PHIL 515: Kant/Hegel seminar

This post is primarily for the students of Professor Prabhu’s Kant/Hegel seminar (Winter 2012), but anyone is free to join the discussion.

To keep things organized,
1) if you want to introduce a new topic of discussion, please introduce it as a direct comment to this post.
2) if you want to carry on a discussion already in progress, please reply to the comment you’re addressing. (This blog uses a threaded comments system.)

Deleuze DVD release party!

Sunday, 11 December 2011, 6:30pm
The Mountain Bar • 473 Gin Ling Way, LA (Chinatown)

Click here for more information about the event.
Click here for more information about the DVDs.

an interview with Nietzsche & Jesus

On the previous post, Nietzsche’s conception of pity came up. On that subject I suggested Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy as an excellent source; surpassed only by reading Nietzsche himself. However this video also came to mind and in spite of its portrayal of mostly caricatures, it could perhaps still be helpful in laughing at some of the underlying assumptions we have of both figures. True to form, the youtube comments in French are spot on (not that I read French but I’m indebted to the modern google gods for their primitive google translations).They are quick to point out that the debate between the two is wrong. Nietzsche is not opposed to Jesus (although they differ on the issue of pity, Jesus is still viewed as a creative free spirit) but rather Nietzsche forcefully opposes Christianity. The interviewer would have been more honest to put Nietzsche against a priest, a theologian or more vitally, St. Paul instead of Jesus.

“Jesus him self had done away with the very concept of “guilt,” he denied that there was any gulf fixed between God and man; he lived this unity between God and man, and that was precisely his “glad tidings”…. And not as a mere privilege!—From this time forward the type of the Saviour was corrupted, bit by bit, by the doctrine of judgment and of the second coming, the doctrine of death as a sacrifice, the doctrine of the resurrection, by means of which the entire concept of “blessedness,” the whole and only reality of the gospels, is juggled away—in favour of a state of existence after death!… St. Paul, with that rabbinical impudence which shows itself in all his doings, gave a logical quality to that conception, that indecent conception, in this way: “If Christ did not rise from the dead, then all our faith is in vain!”—And at once there sprang from the Gospels the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the shameless doctrine of personal immortality…. Paul even preached it as a reward.”(The Antichrist, § 41)

as always please feel free to comment, critique, and/or complain.

The Take

Sometimes, a little distance helps put things in perspective. Here is an insightful documentary that a good friend, Cklara, recommended that left me hopeful.

 

I post this not to invite the play out of an old worn out debate of the past century but to hopefully discuss these examples of current leaderless resistance. For those of us who can afford for this to be an ethical question, a luxury that could be easily ignored, perhaps it may help to situate this to a closer and relevant text. I first read Civil Disobedience when I was 16; it was probably one of the first things that I read that really spoke to me. Mainly because it called me out. I understand many of you will fear, as I do, what is being asked? To conscientiously not pay certain taxes? To be willing to go to prison over principles? To dissolve my relationship to the unjust State? wait… No, I can’t do that! …Can I?
Except that’s not all that is being asked. While admittedly already hard tasks, it is too easy to simply do what others have done before. In a critical way it misses the point. What is being asked is to think for one’s self and to act by one’s ethics. Asking how one should live is the first step in protest. This already is a powerful action. For those of us who can afford for this to be an ethical question, a luxury that could be easily ignored; let’s all get uneasy.

what is COINTELPRO ?

For those who couldn’t make it, you missed a great documentary film screening and a discussion with: former Black Panther Party member and on of the San Francisco 8: Hank Jones, Co-Founder of the Brown Berets: Carlos Montes, Soros Fellow and former director of the South Asian Network: Hamid Khan.

The Question Then…

What is philosophy? In spite of the fact that I can be quite a terrible student, I always feel a certain love for philosophy. I’ve learned, sometimes heartbreakingly, what others expect it to be. Now, I do not claim to know anything about you, although I do not rule out us having some things in common. I get the idea, like me, that you find yourself asking time and again what the value of philosophy is? So, I thought I share a good book that gets me turned on. (click the pic to read the book).

excerpts from Introduction: The Question Then…

…philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts…The philosopher is an expert in concepts and in the lack of them. He knows which are not viable, which are arbitrary or inconsistent, which ones do not hold up for an instant. On the other hand, he also knows which are well formed and attest to a creation, however disturbing or dangerous it may be.

