The Catepillar with an appetite for philosophy

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14696413

The Caterpillar with an Appetite for Philosophy

by Marina Lewycka

September 28, 2007

Images Courtesy of Eric Carle Studios

"He started to look for some food."

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"On Thursday he ate through four strawberries, but he was still hungry."

"On Thursday he ate through four strawberries, but he was still hungry."

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"Now he wasn't hungry any more — and he wasn't a little caterpillar any more. He was a big, fat caterpillar."

"Now he wasn't hungry any more — and he wasn't a little caterpillar any more. He was a big, fat caterpillar."

September 28, 2007

You really must read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, first published in 1969. It's not just a children's classic, it's a human classic — which is strange, because it has no humans in it at all. It's about a big green caterpillar.

The story is simple: the caterpillar is born, eats too much — far too much — learns to eat less, has a snooze, and changes into a butterfly.

But of course, there's far more to it than that. Carle's Hungry Caterpillar is an iconic figure whose journey from egg to butterfly is a metaphor for human development and progress, offering profound insights into the human condition.

As a thinker, he is second only to that great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who first proposed that rational thought advances through thesis and antithesis — in other words, you eat a lot, and then you feel awful, so you stop eating. What could be more rational than that?

In fact it was also Aristotle who taught us that "moderation in everything" was the secret of happiness, so he may well have been watching an ancient ancestor of Carle's Hungry Caterpillar nibbling his way delicately through a nice classical Greek green leaf.

We will only find happiness, said Aristotle, if we can find the middle path between excess and deficiency. Isn't there a lesson for us all in that, in these times of hyper-consumption that are threatening the very existence of our planet? The Hungry Caterpillar knew when to stop — do we?

But there's something puzzling about this book. All those things the Hungry Caterpillar ate — the sausage, the cupcake, the salami, the Swiss cheese — where did he find them? Surely those are not suitable food for caterpillars. Did someone leave them lying around, or did he go looking for them? It makes me wonder whether it was not Aristotle at all, but the visionary poet, thinker and mystical proto-hippie William Blake, who was the real voice of the Hungry Caterpillar. Blake takes the opposite line from Aristotle — "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Without all that excessive eating, the caterpillar would never have been ready to pupate, and move on to the next stage, the beautiful butterfly stage.

Then again, I've always thought there was a touch of Ludwig Wittgenstein about the Hungry Caterpillar. He was the founder of modern linguistic philosophy, famous for the statement, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Well, the caterpillar doesn't say a lot, does he?

Oh, forget all that. The real reason this is a great book is because of the little round wormholes in the pages. Even if your own fingers are now too big to be able to fit through the wormholes, you can have huge pleasure reading this book with a young person with caterpillar-sized fingers and a butterfly-colored imagination.

Reading for after the break

These READINGS ARE ON BLACKBOARD

Week 14:       

M         11/29   Epicureanism    BB: 102-158

W        12/1     Epicureanism cont.

F          12/3     Stoicism           BB: 344-429

Week 15:       

M         12/6     Stoicism cont.

W        12/8     Skepticism        BB: 450-461

F          12/10   Review for Exam

The Void

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/11/17/131383533/avoiding-the-void-a-brief-history-of-nothing-ness#more

What are we Reading?!

Just to let you guys know we have been reading the Nicomachean Ethics. The page numbers are wrong on the agenda bc I didnt realize you guys were getting a different edition of the text than mine. I broke up the book into three different class days. We have covered the first 2/3 in class so far. For tonight I want you to read the last 1/3, so by tomorrow you should have read the entirity of the Ethics.
Sorry for the confusion,
Dr. Layne

Incontinence

Analyze Aristotle's understanding of the incontinent man. Be sure to tell me how his actions relate to knowledge and desire. Furthermore, do you agree with Aristotle or Socrates on the question of whether incontinent action is even possible. In other words if you had true knowledge of the good could you act counter to that knowledge?

