Example of a good blog post

This is a post by a student from a course that I taught last semester.  Look at it for an example of what I think is a good post.

 http://philo215fall2011.blogspot.com/2011/10/contra-mind-body-dualism-gw-leibniz.html

The main details are:

1. it states what it is going to do in the first sentence.  I.e., it has a thesis. The post will explain Leibniz' account of reality in the theory of monads and how this theory is a solution to the mind-body problem.
2. In the second paragraph he gets right into that theory of monads.  Now he uses a good quotation, but he does not explain that quotation (that is a shortcoming), but one can already see that it has something to do with the relation of souls/spirits/monads to bodies.
3. It explains the monad theory and especially the issue of pre-established harmony.
4. In the third paragraph he raises some questions.  He should try to answer these questions.  Instead, in the fourth paragraph he goes back to the other part of his thesis that has not been dealt with--the mind-body problem.

This is not a perfect blog post.  However, it is pretty good.

FYI.

Origin of Nature: Form, Matter and Change

            There must be a basic principle or a root behind an object in nature for one to understand its change or process. For example when a seed becomes a mature plant the process the seed took to become itself must have existed before the seed ever became a plant. Aristotle considers this idea to be one of the principles of nature because anything that is natural has in itself an origin of change(Physics, 201). The change takes places according to four different causes.

            Aristotle believes that some things that happen are just natural and others occur from different reasons(Physics, 201). All change or process  involves "growth and decay" or "alteration" to show its distinct form. He describes items that have no "innate impulse" like a bed but still can change because in itself has nature(Physics, 201). A bed made out of wood would ultimately decompose only because of the material it is created with. When it does decompose the rotting residue would become wood and not a bed because the wood is natural(Physics, 202). 

            When Aristotle states, "For something is called whatever it is when it is actually so, more than when it is only potentially so"(Physics, 202) he talks about the wood that is used to make the bed is only considered a bed until it looks  and is shaped like one(Physics, 202). Aristotle believes that since the form is what makes something the thing, the form is the thing's "nature".  As flesh and bone do not have nature until the "form" is how we define flesh or bone(Physics, 202). Nature is the shape and form which all have an origin of change. 

            Aristotle’s ideas led him to believe that in nature, matter and form cannot exist independently. Any amount of matter would have a form(Physics, 202). He uses a bed and statue as an example because one is made out of wood and the other made out of bronze to show that the "form" needs "matter"(Physics, 202). Anything that has matter also needs a form. 

 What does Aristotle mean when he states " The same applies to everything else that is produced; for none of them has in itself the origin of production. In some a house and each of the other products of handicraft - their origin is in other, external things. In others, those that might come to be coincidental causes for themselves, the origin is in them, but is not in accord with what they are in themselves"(Physics, 201). 

A Good Statesman

            Plato’s, Gorgias, is now at the point where Socrates is restating all the arguments he has made throughout the book. While still arguing with Callicles, he brings up the argument of good statesman and the cities they were in charge of.  The purposes of these jobs were to make the citizens better then what they were. Socrates believes that if you are going to be a good statesman, you have to have impacted the citizen in some way because they should become better people. Socrates challenges Callicles on the choice of former politicians he considered “good”.

            In the beginning of the argument, Socrates questions if Callicles thought if he changed any one of his citizens’ lives when he decided to become part of public service. Callicles takes offense to this and Socrates just wants to know how the Athenian people are going to be managed (Gorgias, 117). He goes on to being up the former member of the community that Callicles considered to be good. He seems to be confusing pleasure over good again. Socrates began to pick at each and every man.

            Within Pericles, “what he should have done is leave them more moral than when he found them” (Gorgias, 119). The reason of leading others should be about making them better people and a better society. What Plato is showing in Socrates is that morals are what make a person good and a statesman should be good. If you mix up pleasure with good while being a leader, the people are bound to turn. As Socrates quotes Homers that “to be moral is to be tamed” (Gorgias, 119). The job of a statesman or a politician entails keeping their community in order. If you don’t have order and give into pleasure or freedom, then there is no good in what they are doing. Socrates won his argument with Callicles’s argument that Pericles was a good statesman because he ended up leaving the Athenians worse off than when he started. The others were also proven wrong by Socrates and were all eventually thrown out.

            Socrates also states that these men wouldn’t have been thrown from their reign if they were good from the start. He uses the analogy that “ good wagoners- ones who don’t get thrown out of their wagons in the first place… after they’ve been looking after their horses and have improved as wagoners” (Gorgias, 120). He believes that because they were also rhetoricians that their authenticity and flattery weren’t up, that it affected their power as well. I think that if a politician isn’t able to persuade the people to be better, then how are they supposed to be good politicians?

