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General Philosophy Research Blog
 

Philosophy Links

Online Philosophy Resources Evental Aesthetics Pli - The Warwick Journal of Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy Centre for Digital Philosophy, University of Western Ontario Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy The Center for Process Studies (publishes the journal Process Studies)
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

talk at Swinburne's Complex Processes Research Group (CPRG)

Hello all, I've been invited to give a one-hour talk at the Complex Processes Research Group (CPRG) at Swinburne University in Melbourne.  The present theme for talks is, broadly speaking, "neoliberalism and the environment."  I've included the abstract from Dr. Arran Gare's inaugural talk to give a sense of what issues are being discussed. My talk, which will involve Schelling's Naturphilosophie and its possible relations to a critique of neoliberalism, is slated for 2 May.  I'll post more here when I have more information.
Teaching, Tutoring, Pedagogy
 

Teaching and Tutoring Online Resources

This entry contains a list of online resources for teaching and tutoring. Readable.io: a site which processes text according to readability indices and indicates passive/active voice, gender weight, prevalence of nouns, verbs, etc., prominent words and phrases, etc. TagCrowd: processes plain text to produce a cloud of the most prominent words in the sample.  Useful for directing students to use more sophisticated words for their central issues and concepts. Writing Skills Resources, University of Leicester: The U of Leicester's writing skills page includes information on writing literature reviews, essays planning, references and bibliographies, analysing essay titles and more.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
Blog
 

Jan 29: Jung, Schelling's Freedom essay and Ages

Hi all, I will be uploading documents to the Box account and here containing some relevant quotes from Schelling's Freedom essay and the Ages of the World.  These are two incredibly rich texts which can be difficult to navigate on their own, so we will be focusing on issues specific to the idea of a philosophical psychology.  I'll also be introducing Jung and analytical psychology, as this philosophical psychology, and the parallel structures between Schelling's metaphysics and analytical psychology, really start to come together with these texts. See you tomorrow!
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
Blog
 

Jung Primer is up

Hi all, Apologies for the delay, but I've finally got the (very basic) Jung primer up in the Box account and in the Week 3 download area on this site.  It will shed light on our future discussions. Happy long weekend!
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
Blog
 

Our Jan. 22 session

Hi everyone, Just a heads-up, which I was hoping to get to you a bit sooner - sorry for the delay. For our session tomorrow, we'll be picking up where we left off, delving into the Naturphilosophie of the First Outline and then moving on to a somewhat shorter discussion of the System of Transcendental Idealism.  There may be time afterwards, and if that's the case I will give you all a rundown of Jung and analytical psychology's basic tenets and differences from psychoanalysis. I will also be posting a brief primer of Jung's thinking in the forums here very soon, so stay tuned!
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
Blog
 

In preparation for our first session this Monday

Hi everyone, I hope this entry finds all of you well and looking forward to beginning our summer course this Monday. This coming weekend I anticipate most of you will at least have downloaded the reading materials for our first session together.  In addition to this (and as if there weren't enough reading already), I'd like to suggest that you take a look at the two Jung essays in the Week 5 file category: "Basic Postulates" and "Analytical Psychology and 'Welatanschauung'."  They're good ways in to some of analytical psychology's theoretical concerns for those of you who may not be familiar with him. Which leads me to another question, for which I've set up a poll in this blog entry.  How many of you would find a "Jung primer" useful?  Click the Poll tab and cast your vote for consideration next week.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
Blog
 

