Story of the Good Brahmin

Pondering about how to enrich our first Unit, concerning the nature of Philosophy and its nuts and bolts, I recalled a classic text by Voltaire, an eighteenth-century French thinker: the Story of the Good Brahmin. 

The text may shed light on some of the topics involved in this Unit, notably the attitude conventionally associated with a philosopher. 

HERE you have the story.

After having carefully read it, you have to do the following online ASSIGNMENT. Well, it is an optional task, but consider it may increase your marks up to 0'5 points this term. Once completed, don't forget clicking on "Enviar".

Deadline: Friday, October 18.

Colección "Comprender la Filosofia".

Al comienzo de cada nuevo curso los quioscos se llenan de coleccionables: clásicos de la literatura, minerales, miniaturas... Este año -y no es el primero- surge alguna colección de introducción a la filosofía o de monografías sobre grandes filósofos. A la vez, detecto en programas de radio, podcasts o revistas un creciente interés por popularizar la filosofía, por invitar a pensadores y divulgadores para que nos cuente de qué va eso de la filosofía o para mostrar algunas de sus infinitas curiosidades. Estas propuestas son hoy vías muy interesantes para acercarse a los temas que trataremos en este curso, en particulara para nuestro alumnado de Historia de la Filosofía de 2º de bachillerato.

Entre otros muchos, encontrarás noticias y podcasts sobre filosofía en estos enlaces:

• Cadena SER.
• Philosophy Podcasts.
• Filosofía Hoy.

Me sabe mal hacer publicidad, pero la editorial RBA acaba de sacar una colección de monografías de grandes pensadores y dedica su primer número a Platón, con un libro sobre el autor al ridículo precio de 1.95 €. Este es el anuncio:

Fresh start: UNIT 1

Wow! A new course is coming!

Well, in fact it IS HERE!
A new adventure in thought!

So you can begin with more strength, here you have, dear pupils, the contents of our 

                           UNIT 1

Overcoming procrastination

As I told you this morning, dear students of our Philosophy course for 1º de bachillerato, procrastination, which I like to define as the strategy without a strategy of doing anything as a means of doing nothing, is a dreadful sin in a student. 

Most likely, you've already got an idea about you being procrastinators or not. If you aren't sure enough, this is a link to a straightforward test -in Spanish- to clarify yourself (like in many other psychological tests, you won't really find out nothing new). 

But not everything is lost: if you are an unfortunate, irredeemable procrastinator, you can cope with that by following some pieces of advice. In these videos you may find some useful tips:

Unit 6: Nature and Culture in the Human Being

Fresh from the oven, here you have -most estimated students in our Philosophy course- our latest unit, which deals with the dual nature of humans, focusing on our cultural inheritance and its traits. 

UNIT 6

To be or not to be: 3 metaphysical conundrums.

As a voluntary assignment addressed to my students in our 1º de Bachillerato, here you'll find three stories, three strange cases about beings and non-beings, about concrete and abstract things, or about how things' properties depend on the observer's point of view.

Firstly, the links to the stories:

1. Train Cancelled.
2. The Hidden Statue.
3. Poincaré's Problem.


Now the links to the tasks:

a) Train Cancelled.
b) The Hidden Statue.
c) Poincaré's Problem.

They might improve your marks up to 0.8 points (0.3 + 0.3 + 0.2) at the end of this term. You are even allowed to answer the questions partially. Take your time and try to be both creative and thoughtful. Good luck!

Deadline: Tuesday, April 30.

ADDENDUM

• Here you can find some of the finest answers to the three conundrums.

Illustrating some metaphysical problems

In this post you can find, dear students of 1º de Bachillerato, some short videos aimed to illustrate a few classic metaphysical problems as discussed in sections 2.1 to 2.7 in the booklet of our Unit 4. 

Some of them may have already been shown in class; all of them may be useful to deepen in some questions, check the relevant vocabulary or just enjoy them (?).

2.1. This is not a table:

2.1. Appearance and reality.  
2.3. Objects and properties, an introduction addressed to kids.
2.3. Universals and particulars.
2.3. Four Ways of Thinking About Abstract Objects, a bit more demanding.
2.4. Zeno's Paradoxes.
2.5. Is Time Real? Also this clip about the same topic.
2.6. Necessary and Contingent.
2.6. What is Impossibility?
2.6. Are Possible Worlds Real?
2.7. Nothingness (in Spanish).

UNIT 4: Metaphysics

Here it comes! Our new unit, which tries to deepen, even shallowly, into the troubling waters of The Metaphysical Explanation of Reality.

Click on the link below to read or download the paper.

UNIT 4 

The Semmelweis' Case: Some Solutions.

Well, the assignment about the story of Ignaz Semmelweis is over. Thank you for participating (to those who have participated, obviously).

There is not a single solution to the activity or, better said, there are many little nuances and several ways of understanding some of the pieces of information in Semmelweis' research.

That said, HERE it is my proposal for an accurate solution to the task. Of course, it follows the list of steps as explained in class.

There have been some wonderful exercises, which are worth remembering and recognising. You can find them below, by clicking on their authors' names:

LUCÍA GARRIDO ZAPATA

MARTÍN GÓMEZ REYNOLDS

CARMEN LÓPEZ DOMÍNGUEZ

Scientific Method: Optional Activity

Dear pupils, in my tireless effort to provide food for your brains and improve your marks, a new proposal has come to my mind.

In THIS DOCUMENT you'll find a very demanding task about the structure of the hypothetical-deductive method. (I must warn you about its difficulties -that's why it is voluntary and not suitable for all kinds of spirits- so you can decide whether doing it or not.)

