraigned for treason, he fled to Paris, where he was elected a Deputy to the National Convention, but imprisoned for his proposal to offer the king asylum in the United States. At this time he wrote The Age of Reason, a work in favor of deism. Released in 1796, he returned to the United States in 1802. Here are two brief samples of his thought:
Source: Noted writings of Thomas Paine. Read more about Thomas Paine in The Radical Academy. Books by Thomas Paine in The Radical Academy Bookstore.
FOR THE RECORD 1. U.S. Sinks In World Economic Freedom Ratings, by James W. Harris Economic freedom, though on the rise around the world, has significantly declined in the U.S. over the past several years. That's the disturbing finding of the 2008 Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report, a highly-regarded study of economic freedom around the world prepared by a team of scholars coordinated by the libertarian Cato Institute in conjunction with the Fraser Institute of Canada. In the 2000 report the U.S. was ranked the second-freest economy. This year, however, the U.S. has fallen to 8th place, behind Hong Kong (ranked first), Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Chile, and Canada. Yes, the U.S. now ranks behind Canada in overall economic freedom, even allowing for Canada's socialized medical system. According to the Cato Institute, "President Bush's tenure has had a clear negative effect on economic freedom ratings." Economic Freedom of the World ranks 141 countries on a range of factors in five broad areas: 1) size of government; 2) legal structure and security of property rights; 3) access to sound money; 4) freedom to trade internationally; and 5) regulation of credit, labor and business. More significant than the U.S.'s drop in the rankings is its fall in the amount of economic freedom measured: on a scale of 0-10, the U.S. fell from 8.55 in 2000 to 8.04, according to the Report. Only five countries have experienced a greater decline over the same time period: Zimbabwe, Argentina, Niger, Venezuela, and Guyana. "The rule of law, government spending, and regulation are the areas where the United States saw the most troubling declines in its ratings this decade," observes Ian Vasquez, director of Cato's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. These ratings are for the year 2006, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available. As it has in previous years, the Report found a strong positive relationship between economic freedom and poverty reduction. "Numerous studies have shown that countries with more economic freedom grow more rapidly and achieve higher per-capita income levels than those that are less free," notes the Report. "Nations in the top quartile of economic freedom have an average per-capita GDP of $31,480 in 2006, compared to $3,882 for those nations in the bottom quartile in constant 2005 international dollars." Where there are free markets, there is abundance. Heavy government control of market activity reduces prosperity and wreaks havoc. Those scrambling to reshape the American economy would do well to remember that. Source: Cato Institute James W. Harris is the editor of Liberator Online, a publication of Advocates for Self-Government. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and he has been a Finalist for the Mencken Award, given by the Free Press Association for "Outstanding Journalism in Support of Liberty." 2. Good News For Smokers... Well, Maybe Red Wine Cuts Lung Cancer Risk. Enjoying a glass or two of red wine daily may slash your risk of developing lung cancer by 60 percent if you're a smoker. A study published in the October 2008 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, found that moderate consumption of red wine lowered the risk of lung cancer in men. "An antioxidant compound in red wine may be protective of lung cancer, particularly among smokers," said Chun Chao, Ph.D., a research scientist at Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, California. The study collected information on over 84,000 men aged 45 to 69 years old in California's health care system. Scientists measured the effects of beer, white wine, red wine and liquor on the risk of developing lung cancer. Factors such as race, education, body mass index, and smoking history were also considered. The researchers found that for every glass of red wine consumed each month, the risk of developing lung cancer dropped by two percent. The biggest reduction was seen in smokers who drank one or two glasses of red wine daily. Their risk was reduced by 60 percent. Beer, white wine and liquor had no measureable effect. "Red wine is known to contain high levels of antioxidants," said Chao. "Red wine is known to contain high levels of antioxidants. There is a compound called resveratrol that is very rich in red wine because it is derived from the grape skin. This compound has shown significant health benefits in preclinical studies." Researchers warn that their findings shouldn't encourage heavy drinking and also noted that even