HON 273: The Human Event, Science Focus

Fall, 2008

John M. Lynch

Last modified: December 2, 2008

Contact | Description | Outcomes | Texts | Assignments | Readings | Policies

Current Announcements

Grades so far (with final participation grades) are available here.

Please remember that this page gives the latest information on readings and overides the printed syllabus in all matters.

 

Contact Information

Office: Irish A 219 & LSC 268

Hours: M, 10:30 - 11:30 (LSC); TTh, 9:00 - 10:00 (Irish), or by appointment.

E-mail: The most efficient way to contact me (john dot lynch at asu dot edu). Please see the policies page for important information about my availability over email. Please make sure you put "HON273" in the subject line.

Course Description

HON 273 follows on from the first semester of “The Human Event” but will focus on a selection of modern scientific ideas (for example, the observational work of Galileo, the theoretical work of Newton, the synthetic work of Darwin) and their implications for us as human beings. Throughout, we will be examining these ideas as both scientific knowledge and as cultural products, while exploring their implications for our views of ourselves within an apparently vast impersonal universe. Particular attention will be paid to apparent tensions between scientific and religious viewpoints.

Readings will be somewhat technical in places (especially Newton), but not overly so, and non-scientists who are interested in these “great ideas” will benefit. Those wishing to explore the ideas further in more technical detail will be encouraged to do so

Learning Outcomes

Required Texts

Please only purchase these editions. They are available at the ASU Bookstore and online.

Assignments

Please see the printed syllabus for further details of assignments and grading rubrics.

Schedule of Readings

T
26-Aug

Introduction to the Class.

After class, please closely read the syllabus, these policies, and these guidelines for seminar participation. Please do so even if you took HON 171 with me.

Th
28-Aug

Presentation: Revolution and Enlightenment.

I am going to offer a quick presenttation on the period between the mid-1500's and 1789. The goal will be to offer guideposts for our readings over the next four weeks and to situate the authors within the general movements known as the "Scientific Revolution" and Enlightenment (links go to external sites with further background).

Reading: Bacon, "The Four Idols" [sections xxxix - xliv of pdf]; Kant, "What is Enlightenment?" [pdf]; Even if you've read Bacon before, please re-read.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) was an English statesman and philosopher. In his unfinished Magna Instauratio (begun in 1620), he attempted to summarize his thoughts on everything from epistemology to natural philosophy (what we would now call "science"). The latter part of the work was the Novum Organ0n which gave his ideas on how nature was to be interpreted. The reading is his famous four Idols - from the Greek eidolon (“image” or “phantom”) - which he claims prevent us from achieving a full and accurate understanding of nature.

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) is certainly one of the most influential philosophers in the West, and it has been argued that the appearance of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 marks the beginning of modern philosophy. Rather that read any of the difficult Critique (though Kant does discuss natural theology - see Newton, Paley & Hume in coming weeks), or his well known categorical imperative, we are going to read a brief essay that he wrote in 1784 to answer the question Was is Aufklarung? (What is Enlightenment?). Note that Kant is writing at the tail end of the Enlightenment, so he is not offering a prescriptive definition but is reflecting on what the Enlightenment has meant.

You may also want to reflect on Kant's famous statement from the conclusion to his Critique of Pure Reason:

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

 
T 2-Sep

Reading: Galileo, Siderus nuncius, pp. 29 - 64 & 82 - 86, skim pp 64 - 82.

Siderus nuncius ("Starry Messenger") dates from 1610 and is Galileo's first attempt to broadcast the findings of his use of the telescope. There are a couple of things to keep in mind with today's reading. Firstly, Galileo is writing in Latin rather than in the Italian he would use for his later works. Secondly, he is not (explicitly) defending a heliocentric view. If not, what is the view that he is defending? Why? Thirdly, I'd like you to consider what the reaction of the general public and/or the philosophers & theologians would have been to his observations.

Here is an eight-page handout on Galileo's life and work, and the Galileo Project at Rice University has plenty more information.

Th 4-Sep

Reading: Newton, Principia [pdf]; See below for reading. Note that we will not be reading the whole PDF.