A complete, flawless exercise will increase your marks up to one point at the end of this term.

Deadline: February 15.

Unit 3

Here you can find, dear students, our brand new Unit 3 -revised and updated-, which is about the Philosophy of Science, a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods and implications of science.

This material complements the contents of Unit 3 in our textbook.

             UNIT 3

Questionnaire: Good and bad reasons for believing

Dear students,

 

There is a new task for you!

You have to do the following questionnaire about the text Good and bad reasons for believing, by the British biologist Richard Dawkins. It can be seen as a bridge between our 1 and 2 Units.

Deadline: Friday,  November 16.
(The questionnaire will be closed after this date.)

Of course, you can only fill in the questionnaire once you have read the text through this LINK.

QUESTIONNAIRE

(Don't forget to click on "Enviar" at the end of the task.)

UNIT 2

Here you have, my dear fellows, our new -for the time being- unit.

UNIT 2

Avoiding procrastination

The art of the enduring delay, the strategy without strategy of doing anything as a means of doing nothing: 

PROCRASTINATION!!!

The worst sin in a student (other than plagiarism).

In order to clarify the concept, and to successfully fight against this pitiful habit, here you have some videos and links:

The first one -in Spanish- is also the simplest: 

An easy explanation (in English):



Two interesting approaches (with Spanish subtitles):

And there is even a musical version you may find amusing: 

Finally, THIS FRAGMENT from the ancient TV show Redes offers a clear, useful approach to this topic.

A bitter singularity: the consciousness of death.

The Knight playing chess against Death in“The Seventh Seal”,

Ingmar Bergman, 1957.

As explained in class (1st Bachillerato), these are the suggestions in an audio-visual support so you can get some fresh ideas and complete our final assignment: 

• The humanistic (and materialistic) point of view. 
• A spiritual (and surprisingly well informed! ⎯just kidding) approach. 
• A fresh but rich set of reflections.
• Two titans in action. 
• The classic, hilarious sketch of TheGrim Reaper in Monty Python’s TheMeaning of Life. Revisiting topics.
• Frankly, there’s a boring lack of imagination when depicting death inWestern culture. 
• Two suggestions, as interesting as disturbing:
• What if nobody dies ever more? Death with interruptions (Las intermitencias de la muerte), a José Saramago’s novel, 2005. 
• What if everyboy knows the date of his death? The Brand New Testament (Le Tout Nouveau Testament), a Belgian fantasy dark comedy directed by Jaco van Dormael in 2015. Trailer.

The amazing story of Phineas Gage

An accident with a tamping iron made Phineas Gage history's most famous brain-injury survivor.

As the popular story goes, Gage was seriously injured when a metal rod pierced through his skull, destroying a large section of his brain. Miraculously, the man survived, but the accident left him a changed man, a shadow of his former self. 

Try to draw a conclusion: Where is our personality? To what extent our soul depends of our brain. 

The case of Phineas Gage was the starting point of the contemporary -mainly scientific- approach to the Mind-Body problem.

More information HERE, HERE and HERE.

A menudo nos equivocamos al percibir

Con frecuencia las cosas no son como parecen. Nuestros órganos sensoriales nos dan una información incompleta, poco precisa o engañosa. Además, nuestro cerebro no siempre interpreta correctamente los datos sensoriales que le llegan. Sin hablar de alucinaciones y otras perturbaciones más graves, son muy comunes (en cualquier cerebro sano) las ilusiones perceptivas, de entre las que las ilusiones ópticas son las más frecuentes y conocidas.

Tomemos este ejemplo: ¿Ves cómo se mueve esta famosa imagen?

Bueno, pues no, no se mueve en absoluto.

Este y otros muchos ejemplos deben servirnos para cuestionar nuestros apreciados sentidos, para darnos cuenta de su falibilidad, para reforzar nuestra humildad.
En esta presentación figuran muchas de las más conocidas ilusiones ópticas, entre ellas algunas de las vistas en clase:

Ilusiones ópticas from Musical Blogies

Encontraréis muchos más ejemplos en interesantes webs COMO ESTA y ESTA.
Por último, este vídeo resume la importancia y las principales leyes descubiertas por la Escuela de la Gestalt.

Procrastination revisited

I tend to think it's worth insisting on this particular topic:

      Please, pleeeeeeeeaase...
                              don't procrastinate!

Just to clarify some ideas about it, have a look at this videos. The first one -in Spanish- is also the simplest: 

Here are two other very interesting videos (in English but subtitled):

And there is even a musical version you may find amusing: 

Finally, THIS FRAGMENT from the ancient TV show Redes offers a clear, useful approach to this topic.

Questionnaire about "The Elegant Universe: Einstein's Dream"

As promised, I've been preparing for you -dear 1º de Bachillerato students- a questionnaire to be done online about some of the topics included in our Unit 5.

I've finally chosen an American documentary -in fact the first episode of a series- concerning what we have called "the current scientific worldview".

The following video offers the episode with the aid of (reasonable) English subtitles:

All the questions in the questionnaire can be answered simply by carefully watching the video. Nonetheless, in order to give an impressive performance you'd better read the related sections in our textbook, or look for additional information.

Deadline: the questionnaire will be open until April 28th (at the end of that day).

LINK to the questionnaire.

Unit 5: Natural Philosophy and Scientific Worldviews

A bit later than expected, here is our Fifth Unit, introducing the concept and scope of Natural Philosophy, as well as its most outstanding achievements throughout history.

Its contents closely follow those of our textbook. For once.

Enjoy! (achemmm...)

UNIT 5