At noon release another leaf

Currently at UW: 8.3. First snow of the cold season yesterday. Nothing on the ground around here, but some up toward Georgian Bay.

Overheard in the WLU library: "Why's there even an apostrophe in French?"

Qu'est-ce que c'est, cette question stupide?

Man overheard talking to TTC fare collector last week: "I have a picture here of my elbow with the hair shaved off."

I have spent the last hour or more poking through stuff on the web about the is-ought debate from the '60s and '70s, mostly to do with Searle's "How to Derive an Ought from an Is". I was just thinking again yesterday or so that I really need to not do things like spend, cumulatively, several weeks writing about the Gettier problem, but unfortunately I am now thinking of writing a paper called "Hobbes on Deriving an Ought from an Is". I don't really know anything much about either Hobbes or the is-ought debate. But I've been teaching Hobbes this week....

Things that make teaching difficult for me:
1. I regard how to teach philosophy as an open philosophical question.
2. I think that teaching and learning philosophy both require doing philosophy.
2. a) I regard how to do philosophy as an open philosophical question. (There are very few philosophy departments, as far as I can tell, that offer courses called "Philosophical Methods". In my experience, "Intro to Philosophy" courses don't even suggest that there might be such things as philosophical methods. I was doing my PhD before I really had much idea what about doing philosophy is. But it's extremely important! You can't do serious work in philosophy unless you have some idea what doing philosophy is. Can you?)
3. I think that philosophy has to dwell on the insights of great philosophers, because each of the great philosophers attempts to show an aspect of experience that is available to us all but difficult to attend to.
3. a) I think that any aspect of the thought of any great philosopher has to be understood in the context of their thought as a whole.
3. b) I think that philosophy must be read slowly and dialectically, moving back and forth between the abstract and the concrete.
3. c) I doubt that the thought of any philosopher is internally consistent. (The philosopher sees through many particular appearances, many eidoi, many forms, and attempts to describe the appearance, the eidos, the form. The form will only stand still if the same forms are seen through in the same way. This is not to say that there is no form, but that the form is indefinite and descriptions will not be consistent if they remain true to the shifting experience they are founded on. Thus the inconsistency of the philosopher is not a vice--rather, it is a virtue, because each inconsistent description provides a new perspective that deepens the whole--though the philosopher's failing to recognize it may be. On the other hand, the failure to recognize it may be a condition that makes it possible for the philosopher to go on, and it may be the condition that makes it possible for the student to go on with the philosopher. The student approaches the philosopher with the attitude of the judge, and witnesses who give inconsistent testimony are not reliable.)
4. I think that teaching philosophy well requires ongoing dialogue with each student individually.
(This is another thing that has become important to me about the many short assignments that I have my students do, which I often comment on extensively. These things are consuming my life! But I think they're serving an essential function.)