Newton's Principia (1687) is probably one of the most famous works in Western science and also one of the most difficult. Famously, Newton felt that only the initial three sections of Book I (along with Book III) would be understood by even mathematically literate readers. The selections I have chosen aim to provide a taste of Newton's argument.

In the first section (pp. 403 - 408), Newton outlines the definitions of some terms he will use later. In many cases, e.g. "quantity of matter" or "quantity of motion," he does not use terms that we use today. You will need to think about what he is defining.

The second section (pp. 416 - 417) presents his famous "Laws of Motion".

Then read the two pages that I handed out in class on Tuesday.

The third section (pp. 794 - 796) begin Book III of Principia ("The System of the World") and offers Newton's "Rules for the Study of Natural Philosophy."

In the fourth section (pp. 797 - 819), Newton offers some "Phenomena" (data to be explained) and proceeds to derive "Propositions" (based on Books I and II) that explain them. Here he derives his Universal Law of Gravitation.

Additional Supplemental Readings: (for the Newtonophile)

  • A summary overview of the Principia [pdf]
  • The first three sections of Book I of Principia [pdf] - the limit of what Newton felt readers would understand of his methodology. Take a quick look at it so as to get a feel for his analytical style. Newton suggested that readers could then understand Book III.
  • Voltaire discussed Newton's ideas in his Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) and offers a clear overview of how Newton's system differed from Descartes. Letter's XIV and XV are worth reading. [pdf]
 
T 9-Sep

Reading: Newton, continued.

The final section of our reading from Principa (pp. 939 to end) is the "General Scholium" which has been called "possibly the most famous of all Newton's writings" (I.B. Cohen 1971). In it he offers some thoughts on the theological significance of his work. Newton begins by attacking Descartes "hypothesis of vortices" - a vortex (whirlpool in the aether, the invisible material in space) caused the moon to circle the Earth, with a similar vortex causing the planets to circle the Sun. Newton then goes on to provide a defense of his particular religious views.

There are two other important places where Newton discusses the implications of his ideas - Query 31 of Opticks (1717) [pdf] in which he clearly states his belief in "an intelligent Agent" that created and designed the universe and his letters to Bentley (1692-'93) [pdf - pp. 233-236, 238-240, and 244.]

Th 11-Sep

Reading: Paley, Natural Theology [pdf]

Natural theology, or natural religion, the inferring of the existence and characteristics of the Christian god from observations of nature, has a long tradition. The argument can actually be traced back to Plato and Aristotle and was christianized by Thomas Aquinas. Natural theology received a boost during the Scientific Revolution with the writings of such individuals as Isaac Newton but reached its most elegant expression in Paley's 1802 work.

William Paley (1743 - 1805) was an English churchman and author of popular apologetic works. One of these - Natural Theology - begins by making his famous watchmaker argument; just as the complexity of a watch implies a watchmaker, so too the complexity of living things implies a designer. The latter portion of the book (and the majority of our reading) attempts to argue for the attributes of God from observations of nature.

To help clarify things, it is probably best to separate the argument to design (that something shows the marks of being designed) from the argument from design (detection of the characteristics of the designer).

A few things are worth pointing out. Firstly, Charles Darwin was greatly influenced by Paley's writings (which were mandatory reading at Cambridge). Secondly, though Hume had dealt with natural theology in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (which we will read in two weeks), Paley's argument remained forceful to the reading public. Thirdly, it is generally held that the death-blow to natural theology was dealt by Darwin in 1859 with the publication of Origin of Species. After this time, natural theology could no longer be seen as a scientific endeavor. In short, Darwin finished what Hume started nearly a century earlier. Lastly, the modern "intelligent design" movement, which reappeared in the 1990's, is taken by historians and philosophers of science to be little more than a modernized version of Paley's argument. The movement could easily be termed Neo-Paleyism. In short, Paley is not going away!

For our purposes, concentrate on the validity of Paley's argument. Are there obvious exceptions to his claims? Do they undermine his argument? Paley (as orthodox Christian) and Newton (as heretic) are arguing for a different kind of Christian god using the same natural world - how can this difference be adjudicated? Is the argument to/from design hopelessly flawed?