           

           

The Pleasure of the Good

In Plato’s Gorgias, while publicly debating with Gorgias and then Polus, Socrates inspires a response from Callicles who emerges from the crowd and weighs in on matters. Up to this point, Socrates has used his method of questioning to prove his points, but Callicles challenges this, accusing Socrates of “steering discussions” and manipulating the crowd (65). Callicles takes his turn at debate and argues, amongst other things, that it is human nature for superior men to be self-indulgent and strive ultimately to satisfy their own desires – and that this is both pleasurable an good. Socrates argues that there is a differentiation between “pleasure” and “good” and that the pursuit of pleasure in and of itself is ultimately bad.

Picking up where Gorgias and Polus left off with Socrates in an argument over the nature of rhetoric, Callicles steps in to go head to head with Socrates in a candid (and sometimes amusing) debate. Callicles begins his argument by accusing Socrates of manipulating the crowd with ideas that are “unsophisticated enough to have popular appeal,” depending on convention (not nature) and actually being foolish in continuing to pursue philosophy, “like a teenager” (65/69).  Socrates is impassive to Callicles’ insults and actually praises him for his frankness, citing that he is the only one of the bunch that’s got the gall and the education to openly confront him – and adds that Callicles must care for him very much to want to enlighten Socrates on what he believes to be true (71).

They take up their debate over whether there is a “natural right” of superior people to dominate “second-rate” people and furthermore whether there is a differentiation better “better” and “superior” (73). They both seem to agree that there are superior people; however, they disagree about what makes a superior man. Socrates raises the question as to whether the people Callicles considers to be superior (rulers, the elite class) are in fact rulers or subjects themselves (78). Callicles says that “the only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or restrain the expansion of one’s desires, until they can grow no larger… satisfying every passing whim” (79). He claims that average people don’t have the ability to satisfy their desires and so they condemn the “freedom” of indulgence and praise self-discipline, perpetuating conventions, opinions and structures of the majority (79). He says, “If a person has the means to live a life of sensual, self-indulgent freedom, there’s no better of happier state of existence… pointless trumpery” (79).  

Socrates disagrees, citing that without self-discipline, one cannot be happy.  Socrates sets out to distinguish between good and bad pleasures; and claims that pleasure and good are in fact two different things. Socrates sets to prove his point, using an example of a thirsty person drinking; as thirst is unpleasant and distressful, a thirsty person finds drinking pleasant, therefore a thirsty person feels both distress and pleasure at the same time, so then it is possible to live well and badly at the same time and since pleasure and stress can coincide then pleasure and to live well are not the same and distress is not the same as to live badly – concluding that pleasure and the good are different (87).

The larger point is that according to Socrates is that self-control is what leads to authentic happiness and pleasure, while bringing a temporary feeling of satisfaction, does not bring one any closer to the good – in fact, if one is self-indulgent they become ruled by their passions – which is what I believe he meant by the question: “Are [the elite] rulers or subjects?” (78). Socrates tells Callicles that “the people you are calling happy have a terrifying life as well” and that “the part of the mind which contains the desires is in fact characterized by its susceptibility and its instability” (80). He goes on to say that “the good in some form should be the goal of pleasant activities (as much as of any other kind of activity), rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities” (93). With this argument, I believe that Socrates discredits Callicles’ claim that average people condemn the elite’s self-indulgence just because they jealous that they not able to achieve it for themselves, but rather because there is a general understanding of what is good (and that average people poses good attributes).

From a modern-day perspective, I can see both Socrates and Callicles’ points. Living in a capitalistic society, we are all conditioned to want material wealth and self-indulgence comes easily – especially for the elite or privileged class (as they have more access to luxuries via wealth or power). But it is easy to see how self-indulgence can hurt an individual as well as a society and create everything from physical, mental, emotional to material crises. Ultimately, I think that this passage of Gorgias points out a timeless tension that exists within human nature and emphasizes the need for people to balance their own passions with the long term greater good (of both themselves as well as their society’s).

Exercise 1 Extended

The first exercise ended prematurely on Friday, and so I have extended it until Sunday at midnight (i.e. Sunday night/Monday morning).  Please complete the exercise.

Art vs. Flattery: The fallacy of Rhetoric

True art forsakes all in favor of the good, whereas flattery is more concerned with the pleasant, which brings about an incorrect belief of good. Plato believes rhetoric is not a true art but a routine, thereby stating it is a false art which gives way to false beliefs. His logic follows this notion because true art forsakes all and is concerned with true good above all else, whereas false art, such as rhetoric, is concerned with flattery and instant gratification above truth and goodness. Within the Gorgias, Plato leads a self-proclaimed master of Rhetoric, into a web that shows the true forces behind rhetoric in the justice system. Those true forces being manipulation of words without any knowledge of the topics that the Rhetoric speaks about.