smokers who drank red wine had a higher risk of lung cancer than non-smokers. Source: NewsMax Health Alerts 3. Surveillance Technology: If Looks Could Kill Monitoring surveillance cameras is tedious work. Even if you are concentrating, identifying suspicious behaviour is hard. Suppose a nondescript man descends to a subway platform several times over the course of a few days without getting on a train. Is that suspicious? Possibly. Is the average security guard going to notice? Probably not. A good example, then -- if a fictional one -- of why many people would like to develop intelligent computerised surveillance systems. The perceived need for such systems is stimulating the development of devices that can both recognise people and objects and also detect suspicious behaviour. Much of this technology remains, for the moment, in laboratories. But Charles Cohen, the boss of Cybernet Systems, a firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, ... says behaviour-recognition systems are getting good, and are already deployed at some security checkpoints. Source: The Economist 4. Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked The hallowed halls of academia are not the place you would expect to find someone obsessed with evil (although some students might disagree). But it is indeed evil -- or rather trying to get to the roots of evil -- that fascinates Selmer Bringsjord, a logician, philosopher and chairman of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Cognitive Science here. He's so intrigued, in fact, that he has developed a sort of checklist for determining whether someone is demonic, and is working with a team of graduate students to create a computerized representation of a purely sinister person. "I've been working on what is evil and how to formally define it," says Bringsjord, who is also director of the Rensselaer AI & Reasoning Lab (RAIR). "It's creepy, I know it is." Source: Scientific American 5. Short Takes On The Government Bailout Dollars and the Bailouts: U.S. House members who voted Yes on the September 29 Wall Street bailout received 54 percent more money in campaign donations from banks and securities than members who voted No. So reports MAPLight.org, a non-partisan organization whose mission is to "illuminate the connection between money and politics." "[O]ver the past five years, banks and securities firms gave an average of $231,877 in campaign contributions to each Representative voting in favor of the bailout, compared with an average of $150,982 to each Representative voting against the bailout -- 54 percent more money given to those who voted Yes." Democrats who voted Yes "received an average of $212,700 each, about twice as much as those voting No, $107,993." Republicans who voted Yes "received an average of $273,181 each, 50% more than those voting No, $181,688." Just a coincidence, no doubt. -- Source: MAPLight.org "A Really Large Number": Here's a stunner. Where did the U.S. Treasury figure get the $700 billion figure they demanded for the bailout? Forbes magazine wondered, too, so they asked. Turns out the Treasury... made it up. "It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." -- Source: Forbes Well, Nobody Really Reads Those Things Anyway: "We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself." -- Source: Republican Party Platform, adopted September 1, 2008 "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men." -- John Adams (1735-1826), Second president of the United States (1797-1801).
COUNSELING CORNER: Laughter is Good for You! So Let's Have Some Bailout Humor . . . Take a break and laugh with America's most popular late-night hosts: "The United States have developed a new weapon that destroys people but it leaves buildings standing. It's called the stock market." -- Jay Leno "This economy is crazy. I saw a Lehman Brothers executive walking around town wearing a sign that read, 'Will work for a seven-figure bonus.'" -- David Letterman "President Bush announced today he is going to have the Federal government put $250 billion into US banks. Yeah. Bush also said if he's putting that much money into a bank, they'd better give him a big-ass toaster." -- Conan O'Brien "You know, do you think President Bush really understands any of this stuff? Like today, he was asked about General Motors. And he said, 'I think he's doing a fine job in Iraq.'" -- Jay Leno "The average price of a gallon of gas has had its biggest drop ever this week also. It's now down to $3.30 a gallon. Remember $3.30 a gallon? That's the price you used to get outraged about a year ago." -- Jay Leno "So let's see, the country is broke. Listen to this: 60 percent of the people in America now say we are headed toward a depression, not a recession, a depression. We are in desperate needs of profitable industries we can tax. Um, now can we legalize pot?" -- Bill Maher "Ladies and gentlemen, the Bush administration is taking over the banks. So, hey, crisis over." -- David Letterman "Congress keeps saying that not only are taxpayers going to get back the $800 billion, oh, they're going to make money on the deal too. Yeah, yeah. See, now you know where the 'con' in congressman comes from. That's where it comes from." -- Jay Leno "The bailout plan has been passed. Here's the deal. It went from $700 billion to $800 billion. Now the reason for that, it costs the taxpayers more. If it costs the taxpayers more, the better chance that Congress will vote for it." -- David Letterman "The House on Friday passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. President Bush then signed the bill into law after consulting with his economic advisers, M.C. Hammer, Ed McMahon and Willie Nelson" -- Seth Meyers
