• About me
  • About this blog
  • Comment rules
  • Other writings

Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: pedagogy

Should undergraduate classics require Latin and Greek?

04 Sunday Jul 2021

Posted by Amod Lele in Economics, Greek and Roman Tradition, M.T.S.R., Work

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

academia, pedagogy, Princeton University, United States

The discipline of classics has made headlines recently with Princeton University’s decision to no longer require majors to take Greek or Latin. This is a fairly momentous decision: aren’t Greek and Latin what Classics is all about?

I have mixed feelings about the decision. I think there is a lot of value in learning Greek and Latin. Certainly for philosophers: we need to understand philosophy’s history, and in our world that history is inescapably Western even for those of us who do not focus on it. I am broadly Aristotelian and wish I knew more Greek to understand him better. As for Latin, it remains important for lawyers and biologists, and knowing the very many Latin roots of English words gives us a much deeper understanding of those words’ meaning. A world where even fewer people know Greek or Latin does not seem to me a good thing, overall.

Continue reading →

Absurd trolleys

15 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Action, Analytic Tradition, Metaphilosophy, Morality, Play, Prejudices and "Intuitions"

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cyanide and Happiness, Michael Schur, pedagogy, Philippa Foot, technology, trolley problem

It appears that the trolley problem is, as they say, having a moment. Possibly due to its newfound relevance to autonomous cars and other robots – a relevance that would have been entirely science-fictional when Philippa Foot formulated the modern version of the problem in 1967 – it is now making multiple appearances in popular culture. In that respect it is a notable counterpoint to the claim I made years ago that analytic philosophy doesn’t make for good visual media.

Two years ago I noted how the problem is the focus of an excellent episode of Michael Schur’s The Good Place. The Wikipedia entry on the trolley problem lists several other appearance from the past decade. Perhaps most entertainingly of all, the writers of the webcomic Cyanide and Happiness have released a hilarious party game (in the matching style of Apples To Apples or Superfight) called Trial By Trolley.

trial by trolley

Continue reading →

Don’t give a paper

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Aesthetics, Metaphilosophy, Reading and Recitation, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Don’t give a paper

Tags

academia, conferences, Martha Nussbaum, pedagogy, technology

Studies of Indian philosophy often rightly call attention to the varied genres in which they are composed: the sparse pith of the Yoga Sūtras, Śaṅkara’s expositing his own views as commentary on someone else’s, the Milindapañhā’s dialogue evocative of Plato’s Socrates. Such differences call to mind Martha Nussbaum’s famous claim in Love’s Knowledge that “Style itself makes its claims, expresses its own sense of what matters.”

As is far too often the case, though, the gaze that modern Western academics apply to distant places and times is one they steadfastly avoid turning on themselves. We are far too reluctant to think about differences of genre in our own composition.

Most notably: the venues of scholarly productivity come in at least two completely different genres. There is the written article or book, subjected to peer review and editorship, with its hypertextual infrastructure of footnotes and its bibliography. And there is the oral presentation, at a conference or workshop, of a work-in-progress with that citation infrastructure omitted, delivered to a room at a single time and place who can then begin a Socratic and dialogical back-and-forth.

So why do we insist on acting as if these two venues are the same? Continue reading →

Conventional teaching wrongly taken as an equal

26 Sunday May 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Early and Theravāda, Hermeneutics, Truth

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Abhidhamma, Buddhaghosa, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Charles Hallisey, conventional/ultimate, Maria Heim, pedagogy

I demonstrated last time why Buddhaghosa believes the ultimate (paramattha) to be higher and truer than the conventional (vohāra or sammuti). But this is not to say that he finds the conventional unnecessary. Charles Hallisey rightly points out its value in his important “In defense of rather fragile and local achievement“. Hallisey notes that the conventional is essential for pedagogical purposes, and those purposes matter. The conventional is at least as important as the ultimate – but the ultimate, as I noted last time, remains truer. If it were not truer, there would be no need for it; the conventional would simply be superior, since it is more effective at teaching and persuading people.

