Philosophical bits and ramblings: Nietzsche and Emerson

One of my former students was asking about Emerson and Nietzsche. Quine even. Here was my first reply: 

Nietzsche was vocal about his admiration of Emerson, especially in his The Gay Science. One of Emerson's essays mentions the over-soul.

A lot of Emerson's impact has been dampened by those who think "American philosophy" is insignificant. Nietzsche was didn't bother with such a view. In at least one instance Nietzsche wished he thought in French or English, Walter Kaufmann, if I remember correctly also claimed Nietzsche was aware of American English

Philosophical bits and ramblings: Introduction

To get some writing going, I will be posting some of my answers to some of questions posed to me by my former students. Some context given but also lost. We'll see.

Barry Stroud on Philosophical Scepticism

There is a very general philosophical question which asks how, on the basis of what human beings get through the senses, they can ever have good reason to accept the beliefs, hypothesis, and theories they hold about the world. What is in question are the credentials or the degree of well-foundedness of what is taken to be a fully-formed conception of the world and our place in it, as embodied in everything we believe. To show how (or which of) those beliefs amount to knowledge, or to beliefs we have good reason to hold, would be to explain, philosophically, how knowledge of the world is possible. If there are no such questions, our best reasons are inadequate, scepticism is the right answer, we do not know what we think we know.

[This passage (1999, 139) by Stroud is culled from The philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by Lewis Hahn. One would wish that Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye had read this. Before they made their pronouncements about philosophy.]

In what way is a theory of truth, a theory of meaning? From Donald Davidson's Truth and Predication

"A theory of truth for a speaker is a theory of meaning in this sense, that explicit knowledge of the theory would suffice for understanding the utterances of the speaker. It accomplishes this by describing the critical core of the speaker's potential and actual linguistic behavior-in effect, how the speaker intends his utterances to be interpreted. The sort of understanding involved is restricted what we may call the literal meaning of words, by which I mean, roughly the meaning the speaker intends the interpreter to grasp, whatever force or significance the speaker may want the interpreter to fathom" (2000, 53).

Reading Shakespeare 1: Macbeth Tomorrow Soliloquy

     I am making this post because 2016 means 400 years of Shakespeare. I will try to get to a lot of the verses I know and maybe some of the more significant ones for 2016.

     And by "Reading Shakespeare", I mean reading his verse aloud. It's obvious to some, but if you want to get it, read it aloud. After all, this was meant to be performed. I have seen Kenneth Branagh do Macbeth (The National Theatre Live). I will also be seeing Patrick Stewart's soon.  Here is the soliloquy:

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 

I wonder how many who viewed Inarritu's Birdman (2014) notice it being recited there? I first encountered a snippet of this in Diane Barsoum Raymond's Existentialism and the philosophical tradition.  Then I saw Kurosawa's Throne of blood (1957) for a class on Shakespeare. I have yet to see the Justin Kurzel's 2015 adaptation of Macbeth (with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard).

 

 

3rd Call for Papers: Project Einstein 2015

www.theingeniousproject.org #CFP #100yearsofGeneralRelativity #Einstein

All Roads Lead to Philosophy: Pathways to Research 3 July Friday at De La Salle University Manila

De La Salle University Graduate School of Philosophy presents
All Roads Lead to Philosophy: Pathways to Research
3 July Friday. ADMISSION is FREE