The Breakup

How I'll greet the class of 2030 today

In addition to our usual "Who are you, why are you here" (etc.) introductions, we'll talk about what philosophy is (getting philosophers to agree about that really is like herding cats) and our personal favorites.

Philosophy Bites, Nihilism vs. Meliorism

Nigel Warburton’s podcast, a good supplement to his Little History of Philosophy (which we are reading): https://philosophybites.com/

If you search the site for "definitions of philosophy" this comes up... including an episode from 2010 that asks numerous contemporary philosophers What is Philosophy? No two answers are the same. Philosophers do tend to think for themselves. The good ones, though, do not think by themselves. They converse and collaborate. They're Co-Philosophers, like we aim to be in this course.

My own definition of philosophy, beyond the etymological/literal "love of wisdom," is William James's: "an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly," and to live in the light of that clarity.

And my own personal philosophy, if reduced to a word, is decidedly not Sally Brown's "No!" That's too much like deep pessimism or even nihilism.

No, the word I'd choose is: meliorism. You'll hear it again. 

It rejects pure optimism and deep pessimism alike. It means trying to make things better. And it comes from, guess who... "Willie" James (as one of mty old Vandy mentors familiarly called my favorite philosopher who's been dead but not gone for 116+ years now. In Pragmatism-"a new name for some old ways of thinking" dedicated 

To the Memory of John Stuart Mill

from whom I first learned the pragmatic openness of mind
and whom my fancy likes to picture as our leader were he alive to-day.

he writes:

...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.

It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism...

Me too.

Independence matters

MTSU's Fall '26 convocation Saturday afternoon gathered the class of 2030, a nice round scifi-sounding graduation date for my last Opening Day classes tomorrow. The speaker was historian Edward Larson, author of the freshman summer read Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters as well as the prize-winning account of the 1925 Scopes Trial Summer of the Gods which we read in my MALA "Evolution in America" course. TrueBlueTV recorded it. He begins at about the 38-minute mark.

I appreciated his call to our new students to seize the spirit of '76 and Tom Paine's Common Sense, and each to pursue their own life, liberty, and happiness in the full freedom of independent thought and cultivated character. Hope they were listening.

Applied Philosophy Lyceum: Oct 2, 5 pm, COE 164

The Digital Cave

Reading, Thinking, and Dwelling in the Age of the Algorithm

An Applied Philosophy Talk by John Kaag

Abstract

We live in an era of industrial-scale shadow-play. The map of reality is no longer drawn from our own experience but projected by algorithms designed to keep us looking at a particular kind of wall. This talk argues that the oldest resources in the philosophical canon offer the most precise diagnosis of our newest predicament. Plato's cave anticipates the architecture of the feed—with one grim perversion: his prisoners at least shared a wall, while the algorithm builds a bespoke cavern for each of us. The Buddhist vocabulary of maya, tanha, and upadana describes with uncanny accuracy the mechanics of craving, clinging, and curated selfhood that the infinite scroll exploits. And Heidegger's account of Enframing—read alongside his catastrophic biography, which cannot be waved away—explains how attention itself became “standing reserve,” a resource to be extracted.

The talk concludes with the question increasingly posed to our machines: why is talking to a large language model so strange? The answer reveals a schism between information and meaning, between the calculative synthesis at which AI excels and the meditative, embodied, abductive thinking that a life—with something at stake—alone makes possible. Philosophy's task has not changed since the cave: to make us suspicious of the reality that appears most obvious, and to recover the gritty practices that might let us turn our heads, a few degrees, toward the light.

About the Speaker

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of three widely acclaimed books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: American Philosophy: A Love Story, Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are, and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life. These books were named NPR Best Books of the Year and New York Times Editors' Choice selections.

His work bridges American pragmatism, intellectual history, ethics, and the philosophy of technology, and he writes regularly for general audiences on why philosophy still matters for everyday life.

“It could be worse”

Kurt Andersen’s novel The Breakup is out today. I’ve been looking forward to it. 

Are we middle Tennesseans living in the future “Free American Republic,” the post-split remnant of Red State America Andersen imagines? He’s an astute observer of our fractured Fantasyland, I’m not betting against him. But if this is a cautionary tale, maybe national reconciliation is not yet entirely how did the question. That’s a much bigger gamble. Anyway, and to look on the slightly-brighter side, I’m sure he’s right: It could be worse. Still can be. For now, this is just a good story we should take seriously. Less “active contempt” for our neighbors would be a positive step away from the brink.

“…I so badly wanted the crazy experiment of the United States of America to continue defying the odds, as always. Anyhow, what I said earlier about the half-life of the war’s traumas is true. But what to me feels even better is the fading of what preceded it—the compulsive politicization of everything, the fear and hatred of the Other Side as an animating, irresistible everyday emotion. The active contempt has become less salient, diminished, including in rural Middle Tennessee, where I’ve lived for all but a few months for the last decade. “I don’t disagree about the vibe shift, honey,” says my local best friend Victoria, who grew up around here and lives fifteen minutes away. “But isn’t it also true for you right now because you don’t have Asher around to bicker with so much?” 

At first I found the term “Disunion” too clinical and wonky. But it is more correctly mutual than “secession.” And has some history, dignity, a touch of grandeur. I’m a fan of all those. But I call it the breakup. It’s a little glib, but simple, factual, neutral, idiomatic, and broad enough to cover the whole era, beginning to end. It’s also a universally familiar concept, unlike Disunion. It’s relatable. Americans have been strange bedfellows in a mixed marriage for a long time. We grew apart. We stayed together, but finally came to find each other impossible. We fought. We had irreconcilable differences. We finally split. In a world where half the marriages unravel or rot or die of thirst or blow up. Or do whatever mine’s doing. A clichéd question about America since I was a kid concerned our national political “fever,” if and when it would ever break. The fever broke. Along with our beautiful, uncomfortable, brittle, breakable antique national governing arrangements, now being rebuilt and refurbished. It could be worse.” — The Breakup: A Novel by Kurt Andersen

Addicted to study

School starts in a week. Time to celebrate one of the more positive addictions.