In The Forerunner of All Things – a generally strong book of which I stand by my previous praise – Maria Heim claims that in that same article Hallisey argues “the Theravādins do not see ultimate (paramattha) teachings as truer than conventional (sammuti) teachings”, following this up with her own comment that “They have different purposes but are equally truthful ways of describing the world, and the Theravāda sources do not place them in a hierarchy.” (Forerunner 90)

But that is not quite what Hallisey says in the chapter at issue. Continue reading →

On translating out of order

07 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Analytic Tradition, Hermeneutics, Logic, M.T.S.R., Metaphilosophy, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, Self

≈ Comments Off on On translating out of order

Tags

Matthew Dasti, Mrinalkanti Gangopadhyaya, Nyāya Bhāṣya, Nyāya Sūtra, pedagogy, pramāṇa, Stephen Phillips

Last time I expressed my gratitude and praise for Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips’s much-needed recent selective translation of the Nyāya Sūtras and commentaries. I stand by all of it – and also noted that the book drives me crazy.

Why? Dasti and Phillips made two decisions that I think are characteristic of an analytic approach to Indian texts. One was to publish selections and excerpts  – probably the right choice, as discussed last time. The second one, however, was to publish those selections entirely out of order. Continue reading →

On new translations in Indian philosophy

24 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Hermeneutics, Metaphilosophy, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, Philosophy of Language

≈ Comments Off on On new translations in Indian philosophy

Tags

Andrew Nicholson, Charles A. Moore, Deepak Sarma, Matthew Dasti, Mrinalkanti Gangopadhyaya, Nyāya Bhāṣya, Nyāya Sūtra, pedagogy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Stephen Phillips, Uddyotakara, Vācaspati Miśra

One of the immediate frustrations one faces in teaching Indian philosophy is that good translations are sorely lacking, certainly into English and I suspect into any Western language, perhaps even any non-Sanskrit language. A Source Book of Indian Philosophy, edited by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore, has been one of the most frequently used works since its publication – in 1957. Radhakrishnan and Moore have been dead for decades. And their work leaves much to be desired, filled with so many ellipses that one feels like one is reading Radhakrishnan’s and Moore’s ideas rather than those of the original authors; the ellipses are disruptive enough that the reader can spend more time wondering what was omitted than learning the original.

And yet with respect to some texts at least, Radhakrishnan and Moore still have yet to be surpassed. Continue reading →

Lessons from a favourite teacher

04 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Amod Lele in German Tradition, Place, Politics

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

autobiography, Brexit, Canada, democracy, Johann Gottfried Herder, obituary, Paulo Freire, pedagogy, Romanticism, Warwick Armstrong

This semester I’m teaching Indian philosophy and spent a lot of time thinking about pedagogy. It’s hard for me to do that for very long without thinking about the best teacher I ever had, Warwick Armstrong, who taught me as a McGill undergrad over twenty years ago. I tried to contact him recently to let him know what a difference he had made, and found that that would not be possible: Warwick Armstrong is no longer with us.

I missed my chance to tell Warwick how great he was. But I can at least let the world know. Continue reading →

Whose religion? Which science?

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Amod Lele in Aesthetics, Attachment and Craving, Biology, Buddhism, Christianity, Karma, M.T.S.R., Meditation, Metaphysics, Natural Science, Self, Supernatural

≈ Comments Off on Whose religion? Which science?

Tags

Abhidhamma, architecture, Boston University, Four Noble Truths, Nick (Nattavudh) Powdthavee, Pali suttas, pedagogy, rebirth, religion, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha)

A little while ago I had the pleasure of giving a guest lecture on Buddhism to David Decosimo‘s class at the Boston University School of Theology. The students were a delight to teach – smart, actively engaged, asking many questions. One student’s question in particular stuck with me after the session. She had started to ask a long set of multiple questions, and then distilled it down to what she referred to as a simple question: “How would you describe the relation between Buddhism and science?”

