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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Daryl Bambic

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Daryl Bambic

The Role of Socratic Questioning in Thinking, Teac - 0 views

www.criticalthinking.org/...522

questioning Socratic thinking Critical Thinking pft

shared by Daryl Bambic on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • answers can be taught separate from question
  • Hence every declarative statement in the textbook is an answer to a question. Hence, every textbook could be rewritten in the interrogative mode by translating every statement into a question.
  • thinking is not driven by answers but by questions
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought.
  • Moreover, the quality of the questions students ask determines the quality of the thinking they are doing.
  • That is, we ask questions only to get thought-stopping answers, not to generate further questions.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 15 Jan 15
       
      Another good reason to teach philosophy.
  • force us to deal with complexity.
  • Questions of implication force us to follow out where our thinking is going
  • purpose force
  • nformatio
  • nterpretation
  • Questions of assumption
  • point of view
  • relevance
  • ccuracy
  • precision
  • consistency
  • No questions equals no understanding.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 15 Jan 15
       
      Do you agree with this statement?
  • There is a special relationship between critical thinking and Socratic Questioning because both share a common end. Critical thinking gives one a comprehensive view of how the mind functions (in its pursuit of meaning and truth), and Socratic Questioning takes advantage of that overview to frame questions essential to the quality of that pursuit.
  • pre-thinking the main question to be discussed using the approach of developing prior question
  • list of questions which probe the logic of the first question,
Daryl Bambic

The Psychology and Philosophy of Wonder | Outre monde - 1 views

outre-monde.com/...ology-and-philosophy-of-wonder

wonder philosophy

shared by Daryl Bambic on 02 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • By drawing us out of ourselves, wonder does make us feel small and insignificant, but it also gives us right perspective by reconnecting us with something much greater and vaster and higher and better than our daily struggles. Wonder is the ultimate homecoming, returning us to the world that we came from and were in danger of losing.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 05 Feb 15
       
      Does this sound like the world of Forms?
  • Socratic wonder is not so much wonder in the sense of awe, but, as hinted by Aristotle, wonder in the sense of puzzlement or perplexity: wonder that arises from contradictions in thought and language, and gives rise to a desire to resolve or at least understand these contradictions.
  • Socrates himself only turned to philosophy after being puzzled by the Delphic Oracle, which, though he believed himself to be ignorant, pronounced him to be the wisest of all men.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • “I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.”
  • Wonder is a universal experience, found also in children and perhaps even in higher-order primates and other animals
  • of wonder share a concern for what is in some sense beyond us, or beyond our grasp.
  • and the end of wonder is wisdom, which is the state of perpetual wonder.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 05 Feb 15
       
      The most lovely definition of wisdom I have seen: a perpetual state of wonder.
Daryl Bambic

The Shrinking World of Ideas - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

chronicle.com/...150141

ideas neuroscience

shared by Daryl Bambic on 25 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • To put it in the most basic terms: Our preferences, behaviors, tropes, and thoughts—the very stuff of consciousness—are byproducts of the brain’s activity. And once we map the electrochemical impulses that shoot between our neurons, we should be able to understand—well, everything. So every discipline becomes implicitly a neurodiscipline, including ethics, aesthetics, musicology, theology, literature, whatever.
  • If all behavior has an electrochemical component, then in what sense—psychological, legal, moral—is a person responsible for his actions?
  • neuroscience has put a new spin on free will and culpability:
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • all behavior is mechanical,
  • back to forces beyond the agent’s control."
  • British philosopher Roger Scruton
  • xception to the notion that neuroscience can explain us to ourselve
  • Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld’s Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience
  • The same questions that always intrigued us—What is justice? What is the good life? What is morally valid? What is free will?
  • neurohumanities
  • Now that psychoanalytic, Marxist, and literary theory have fallen from grace, neuroscience and evolutionary biology can step up
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 25 Nov 14
       
      This is the heart of it.
Daryl Bambic

What Psychological and Social Factors Contribute to the Development of Wisdom? - Wisdom... - 0 views

wisdomresearch.org/...1445.aspx

wisdom research

shared by Daryl Bambic on 19 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Given that meditation is a mental activity one could imagine that the practice of meditation relates to wisdom
  • dance experience
  • affect judgment or decision making
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • age is not related to wisdom,
  • ncreased experience in meditation is related to increased cognitive, affective, and reflective wisdom
  • increased ballet experience is related to increased cognitive, affective, and reflective wisdom
  • self regulation and self control, which are important in maintaining such practices over long periods of time may be important for the development of wisdom
  • grit,
  • Daniel Kahneman
  • decision biases
  • istort some aspects of rational economic decision-making.
  • endowment effect,
  • hinking in a second language reduces economic biases
  • increase creativity
  • insight in problem solving.
  • antecedents of wisdom.
  • emotional distance fr
  • What needs to be true about a person in order to develop wisdom or to take advantage of experiences that can lead to the development of wisdom?
  • Wisdom seems to depend on epistemic humility.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 19 Nov 14
       
