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HELP!!!!! Philosophy Mid-term Tomorrow and dont understand any of it!!!! (pg. 3)
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| rapfiend03 |
| well im not going on the wording of anyone inparticular. im kinda just listening and trying to get my head around the concept of the aleatory world. so far its just a completley random world that any disaster or miracle can happen. like the early days of humanity where we didnt have telescopes and weathermen to explain everything. we just looke up to the tribe leaders that created religon to prove why everything happend. the only conception of philosophy i can think of that matches that is the conception of religion in regards to proving natural phenomenom. |
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| Theresa |
| quote: | Originally posted by Psy-T
err, not to be dissing theresa or anything, but you really should be going with what mrjivebojingles said and expand further using the five links i provided. |
mrjive is referring to William James and his philosophy... not John Dewey.
The question specifically pertains to Dewey and his philosophy, not the composite philosophy of William. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | | just wondering, do you happen to agree with the pragmatists or the pragmatic method? |
Yes, mostly. I have something of an analytic / positivist streak as well.
But after Quine, Davidson, etc., the two strands of philosophy, pragmatist and analytic, really ended up amounting to much the same thing. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Dewey took pragmatism and Darwinized it. A good passage from the IEP article, which Psy-T linked to:
| quote: | Second, Darwin's theory of natural selection suggested in a more particular way the form which a naturalistic approach to the theory of knowledge should take. Darwin's theory had renounced supernatural explanations of the origins of species by accounting for the morphology of living organisms as a product of a natural, temporal process of the adaptation of lineages of organisms to their environments, environments which, Darwin understood, were significantly determined by the organisms that occupied them. The key to the naturalistic account of species was a consideration of the complex interrelationships between organisms and environments. In a similar way, Dewey came to believe that a productive, naturalistic approach to the theory of knowledge must begin with a consideration of the development of knowledge as an adaptive human response to environing conditions aimed at an active restructuring of these conditions. Unlike traditional approaches in the theory of knowledge, which saw thought as a subjective primitive out of which knowledge was composed, Dewey's approach understood thought genetically, as the product of the interaction between organism and environment, and knowledge as having practical instrumentality in the guidance and control of that interaction. Thus Dewey adopted the term "instrumentalism" as a descriptive appellation for his new approach.
Dewey's first significant application of this new naturalistic understanding was offered in his seminal article "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896). In this article, Dewey argued that the dominant conception of the reflex arc in the psychology of his day, which was thought to begin with the passive stimulation of the organism, causing a conscious act of awareness eventuating in a response, was a carry-over of the old, and errant, mind-body dualism. Dewey argued for an alternative view: the organism interacts with the world through self-guided activity that coordinates and integrates sensory and motor responses. The implication for the theory of knowledge was clear: the world is not passively perceived and thereby known; active manipulation of the environment is involved integrally in the process of learning from the start. |
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| rapfiend03 |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Dewey took pragmatism and Darwinized it. A good passage from the IEP article, which Psy-T linked to: |
hmm really good info, do you think that pragmatic darwinism was the philosophy that came out of dewey's response? |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by rapfiend03
hmm really good info, do you think that pragmatic darwinism was the philosophy that came out of dewey's response? |
the fact you're asking this question shows you don't really understand the question you're assigned to answer. |
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| rapfiend03 |
| fack!!!! i need sleep...but i need to study more... |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by rapfiend03
1. Dewey claims that traditional philosophy and traditional metaphysics came out of one way that early human beings tried to deal with what he calls an "aleatory world." What does he mean by that term and what exactly is the response. What conception of philosophy grew out of that conception? |
Humans like stability, but the world is unstable. In the past humans hankered after stability in philosophical and metaphysical absolutes, transcendence, grasp of universals, and immortality. Their philosophies wanted a resting place, a place where they could say, "Here's the right social order, here are the right ethical principles, and they will always be the best ones in all times and all places."
But Dewey is a Darwinist. Humans are just another imperfect, fearful species of mammal trying to deal with whatever the world throws at them, so they toss around words like "logic" and "reason" and "morality" and so on and try to use those concepts to get other people to think the way they do so that things can get done.
The really fundamental question for Dewey is not "What is the absolute truth that we can stand on for all time?", but something like "Can we agree about what we are going to do with ourselves and each other in our short time on earth?" That is the essence of pragmatism, agreement about practicalities and a laissez-faire attitude toward whatever metaphysical and religious peculiarities an individual may have. Another way to put this is that pragmatism doesn't want metaphysics to dictate public policy, because metaphysical questions never really get settled anyway and people end up killing each other over them. Believe as you wish, and let everyone else do so as well, but above all participate in the ongoing conversation about what we can do to make this world into a better and more free one.
That's all I've got for now. Maybe I'll add some more in a bit. ;) |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by rapfiend03
fack!!!! i need sleep...but i need to study more... |
What does Dewey mean by the term "Aleatory World"?
What is the response to Dewey's claim? (the claim that traditional philosophy and methaphysics arose as a method to cope with the aformentioned aleatory world)
What philosophy evolved out of that claim/that response? ( knows which one the question refers to)
btw, whoever worded that question seems to be incompetent as philosophy 'teacher'. |
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| rapfiend03 |
| awesome! thx for all the help. im actually falling asleep so i have to go tomy house with no internet :( but ill check back in the morning before i get ready for uni. th again everyone for all the help we really appreciate it. nite |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| So, Psy-T, what do you think of pragmatism? |
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| eRRaTiK |
| quote: | Originally posted by Theresa
Whatever, if you're gonna be a tardass about , and then come running to other people asking for help, then you deserve to get told that you're a tardass.
It's not my fault he's a tardass. |
 theresa :gsmile:
ps. dude you need some weed. weed + philosophy = WIN. |
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