Dear all, I could not believe that THIS is on the market. Ernest Hemingway's boyhood home. In Oak Park, Illinois. Only $525,000. I bet we can raise that if we all move in and invite a few dozen of our closest friends. I think it's safe to say that this is the BEST POSSIBLE option for our commune. Let's pool our resources and move the party to Oak Park. Who's with me? LC
To those who have not yet heard, Notre Dame was recently the scene of a strange and peculiarly malicious hate crime. You can read about it in this news article. Long story short, someone put pieces of fried chicken in the mailboxes of the Black Students Association and the African Students Association, during Black History Month (February). Seriously? What a stupid gesture. I honestly can't believe that something like that happened at our beloved Notre Dame. It's an act of such gratuitous small-mindedness, such petty malice. I guess I just want you to be aware, so that we can continue the good fight to show others respect and dignity. To regard others with Buber's I-Thou look of personhood and respect. And to the perpetrators? Come on, Domers. Grow up.-LC
Someone posed this question to a philosophy professor at a conference that I recently attended. The professor, in a somewhat agitated voice, said “I am not prepared to answer that question right now; I can’t talk to you about what philosophy is.” I thought that this was an interesting response, considering that the professor is, after all, a professional philosopher.
A friend of mine recently asked me why I am studying philosophy, if I already have the truth (namely, Christianity). He said that most people who study philosophy today do not have the truth, and study philosophy to find some sort of truth, which probably is not Christianity.
Since then, I have been trying to formulate an answer to the question ‘What is philosophy’, but I am having trouble defining philosophy so that 1) the definition takes into account philosophy’s relation to revelation, and 2) its relation to the natural and social sciences.
Of course, one obvious way to answer this question is to explain that revelation needs philosophy in order to make the truth manifest, and philosophy needs revelation to develop true teachings. This is the Thomistic view, and most Catholics would agree. However, this is not how philosophy is studied and pursued at most universities today. Most philosophers today do not deal with religion, and treat philosophy as something that can be pursued independently of revelation. As we know, this has been the predominant trend since the Enlightenment. However, I find this view to be unsatisfying because it seems to follow that from the perspective a Christian, there is no truth to be gained from philosophy, and hence no reason to pursue philosophy. So, I am looking for a more comprehensive view of philosophy, one that clarifies its relation to both theology and the practical sciences.
Is it possible to give a positive definition of what philosophy is? Or must it always be defined in historical terms in conjunction with some other science (e.g. in year X philosophy was Y in the service of theology, or philosophy is Z in the service ofnatural science). This is another problem I have been having lately: how to make a distinction between the history of philosophy and philosophy ‘proper’. Is all philosophy historical? Maybe it cannot be defined and is rather a method than a science with a definite subject. I have my own views on this, which are constantly changing and evolving; these are just some of my rough thoughts. But I am wondering what other people think.
Adam
Dearly beloveds, Please take a moment to ponder this article/book review, written by a friend of a friend. In short, it explains why everyone should do a liberal arts degree (no frickin' duh). A few salacious quotes:"Reading Shakespeare and Plato in college is a good way to get smarter and therefore become generically better at everything in general, including business." "Study the liberal arts, unless you want to be a scientist, bored, or a fraud, QED." As a management consultant, I have to add the caveat that my firm actually does REAL work and that this article is not half fair to the consulting profession. But it's still good and thought-provoking and worth considering for those who think PLS needs specialization or more practicality (Ahem. Adam. ;-) ) Hugs to all,LC
I just stumbled upon this great article which basically lays out the case for pre-college classical education and gives a short history of this small but growing movement. I knew there were schools like this dotting the country, but I didn't realize that there were so many. It gives me reason to hope...as long as they don't fall into the trap of becoming mere instrumentalist training grounds for culture warriors of the Christian Right, as the author points out. -Joey
I have recently decided to change my future plans from attending law school to finding a job in the business/finance world. My reasons for doing so are numerous, but my decision is mostly based upon my emerging interest in economics and finance. I may still go to law school eventually, but I am also interested in MBA programs. So, I am currently looking for summer internships in the field to gain experience and training.
I don’t know if any of you have experienced this yet, but I find it to be extremely difficult to market PLS to a potential employer. Let’s be honest: ‘Program of Liberal Studies’ sounds like a joke. The name conveys absolutely no information about the major. It is not clear in what sense it is a ‘program’, nor does the name connate anything positive about what is studied. If anything, PLS sounds like a not-so-rigorous liberal arts major for slackers, which it is not. To avoid the typical liberal-arts stereotypes, I usually write ‘Great Books (History of Philosophy)’ on my resume instead of PLS.
