Okay, I'm sure someone somewhere has argued something similar to this before. I'm not too familiar with the history of the Cartesians. But I've been reading a lot of Philosophy of Mind lately and I had this idea I wanted to try out. Here goes:

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For my Aesthetics class I had to read Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft/Critique of Judgement last semester. I now have to write a paper about a subject, referring to Kant's Critique of Judgement and aesthetics. I may also include other philosophers we discussed in my paper: Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, Lyotard, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant etc. My problem: I followed this class from September until December, so my knowledge has been kind of pushed to the background. My question to you: do you know any relevent subjects that I could write about with regards to the Critique of Judgement and aesthetics? (I don't know if this is relevant, but it has to be around 12 pages long) I hope this is allowed - if not, I'll delete it immediately. Thanks for your input.

Consider the following two principles, often thought to be foundational principles of rationality:

(BEP) One's degree of confidence in any given belief ought to be proportional to the evidence one has for that belief. (Belief-evidence proportionality)

(IR) One ought to take the necessary means to achieve one's ends. (Instrumental rationality)

My thesis here is that the two principles can easily conflict. My question is of what we are to say about this conflict, how we might go about resolving it.

To see how they conflict, consider the now-ongoing National Hockey League playoffs. 16 teams participate in these playoffs, and at the beginning of each playoff season every coach, manager and team psychologist works very, very hard to convince each player that their team will win the Stanley Cup that year. This is due to an obvious fact about human psychology: we are more likely to succeed in our endeavours if we believe very strongly that we will succeed.

To return to the NHL PLayoffs, while it is unlikely that many players actually acquire 100% confidence in the desired belief, it is almost certainly true that their confidence in their ultimate victory is invariably much higher than it ought to be, given the available evidence. Even the most talented player on the most talented team ought to have at best 20 or 25 percent confidence that his team will succeed.

Yet, such a belief would be poisonous to the motivation of a player, just as it is poisonous to anyone engaging in a difficult personal project (I think the phenomenon occurs in the case of careers, romantic relationships, and most other pursuits). We can easily see, then, that (BEP) conflicts with (IR). You can proportion your beliefs to the evidence, you can efficiently pursue your goals, but you very often cannot do both.

I think that this problem reveals a fundamental schism within rationality itself, and this nis why it is so difficult. At least since Aristotle's day it has been common (and highly intuitive) to partition reasoning into its theoretical and its practical components. Furthermore, we can easily see that while (BEP) is a bedrock principle of theoretical reasoning, (IR) is an analogously foundational principle of practical rationality. Both are extremely plausible, so plausible that they are almost trivial. The wholesale abandonment of either principle is not an option for any human being.

So, what's the solution? Which of the following do you support?

1. Practical rationality wins: the real-world pursuit of goodness/flourishing/etc is the supreme imperative.
   
2. Theoretical rationality wins: the pursuit of truth/correct belief is the supreme imperative.
   
3. There is an error in my description: there really is no conflict between (BEP) and (IR). Watching this video may help to disabuse you of this notion.
   
4. There is no error in my description and neither form of rationality is supreme: reason itself embodies an irreducible conflict. We should just try our best to live with it.

And, why? As a side-note, anyone who embraces (1) must be willing to concede that faith (belief without proper regard for evidence) plays an ineliminable role in a rational life. The implications for debates surrounding God/religion are obvious.

• Pseudoreplication and the Design of Ecological Field Experiments  Ecological Monographs, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 187-211

My thesis adviser gave me this paper to read.  I'm 3 pages in and I already love it.  This is right up my alley.  It's meant for experimental ecology, but it has massive philosophical applications.  It is an effective synthesis of problems with empirical research in Ecology.  They include the shortcomings of language, the incorrect use of mathematics, stochastic factors, etc.  This is not a philosophy paper at all, but intended for a small set of biologists.  It's goal is pragmatic application to the progress of our knowledge of environmental systems.

In truth though, it is the most pure philosophy I've read in a long time.