“…As obvious as this may seem, it typically goes unsaid: to be a student is ... to study. Students are not clients; they are not consumers; they are not users who can be “captured” by outcomes, indicators, or throughputs. Experts recognize this fact, yet study is not a main theme or even a topic in the shelf of books I have on recent debates. Few philosophical arguments about the future of the university analyze what it means to study. 

So before we go any further, let the first idea of this book be the idea of study. What, this humanities professor asks, does the word student mean? In the academic field of higher education, students are the subject matter for vast research. But philosophers often examine what seems obvious, and, to me, this idea of study especially has the power to help reorient the research university. Framing the idea of study means making explicit a goal that exceeds our current practices. 

Framing the idea of study does not mean offering an empirical account of what students today “do.” Rather, it is an attempt to identify the ideas that may guide them. With some irony, I’ll try to outline the idea of study by exploring the words student and study as documented by the Oxford English Dictionary, which emerged from the philological research of great humanities scholars. 

So let me link, or turn to, the 1989 version of the Oxford English Dictionary, conveniently available to students and faculty online. student, n. 1. A person who is engaged in or addicted to study. 2. a. A person who is undergoing a course of study and instruction at a university or other place of higher education or technical training. Also const. of, in (a subject); often with defining word prefixed, as art student, law student, medical student...”

— What Could a University Be?: Revolutionary Ideas for the Future (On Campus) by Robert B. Gibbs

Moving on up

Began moving office yesterday. Trying to embrace a minimalist style this time, since I’m departing in May. My first office at MTSU was windowless. My second was tiny. This is better on both counts.

Following the moon, walking the path

Drove S to her PT session in Green Hills the other morning and, while waiting, decided to replicate my own post-surgical PT routine of five summers ago when I'd reward myself after every session by wandering over to Parnassus Books and the Donut Den. 

Glad I did, the apple fritter and the chocolate-covered creme-filled continue to delight; and I discovered an "adult fable" in the philosophy section that reminded me a lot of Freddie the Leaf.

I used to read Freddie to our girls, probably before they were quite ready to contemplate their mortality. As my last academic year approaches, the time is ripe for pondering my own... not in a morbid mood, but because I intend to enjoy the undiscovered country called Retirement starting in May '27. 

That little pup Amaya is Freddie's counterpart, the Wolf stands in for the wise old leaf who counsels Freddie to embrace every season of life. The path ahead may be a bit hazy, but let's go. [S'stack]

 

The Rossians

Contact, redux (but this would be the prequel, it’s happening during the Carter administration). 

We do need a reshuffling and a renewed sense of wonder. Maybe an alien transmission would be just the thing. But on the other hand, isn’t belief in aliens already pretty ordinary? You don’t have to go light-years away to find (in John Prine‘s words) humans who ain’t human. There seems to be a clutch of them at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., for instance. 

 But seriously… 

 “…Believing in aliens is suddenly ordinary. 

 It’s a massive reshuffling of cultural norms. 

 For every person who eschews their earthly belongings to go live in a commune, there are countless others who live their lives essentially unchanged. For every horrific, family-shattering suicide, hundreds of thousands of individuals push through their existential dread. The human mind is evolutionarily adapted to finding lessons and silver linings in shocking events, and this isn’t the first time humanity has been de-centered in the universe. Deniers exist, of course. People who insist that the Beacon is a hoax, a lie, a trick; people no amount of evidence can persuade. But overall, a sense of wonder prevails. 

 A name for this newest wonder is chosen: the Rossians. 

 The Rossians are out there, and they are waiting for a reply. There is a sense of power in this, of connection: It’s our move, and we need to move as one. The United Nations is suddenly taken a bit more seriously. Regions coalesce, speaking of unity. Dead-end negotiations sprout sudden exits. Hostages come home. An array of military forces works in concert to keep an eye on the sky as international hostilities cool and relations warm—not all, not everywhere, and in some cases not for long, but noticeably so. It’s a mental tic many people feel: We are not just members of a tribe or nation, we are members of a planet...” — The Radiant Dark: A Novel by Alexandra Oliva https://a.co/0g5DTOmC

Nagori

… and the last year of a teaching career? https://substack.com/@philosophyminis/note/c-308063068?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

“Why should I strive for happiness?”

Looking forward to John Kaag’s October 2 MTSU Lyceum visit, when I’m sure he’ll affirm the possibility of happiness in work. I’ve decided we’ll read this book in Existentialism just before he arrives (and we’ll read how William James saved his life in CoPhi then, too).

“For Nietzsche, I consoled myself, the point was not about avoiding or even conquering suffering: he recognized, like so many philosophers before him, that suffering was a fundamental fact of human existence. But the ascetic response to suffering was to understand it as a complaint about life. My challenge—the challenge Nietzsche raises—was to embrace life with all its suffering. When he wrote, at the very end of his career, “Have I been understood? Dionysus versus the Crucified,” he meant to show that suffering does not refute life as we experience it but must be welcomed, embraced, in exactly the same way we welcome and embrace happiness. In fact, Nietzsche often sounds as though happiness is at best a kind of secondary goal. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s most famous character, having spent his life in the mountains, concludes: “Happiness? Why should I strive for happiness? I strive for my work.””

— Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are by John J. Kaag
https://a.co/02BXPDFc