As faithful readers of this blog know, I have struggled for some time with the unusual character of the format. Over the past several years, this blog has drawn to it a small circle of consistent commentators whose exchanges, sometimes extending to 50 or 60 or more comments in a thread, are at best only tangentially related to what I have originally posted.
I enjoy teaching, which is to say explaining complex ideas,
and my recent experience visiting first a class in Canada and then an adult
education gathering in Oregon, persuades me that I still have some things to
say. So I am going to try something new on this blog. Instead of posting a
comment and waiting, more often than not with disappointment, to a response
from the usual suspects, I have decided to invite readers – most especially
those who do not usually comment – to suggest subjects they would be interested
in having me write about. If I get requests, I will sift through them, looking
for those about which I have something useful to say, and will then post my
replies.
This will not, of course, stop the dozen or so usual
commentators from entering into arguments with one another about subjects
unrelated to my posts, but it will give me a sense that I am speaking through
this blog to people who are interested in what I might have to say about the
topics suggested.
Over the course of my long life, I have written about a more
than usually broad array of subjects, venturing into more than half a dozen
academic specialties – philosophy, history, politics, economics, sociology,
literature, psychology, Afro-American studies, among others – and I hope that
if I do receive some questions they will span an equally broad spectrum of
subjects.
So the floor is yours. What would someone like to hear me
talk about?
Taking up your proposal, I would be interested in your response to the following reductio ad absurdum syllogism:
ReplyDeleteAll core human morality is simply the product of the forces of Darwinian evolution.
None of the ethical precepts which have evolved as a result of the process of Darwinian evolution can properly or rationally be regarded as “right” or “correct”; and nor can their negations be regarded as “wrong” or “immoral.”
Therefore:
It was not immoral or wrong for the Nazis to have exterminated millions of human beings, including 6,000,000 Jews.
It is not immoral or wrong to dismember a human being while the human being is still alive and conscious.
It is not immoral or wrong to take a human baby which has just been born and bash its skull in.
It is not immoral or wrong for one group of human beings to enslave another group of human beings based on their race and/or skin color and force them to perform manual labor against their will without being compensated beyond being provided food and shelter.
It is not immoral or wrong to torture animals and cause them pain.
There is no rational basis for holding any human being responsible for any crime, including when the human being admits to having tortured, raped and then killed a human female, because such conduct is not wrong or immoral.
Since the above conclusions are facially absurd, at least one of the premises, and perhaps both, is/are erroneous.
I would like to hear more about your anti-nuclear weapons activities. And whether that type of protest has had any success in your opinion. And what remains to be done, and what are the possibilities of being successful in getting that done. And how you might measure whatever success was achieved.
ReplyDeleteBut you have already answered quite a few of my requests in the past- Thank You- so please do not put my request near the top of the line.
Yeah, that's a good question A.A. It has similarities to the questions I asked that the Professor answered in this post-
ReplyDeletehttps://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-reply-to-reader-who-shall-remain.html
I believe he indicated that his position on it has changed throughout his lifetime, which is interesting all by itself. I have to admit my own ideas on it have also changed back and forth. But at the moment I am resigned to saying that I believe there are some actions that are just always evil, immoral, or unethical, but that there is no way I can ever prove that.
I think it is a tough question, especially for an atheist who wants to talk about ethics.
I'm always interested to learn about the experiences of fellow "therapy junkies." Anything you'd be willing to share as to the most helpful or surprising insights that therapy has helped to reveal (about human nature or life in general, or about yourself as an individual); or what makes for a good (or bad) patient-therapist relationship, or style of treatment; or what life-difficulties of yours have (or haven't) been improved with the help of therapy; what persistent misconceptions people have about therapy; or anything else of the sort?
ReplyDelete(I don't know if this is already in the autobiography or elsewhere on the blog; if so, could someone point me in the right direction?)
I would love to hear your thoughts (as a father and grandfather and man near the end of his life, and as a thoughtful and learned human) on the future you see for your grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteI am not looking for optimism, just an honest answer as to where you see things going, given your experiences and learning.
Nietzsche. Does he have anything worthwhile to say?