See you tomorrow,
Dr. Layne

Read until Book VI

Okay guys we discussed the ultimate end of all action for Aristotle today: happiness understood not as a psychological feeling but as the fulfillment of one's excellence. That is, the happy life becomes the life in its best or most flourishing state.

For next time tell me what Aristotle means by voluntary action and decision/deliberation. How are these two concepts related to virtue in general as well as justice in particular.

Have a happy (flourishing) weekend,
Dr. Layne 

Throwback: Protagoras

I came across this book on Amazon.com last night.Looking at it after studying Protagoras, its interesting to me that a book exists to teach parents how to teach their children virtues. Protagoras' belief that virtue must be taught in order to compensate for the relativity of justice and value is very present in today's society, as evidenced by this book. Its interesting that not only do we need to teach our children values, but we must first be taught how to teach them. It also got me thinking about the attitude each generation has towards the generations that come after. It seems that as people age, they adopt a "when I was your age" mentality towards those younger than them.Many people seem to view the generations below them as less moral or more resistant to the solid values of the good ol' days. Does this mean we are getting worse at teaching virtue? Are virtues becoming increasingly relative? Or, are virtues changing at a pace that prohibits them from being passed down to subsequent generations?

fun story relating to Socrates' waves of paradox...

When reading the Republic I was especially interested in Socrates’ three waves of paradox, specifically the idea that women are equal and eugenics. Socrates essentially said that when males and females are born, they are the exact same, there are no difference between the two, besides the obvious. He is stating that he could raise a boy as a girl and have him be a completely normal girl and vice versa. I am refuting this idea. I was interested in this because it relates to what I am learning about in my developmental psychology class. We were discussing the classic “nature vs. nurture” controversy and a story was brought up about a male who when he was in surgery to be circumcised, the doctors made a HUGE mistake and accidently chopped off his private parts completely. The doctor’s simply said that since he was a baby, they could reconstruct his genitals into that of a female and that the parents could raise the child as a girl and that he (or she?) would function and develop like any normal girl. Unfortunately for the boy, this was not the case. His parents raised him as a girl, grew his hair out and put him in dresses and gave him estrogen hormones. The boy wasn’t informed of his true history until he was 14 and finally voiced his struggles growing up. He knew something was wrong and told his parents that he was a boy, without them even admitting the truth to him. Needless to say he had quite a messed up childhood and ended up unfortunately killing himself after years of reconstruction surgeries, a wife and children. This ultimately relates and refutes Socrates idea that males and females are the same when born. I thought this was just an interesting story that is relative to this idea of Socrates’.

Pop Quiz #3

WORLDVIEWS AND ETHICS

POP QUIZ #3

Directions: In the next twenty minutes you need to write out an answer to the question below clearly and concisely. Be sure to organize your thoughts so as to have a clear thesis statement supported by evidence. It might be helpful to organize your thoughts into an opening paragraph containing your thesis statement followed by two to three short body paragraphs which detail the reasons why you hold your particular thesis. Once “in-class writing” has been completed you will be allowed to take your answer home so that you may type it up and expand upon it. You are may edit your answer for clarity and add further evidence to your paper. Finally, you will be required to staple this written draft to your “final” typed up and edited draft on Friday Nov.  12. Final Quizzes need only be 1 page long of no less than 300 words but no more than 500. Please turn these two copies in along with posting your answer to the class blog. If you do not turn in your “hand written quiz” with your final copy, your grade will be lowered 1 point from the 5 total points possible.

Question: Using any of the theories of justice and the good from the Republic (Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon or Socrates), tell me if justice is something good only for itself, good for itself and for its consequences or not good in itself but only for its consequences. If you choose to focus on Socrates be sure to integrate one of his defenses of the nature of justice/the good in the City/Soul Analogy, the Tripartite Division of the Soul, the Analogy of the Good, the Divided Line, the forms of Government corresponding to types of souls and/or they Myth of Er into your answer.

Aristotle's Ethics

So read Book I Chapters 1-13 of the Nicomachean Ethics.