      Epistemic humility - a great descriptor for Socrates.  To be humble about what one knows or does not know.  Socrates famously said that he knew only that he knew little or nothing.
  • importance of humility in terms of recognizing how much there is to know and to learn about people.
  • wisdom depends in part on understanding that the values and perspectives of other people are important in solving human problems -- we all must be open to learning more.
  • other virtues may serve as guidance in the use and development of wisdom.
  • willingness to engage in intellectual struggle,
  • Wisdom may also depend on a propensity to engage in divergent thinking, creativity, and the insight that comes from a diversity of experiences, and from forming new concepts and associations among concepts.
Daryl Bambic

Russell, Bertrand: Ethics [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] - 0 views

www.iep.utm.edu/russ-eth

russell ethics

shared by Daryl Bambic on 02 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Russell’s view is that the good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge
  • neither love without knowledge
  • knowledge without love
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • but love is in a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love.
  • “scientific knowledge and knowledge of particular facts.”
  • All moral rules must be tested by examining whether they tend to realize ends that we desire.”(374)
  • In his youth, Russell took the utilitarian view that the “happiness of mankind should be the aim of all actions”
  • dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by “devotion to the mechanism of life”, and that unless the contemplation of “eternal things” is preserved, humankind will become “no better than well-fed pigs.”
  • He believed that (1) “good” is the most fundamental ethical concept and (2) that “good” is indefinable
  • a priori certain propositions about the kind of things that are good on their own account.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 02 Apr 14
       
      A priori meaning without empirical evidence, from reason and logic.
  • Russell, on the other hand, gives no such list of things which are good in themselves,
  • regard consequences or results as of vital importance for judging an action as right or wrong. In other words both are teleologists or consequentialists, like the utilitarians.
  • mpact of the First World War, which Russell passionately opposed
  • of human passions similar to that of psychoanalysts. Russell started believing that fundamental facts “in all ethical questions are feelings”, (Russell 1917, 19) and that impulse has more effect in moulding human lives than conscious purpose.
  • d we ought to act so as to maximize the balance of happiness over unhappiness in the world, and says: “I should not myself regard happiness as an adequate definition of the good, but I should agree that conduct ought to be judged by its consequences.”
  • According to him, once “good” is defined, the rest of ethics follows:
  • According to Russell, when we assert that this or that has value, we are giving expression to our emotions, not to a fact which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.
  • he first of these sentences, which may be true or false, does not, says Russell, belong to ethics but to psychology or biography
  • he second sentence which does belong to ethics, expresses a desire for something, but asserts nothing; and since it asserts nothing it is logically impossible that there should be evidence for or against it, or for it to possess either truth or falsehood.
  • Russell adopts as his guiding principle David Hume’s maxim that “Reason is, and ought, only to be the slave of the passions.
  • esires, emotions or passions
  • nly possible causes of action. Reason is not a cause of action but only a regulator.
  • The world that I should wish to see,” says Russell, ‘is one where emotions are strong but not destructive, and where, because they are acknowledged, they lead to no deception either of oneself or of others. Such a world would include love and friendship and the pursuit of art and knowledge.” (11)
  • esires are not “irrational” just because we cannot give any reason for them.
  • wondering once again whether there is such a thing as ethical knowledge.
  • since it must involve appeal to the majority,
Daryl Bambic

America and the 'Fun' Generation - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...30iht-currents.html

fun hedonism philosophy pft

shared by Daryl Bambic on 30 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • And now a count can declare the victors: “achievement” and “fun.”
  • term “excellence”
  • dropped out of favor, also elevenfold. As “fun” gained influence, mentions of “pleasure” fell by a factor of four.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • In the history of language, words rise and fall. We make and remake them; they make and remake us.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 02 Apr 14
       
      Language is the philosopher's primary tool.  What do you think that the rising influence of 'fun' means for how we think about pleasure?
  • turning in American culture, and one that has influenced the world. It is a turning away from an arguably aristocratic idea of the intrinsic worth of things: from pleasure, with its sense of an internal condition of mind, to fun, so closely affiliated with outward activities; from excellence, an inner trait whose attainment is its own reward, to achievement, which comes through slogging and recognition.
  • Merriam-Webster defines “pleasure” as “a state of gratification
  • fun is “what provides amusement or enjoyment;
  • excellence” as “the quality of being excellent,” which in turn means “very good of its kind: eminently good.” “Achievement,” meanwhile, is “a result gained by effort.”
  • “Pleasure” carries a hint of the sublime; it speaks of a state of mind that comes organically, that need not be artificially induced.
  • un,” though almost synonymous with “pleasure” for contemporary speakers, often involves artificial inducement
  • If “pleasure” comes from being and from talking through ideas, “fun” comes from doing and, often, switching off the brain.
  • Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.”
  • “Excellence” evokes Aristotle with its overtones of virtue. Anyone can achieve
  • but how many can truly be excellent?
  • “Achievement” is a word more likely to come from American leaders today, and, like “fun,” it is outward in nature. It comes in doing specific things. It is more about checking boxes than fulfilling inner potentialities.
  • The achievement culture permeates life today
  • n American culture of instantaneous celebrity teaches young people that fame is an end in itself rather than an incidental symptom of excellence in craft.
  • But with that change has come another: what would seem to be a growing intolerance for merely being, and an anguished insistence on doing, doing, doing.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 30 Mar 14
       