ReplyDeleteI would like to continue to hear your insights about contemporary American politics and world affairs..... Despite all the blog "highjacking" by many.... including me.
ReplyDeleteComment on the saying (which seems true to me) that "the left looks for heretics (or traitors) while the right looks for converts".
ReplyDeleteLet me simply say that I appreciate your work, your wide interests, and you willingness to engage with others. At the young age of 72, I recently discovered your YouTube lectures on Kant. So I am now enjoying the reading experience of that. I've also begun your autobiography, and am waiting for a couple of your other books to arrive. As a Zen student of a few years I am also continuing my studies in that area but have augmented the main practice with readings from the Kyoto School, which says it interlaces Eastern Philosophy with Western.
ReplyDeleteSaying that, I too look forward to more of your insight on politics and world affairs, on race relations, on philosophy, music, the thoughtful life.
Thomas
I was very much looking forward to reports about your Spring class at Chapel Hill, and was disappointed that it did not take place. I was intrigued by the unusual conclusions, particularly about Locke, Rousseau and Mills that were to be revealed. Maybe it would be possible to get out some of the things you didn't get the opportunity to in the class.
ReplyDeleteYou once mentioned that you knew Richard Rorty (“before he was Richard Rorty”). What did you make of him? Did you know him well? What did you make of his philosophy? Of his political book ‘Achieving Our Country’ in which he proclaims (paraphrasing) that “patriotism is as essential to a nation as self-esteem is to an individual”?
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for a post on Richard Rorty.
ReplyDeleteHello professor.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely someone who doesn't post much if at all due to the reasons you sited so I guess this is my little hope of being heard.
My suggestion might be one not suited for a blog as it's a little philosophically heavy, but I'd like to throw it out there all the same. In your brilliant Hume lectures I'm memory serves, you played with the idea of looking at Wittgenstein. This really caught my attention and remembered back to my professors saying if you wanted to know what Wittgenstein was after, you had to study Kant. After your great lectures held my hand into the study of Kant, I feel I can see a similar project and or method between the two and wondered what you thought on the subject.
As I said this may be a big ask, and later Wittgenstein is primarily what I had in mind as it's a little easier to digest, so what do you?
Thank you so much for your shout out to those of us who don't get such an opportunity and I hope you have a good day.
From Japan/Australia
Nat P.
I am interested in what you have to say about G.A. Cohen and analytic Marxism more generally.
ReplyDeleteYou've mentioned a few times in passing that you've spent some time on Spinoza, and I'd very much like to hear your thoughts about him, perhaps regarding his political philosophy. As far as I know, you've never published anything about Spinoza.
ReplyDeleteYou have commented on this before. However, I would like to hear your thoughts on the value of liberal arts education, especially within these troubling times.
ReplyDeleteDear Prof. Wollf,
ReplyDeleteI also confess myself guilty to have hijacked your entries sometimes conscienceless to do some small talk off the road. I can understand your dissatisfaction. On the other hand, such discussions are like rivers meandering at their mouths.
Then I sometimes imagined that this blog was something like a nice little street cafe. For example the 'Café Flore' in the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in the 6th arrondissements in Paris, directly at the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Saint-Benoît or nearby the 'Les Deux Magots'. You sit there, in front of you on the small round table a daily newspaper and a cup of coffee and one sits together briefly, drinks something, talks briefly about this and that, others join in briefly and after a while everyone disappears again in the hustle and bustle of the big city and goes about their business.
Personally, I think that a blog like this is only a very limited opportunity to teach about Kant's concept of "spontaneity of reason", although that would be a nice thing. In any case, I'm curious to see if it succeeds.
I came across this wonderful quote from Aristotle: “For it is not two doctors that associate for exchange, but a doctor and a farmer, or in general people who are different and unequal; but these must be equated. This is why all things that are exchanged must be somehow comparable. It is for this end that money has been introduced, and it becomes in a sense an intermediate; for it measures all things, and therefore the excess and the defect — how many shoes are equal to a house or to a given amount of food.”
ReplyDeleteAristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” Book V, Chapter 5, translated from the Greek by W.D. Ross.
Which makes a nice pair with a few hundred pages of a marvelous biography of Keynes that I read last year.