 
T 16-Sep

Reading: Hume, "On Miracles" (pp. 107 - 125) in Hume.

Beginning in the 1740's, the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume (1711-1776, "the most important philosopher ever to write in English") undertook an extended skeptical examination of traditional religion. Generally speaking, people have two reasons to hold a religious claim to be true - the first is because of revelation (revealed religion, i.e. Biblical pronouncements), and the second is due to examination of the natural world (natural religion or natural theology). In his 1748 essay "On Miracles" (contained in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), Hume set out to demonstrate that there were no rational reasons to accept accounts of miracles.

Hume's essay is relatively clear and should not present any major interpretive problems. How good are Hume's arguments? Be wary of saying Hume is wrong because you believe in miracles as told in scripture - Hume is arguing that whatever you believe, you cannot expect the claims to be sufficient to persuade another rational individual. Of course, that leads one to ask what the term "belief" even means? Are religious statements "beliefs"? Do scientific statements have a similar epistemological status?

In the 1750's Hume wrote his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, an extended examination of the sorts of claims made by natural theologians such as Aquinas, Newton and (later) Paley. It was only published in 1779, three years after Hume's death of stomach cancer.

In 1755 Hume published his Natural History of Religion. Noting that there was no rational basis for natural or revealed religion, he argued that the remaining "vulgar religion" developed from people's fear of the unknown, thus fore-shadowing an argument that Sigmund Freud would make over 200 years later.

Th 18-Sep

Reading: Hume, "On Suicide" pp. 97 - 105 in Hume.

 
T 23-Sep

Reading: Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Parts I through VIII, pp. 1-53)

Before beginning the Dialogues, it would be a good idea to refamiliarize yourself with the sorts of arguments marshaled by Newton (in the "General Scholium") and Paley. While reading, try and come to conclusions about the positions represented by the three protagonists - Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. How do their positions differ? Which position could possible represent Hume's own views? Which is your position? Why?

This first portion of the reading deals mainly with a posteriori arguments, i.e. those that work from direct evidence. One such argument is the design argument favored by Paley.

Th 25-Sep

Reading: Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (pp 54 - 89)

Having dealt with a posteriori arguments, Hume now turns - in Book IX - to a priori arguments, those that require no evidence but instead work from metaphysical claims. The work ends with an extended discussion of the problem of evil - why does evil exist if God is both all-powerful and all-good?

 
T 30-Sep

Reading: Darwin Descent of Man, Ch 3, 4 & 6.

In 1859, Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a work that outlined his theory of transmutation (evolution) of species by means of a naturalistic mechanism. Darwin's mechanism - natural selection - can be easily understood using the following algorithmic construction:

  • If there are variations within a population, and
  • If these variations are inherited, and
  • If one variant is more suited to some task than the others, and
  • If that task directly affects survival and therefore reproduction,
  • Then selection by the environment (natural selection) will result in evolutionary change

In 1871, Darwin published The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, a work which examined the physical and mental evolution of humans. The readings for today focus on the origin of human mental traits and moral impulses. In Chapter 6, Darwin also outlines his overall view of human ancestry.

One of the things to note here is Darwin's use of "savage" and "higher" (and other such terms). Darwin felt that there were differences in mental powers between human populations and, like any good Victorian, he felt that the English were the pinnacle of humankind. However, Darwin also vehemently opposed slavery and the concept that it was the "white man's burden" to civilize the other populations. For Darwin, the same natural forces that drove the evolution of the English would drive that of the other groups.

Th 2-Oct

Reading: Darwin Descent of Man, Ch 19, 20, & 21.

One of the big problems facing Darwin was the origin of the human races (see his discussion in Ch 7). Darwin felt that there was no selective value for the observed differences between the races and, indeed, that the variation within a given race swamped variation between the races (an observation supported by modern genetic research). So how do you explain the differences? Darwin formulated his theory of sexual selection (a combination of male-male competition and female choice; see Ch 8) to try and explain them - for Darwin, racial differences were merely an expression of aesthetic choices within a population and were not of any evolutionary significance. To establish the existence of sexual selection, he provides an encyclopedic examination of sexual differences throughout the animal kingdom (Chs 9 to 18) before turning to human sexual differences.

