a certain, je ne sais quoi

Lately I've been at a real loss of things to say, muse, or create complete thoughts on. It's getting to the point of frustrating, and laughably my submission here lol
I've had a few ideas on things to write about but they all became fleeting thoughts, or not important enough to complete them. I'm mostly worried that this will not become a trend. I'm going into my final year of undergrad with what will be my most challenging year yet. I have another language to learn and an undergrad thesis paper to write. Ideas and inspiration are going to be necessary, and I can't afford to lose them. I think I'm going to renew my aspiration of getting on this blog more often and getting out some cogent arguments. Maybe all that habitual actions those psychology professors have been telling me about could finally pay off.
Well, of course I've left this to the night time to begin my musing - conveniently I'll be heading off to bed to probably forget my commitment to this endeavor soon enough. Someone needs to be grading this or something. i think that would change my attitude to pumping out ideas...any takers?!

old habits

So, I've fallen back into some old habits. None of which I would say are too bad. Reading fiction and loving technology.
Working at an electronics retail store has its disadvantages and its advantages. Seeing people represented as numbers achieved is disheartening, but the discount is great! So I've been racking up a few gadgets and gizmos here and there to say, 'yeah, I can do that.' Of note, I have a cell phone. A real cell phone that does cell-phonish things. I've joined the 21st century 9 years later. It's an LG shine if anyone cares.
On another quick note, I've been reading fiction again. It's been a real long time since I sat down and read something that wasn't mind blowing or perception altering in philosophy. I'm reading Troy: Shield of Thunder, and I like it. Its simple and a good pace. I have a love for historical fiction and this book is right up my alley.
Oh last but not least, I'm going to be looking at dogs today. Me and Ashleigh have always liked dogs, and I think we're ready to have one in our family. Apparently its not a good idea to get a dog until the fall, so we probably won't have one for a while, but I will keep you posted.
Until then, have a good weekend and take care!

What is it about really old photos that gives people a sense of yearning?
What I think may be the cause is the sense of 'hard times' we feel past generations went through. 'Back then' people had to work, they kept themselves busy with daily tasks, they had to work in order to survive - they did not spend time relaxing in front of the television, on the internet, or hanging out at a mall. Something about old photos reminds us about the ambitious, the attitude that didn't say they'll get it done tomorrow, or they need to sit down and relax before and after a chore gets done.
Philosophically, this seems like a yearning to be in touch with our naturally creative side - creative in the sense of creating, not necessarily artistic. We necessarily must labour with nature as the means of life; not only as a the means of life such as subsistence but as the life of labour itself. The labour itself affords man subsistence, as such we naturally must labour - we are a slave to labour.
What I hope this yearning entails is a yearning for a closer connection with the objects of our labour, as opposed to the alienated objects we create in assembly lines, for people all over the world. The more we produce for someone else, the more detached we are from the product of our labour - we become slaves to the appropriation of another being. They control the demand for our labour that provides an object shipped to someone else, and provides the worker with very little in return. What I hope is entailed in these photos is a yearning for a connection to a non-existent place where the connection between labour and object is not lost.

some folow up

Well, if my post on friendship was at all convincing (more at that aspect in a second), I have further proof.
I am glad I am not a jock.
Let me put it in even simpler terms, I am glad my sentences do not always end with 'man.' As in, 'If I saw *insert hockey player that is comparatively bad to my imagination of the best player ever* I would punch him, man.'
These, thankfully are not the thoughts that run through my head, and I have you to thank for that. You, being my my friends past and present. My friends kept me out of the mindset of a jock, as it was something I could have easily been. In spite of my rotund shape I was always involved in sports, and I think nearly became encapsulated by all things sports. It could very easily have been the case that all my friendships were based on sports. Luckily, they were not, and I think I am better off for it.