My first response was: “That is not a simple question!” There is so much to say about it that there are now books written not merely on the actual relationship between Buddhism and science, but on the very idea of a relationship between Buddhism and science. I gave a relatively rambling answer. But after leaving the classroom it occurred to me that there was a relatively simple answer that I could have given – one that would have put a large part of the question’s complexity aside, but focused on something of particular relevance to students of Christian theology. Continue reading →

Why philosophy departments have focused on the West

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Amod Lele in Asian Thought, Health, Hermeneutics, Islam, Metaphilosophy, Prejudices and "Intuitions", Western Thought

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

academia, Alasdair MacIntyre, APA, āyurveda, Bryan Van Norden, Canada, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jay Garfield, mathematics, pedagogy

Jay Garfield and Bryan Van Norden have a widely circulated article in a recent New York Times, chastising American philosophy departments for paying insufficient attention to non-Western traditions of thought. It will surprise nobody that I sympathize with them, since I’ve been trying to get non-Western thought a hearing for years. But in part for that reason, I’ve also been thinking a lot about why it hasn’t got that hearing so far. The reasons for this are not all bad ones, and anyone working to change the situation needs to understand what those reasons are. Perhaps most importantly, they need to ask a vital question that I don’t see asked in Garfield and Van Norden’s article: why should we study philosophy? Continue reading →

First principles of paradigms

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Amod Lele in Dialectic, Economics, Epistemology, Health, Logic, Metaphilosophy, Philosophy of Science, Prejudices and "Intuitions", Social Science

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alasdair MacIntyre, Boethius, Neil deGrasse Tyson, pedagogy, René Descartes, Thomas Kuhn

There are two different ways to apply the distinction between dialectical and demonstrative argument, and it’s important to be aware of the difference. I draw the terms dialectical and demonstrative argument from Alasdair MacIntyre in Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry (pages 88-9), who in turn takes the distinction from Boethius‘s De topicis differentiis and ultimately from Aristotle’s Topics. The key point is that dialectical argument argues to first principles, and demonstrative argument from first principles.

But what are those first principles? Are they first principles for knowledge in general, or merely first principles within a single paradigm? Continue reading →

← Older posts

Welcome to Love of All Wisdom.

I invite you to leave comments on my blog, even - or especially - if I have no idea who you are. Philosophy is a conversation, and I invite you to join it with me; I welcome all comers (provided they follow a few basic rules). I typically make a new post every other Sunday. If you'd like to be notified when a new post is posted, you can get email notifications whenever I add something new via the link further down in this sidebar. You can also follow this blog on Facebook or Twitter. Or if you use RSS, you can get updates through the RSS feed.

Recent Comments

  • Nathan on Thoughts on MonkTok
  • Thoughts on MonkTok – The Indian Philosophy Blog on Thoughts on MonkTok
  • Amod Lele on Stoicism for boys, mindfulness for girls?
  • Amod Lele on Stoicism for boys, mindfulness for girls?
  • Amod Lele on Stoicism for boys, mindfulness for girls?

Subscribe by Email

Post Tags

20th century academia Alasdair MacIntyre Aristotle ascent/descent Augustine autobiography Buddhaghosa Canada conferences Confucius conservatism Disengaged Buddhism Engaged Buddhism Evan Thompson Four Noble Truths Friedrich Nietzsche G.W.F. Hegel gender Hebrew Bible identity Immanuel Kant intimacy/integrity justice Karl Marx Ken Wilber law Martha Nussbaum modernity mystical experience Pali suttas pedagogy Plato qualitative individualism race rebirth religion Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha) technology theodicy Thomas Kuhn United States utilitarianism Śaṅkara Śāntideva