A LITTLE OF THIS & A LITTLE OF THAT A Little Wisdom: "Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." --Mother Theresa A Little Advice: If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep. A Little Quip: The world is filled with willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. A Little Proverb: Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot. A Little Question: What was the best thing before sliced bread? A Little Reflection: Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice? A Little Admission: I'm desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore helmets. A Little Observation: There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot. A Little Warning: Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic. A Little Definition: DUST - Mud with the juice squeezed out. A Little Quote: "There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live." -- James Truslow Adams A Little Put-Down: Have a nice day... somewhere else.
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites: Does Science Really Have Laws?, by Dinesh D'Souza: Does science really have laws? The proposition that it does is at the root of the argument that science is based on undisputed "facts" while religion is based on subjective "values." Moreover, if science has laws that are known to be incorrigible, then miracles would seem to be impossible. So what exactly are scientific laws and what degree of certainty can we attach to them? Science and faith, the British way, by Mark I. Pinsky: Some of the most prominent researchers in England enjoy a vibrant religious life that coexists with their immersion in the scientific world. Indeed, these evangelicals might give American believers, and scientists, something to think about. On Non-Nihilistic "Scientific" Atheism: Nobel laureate in physics Steven Weinberg recently revamped his 2008 Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard University for an essay entitled "Without God" in The New York Review of Books. As the essay moves toward a close, Weinberg tells us: "the worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature, of the sort imagined by philosophers from Anaximander and Plato to Emerson." Against Intuition - Experimental philosophers emerge from the shadows, but skeptics still ask: Is this philosophy?, by Christopher Shea: "If anything can be pursued in an armchair, philosophy can," the esteemed Oxford philosopher Timothy Williamson told the Aristotelian Society, of London, a few years ago. That may sound like an innocuous truism: No one pictures Bertrand Russell doing his philosophical cogitation anywhere but in a club chair, or perhaps in bed, postcoitally (given his adventurousness in that arena). 'Veritas' Nos Liberat, by Gabriel Arana: I have written before about "intellectual diversity," which presupposes a sweeping view of American intellectual history in which a "nutritious" diet of Great Books was hijacked by liberals in the '60s and replaced with feminist and race studies. In this nostalgic fantasy, students in crisp button-downs discussed the Aeneid en plein air until, at midnight on December 31, 1959, they metamorphized into bra-burning protest fanatics. Math, History, Science and ... Philosophy for Young Children?: It is easy to identify the importance of the "basic" studies that characterize children´s everyday class load, particularly in the pre-adolescent years, where they are most impressionable. Mathematics supply necessary skills applicable to everyday life, history enriches knowledge of the past and science teaches children what exactly makes the world go round. However, can any of these disciplines truly teach children what it all really means? Aristotle will see you now - A growing number of people are turning to a new kind of professional to help them sort out life's complexities, philosophical counselors, by Gail Rosenblum: Life, as you may have heard, is difficult. Sometimes, all that's needed to pull us up is a good friend's ear. Or a therapist's chair. Or an hour in a spiritual place. Or, perhaps you'd like an hour or two with Plato. A growing number of people, mostly in large cities, are paying professional philosophers, generally called "philosophical counselors," to help them think through life's challenges, from how to parent teenagers to how to love well and age gracefully.
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