One last thing, I have to note that I'm working on presenting arguments here in ways that encourage me to have less grandiose ideas. I have a habit of only trying to say something argumentatively if was utterly profound, and in doing so I have a tendency to either leave it unfulfilled, give up entirely, or for the most part be disappointed in the arguments that turn out (usually by a due date). So, basically I've made it a point to try and develop thoughts that are less profound and within my scope to research without draining my resources, and lets be honest, my ambition.
So, if you would like to raise a challenge to my thoughts, please do so. It would be fruitful for me to provide evidence for these thoughts, and not just assume my first impressions are correct.
take care!

on the nature of friendship

Friendship is an interesting thing - a phenomena if you will.
If we believe the arguments from philosophers such as Hobbes or Freud, we are naturally at odds with one another, due to our individual interest in happiness that can and will come into conflict with others' interests.
Where, in this conflictual nature, is room for friends?
I would like to offer a parallel between politics and friendship that allows for the co-possibility of individual interests and the instance of cooperation.
Politics is the system that brings together the individuals, it takes away some natural freedom for the enjoyment of securing those pleasures we seek. In exchange for the securing of our pleasures we are forced to live among some rules created by institutions. These institutions change what we are afforded, what we can seek and be interested in, and essentially who we actually are. We are informed by the very restrictions on who we naturally want to be: self appropriating egoists.
Why is friendship like politics then?
Friendship also allows for the co-possibility of individualism and cooperation. Friendships inform you of who you are and what you are like. They enforce a type of institution that creates borders around the possibility of your self-identity. You lose your freedom of expression for the security of avoiding conflicts with others. It is safe to say that friendships much like politics enforce a self-realization, and form who we are.
It is important, therefore, to seek out friendships that encourage quality rather than quantity. You risk conflict in a larger group as your individuality is at a greater risk to clash with another individual. Furthermore, it is important that you ensure the stability of your friendships at all costs. Losing your friendships has the biggest impact on who you are as a social being. So it is important to maintain friendships to the best of your ability. When friendships are based on quality, there is a certain elasticity of the creation of yourself, and allows for your excellence as an individual to expand, just as the quality of a political system would allow for the influence of the creation of a person in the state.
Friendship is as important as the world you live in, so secure it as best you can.

Is empathy the right word?

At my college there is a professor. This professor, while I'll admit not a very successful teacher, pulls my heart strings. I have this deep fear that I could be in their shoes when I try to pursue a career in philosophy, of not portraying confidence in the material I'm in charge of teaching. I fear that the word 'um' will take up a great deal of my lectures. For these fears, I have a lot of respect for this professor where my colleagues do not. "I don't like that professor" a lot of them say, and follow up by admitting that if nothing, this professor is at least nice. I don't want to be known as the 'nice' professor. I have fear enough to not want to become this professor that I respect them that much more. So, I ask, is empathy the right word? Is pity the word I am looking for? I don't know, but it's moved me in a way that is opposite of what I thought would be the reaction to having a teacher of this un-confident demeanor.
Perhaps I see in this professor a source of inspiration, ambition, to be the successful teacher, who may be a jerk, but is too smart to be hated.

my voice and making up for past birthdays

Well, my presentation is online now, and it sounds like someone is holding my nostrils together.
Have a listen if you like at my school's website

In other news, I'm making up for those birthdays where I did not get those super nintendo games I wanted. I installed ubuntu OS on my ps3 for the simple reason of being able to run a snes emulator. I get to play all those games I didn't get to as a kid! I'm loving it.
Exams are coming, so maybe this was not a good time to try to live out a few years in what I am sure will be a fad ending in a week. haha
anyway, keep in touch

Conference Paper

Well, I was going to update this thing about my conference paper as I was doing it, but that obviously fell by the wayside.
In any event, I'll post basically the paper I read, I made some minor changes while I was waiting to speak, but apparently its going to be podcasted, so if I can share it, you can live the moment with my sooth man voice.
as far as the experience went, I had a pretty decent time. It was nice to see people out there that cared about education, but there were some who maybe cared too much. The academic world definitely has its claws in some kind of intellectual superiority, and I know that they hang on for dear (useful) life. It was disheartening to see some colleagues or professors who portrayed this attitude. This complaint however, is overshadowed by the time spent with my friends. The people's company who I did enjoy were absolutely wonderful. I not only feel I have great friends, but incredibly brave and intelligent friends. There was a nervousness that you could tell was pressuring us all, and I think we all shone through that haze.
Anyway, I would like to dedicate this paper to my dear friend A, my other friends who attended the conference as a whole, and for everyone who is pursuing a passion for their soul over their body.