More rigorously, philosophy is the discipline that involves creating concepts… Concepts are not waiting for us ready-made, like heavenly bodies. There is no heaven for concepts. They must be invented, fabricated or rather created and would be nothing without their creator’s signature. Nietzsche laid down the task of philosophy when he wrote, ‘[Philosophers] must no longer accept concepts as a gift, nor merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing. Hitherto one has generally trusted one’s concepts as if they were a dowry from some sort of wonderland’

Plato said Ideas must be contemplated, but first of all he had to create the concept of Idea. What would the value of a philosopher of whom one could say, ‘He has created no concepts; he has not created his own concepts’?

We can at least see what philosophy is not: it is not contemplation, reflection, or communication. This is the case even though it may sometimes believe it is one or other of these, as a result of the capacity of every discipline to produce its own illusions and hide behind its own peculiar smokescreen… It is not contemplation, for contemplation are things themselves as seen in the creation of their specific concepts. It is not reflection, because no one needs philosophy to reflect on anything… Mathematicians, as mathematicians, have never waited for philosophers before reflecting on mathematics, nor artist before reflecting on painting or music… Nor does philosophy find a final refuge in communication, which only works under the sway of opinions in order to create “consensus” and not concepts… Philosophy does not contemplate, reflect, or communicate, although it must create concepts for these actions or passions… To create concepts is, at the very least, to make something. This alters the question of philosophy’s use or usefulness, or even its harmfulness (to whom is it harmful?).

Feel free to comment, critique, or complain.

website change

Change has come to the Philosophy Club website. We’d previously been paying for our site and have now transitioned to an all free web presence. The main changes are as follows:

1) Our address has changed! Please update your bookmarks. The new address is http://csulaphilosophyclub.wordpress.com

2) No longer will simply anyone be able to post new blog entries. Well, you still can, but you’ll have to email us first so we can set things up to allow you to do so. And please do! csulaphilosophyclub@gmail.com

3) Our photo gallery is now hosted by Picasa. Find that here: https://picasaweb.google.com/116529922819244146455

Please note that although it may be a bit trickier to post new blog entries, anyone can still comment on entries already posted. So, for example, if you’d like to start a thread, email us about it; either we’ll set you up so you can post the first entry or we’ll post it for you and the conversation can ensue unencumbered through the comments system.

Our apologies for any inconvenience. The all free web presence will save us time and $ and ensure that the site doesn’t disappear should future club members fail to pay the web host.

philonny (philosophy + funny)

…as in, “you’re full of philonny!”
http://www.lukerodgers.ca/2010/11/some-philosophical-chuck-norris-facts/
http://www.philosophicallexicon.com/#LEXICON
Add links in comments if you got ‘em;)

YouTube night!

Friday • 20 May 2011 • 6pm • E&T A406
What we watched:
Immanuel Kant Song
asdfmovie3
Creature Comforts USA – Art
Fire Knife Competition PCC
JAMAALADEEN TACUMA – ORNETTE COLEMAN – PRIME TIME
Conférence de presse de “MELANCHOLIA” de Lars VON TRIER (34:30-37:50)
Tao te Ching (pt.1)
The Trap – 3 – We Will Force U 2 Be Free (0:00-10:01)
Source of terrorism & Iranian Revolution
What Would Penis Do? – Tales Of Mere Existence
Joseph Campbell–The Dynamic of Life
Flipper – Sex Bomb
Shatner Of The Mount by Fall On Your Sword
McDonald’s – 99p “Plumber”
The Tao of Kung Fu #1 – “Fear is the only darkness.”
Nokia N96 Bruce Lee Limited Edition
Japanese Matrix Ping Pong
Binocular Soccer-Funny Japanese game show
‘A Universe From Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 (30:00-33:30)
Drunk History vol. 2 – Featuring Jack Black
Rejected Cartoons by: Don Hertzfeldt
Evgeny Kissin – The Turkish March

The Devil & The Good Lord

Date: Friday, May 13, 2011, 6:00pm
Location: On Campus, Room E&T A420
Please join us in the next discussion group. We’ll be discussing Sartre and The Devil & The Good Lord. You can pick up a cheap copy on amazon @ The Devil Good Lord & Other Plays OR contact me (angel) and I’ll loan you my copy. Carlos Brocatto will be leading the discussion. You may read his thesis on the subject here: dramatizing_philosophy.pdf. If you only have time to read part of this, Carlos recommends chapter two.