I have come to the conclusion that the major needs a different name; a name that more accurately captures the rigorous curriculum and the broad skills that students acquire. Could it be ‘Honors Humanities’? PLS is essentially an honors program after all, even though it is not marketed as such.
More importantly, I think that my experience is indicative of a larger problem, and that is the feasibility of liberal education for non-academics in times of economic insecurity. One of the many privileges of living in a materially abundant society is that not everyone has to work constantly, and not everyone has to study subjects directly related to work. I think that one of the reasons why liberal education has remained a popular alternative for students in the past fifty years, despite the rise of undergraduate business programs, is that those who pursued non-technical courses of study were still able to obtain gainful employment. However, if the economy does not stabilize and grow in the long-term future (and I have few reasons to think that it will), then I think that we will continue to see an increase in those pursuing technical degrees and a decrease in those studying the humanities.
In order for liberal education and Great Books programs to survive in the future, such programs will have to reinvent themselves and provide students with a more marketable set of skills than ‘reading, writing, and thinking’. Perhaps this would entail having some sort of concentration within PLS, such as political science, economics, or mathematics. I am not sure how this could be done while still remaining faithful to the Great Books, but I do think that liberal education will have to be redefined in order to meet the economic and cultural realities of the 21st century.
Adam
Those of you who frequent Linkedin may have seen a recent discussion amongst some of the older PLS alums on "Prof. Cronin's Checklist" - a writing style guide compiled by Professor Cronin and distributed to his students. Never one to be left out of the fun, I emailed one of said older alums and asked for a copy of it.
The Checklist is awesomeness, all 41 pages of it. It describes the purpose of a Checklist as " To identify what is rubble and how to get rid of it. Then, when all the rubble is cleared away, one will find what has always been underneath it—just plain good earth. Usually, only weeds grow in rubble. So let your hands get ink-stained in the good earth. You may not grow exotic orchids, neither you will grow weeds." It also includes lines like, "a Notre Dame priest of long ago—“in my time”—used to speak of the 'sanctity of the sentence.'"
The majority of it is just a long list of stylistic tips, useful but perhaps redundant for most of us. Nonetheless, I found it a nice glimpse at one of the great PLS figures of times past and perhaps a helpful refresher for those of us who are still writing.
Let me know if you would like a copy, and I am happy to email it to you!
-LC
I imagine that most of you are familiar with David Foster Wallace's speech at the 2005 Kenyon College graduation. For some reason, this simple speech has been returning to my thoughts a lot lately. Re-reading it today for the first time in months, it seems way more relevant and also obvious than it did when I first read it as a junior at Notre Dame. Specifically, that sense of the absolute mundane-ness of many an adult day. Or at least of many mundane moments. And having to buy groceries or cleaning supplies, procure coins and do laundry, or even just deal with catching my bus on time for the nth morning in a row. Most of all, living in a big city, it's that having to deal with so many people in such a peripheral way. That one chubby guy behind the register at my Dominick's, who I angle for in the line because I know that he'll smile back at me and wish me a nice day. I sincerely hope that his is nice as well, but I wonder. The servers at my favorite cafe, whose quirky moustaches brighten my day when I lug work that I had to take home there. What are their lives like as full-time coffee shop servers, even if it is a damn good coffee shop? Then there's the late nights getting boring, routine work done. And the people who are up just as late, studying in or keeping open the 24-hour Starbucks I frequent at those times. The eating lunch at my desk because there is so much to do, and I don't have time to stop for much of a break. The girl at the cafe in my building who knows some of my orders by now because of those days when lunch or breakfast means grabbing something hasty there. The odd learning-to-navigate "real dates" with real, grown-up men - some of them as much as 10 years my senior. The wondering where it will lead them, and me, and if either of us will even remember the other as more than a funny story come 2 or 10 years. The scrambling to read books or to pray on the bus, on the train - the failing at times. The not sleeping in or forgetting to work out. Oh, grown-up life. I know some of what I've said here, and what DFW described, may be part of your day as well. So I'd love to hear - what are some of your "this is water" moments? -LC
Just to brighten up your day... 40 quotes on reading. Love, Lilly
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