After the trial and death of Socrates, it is very reasonable to think that Plato became all-too aware of the dangers that came with philosophy. Instead of Socrates' open critical conversation in the Athenian marketplace, Plato moved his philosophy to a school where he, among other things, took to creating the Socratic dialogues either in homage to his teacher or to use his him as a character to further his own view point – the jury is still out on this subject, and not my scope here. At the Academy, Plato was able to create a physical barrier from the rest of civilization, separating himself from the same people who had prosecuted Socrates. To create further separation, Plato concentrated on the medium of written work, affording him the option of being selective in his audience, but more importantly allowing room for the use of irony. In using irony, what Plato wanted to say was right in front of the reader without actually being written. In the written and ironic format philosophy could be safer.

In this paper there is presented a general sense that philosophy is threatened by the state. I will specifically argue, by exploring the irony in his Symposium Plato presents the defense of both his and Socrates' cause of philosophy, and implicitly if I can be so bold, my cause as well.

If we believe the account in Plato’s Apology, one of the major charges brought against Socrates was that he did not believe in the gods of the city. Prior to this charge, he is accused of corrupting the youth. According to Socrates, this charge arises out of his quest to find someone wiser than he. Chaerophon, or so the story goes, asked the Oracle at Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates. Believing that all he knew was that he actually knows nothing, Socrates went to investigate this claim of the oracle. He sought out the orators, politicians, poets, and craftsmen who appeared wise, they turned out to not know anything worthwhile, but unlike Socrates they thought they knew what they did not. He questioned them all, to see if one was wiser than himself. Showing that the Athenians were assuming they had knowledge they did not made Socrates both a very unpopular man, but it also gained him some fans. The rich youth took pleasure in hearing people questioned, so much so they began to imitate Socrates and did some questioning of their own. These youth then were seen as corrupted, and furthermore presented to the Athenians that Socrates was teaching them not to believe in the gods of the city. Meletus, one of his prosecutors agrees that Socrates believes in spirits though. It begs the question as to how Socrates can believe in spirits, or children of the gods, but not believe in gods themselves. It seems that the defense Socrates raises in the Apology is sufficient for his accusations, but after it fails, something else needs to be said, and that something will come from Plato. The Symposium literally means drinking together and this event would have a leader who suggested toasts, and there would be some ordered drinking. In this specific instance, the poet Agathon has just won his first dramatic contest and is celebrating with a symposium, where the topic for the evening is suggested: praise of Eros, or the god of love.

The Symposium is an appropriate pretense for the defense of philosophy – in the guise of a discussion about love, philosophy, ironically proves to be the epitome of love. The initial speakers do their best to praise Eros, the god of love; however, they all misrepresent the nature of love. All the speakers presume, just as Socrates did when he was younger, that “Love was being loved, rather than being a lover.” Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon are all guilty of praising, or making up, the effects that love grants men, whereas Socrates’ search for the truth begins with the qualities that love actually possesses. After the speech of Agathon, in typical Socrates style, he must get a few acceptable premises established. Socrates begins with Agathon, asking him if Love is the love of something or of nothing. Agathon agrees that Love is the love of something, from there it is agreed that Love also desires that which it loves. If Love desires that which it loves, then it must be the case that it does not currently have what it desires. Desiring something that one already owns can only be done for the sake of continuing that ownership. Drawing on Agathon’s speech, Socrates establishes the type of things Love desires, namely, beautiful things. Incorporated into beautiful things are also good things. It stands to reason that if Love desires good and beautiful things then Love does not have them. From here, Socrates turns to a supposed speech that a Mantinean woman gave him when he was young; when he had the same ideas that the speakers before him had about Love.