Welcome

Dear Students, Welcome to the blog for "Schelling and 'Philosophical Psychology'".  This blog can be used for observations and questions which arise from week to week, or to make announcements about the course in general.  Below I've reproduced the original welcome document in the course's Box folder: ------------------------------ Hello, and welcome to “Schelling and ‘Philosophical Psychology’”. As mentioned in the online description, this course tracks the development of a “philosophical psychology” through several of F.W.J. Schelling’s key philosophical works.  This philosophical psychology situates Schelling firmly in the dissociative tradition in psychology, a tradition which in many ways culminates in the thought of C.G. Jung, with whom we will also be dealing with throughout the course, and especially in the final week. This is the first time I have run this course, so there will likely be some fluidity in the schedule as some discussions may roll over into subsequent weeks.  To state the obvious, I also encourage you to bring up any and all questions you have about the readings; I am interested in the philosophical-psychological aspects here, but this is of course by no means the only way to approach Schelling.  And much like Schelling’s (and Jung’s) oeuvres are rife and ripe with undeveloped tendencies, as each of you bring your own expertise to the discussion I’m sure we will head off in weird and wonderful directions. Although the original itinerary suggests we’re saving a discussion of Jung until the final class, I will be gradually introducing Jungian ideas throughout our time together as Schelling’s metaphysical ideas and Jung’s metapsychology are so intimately entwined.  After our first session I will provide some kind of a primer of Jungian concepts Note on the texts: of course, all of you should read each Schelling text discussed here in its entirety.  For our purposes, however, I would suggest that you read as much of Schelling’s Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom and the Ages of the World (1815) as possible (perhaps easy for me to say, I know), as they are central to the idea of a philosophical psychology.  The Freedom essay is about 70 pages of dense brilliance and one of the most important texts in German philosophy; the 1815 Ages is also very significant and clocks in at about 100 pages (you can skip the last part on pantheism if you like).  Either way I will be providing passages from these texts before the date.  If you have any questions about what might be absolutely essential to read in these texts and what can be left for reasons of time, please email me. At some point I will also put together a list of further reading for both Schelling and Jung. I’ve also included a couple of extra essays by Jung in the Week 5 folder: “Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology” (1931) and “Analytical Psychology and ‘Weltanschauung’” (1931), which reflect Jung’s (not unproblematic) attempts to define analytical psychology as a science.  They’re fairly short and hopefully good introductions to analytical psychology (which I will expand on in our discussions). If you have any questions, feel free to post in the forums or send me a Private Message (the envelope at the top of the screen by your name).   Itinerary Below is a schedule of readings for the first week.  For each week I’ve included additional reading which may help contextualise the primary texts and issues from week to week. “[Box]” means the material can be downloaded from the Box account. There’s a good deal in the Box account right now; I will have reading itineraries for the following weeks posted as soon as I can.  Look for them in the folder specific to each week, along with the PDFs themselves.   INTRODUCTION AND WEEK 1: Schelling, First Outline excerpts; the concept of Naturphilosophie and the unconditioned in Nature; actants; inhibition in Nature Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism excerpts; the first excerpt is Schelling’s deduction of the concept of Transcendental Idealism and the second has to do with art, which will become important in subsequent discussions The Oldest System Programme (from Krell)   An Introduction via Additional Reading: McGrath, "The Psychology of Productive Dissociation, or What Would Schellingian Psychotherapy Look Like?" Comparative and Continental Philosophy 6.1 (2014), 35-48.  A good introductory piece to what follows; he traces the contours of what we will explore in much greater theoretical detail. Excerpts on Mesmer and polypsychism from Henri Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (Basic Books, 1970).  Note: for those of you who have the time for 65 pages, chapter 3 of Ellenberger’s book (“The First Dynamic Psychiatry (1775-1900)”) is a solid introduction to the concept of what Ellenberger calls “dynamic psychiatry” and which informs the idea of philosophical psychology via Schelling and Jung we will be exploring.   That’s about it for now.  I look forward to meeting you all on Monday!
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

Hosted Space: "Schelling and 'Philosophical Psychology'"

Hello, I'm pleased to announce that LiquidFractal, with the permission of the MSCP, is hosting the online space for  "Schelling and 'Philosophical Psychology'," a summer course lasting from Jan-Feb 2018 and run through the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy. You can get to it in the SPACES menu above, but only registered members can access its content.  If you're interested in enrolling for this or any other course offered by the MSCP, please visit their website here: Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy. All courses are available for distance enrollment and are made available as downloadable recordings.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

2
Teaching, Tutoring, Pedagogy
 

concepts for tutoring

Metacognition Reflect on your own reading: what do you read? how much time do you spend reading it? Why do you read it (e.g., what do you feel you take from your reading experience)? - The issue here is thinking about your own thinking about your reading, and how one might think differently/better Reflect on your own writing: what is your argument/thesis?  What do you think you're talking about?  Then guide them to sites like TagCrowd and feed in their text so the client can see what the textual emphases are in their paper. Does it match what's in their heads while they write? Do the TagCrowded words adequately articulate the issues at stake and the client's thesis? Once you have this focus, you can suggest that the largest words in the cloud should be more focused and/or sophisticated (i.e., academic English?). You can also suggest that clients do a search for these specific words in their paper - not to perform a rote find/replace, but to zero in on where these words are used and whether or not the argument at these points can be finessed or focussed further.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

