All things change, say philosophers, but sometimes they change more dramatically than we’re ready for. Ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian writers developed a number of practical strategies for coping with sudden illness, loss, and death. In this webinar, we will explore two: the consolation, which looks to the future, and the thanksgiving, which looks … Continued
Teaching ethics in high school and college is a challenge: Students should be exposed to a range of contemporary moral problems and gain reasoning tools and discussion skills to address these problems. Short stories are a great tool for this: They transport the reader to the very core of the issues and raise pertinent questions. … Continued
Based on the paper “Breaking the Habit: Aristotle on Recidivism and How a Thoroughly Vicious Person Might Begin to Improve,” this webinar will provide an opportunity to bring moral philosophy to bear on the contemporary criminal justice system by considering how Aristotle might have attempted to solve the problem of criminal recidivism. This problem seems … Continued
Do we believe digital employees will become indistinguishable from human employees this decade? As democratization of AI leads to proliferation of such digital agents, how should we prepare for humans to continue to be in command? When questioning if morality can be built into computers, we must simultaneously ask: whose morality? Could there be a successful deep learning AI that answers moral dilemmas? Or is there reason to think that matters are different in the case of morality?
Ron Eisenman shares how a PBS television series encouraged him to pursue his passions and turn to the humanities to help him make sense of the world around him. His engagement with “The Power of Myth” helped to connect seemingly disparate cultural contexts by illuminating the shared elements of the stories we tell about ourselves. … Continued
While discussing N. Scott Momaday’s novel A House Made of Dawn, Professor Bowden introduced a new concept – geosophy. It was an unexpected moment during an undergraduate geography class that ultimately opened mental doors and windows to the world. Geosophy, an idea promoted by John Kirtland Wright in the 1940’s, “is the study of geographical … Continued
I was first introduced to David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” in a Language and Composition class. Our textbook was full of examples of rhetoric, categorized by topic. “This is Water” was originally a Commencement speech given at Kenyon College in 2005. A shortened version was transcribed in my textbook which I had to analyze … Continued
As a college freshman, Thérèse Cory encountered Plato’s Socratic dialogue Euthyphro for the first time. Reading Socrates’ exhortations for Euthyphro—a man bringing charges of murder against his father—to articulate a clear and universal definition of piety, Cory realized the extent to which many of us take key terms and ideas for granted. The story ignited … Continued
Some years ago, I was asked to give a lecture to students enrolled in a small university’s humanities program describing the personal epiphany I experienced which led to my passion for the humanities. Try as I might, I could not think of an isolated, single experience but rather a series of moments that stretch back … Continued
As a society we are so often encouraged to go about our days in such a way that builds our own futures. This is great and all, but we need to think of the effects of always thinking of ourselves. This standard attitude of underhanded selfishness is so prevalent that seeing a person take the … Continued