While the existence of the actual symposium taking place is at least doubtable, as the cast of speakers is highly unlikely to have gotten along so well, or even be in Athens together. The Symposium is told from the perspective of Apollodorus, who heard the account from another person, this type of indirect approach to the dialogue occurs in another one of Plato’s works, the Parmenides, which could not have possibly taken place. It is quite possibly, and more than likely that the event never took place, so the speeches are Plato’s inventions. The conversation between Socrates and Diotima that supposedly took place is in more doubt. While Diotima’s existence is only suggested to us by Socrates’ account here, it is more telling of her creation that “she” alludes to a view just presented by Aristophanes moments before. The significance of this allusion is that more than likely, even if Diotima existed, what she is represented to have said here was not composed before the party took place. For convenience sake, the story of Diotima is to be taken as a heuristic device of Socrates or Plato. When Socrates faced this logic his initial reaction was to assume that since Love did not possess beauty or goodness that he was ugly. “Don’t force whatever is not beautiful to be ugly, or whatever is not good to be bad” Diotima tells Socrates, “Yet everyone agrees he’s a great god,” he replies in the tone of the speakers before him. If Love is to be a great god, it must be the case, that like all gods, he is beautiful and possesses good things. Since Love does not possess beautiful and good things, it must be the case that Love is not a great god, but it is also not the case that he is mortal. Love is a spirit, in-between the mortal and immortal, a messenger that rounds out the differences and binds all to all.

While there is a lot to be said about the Symposium, the forcefulness of irony comes from Diotima’s speech to Socrates about the genealogy of Love. “When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a celebration,” Diotima begins, at this celebration Poros the god of resourcefulness got drunk and fell asleep in the garden of Zeus, and then Penia the goddess of poverty looking to relieve her lack of resources became pregnant by Poros – the child was Love. This genealogy connotes many things, like the reason for Love to always follow Aphrodite or beauty, and why he is neither mortal nor immortal, but most importantly his physical appearance. As the son of poverty, he is always poor, far from being delicate and beautiful, and he is tough, shriveled, shoeless, and always in need. According to the Platonic dialogues, Socrates was nowhere near a beautiful person, he was old or shriveled, he was poor, shoeless and tough, and he was always in need. These characteristics of Love’s mother’s side ring true with Socrates’ physical description, but what about the resourceful parent? On his father’s side, he is a schemer after the beautiful and good, brave, and resourceful in his pursuit of intelligence. This side of Love most emphatically resembles Socrates; however, one last comparison remains. Love, like being in-between mortality and immortality is also in-between wisdom and ignorance. The immortal gods are already in possession of wisdom and therefore do not desire it, and the mortal ignorant do not desire to become wise for they are content in their ignorance and do not desire what they do not think they need, so Love is in-between wisdom and ignorance, and as such he loves, he desires wisdom. Love is philosophon, he is a lover of wisdom, that is to say, a philosopher.

Though the state prosecuted and killed Socrates for impiety, even after the defense he supposedly raised in the Apology was logical enough to acquit the charges, it was not enough to save his life. Plato, I think, wanted to show the Athenians, without actually saying it, that not only was the charge of impiety false, but it was backwards. Only by using the written work and in using irony could Plato safely get away with this rebellion. Of course Plato would not equate Socrates to a god, but by making philosophy a spirit that connected to the divine, Plato is saying that philosophy and Socrates are the epitome of piety. Much like the Athenians, the speakers gave a false account of the god that they worshipped, and Plato uses Socrates’ to contrast that with his proper philosophical account. The irony presented in the Symposium suggests that the Athenians, who threatened philosophy, pushed it aside as useless, and killed off its most notable figurehead, are the ones with impiety.