I would like to lead a discussion based on the philosophical implications of this paper.  If you are interested and have access to Jstor or a College library system download this article and read it.  Within a few days I'll post a summary and argument in favor citing broader philosophical works that support it.  It's not very useful if everyone agrees with it, so I challenge some of you to try to knock out its underpinnings.

Let me know who is up for it.

Short Attention Span Philosophy
rapid fire!

( -Consideration For Others- )

Some parts of the following discourse may require thought before output response, please make sure your brain is not attached to your kneecap before attempting an answer, if your ear drum is attached to your optic nerve and you sub-vocalize every word and that hits a hammer that knocks your kneecap and that sticks your foot in your mouth, I suggest a firm stretching and reworking of your integumentary system.

( WARNING: Some of the contained thoughts will go against popular dogma, please do not be a dog and bark the first thing pops into your mind, included are thoughts to test your civility and separate dogs from civilized Earthlings, and Aliens )

Everyone (of all genders) is invited to participate in Theano's Day, an event to celebrate and rediscover women's contributions to philosophy throughout the centuries.

Blurb from the Pledge Bank signup site, which you may find here: http://www.pledgebank.com/theanosday

"I will blog to spotlight a woman, living or dead, who has made an important contribution to philosophy but only if 100 other people will do the same."

Also there's a Facebook group for Theano's Day to discuss the project with other participants: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526821601&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=74564828672&ref=mf

More information, from the website: http://www.pledgebank.com/theanosday

Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras' wife Theano was a scholar and intellectual in her own right. Along with helping him raise five children, she put together writings on mathematics, art, beauty, philosophy, and child raising. She is credited with developing the Golden Mean, a crucial idea in aesthetic theory.

By taking this pledge, you sign up to honor and celebrate important women such as Theano by promising to create a blog post on June 24th concerning a female philosopher. As with Ada Lovelace Day, spotlighting women's contributions to technology, the woman you select may be from any nation, culture, or time period, living or dead...and you may blog in any style or format, using any software in any language.

I selected Theano as a mascot as she represents a work/life balance, an apparently decent and loving wife and mother as well as a scholar and professional. Throughout history and on average women have worked very hard in the background keeping things going by raising children, cooking, maintaining households, helping to earn a living through day-jobs...all very respectable activities. And many have made contributions to philosophy or other fields which may have been overlooked because the women are primarily known for work they have done in their other roles. So Theano's Day celebrates the philosophical contributions of women and attempts to bring their ideas out in the open to help inform modern society.

Also - when we think of philosophers, I've found that most people keep going back to the same list of the greats...Kant, Hume, Plato, Aristotle, etc. Of course not to say there isn't great wisdom from the greats...but honestly right now the world is facing a whole set of problems. Right here in the U.S. we're at war with three different countries with no end in sight, we're going down in a global economic crisis, etc. So - maybe looking at new ideas from any source might help us stumble on some which may be useful. And encouraging people to look at female philosophers will bring out lesser-known people and lesser-known ideas.

You may define 'philosopher' as you choose - someone need not have specialized in the field to be discussed in a blog for Theano's Day. For example, a female novelist, businesswoman, teacher, politician, nun, homemaker may have created a philosophical outlook worth discussing that is apparent through the values that come out through her work in other fields.

Some women to start with if you need help thinking of someone: Hypatia of Alexandria (mathematician and scholar), St. Catherine (mystic and humanitarian), Sor Juana (Mexican nun and intellectual) and Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen, each of whom developed a worldview and philosophy through their writings on various subjects.

We encourage as many people as possible from around the world to participate this June 24th and will set up a system to link the blogs so you may read each other's blogs. Please also pass on the word about Theano's Day!

Has anyone read Kant's Critique of Practical Reason? What are your basic agreements and/or what are your disagreements? I'm having a hard time disagreeing with Kant, unfortunately, and I'm wondering if anyone feels the same way. If not: what makes you disagree, what parts of this critique do you simple don't accept?

ps. this is not a homework question. Yes, I'm a philosophy student, but I'm reading this on my free time (or, on free will, as Kant would say).