Living on our toes

Summer has found me with a sigh. I checked out of my dorm on Tuesday afternoon with a quick goodbye to Justin, my roommate of 3 semesters. But instead of coming home immediately I leaned on the hospitality of my EcoHouse friends (whom I will be living with next year) and couch surfed for a few nights. Interestingly enough, I wasn't alone, another friend slept on their other couch. We talked philosophy (4 out of 6 members have either a major or minor), tried to use up all our meals in the dining hall, finished some games, and hosted a dinner for faculty and staff to plan a conference I will be heavily involved in next semester. And then I came home where life is a little less visibly in motion, where we don't stay up all night, where we don't have day-long arguments exploring the strengths and weaknesses of reasons internalism vs externalism or coherentism vs foundationalism or moral realism vs emotivism, and where we have a more concurrent schedules. Where we're not always on our toes. It's really a sea change.

Next week I'll try and get my wisdom teeth out and then I'll try and go to work at the Cosmosphere, which should keep me busy. Plans for my downtime include researching my What if...?* topic, a road trip to San Francisco to go to a philosophy conference, getting back on my bike, working through my reading list**, and forming some more good habits.

As for the semester itself, considering that I only was enrolled in 14 hours I kept busy. I started March with a presentation at a faculty workshop on giving presentations. Then I gave another presentation at the Undergraduate Scholars' Forum over Heidegger and Adventure in April. I topped it all off with my proudest work yet, a research paper/original argument about moral motivation.*** I was invited (along with, in his words, the rest of my 'cohort') to eat dinner at the house of one of my philosophy professors. I was elected President of Philosopher's Corner and already have some big plans. It was a good semester.

*The What if...? conference will be a series of short presentations (~8 minutes) put on by the 'Long Term Thinking Club.' The subjects will vary from ones like mine, which is 'What if philosophy had all of the answers?,' to ones like 'What if we didn't have to do all of our thinking sitting behind desks?' and 'What if everyone were required to do government service to earn their citizenship?' It is modeled on TED talks (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) (and here are three of my recent favorites: Sarah Kay's 'If I should have a daughter...',Marcin Jakubowski 'Open-sourced blueprints for civilization, and Kathryn Schulz on being wrong). I'm Secretary-Treasurer for the group, which is largely my friends from EcoHouse again. We can be a little bit insular.

**My reading list includes Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong, the second division of Being and Time, and, my favorite, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

***According to what is known as the Humean Theory of Motivation we hold either beliefs or desires but only desires can motivate us to take an action. This can be problematic for moral realists (people who insist morals exist independently of us), divine command theorists (religion), and some other broad forms of metaethical theories usually grouped together as 'cognitivism.' If the HTM is true, then we can only be motivated by what we desire, so morals must be founded on a desire. It's not hard to see the problem there, just think of how contingent and variable your desires can be. Imagine your desire to act morally and your desire to eat chocolate were roughly identical in how they influenced you. I am sympathetic to moral realism and think the HTM is ridiculously stupid when psychology is taken into consideration.

PS, it's Hume's 300th birthday, enjoy this beautiful countenance of one of the most important men in Western philosophy