Accepted

Well, as per my last post, I submitted a paper topic for a conference being held at my college - to cut it short, my proposal was accepted and I'm going to be presenting my paper. What have I got myself into? haha
The last time I presented a paper in front of people, it was in front of a class of 9 people. It went horrible. Granted, I hadn't slept that night from writing the paper, but I can't recall wanting to be out of a situation so badly. If there's one thing I don't like in life its to be caught in a situation I don't want to be in. My heart races, my face tingles, I perspire, and I stutter. If I could look at myself during the experience, I would probably be aware that my head could pass as an red alert light. In other words, I think I'm nervous about this situation I've put myself in. We'll see, I'm sometimes the most socially outgoing person, or sometimes taken aback by those situations.
Either way, I'm pretty excited about pursuing something that's as promising as this conference. This is my passion, this is my life - and I've got 20 minutes to explain and defend it.
Many updates to follow on this topic I'm sure. Specially after I've done more research and consultation with my prof.

Conference proposal

So, my school is holding an undergraduate humanities conference where little know-it-alls get to present their thoughts, and I'm hoping to be on of them!
Without further adieu, here is an abstract for my paper

The explicit theme of Plato’s Symposium is a dialogue in praise of and on the nature of Eros, the god of love and desire, however, the implicit theme that Plato hides is his love for philosophy and The Philosopher: Socrates. In Plato’s dialogues there is little left to coincidence, so with this in mind we can see his underlying attempts to argue for the cause of philosophy, defend Socrates, and present a challenge to pretenders of loving wisdom: the poets.

Feeling the after-effects of Socrates’ trial, Plato saw the dangers that philosophy presented to himself and his like-minded friends. Instead of open ended discussion in the agora, Plato moved his philosophy to a school where he undertook the manifestation of Socrates’ dialogues in written form. At the Academy Plato was able to create a barrier from the masses, the likes of which prosecuted Socrates. Furthermore, by using the medium of written work, Plato was able to be selective about who took part in his ‘dialogues,’ and just in case, it afforded him the leisure of being ironic. In using irony, Plato was able to say what he wanted to without actually saying it. In the written format, Philosophy became safe. Protected from potential accusers, Plato went to work on his legacy of Socrates’ life compiling western philosophy’s most important texts. In the Symposium dealing with Eros we find what is probably Plato’s most personal effort, implicitly showing his love for philosophy and Socrates while aggrandizing them over poetry.

Now, I just have to go about proving my statements!
wish me luck ;)

The new year

Well, I apologize for my prolonged absence. I suppose life has been busy lately.
It's a new year, but you knew that already, right? Not that the changing of the calendar matters to me, I suppose its a nice thing to do, so without further adieu, happy new year!
So, with the festive cheer out of the way, its back to the old grind.
School has opened her sweet arms to embrace me this year, and I am thoroughly enjoying myself this semester. Philosophy of Buddhism, love and sex, and ethics, coupled with an old passion of mine - the roman empire are going to keep me busy with a lifted heart. Have I ever mentioned that I love knowledge? It's a shame its hard for me to go about collecting that treasure on my own. It's hard to convince myself in retrospect, but I do love knowledge and learning - epiphanies instigate goosebumps and a racing heart like no other experience I've had. The sudden burst of knowledge is so exhilarating - why its not my kind of drug is beyond me. On the depressing side, lethargy is my drug, and video games are my dealers. Speaking of which, the frequency of which I have been playing has increased since the winter break. I guess I got a bit of time granted to me, and I filled it up with living in a post-apocalyptic world in Fallout 3, flooding underground tunnels in gears of war 2, and buying downloadable content in littlebigplanet. Ah, what more can be said, I just hope a balance can be found between what I ought to spend my time doing and what I actually spend my time doing. This is my ongoing struggle - its a shame to know your struggle, but I suppose all hope is contained in that knowledge.

In any event, I think I've complained enough for today - my written thoughts only want to come out as negative reflections of myself today, so I won't burden you with my weight.

'til next time I blog, which may not be so seperated form this one, take it easy