...on snow on snow on snow! It's been going since about 11 this morning, and shows no signs of stopping. There was also a little wind this afternoon, which is uncommon here, but not really a wind by prairie standards so it could be worse as far as blizzards go. Its actually kind of fun to walk in, provided you don't care about getting wet and being slow. We'd had 11.69 feet so far this winter. Think about how much snow that is. And they're forcasting another 50 cms with this storm. It's beautiful but... I've been catching myself daydream of tulips and crocuses.
Today I've been trying to do research for my art paper. I had a frustrating time, since we need at least one good primary source and no one seems to have written on the things I'd like to talk about. I think I've decided on Rembrandt and something to do with Protestant art... its just too bad that a lot of the scholarly articles on him are written in Dutch! I was at the U of O library... I'll try the public one tomorrow.
Speaking of art, we got to go to the national gallery for class this week- it was great! Time was a little short, of course, but we'll be heading back there next month so I'm excited. Dr. Tingley is totally in his element at the gallery, he worked there as a curator for a few years.
All this just hours after he lectured for 2.5+ hours on Immanuel Kant. I understand why people say "Kant changed my life". I haven't thought through it enough yet, but basically he developed his philosophy because he was disturbed by Hume's, who de-objectified ethics, causality, metaphysics, the self... He said all our ideas come from sensation and are justified by sensations. There can be no such thing as a moral argument because ethics is not rational- he gets rid of the because in 'good because'. He says ethics doesn't need to be rational, it can just rest on our feelings. Just as he got rid of the 'because' in morality he took the 'because' out of causality (which destroys causality completely) (Causality: the necessity that a thing that happens was brought about because of another thing.). There is no foundation for the belief in necessities in nature in this thinking, which is what disturbed Kand because it made SENSE, but it threatened to totally undermine Scientific thinking!
SO Kant said that there is objective reality but that we can have no idea of what exists apart from how we see in and eventually came up with the idea that instead of the mind conforming to reality, reality conforms to the mind. Space and time and truth are judgments, but all humans have the same framework of mind so we usually perceive the same world. Anyway I'll stop confusing everyone with my incomplete and probably incorrect philosophy synthesis...
The rest of the week was fine. In Science with Dr. Patrick we learned that in 1952 a guy names Toynbee in 'An Historian's view of Religion' made a list of indicators that a society is dying (from looking at all past cultures in history) :
-Schizm of the Soul (which leads to cultural suicide- no coherence)
-A growing sense of antinominalism (lack of respect for the law)
-Escapism (retreating into private lives)
-Drift yielding to inevitable determinism (fatalism)
-Guilt and self-loathing (no more repentance/ forgiveness)
-General promiscuity- intellectual as well as sexual
yeesh, our culture fits into all of those! But Dr. Patrick thinks that our generation can be hopeful and that a change is completely within reach- he's a big advocator of starting with the family.
We covered Schubert and Schumann and part of Brahms in music. PLUS we wrote our midterm (which went well, i think).
In Literature we talked about Godric (by Frederick Bueckner) which is a really really cool book- completely different from everything else we've read. It makes you squirmy in a few places- its about this guy who lives a totally ascetic lifestyle and everyone else thinks he's this great saint but he is the narrator and is totally aware of all his sins... I had to madly read it since I didn't have much time to do so, but there are definitely a lot of passages to re-read and meditate upon.
I'm still struggling with what to do for my Scripture paper. Ugh. We have no Latin homework this weekend, however, which is a blessing indeed, especially since my phil. assignment on utilitarianism took longer than I would have liked.
We had the Weston Lecture on Friday- Craig Gay from Regent College in Vancouver came and talked about Dialogue, how its being lost in today's culture, and how it is very important for us as humans. It was interesting!
My roommate just informed me that its time-change day, so we're losing an hour of sleep! :( i guess that means its time for bed. Our house may well be buried in the morning, so I'll need lots of energy to tunnel out!
xox
S
Today I've been trying to do research for my art paper. I had a frustrating time, since we need at least one good primary source and no one seems to have written on the things I'd like to talk about. I think I've decided on Rembrandt and something to do with Protestant art... its just too bad that a lot of the scholarly articles on him are written in Dutch! I was at the U of O library... I'll try the public one tomorrow.
Speaking of art, we got to go to the national gallery for class this week- it was great! Time was a little short, of course, but we'll be heading back there next month so I'm excited. Dr. Tingley is totally in his element at the gallery, he worked there as a curator for a few years.
All this just hours after he lectured for 2.5+ hours on Immanuel Kant. I understand why people say "Kant changed my life". I haven't thought through it enough yet, but basically he developed his philosophy because he was disturbed by Hume's, who de-objectified ethics, causality, metaphysics, the self... He said all our ideas come from sensation and are justified by sensations. There can be no such thing as a moral argument because ethics is not rational- he gets rid of the because in 'good because'. He says ethics doesn't need to be rational, it can just rest on our feelings. Just as he got rid of the 'because' in morality he took the 'because' out of causality (which destroys causality completely) (Causality: the necessity that a thing that happens was brought about because of another thing.). There is no foundation for the belief in necessities in nature in this thinking, which is what disturbed Kand because it made SENSE, but it threatened to totally undermine Scientific thinking!
SO Kant said that there is objective reality but that we can have no idea of what exists apart from how we see in and eventually came up with the idea that instead of the mind conforming to reality, reality conforms to the mind. Space and time and truth are judgments, but all humans have the same framework of mind so we usually perceive the same world. Anyway I'll stop confusing everyone with my incomplete and probably incorrect philosophy synthesis...
The rest of the week was fine. In Science with Dr. Patrick we learned that in 1952 a guy names Toynbee in 'An Historian's view of Religion' made a list of indicators that a society is dying (from looking at all past cultures in history) :
-Schizm of the Soul (which leads to cultural suicide- no coherence)
-A growing sense of antinominalism (lack of respect for the law)
-Escapism (retreating into private lives)
-Drift yielding to inevitable determinism (fatalism)
-Guilt and self-loathing (no more repentance/ forgiveness)
-General promiscuity- intellectual as well as sexual
yeesh, our culture fits into all of those! But Dr. Patrick thinks that our generation can be hopeful and that a change is completely within reach- he's a big advocator of starting with the family.
We covered Schubert and Schumann and part of Brahms in music. PLUS we wrote our midterm (which went well, i think).
In Literature we talked about Godric (by Frederick Bueckner) which is a really really cool book- completely different from everything else we've read. It makes you squirmy in a few places- its about this guy who lives a totally ascetic lifestyle and everyone else thinks he's this great saint but he is the narrator and is totally aware of all his sins... I had to madly read it since I didn't have much time to do so, but there are definitely a lot of passages to re-read and meditate upon.
I'm still struggling with what to do for my Scripture paper. Ugh. We have no Latin homework this weekend, however, which is a blessing indeed, especially since my phil. assignment on utilitarianism took longer than I would have liked.
We had the Weston Lecture on Friday- Craig Gay from Regent College in Vancouver came and talked about Dialogue, how its being lost in today's culture, and how it is very important for us as humans. It was interesting!
My roommate just informed me that its time-change day, so we're losing an hour of sleep! :( i guess that means its time for bed. Our house may well be buried in the morning, so I'll need lots of energy to tunnel out!
xox
S
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