New external media player

Hi everyone, I just wanted to tell you all that we now have an exciting and very, very cool way of linking to external audio and video! I have installed a new HTML5 audio/video plugin on the site.  This means that when you post links to music and video files on other sites, they'll come up in your post in a snazzy new player interface! For example, here's a music file: http://01audiovideo.free.fr/ogg/1vs0_JuniorGroove.ogg   And here's a video: http://video.webmfiles.org/big-buck-bunny_trailer.webm  
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

LiquidFractal in the new year

Hi everyone, It's official - LiquidFractal's new...iteration?  manifestation?  representation? - will be going live January 1, 2018! Of course, the site's public areas and forums chatter have been around for ages and will still be there.  But in the new year I hope to have everything else in place: tutoring rates, information on contract editing/proofreading/technical writing work, as well as the storefront. I will also be introducing a Referrals program.  So if you're a client (tutor, editing or otherwise) refer someone else who becomes a client, you get reward points which can go towards free tutoring hours, resources, or maybe even some free stuff.  Not a client?  If you're a Member who refers someone who becomes a client, you will also earn Referral points for stuff in the future. More soon!  As always, I enthusiastically welcome any and all suggestions you may have.  And psst...tell your friends. 
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

1
News & Information
 

Introducing LF_Magnum!

Hello again, So all of you will have noticed the changes I've made to the site as I prepare to push it forward into "live"ness.  The most obvious of these changes is the new default site theme, LF_Magnum,[1] which will quite possibly replace the existing themes. LF_Magnum has a lot of eye-catching features and makes very good use of the real estate on a given page to provide easy access to social media buttons.  Some of you have mentioned that you really like the idea of a sticky header (the top menu that stays at the top as you scroll down a page), so I kept that in mind when selecting a new default theme.  Of course, there is also the marquee, which will contain breaking news about site developments and links to other information. I hope you all like it as much as I do - tweaking this theme has been a very nice creative exercise for me.  As always, please post in the Suggestions forum or get in touch with me if you have comments, opinions, or suggestions of any kind. Footnotes ^ If you're wondering about the name, "Magnum" is the original name given it by its developer.  I've just kept it because I can't think of anything else right now!
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

4
News & Information
 

page formatting in new themes

Hello all, Since this site will be "officially" going live in the next while, I wanted to draw your attention to some coding-related issues which affect how the two newer themes (Dashboard, Chameleon) display. In short, you will see the odd part of a webpage which seems to have no background, where the text at times can be very difficult to read against the static background graphics.  This apparently has to do with the way certain blocks of code were formatted in Invision's CSS, and I am waiting on this issue to be resolved (it affects many other people out there as well!). So if you want to see everything without these formatting issues, I suggest you use the default LF_Blue theme - there's no background eyecandy, but everything will display fine.  Of course, registered Members are still free to use the new themes...everything works fine - it's just the odd display block that's affected. Invision promise to address it as soon as they can; you'll know as soon as I do! Note: as I've said before, while they will display on mobile screens the newer themes are too involved to display correctly on mobile devices - they're more for the desktop/laptop/tablet experience.  I recommend using the default LF_Blue theme, which is much easier on your mobile bandwidth anyway. 
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

New: Sticky Notes!

Hi everyone, Introducing Sticky Notes - an eye-catching way of making Members aware of new developments on the site, whether it's scheduling notifications for Tutor Clients, downtime for the site, or contests for you to win stuff!  I felt this might be a better alternative to the Announcements window at times, which should really stand out a bit more so that people notice it as soon as they splash down on the main page.  Sticky Notes are much more noticeable! Sticky Notes will appear pinned to a side or corner of your screen.  Once you've read a Sticky Note, just click its X to remove it from your view.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