Categories

  • African Thought (13)
  • Applied Phil (282)
    • Death (36)
    • Family (42)
    • Food (17)
    • Friends (14)
    • Health (23)
    • Place (27)
    • Play (14)
    • Politics (162)
    • Sex (20)
    • Work (37)
  • Asian Thought (403)
    • Buddhism (291)
      • Early and Theravāda (125)
      • Mahāyāna (118)
      • Modernized Buddhism (88)
    • East Asia (84)
      • Confucianism (54)
      • Daoism (13)
      • Shinto (1)
    • South Asia (131)
      • Bhakti Poets (3)
      • Cārvāka-Lokāyata (5)
      • Epics (16)
      • Jainism (24)
      • Modern Hinduism (37)
      • Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (6)
      • Sāṃkhya-Yoga (14)
      • Vedānta (36)
      • Vedas and Mīmāṃsā (7)
  • Blog Admin (27)
  • Indigenous American Thought (5)
  • Method (244)
    • M.T.S.R. (137)
    • Metaphilosophy (161)
  • Practical Philosophy (358)
    • Action (11)
    • Aesthetics (43)
    • Emotion (153)
      • Anger (31)
      • Attachment and Craving (26)
      • Compassion (5)
      • Despair (3)
      • Disgust (3)
      • Faith (19)
      • Fear (7)
      • Grief (5)
      • Happiness (47)
      • Hope (15)
      • Pleasure (32)
      • Shame and Guilt (6)
    • External Goods (50)
    • Flourishing (85)
    • Foundations of Ethics (107)
    • Karma (43)
    • Morality (64)
    • Virtue (151)
      • Courage (5)
      • Generosity (13)
      • Gentleness (6)
      • Gratitude (10)
      • Honesty (13)
      • Humility (22)
      • Leadership (4)
      • Mindfulness (15)
      • Patient Endurance (29)
      • Self-Discipline (9)
      • Serenity (28)
      • Zest (6)
  • Practice (123)
    • Karmic Redirection (5)
    • Meditation (33)
    • Monasticism (45)
    • Physical Exercise (3)
    • Prayer (14)
    • Reading and Recitation (12)
    • Rites (20)
    • Therapy (10)
  • Theoretical Philosophy (334)
    • Consciousness (15)
    • Epistemology (109)
      • Certainty and Doubt (15)
      • Prejudices and "Intuitions" (28)
    • Free Will (17)
    • God (64)
    • Hermeneutics (55)
    • Human Nature (30)
    • Logic (28)
      • Dialectic (16)
    • Metaphysics (90)
    • Philosophy of Language (18)
    • Self (64)
    • Supernatural (49)
    • Truth (59)
    • Unconscious Mind (14)
  • Western Thought (427)
    • Analytic Tradition (91)
    • Christianity (142)
      • Early Factions (8)
      • Protestantism (22)
      • Roman Catholicism (49)
    • French Tradition (47)
    • German Tradition (85)
    • Greek and Roman Tradition (111)
      • Epicureanism (24)
      • Neoplatonism (2)
      • Pre-Socratics (6)
      • Skepticism (2)
      • Sophists (7)
      • Stoicism (19)
    • Islam (37)
      • Mu'tazila (2)
      • Salafi (3)
      • Sufism (9)
    • Judaism (33)
    • Natural Science (88)
      • Biology (24)
      • Philosophy of Science (47)
    • Social Science (149)
      • Economics (32)
      • Psychology (61)

Recent Posts

  • Thoughts on MonkTok
  • Stoicism for boys, mindfulness for girls?
  • A very brief survey of Latin American philosophy
  • Confucius in middle age
  • King’s improvement on Gandhi

Popular posts

  • One and a half noble truths?
  • Wishing George W. Bush well
  • Do Speculative Realists want us to be Chinese?
  • Why I am not a right-winger
  • On faith in tooth relics

Basic concepts

  • Ascent and Descent
  • Intimacy and integrity
  • Ascent-descent and intimacy-integrity together
  • Perennial questions?
  • Virtuous and vicious means
  • Dialectical and demonstrative argument
  • Chastened intellectualism and practice
  • Yavanayāna Buddhism: what it is
  • Why worry about contradictions?
  • The first philosophy blogger

Personal favourites

  • Can philosophy be a way of life? Pierre Hadot (1922-2010)
  • James Doull and the history of ethical motivation
  • Praying to something you don't believe in
  • What does postmodernism perform?
  • Why I'm getting married

Archives

Search this site

All posts, pages and metadata copyright 2020 Amod Lele. Comments copyright 2020 their comment authors. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) licence.

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.