What is the function of the human being and how does determine our good?

See you tomorrow,
Dr. Layne

Sex, Physics, and Constructing Reality

This blog is pretty interesting, especially coming off of our latest class discussion. 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/11/09/131184982/sex-physics-and-constructing-reality#more

The Democratic Man and The Myth of Er

So go ahead and read book VIII (I found out in the second class that it was actually in your edition of the text and not mine) and Book X.

Either

describe to me origin of the democratic spirit and then tell me how it is a perversion from the good or just city/soul

or,

read the myth of Er in the final book of the Republic and tell me what eschatology can be gleamed from it.

Cheers,

Dr. Layne

The Soul and the Cave

So today we started to read the allegory of the cave more closely, emphasizing the importance it lays on understanding "our nature" and its education and development rather than merely a political description reinforcing a kind of intellectual elitism. We are all in the cave, we all possess the potency of seeing, of distinguishing between reality and appearances but most fail to turn their gaze on reality as most are content with opinion, the shade of knowledge created not by an eternal light, the sun, but by a man made fire. This is the part of each of us that tends toward relativism, i.e. the dismissal of any one, common and eternal truth. In contrast, when we begin to question the reality of those shades, of those opinions, and ask for their source, we take the first steps toward the light, toward the rays of the sun. In this turn we discover the puppeeters, that aspect of each of us that is content with appearance and projecting appearances (not simply as the politcal reading would demand, the sophists or politicans/heads of state-of course this is a valid reading of the text but one which unfortantely neglects the psychological demand that Socrates explicitly emphasizes). Of course, we ascend slowly, with much struggle and ultimately reality itself is blinding. Here, in the clearing, we squint and gaze first at shadows again but this time shadows (perhaps true opinions) that are caused by the light of the sun on the objects of reality. Next we turn to images in the water, then the "things in themselves," and finally the acknowledgment of the source of the things, the sun/the good. In the end, this conversion of the soul toward reality simply begins with turning toward the light of the Good, striving to ascend from out of the world of illusions, becoming and opinion, perhaps even of meaninglessness. For Socrates, only when we loosen and shake off the bonds of the particular world and do what is difficult, and seemingly crazy (not only to the others in the cave but also via the psychological reading, crazy even for ourselves), does are nature thrive, reach true happines. Only those who distinguish the one from the many, reality from illusion, opinion from knowledge, do the work that allows for the harmony of the soul.

Okay that's enough rambling.
For next time in the first class we will talk about your own analogies of the Good, while in the second class we will finish talking about those analogies. I will also lecture on the opening of Book VIII, instead of Book X as in Book VIII there is a wonderful section describing the various kinds of goverment that are analogous to individual souls.

We will read Book X for Monday.

Hope you are well,
Dr. Layne

An Effort to Gain the Repute of Justice....

Hey classmates!

I was going to make this announcement anyhow, but considering the reading about the importance of APPEARING just, I figured I'd play into that.

So, Platonically speaking...this is me trying to get you to think of me as a "just individual"

The Loyola University Sociology Student Organization is holding a food drive and petition until this Friday. The food will be distributed by Second Harvest Food Bank, and the petition urges the federal government not to cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). To sign this petition you can either talk to me, or find our table in the Danna Center from 11-2 for the rest of the week. You may also make food or money donations at this table.

Come appear just with us.
Thanks,
-Max

Good Analogy

So what parallels are there between the Analogy of the Good to the Sun, the divided line and the Allegory of the Cave?

Also, I just wanted to remind you to come prepared with your own analogy of the good for class tomorrow. For example if you think the Good doesn't exist, you might compare it to a mythical creature like the unicorn, something beautiful to contemplate but unfortunately something that only resides in imaginative pictures and children's fantasies. Or if you think the Good is something real but elusive, you may compare it to a fox that always knows how to hide. So to do this assignment well you need to think about some of the characteristics of the good and then attempt to furnish us with a concrete object that mirrors those qualities.

See you soon,
Dr. Layne