      What are the differences between pleasure and achievement according to the author?   Do you agree with him?
Daryl Bambic

The Science of Older and Wiser - Defining Wisdom | A Project of the University of Chica... - 0 views

wisdomresearch.org/...cience-of-older-and-wiser.aspx

wisdom insight older

shared by Daryl Bambic on 27 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • hat if you define wisdom as maintaining positive well-being and kindness in the face of challenges, it is one of the most important qualities one can possess to age successfully — and to face physical decline and death.
  • Vivian Clayton, a geriatric neuropsychologist in Orinda, Calif
  • she found that most people described as wise were decision makers.
  • ...41 more annotations...
  • name the characteristics of a wise person
  • hree key components: cognition, reflection and compassion.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 27 Mar 14
       
      Cognition is the process of acquiring knowledge through thought and the senses.  Speed of cognition is only one aspect of this. 
  • Unfortunately, research shows that cognitive functioning slows as people age. But speed isn’t everything
  • quality of the information in the older brain is more nuanced
  • ore information people have in their brains, the more they can detect familiar patterns.
  • cognitive templates
  • pattern recognition,
  • the reflective dimension)
  • he compassionate dimension
  • Wisdom, she has found, is the ace in the hole that can help even severely impaired people find meaning, contentment and acceptance in later life.
  • more active than passive about dealing with hardship.
  • better coping skills
  • An impediment to wisdom is thinking, “I can’t stand who I am now because I’m not who I used to be,”
  • t’s an embracing acceptance,
  • accept reality as it is, with equanimity
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 27 Mar 14
       
      Equanimity: means being calm and emotionally stable, especially under stress. You might say, "going with the flow".
  • f things are really bad, it’s good to be wise,” she said.
  • an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life.
  • general wisdom
  • personal wisdom
  • five elements
  • elf-insight
  • personal growth
  • elf-awareness in terms of your historical era
  • priorities and values, including your own, are not absolute
  • awareness of life’s ambiguities.
  • oping strategy
  • better to be positive about life when you are older, she said,
  • a wise person would fully acknowledge mistakes and losses, and still try to improve.
  • involves recognizing the negative both within and outside
  • stress kindness
  • eduction in self-centeredness,
  • multiple perspectives,
  • people who rank high in neuroticism are unlikely to be wise,
  • amorphous trait
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 27 Mar 14
       
      Amorphous: hard to define, without a clear shape
  • If you are wise, she said, “You’re not only regulating your emotional state, you’re also attending to another person’s emotional state.
  • hat you can contribute
  • generativity,
  • Generativity means giving back without needing anything in return,
  • simplifying one’s life is also a sign of wisdom
  • Continuing education can be an important way to cultivate wisdom in the later years
Daryl Bambic

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF PLATONISM « Studying the Humanities - 0 views

studyingthehumanities.wordpress.com/...a-brief-overview-of-platonism

plato

shared by Daryl Bambic on 20 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Plato’s philosophy has lasted “almost two and a half thousand years” and has “profoundly influenced”
  • allegorical ‘Myth of the Cave’
  • rying to explain how the appearance of things and the reality that stands behind these appearances work within the human condition”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • aises questions on the nature of education and enlightenmen
  • ndividual perceptions create the lived reality
  • Our perceptions create our reality
  • light can “pain the eyes
  • deception of the shadows”
  • en (sic) lacking education would come to believe that the shadows they see are the real thing
  • Plato optimistically holds that if one ever comes to know the Good, one becomes good. Ignorance is the only sin. No one would willingly do wrong
Daryl Bambic

Alain de Botton: How to stop news from ruining our lives - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...news-ruins-lives-opinion

shared by Daryl Bambic on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • a pool of independent thinkers
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 12 Mar 14
       
      This is an obvious reference to philosophers.
  • The news is the best distraction ever invented.
  • There are countless difficult things hiding away deep within us which we should give some thought
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • We need news sabbaths
  • e need long train journeys on which we have no wireless signal and nothing to read, where our carriage is mostly empty,
  • We need plane journeys when we have a window seat and nothing else to focus on for two or three hours but the tops of clouds and our own thoughts.
  • counterweights to our anxieties and self-absorption
  • A flourishing life requires a capacity to recognize the times when the news no longer has anything original or important to teach us; periods when we should refuse imaginative connection with strangers, when we must leave the business of governing, triumphing, failing, creating or killing to others, in the knowledge that we have our own objectives to honor in the brief time still allotted to us.
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