So, I guess I'm asking for your views on money as informed by Keynes' historical take and the recent work by the MMT peeps.
Long time reader here, but one who has never posted a comment (i.e., not a usual suspect).
ReplyDeleteIn response to your request, I'd like you to continue commenting on subjects that interest you, as they occur to you and whatever they may be.
Yours is the one blog that I read "religiously," because your commentary and perspectives, on everything from politics to academia, are always thoughtful and often provocative. I also enjoy reading your reflections on your career.
Signed,
Professor (not in philosophy) at R-1 University
P.S. And, for what it is worth, I seldom read the comments from others.
Professor Wolff,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading your blog since around 2012, although I've only commented a handful of times. I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on C.I. Lewis. I was unaware of Lewis and his work until you mentioned him on your blog and in your lectures on Kant, but what you said about it peaked my interest enough for me to go and buy a copy of Mind and the World Order. Reading through it was a fascinating experience, and I've found myself returning to different parts of it over the last few years. Since I've learned a great deal from your tutorials and appreciations, I was wondering if you had any interest in doing something like that for Lewis. Thanks for your insights.
T
I would be interested in hearing a philosophical discussion/analysis from you of the case for reparations. Back on 11 March you argued (or asserted) that “I do not make moral judgments about states because I do not know what such judgments mean.” And that “I reject the notion that nations can be thought of, as it were, as superpeople who make decisions. I know everyone talks that way. I just think it is fundamentally incoherent.” I’ve interpreted your comments in those 11 March posts as expressing a pretty aggressive nominalist view of any collective we. So, if I’m reading you correctly here, I have to wonder what a (or your) philosophical treatment about a close-to-home case of collective responsibility would look like—a case stretching over the better part of four centuries. If the state is just an abstraction (and as such, in your view, doesn’t act (can’t be an actor )), then who or what is now responsible for what “it” did, and why? But nominalism aside, I would be interested in hearing what a philosopher who has thought a lot about race has to say about reparations.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Wolff:
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most important books of the last few years is Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." I don't know if you've read the book but I'm pretty sure you would find it important and interesting. Just to bait the hook a bit, Marx is clearly a major influence in her work. I'd love to hear your take. If you want a preview, Zuboff, who is a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, wrote a NYT op-ed entitled "You are the Subject of a Secret Extraction Operation" that was published Nov. 21. 2021.
^^ Correction: That NYT op-ed was November 12, 2021.
ReplyDeleteI actually like your random musings and the surprise element. But I too would love to hear any stories about Richard Rorty who I met at McMaster University in the 1990's when he was writing Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, and also at Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland when he was a keynote speaker at a philosophy conference. His father, James Rorty, was an old fashioned lefty writer, but Richard was worried about what the academic left had become.
ReplyDeleteI have another request, which would concerns stories or thoughts regarding Todd Gitlin and the media or news industry, or anything about teaching a course with him at Columbia University. I have not searched back in the blog to know how much you have already said about Todd Gitlin and your course on ideology-critique (not sure if that was the subject?), but perhaps that would be something to reminisce about.
Raymond Geuss has a chapter about your work in a book called 'Not Thinking Like a Liberal' coming out next month from Harvard University Press. Haven't read it yet but here's a bit of preview through Google Books:
ReplyDeletehttps://books.google.com/books?id=4zBaEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Not+Thinking+like+a+Liberal+Raymond+Geuss&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiex_re0PH2AhXQLc0KHaNPBqYQ6AF6BAgLEAI
Have you read it or any opinion of Geuss's work in general? He also has a chapter on his supervisor Robert Denoon Cumming at Columbia - did you two know each other or were you familiar with his work?
Professor Wolff,
ReplyDeleteSome time ago you gave a very enlightening explanation of how a nuclear bomb works, by separating and then (in detonation) joining together two chunks of material which together had enough nuclear material that a chain reaction was inevitable. I don't understand, mathematically, how two pieces of material could have a near-zero probability of a chain reaction, such that there would be no explosion, but two together have a near 100 per cent probability of explosion. I asked this in a comment on the original post but (understandably!) never got an explanation, and have wondered about it ever since. Thanks!