The first proposition that must be understood is that rhetoric deals with persuasion of matters according to Gorgias, and without the disagreement of Socrates (Gorgias, 8). This persuasion can be on any subject and the Rhetoric does not have to have knowledge on the subject in order to persuade the crowd. For example, a Rhetoric can persuade a patient to agree for a surgery although he himself knows nothing about medicine. Since the Rhetoric has know knowledge on the subject his persuasion creates a belief (Gorgias, 11). This can in turn be described by the rather cliché statement of 'the blind leading the blind'.

A belief differs from knowledge because a belief has the chance of being true or false whereas Socrates points out there is no such thing as false knowledge (Gorgias, 11). This then creates the affirmed distinction that a belief is not knowledge, and inherently Rhetorics do not persuade on knowledge or facts (Gorgias, 15). This means that what ever persuasion a rhetoric does do it is bringing forth a belief to the people but not any coherent knowledge. Consequently, since Plato believes that art is a skill directed towards some form of greater good, Rhetoric can not be an art at all.  

Socrates explains this by stating, "...rhetoric...is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word 'flattery'...is only an experience or routine and not an art" (Gorgias, 19). But does this not bring up to question what 'is' art? Although to Socrates art is a practice that works towards a higher understanding, can the term not be redefined so that this argument loses viability? Although during this time period art and science have no real distinction, but in the more modern mindset, can rhetoric not be an art of manipulation that works as an 'anti' power to truth and goodness? What would Plato/Aristotle then say about that notion?   

Activity of Rhetoric

With Gorgias claiming to be a connoisseur of rhetoric and thus rhetoric a field of expertise, Socrates sought in discussion with Gorgias the definition and extent of activities of his profession (Rhetorician), which through a series of logical inquiry, Socrates methodically influences Gorgias to reveal only its province. Now left with a vague definition (according to Socrates) and novel enquiry of whether rhetoric is exempt from immorality and intentional wrongdoing, an outraged Polus, pupil of Gorgias, takes the position of his teacher and urges Socrates to unveil his conviction of  what rhetoric is.

“I refer to it [as] flattery…a multifaceted activity…one of whose branches is cookery…and then ornamentation and sophistry” (“Gorgias”30). The latter was stated by Socrates in regards to the activity of rhetoric. By flattery, Socrates is conveying that a rhetorician in regards to someone or something: praises  insincerely, effusively, or excessively, represents favorably, and often holds mistakenly feelings of satisfaction for oneself. As a multifaceted activity, Socrates claims that flattery may be used as a tool of camouflage of various aspects of life. Finally, Socrates mentions cookery, ornamentation, and sophistry as examples of ideas which utilize the tool, and as a mean of comparison with rhetoric.

This conclusion of flattery is derived from Gorgias' responses of rhetoric and their direct connection to the definition of flattery.

Gorgias confirms to Socrates that a rhetorician need not possess any proven information of a conflict, only an influential strategy (“Gorgias”24). Conversing about the essential tools of a pupil of rhetoric, Gorgias affirms to Socrates that a pupil’s training consists of learning how to influence an ignorant crowd of people--rather than help them comprehend an issue, to win their support (“Gorgias”23). Thereafter, opining on the type of expertise rhetoric comprises, Socrates candidly dismisses the possibility of rhetoric as a discipline where connoisseurship can be acquired (“Gorgias”28). Next, Socrates asserts rhetoric is fundamentally an adroit way of arousing delight and satisfaction from the incessant engagement of this activity and conveys cookery as a product of flattery (“Gorgias”29). At bottom, Socrates illustrates cookery, ornamentation, sophistry, and rhetoric as imitators of four areas of expertise; subsequently exposing their  inability to explicate logically the reason for their effect, which to Socrates, is a must in order to be deemed an area of expertise (“Gorgias”32,33).     

According to Socrates, since a rhetorician  need not possess any facts of an issue, and isn’t obliged to provide understanding when speaking with non-experts, he is essentially acting with insincerity by representing everything other than the facts favorably to win their opinion. Moreover, the inability of a rhetorician to explicate logically the process of persuasion (mandatory of an area of expertise according to Socrates) proves rhetoricians are mistakenly satisfied in deeming themselves experts and rhetoric an area of expertise.

Gorgias claims to have convinced an individual into accepting treatment he/she refused to accept from the doctor recommending the treatment. Whether or not the treatment was an instance of life and death, the use of rhetoric by Gorgias convinces the patient to accept the treatment rather than perpetuate his suffering. The treatment will then alleviate the pain suffered by the patient, hence, restoring him back to a state of homeostasis. In this case, is the use of flattery by a rhetorician to comfort the patient into compliance justified? Yes, because in this context, rhetoric effectively caters to the individual’s long term interests of a healthy state of being.

Also, is the removal of a bad habit by way of rhetoric justifiable?   
Yes, because the removal of detrimental tendencies benefit the individual in the long run.