Our reading focusses on his examination of the power of sexual selection in humans (Ch 19 & 20). Darwin then provides a summary of his work (Ch 21).

 
M 6-Oct

Paper 1 due electronically before 8am.

Do not e-mail me your paper; I will not accept it and will give you a zero for the assignment. Instead, submit the paper using the BlackBoard site for this class (Select 'Assignments' on the left hand menu).

It is your responsibility to submit the paper on time. Late assignments will receive an automatic zero.

 
T 7-Oct

Reading: Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lie" [pdf]; "The Madman" [pdf]; "The Greatest Weight" [pdf]

These three short pieces introduce us to some of Nietzsche's most famous idea: his perspectivism, the idea that "God is dead," and eternal recurrence. Further background information on Nietzsche is here.

Between 1873 and '76, Nietzsche wrote a number of unpublished works, of which On Truth and Lie is one. In this short essay, he considers the ways in which language imposes its own shape on our experience, with the effect that it does not reflect the world as it is. Our experiences are unique, but language makes experiences labelled with the same words appear to be similar. Language is inherently metaphorical, translating phenomena into images that are more standardized and anthropomorphic than reality justifies, and we tend to forget this fact. We imagine that we have penetrated to the "reality" of things, but we have not; "truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins" (p. 4).

Our two other selections come from The Gay Science (1882). "The Madman" ( §125) is foreshadowed by §108 where Nietzsche for the first time declares the death of God:

After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave,—an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow.—And we—we have still to overcome his shadow!

Pay close attention to this and the parable of the madman. What does the "death of God" mean? Does Nietzsche see it as a good thing?

"The Greatest Weight" (§341) has Nietzsche pose us a question:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'

For Nietzsche, how you answer this thought experiment indicates your true attitude to life. You may want to think a little about how Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence (which he would see as the "fundamental conception" in his next work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra) fits with the ideas expressed by the author of the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes:

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

Th 9-Oct

No class - Instructor at conference

 
T 14-Oct

Reading: Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality (Part I)

Robert Wicks notes the following about Nietzsche:

He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to Nietzsche's philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation," which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines which drain life's energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.

Regarding the Genealogy, he states:

On the Genealogy of Morals, A Polemic (Zur Genealogie der Moral, Eine Streitschrift, 1887) is composed of three sustained essays [of which we will read two] that advance the critique of Christianity expressed in Beyond Good and Evil. The first essay continues the discussion of master morality versus servant morality, and maintains that the traditional ideals set forth as holy and morally good within Christian morality are products of self-deception, since they were forged in the bad air of revenge, resentment, hatred, impotence, and cowardice. In this essay, as well as the next, Nietzsche's controversial references to the “blond beast” in connection with master morality also appear.

The key to reading Nietzsche is to approach his writings with an open mind - he is deliberately trying to discomfort you and make you re-evaluate what you hold to be true.

As with any difficult work, use the endnotes (pp. 119ff) to clarify issues and provide you with background information.

Th 16-Oct

Reading: Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality (Part II)

Wicks notes:

In the second essay, Nietzsche continues with an account of how feelings of guilt, or the “bad conscience,” arise merely as a consequence of an unhealthy Christian morality that turns an evil eye towards our natural inclinations. He also discusses how punishment, conceived as the infliction of pain upon someone in proportion to their offense, is likely to have been grounded in the contractual economic relationship between creditor and debtor.

 
T 21-Oct

Reading: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents pp. 10 - 74

Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents was written in 1929 and first published in 1930 as Das Unbehagen in der Kultur ("The Uneasiness in Culture"). In it he describes the tensions between the indivdual's quest for instinctual freedom and civilization's demand for conformity & instinctual repression (which is manifested in laws and punishments). This tension, argues Freud, causes a discontent among people.