4
The VIP Blog
 

fuck Heathrow and fuck self-entitled parents

yes, I'm going there this blog entry. Short and sweet, but I'm gonna say it: I really really wish Air Canada would adopt the practice of putting all parents and small, squawking cabbagehead children at the very back of the plane.  Preferably on the wings with seatbelts, but I'm pretty sure there are laws against that. Why do I say this, I hear you ask?  Well, first off, those of our species who have decided to rut and procreate have been privileged against the rest of us, who are (let's put it bluntly) discriminated against when we are forced to wait in crushing lineups while these people are given leave to board first at their leisure.  The way I see it, if they are privileged over us by being allowed to board and stow all their stuff first, why not privilege us over them when the plane lands by allowing us non-breeders to disembark first? The additional plus being that with all the shrieking children at the back of the plane, statistically speaking more of us will hear less of them throughout the plane as we watch the movies and catch the sleep we have undoubtedly paid for in purchasing a ticket. And self-entitled parents aren't even only a problem on planes: while I was waiting for the Toronto-Heathrow flight I was sandwiched between two families with children: one mother who kept shouting at her young son in Arabic or some such language, while he just kept ignoring her, screaming, running all through the closed boarding lanes in front of the staff desks, saying "ok ok" whenever he would disobey her.  Well hey, it's not "ok"!  Especially when the staff come up to you and fucking tell you it's not "ok"! And on the other side of me?  an Indian couple and their two small children, including a son who was hanging off of and licking the fabric strap that is latched to poles to create boarding lanes.  Licking it all across its length!  And the parents just stood there doing nothing! Of course, this is not to single out Arabs or Indians - unruly children and their meathead parents come in all shapes and colours.  But whatever the shape and colour, I just wish they would stay the hell away from me...and if they must be beside me, can we at least muzzle them so they can't shriek?
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

1
General Philosophy Research Blog
 

a response to Caputo's poetics of obligation

In his Against Ethics (1993), Caputo describes the poetics of obligation as  Reflecting on this after I used it in my thesis (and I don't know if I make this point in my notes on Caputo): is this a bit idealist to be strictly aligned with deconstruction?  Is there really such a rigid economy of approximation in obligation that binds it to the "powerlessness of the one who calls for help"?  Or is the obligation you develop in Romantic Metasubjectivity something much more aleatory than this - something which resists this economy and displaces it, perhaps with the indeterminacy of the unconscious in the form of sado-masochism?  That is, does this power economy also engender forms of need (which both sadism and masochism are) that don't fit neatly into Caputo's framework, which still retains some theological bias?  Put differently, can this obligatory magnetism not also exploit?  Consume the powerlessness of the other for its own ends, which could very well serve the purposiveness of indivduation no less than more ethically noble ends? Or does Caputo gesture towards this when he writes that obligation runs the risk that Yahweh's command Abraham that he sacrifice Isaac is on the same (un)ground as the commands given to Nazi soldiers to kill Jews?[2]  Is there a flirtation here with the dark waters of the Ungrund which Caputo doesn't fully resolve?  I do wonder if he addresses this in the rest of the book (which I haven't yet read).   Footnotes ^ John Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation With Constant Reference to Deconstruction (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1993), 5. ^ Against Ethics 10.
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

0
News & Information
 

New: Member Map

Hi everyone, It's been online for a little while now (as some of you have noticed), but I thought I'd introduce the new Member Map, accessible from the Resources tab in the main menu.  Basically, it allows you to show people where you are and provides a geographic distribution of members.  Let's make it as global as possible! A couple of brief points: Participation in the Map is entirely optional.  Putting your location on the Map can help you connect with other people near you (or who are in places you might want to go someday), but you're under no obligation to do so. Do not provide your full address unless you want it to be made public!  You can either give Maps your current location or enter your detailed address information.  Enter your home address if you want, but it will be visible to anyone (bot or human) who browses the site.  So if you live in Melbourne, simply entering "Melbourne" or a related option from the dynamic menu is fine and will preserve your privacy.  
Gord Barentsen

Gord Barentsen

1
Rhetor "ick!": Grammar police, language oddities, etc.
 

"begging the question"

When I was looking through the Logical Fallacies website I noticed the "Begging the Question" fallacy https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question I've always been confused about this phrase, probably because so many people (like myself) apparently misuse it.  That is to say i was told a while back that my use of the phrase wasn't what it really meant, and I actually thought that was a rhetorical trick to invalidate my argument .  I always thought that it meant one's argument had such a glaring omission in it that it left opponents or critics "begging" to ask the question that would be obvious to any intelligent listener. So just for the record (or in case you're too lazy to look it up for yourselves), "begging the question" seems close to this but it's actually a circular or self-evident argument that is really only self-evident to the speaker and his/her prejudices, e.g., "the Bible was divinely created because it's the Word of God." But I have to give this side mad props for ending their definition with "Circular reasoning is bad mostly because it's not very good" 
stimmung79

stimmung79

1

  • Think About It...

    Nature speaks to us to the extent that we ourselves fall silent.

    Friedrich Schelling  

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