You'll need to consider the context of Freud's work. World War I ("The Great War", "The War to End All Wars") had traumatized Europe between 1914 and 1918. In the wake of this, Freud wrote The Future of an Illusion (1927), a work which saw organized religion as a collective neurosis which, although it tamed human instincts and thus allowed cizilization, enacted a huge cost on the individual by suborning them to a primal father figure.

Th 23-Oct

Reading: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents pp. 65 - 112; The Freud-Einstein Corresponence [pdf]

The Freud-Einstein correspondence occurred between 1931 & 1932, at a time when Hitler was rising to power.

 
T 28-Oct

Reading: Huxley, Evolution and Ethics [pdf; 1-17]

Thomas Henry Huxley was famously known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his defense of Darwin's ideas. However. not many people realize that Huxley actually was ambivalent about the ability of natural selection to achieve what Darwin felt it could.

The reading is his 1893 Romanes Lecture delivered at Oxford. In it he argues that we should not look to nature for moral guidelines. As he argues:

“There are two very different questions which people fail to discriminate. One is whether evolution accounts for morality, the other whether the principle of evolution in general can be adopted as an ethical principle. The first, of course, I advocate, and have constantly insisted upon. The second I deny, and reject all so-called evolutional ethics based upon it.”

Th 30-Oct

Reading: Galton, "Eugenics", 1904 [pdf]; The Nan Family: A study in Cacogenics, 1912 [pdf]; Black, War Against The Weak (Background to Buck v Bell) [pdf]; Ruling in Buck v. Bell, 1927 [pdf]; Snyder, The Principles of Heredity [pdf]; Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 688-689.

These readings are fairly straightforward. A good strategy while reading is to question what the assumptions of the various authors are. What are they assuming about humans and their behaviors?

 
T 4-Nov

Paper writing workshop.

Bring a printout of your last paper (with my comments) to class. You also need to bring three copies of your thesis and topic sentences for the next paper. Failure to do either of these tasks will result in one grade point being taken from your next paper. Failure to do both will result in failure of the paper.

Peer review groups will be assigned.

Th 6-Nov

No class - Instructor at conference

 
T 11-Nov

No class - Veteran's Day

Th 13-Nov

Peer Review for Paper #2

Further details of the review procedure will be given nearer the date.

S 15-Nov

Paper #2 due electronically before 10am.

Do not e-mail me your paper; I will not accept it and will give you a zero for the assignment. Instead, submit the paper using the BlackBoard site for this class (Select 'Assignments' on the left hand menu). Do not use the "Digital Dropbox". It is your responsibility to submit the paper on time. Late assignments will receive an automatic zero.

 
T 18-Nov

Reading: Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor, pp. 1 - 37.

Please make sure you read this background material. It will make our discussion of the work a lot easier. In addition, for the chapter on the Grand Inquisitor, it will be useful for you to review the temptation of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11.

Some things to consider while reading ...

Book Five

  • In "Rebellion," Ivan rejects a world built on suffering. He demands a reason for suffering. As you read on in the novel, you'll want to ask: What is Dostoevsky's answer to the problem of suffering? How do you respond to that answer?
  • In "Grand Inquisitor," Ivan makes the argument that Christ didn't really love humankind, and that he proved it by resisting the three temptations in the desert. Try to outline the logic of Ivan's argument, and note Alexei's response.
Th 20-Nov

Reading: Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor, pp. 39 - 80.

Book Six

  • Zossima's two important arguments in this chapter are that life is paradise and that we are all guilty for each other. The two arguments are linked. Consider how.
  • Note how Zossima makes his argument - and consider it in the light of Ivan's argument in the previous chapter.
 
T 25-Nov

Reading: McEwan, Enduring Love [pdf]; Camus, "The Guest" [pdf]

Ian McEwan (left, 1948 - ) is a prize-winning British novelist whose 1997 novel, Enduring Love, is regarded by many as a masterpiece. We're going to read the first chapter.

Although born in extreme poverty, Albert Camus attended the lycee and university in Algiers, where he developed an abiding interest in sports and the theater. His university career was cut short by a severe attack of tuberculosis, an illness from which he suffered periodically throughout his life. The themes of poverty, sport, and the horror of human mortality all figure prominently in his volumes of so-called Algerian essays written between 1937 and 1954. In 1938 he became a journalist with Alger-Republicain, an anticolonialist newspaper. While working for this daily he wrote detailed reports on the condition of poor Arabs in the Kabyles region. These reports were later published in abridged form in 1958.

Such journalistic experience proved invaluable when Camus went to France during World War II. There he worked for the Combat resistance network and undertook the editorship of the Parisian daily Combat, which first appeared clandestinely in 1943. His editorials, both before and after the liberation, showed a deep desire to combine political action with strict adherence to moral principles.

During the war Camus published the main works associated with his doctrine of the absurd -- his view that human life is rendered ultimately meaningless by the fact of death and that the individual cannot make rational sense of his experience. These works include the novel The Stranger (1942), perhaps his finest work of fiction, which memorably embodies the 20th-century theme of the alienated stranger or outsider; a long essay on the absurd, The Myth of Sysiphysus (1942); and two plays published in 1944, Cross Purpose and Caligula. In these works Camus explored contemporary nihilism with considerable sympathy, but his own attitude toward the "absurd" remained ambivalent. In theory, philosophical absurdism logically entails total moral indifference. Camus found, however, that neither his own temperament nor his experiences in occupied France allowed him to be satisfied with such total moral neutrality.

From this point on, Camus was concerned mainly with exploring avenues of rebellion against the absurd as he strove to create something like a humane stoicism. The Plague (1947) is a symbolic novel in which the important achievement of those who fight bubonic plague in Oran lies not in the little success they have but in their assertion of human dignity and endurance. In the controversial essay The Rebel (1951), he criticized what he regarded as the deceptive doctrines of "absolutist" philosophies -- the vertical (eternal) transcendence of Christianity and the horizontal (historical) transcendence of Marxism. He argued in favor of Mediterranean humanism, advocating nature and moderation rather than historicism and violence. He subsequently became involved in a bitter controversy with Jean Paul Sartre over the issues raised over his essay "Existentialism is a Humanism" (see next week)..

Th 27-Nov

No class- Thanksgiving

 
T 2-Dec

Reading: Sartre, extracts from "Existentialism is a Humanism" [pdf]; Camus, extracts from "The Myth of Sisyphus" [pdf];

Update: The full version of Sartre's piece is here.

Educated in his native Paris and at German universities, Jean-Paul Sartre taught philosophy during the 1930s at La Havre and Paris. Captured by the Nazis while serving as an Army meteorologist, Sartre was a prisoner of war for one year before returning to his teaching position, where he participated actively in the French resistance to German occupation until the liberation. Recognizing a connection between the principles of existentialism and the more practical concerns of social and political struggle, Sartre wrote not only philosophical treatises but also novels, stories, plays, and political pamphlets. Sartre's personal and professional life was greatly enriched by his long-term collaboration with Simone de Beauvoir. Although he declined the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964, Sartre was one of the most respected leaders of post-war French culture, and his funeral in Paris drew an enormous crowd.

Sartre's philosophical influences clearly include Descartes, Kant, Marx, Husserl, and Heidegger. Employing the methods of descriptive phenomenology to new effect, his Being and Nothingness (1943) offers an account of existence in general, including both the being-in-itself of objects that simply are and the being-for-itself by which humans engage in independent action. Sartre devotes particular concern to emotion as a spontaneous activity of consciousness projected onto reality. Empasizing the radical freedom of all human action, Sartre warns of the dangers of mauvaise foi (bad faith), acting on the self-deceptive motives by which people often try to elude responsibility for what they do.

In the lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), Sartre described the human condition in summary form: freedom entails total responsibility, in the face of which we experience anguish, forlornness, and despair; genuine human dignity can be achieved only in our active acceptance of these emotions.

Th 4-Dec Reading: Oreskes, "A Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How do we know we are not wrong? [pdf]
 
T 9-Dec Roundup and Evaluation
     
S 13-Dec. Paper #3 due electronically by 8am.