I can’t recall when I started writing but I can recall when I took it seriously. I was in 9th grade history teacher asked the class what each one of us wanted to be when we were older. When it was my turn, I said “writer.” I remember an expression of awe in her face. She paused as if recognizing what I only recognized seconds later that I’d said the right thing to question that didn’t really have a wrong answer. I wrote before then of course but never took it seriously as something my life should be about.

Afterwards, I took on any project that was writing related that came my way. Took creative writing classes, signed up as editor for literary journals, even did poetry readings despite my shyness. And somehow it led me to journalism.

I tried journalism thinking it was going to be similar to the writing I had done prior: personal non-fiction, poetry and creative short-stories. I thought after gathering the quotes and facts, you’d still be a lone writer at a coffee shop, writing articles in a notebook while sipping your pretentiously overpriced coffee on the side.

But it really wasn’t like that. I mean, yes, sometimes you were sipping your pretentious coffee in a café, but journalism is a different beast from poetry or prose fiction. And it’s not because journalism is about immediate informative truth. Great fiction and poetry tell truths that can inform how you live your life or how to bear the weight of it. And it’s not really because journalism is a strict and structured form. It is, but in all works of art, the mastery is about working within its limitation and sometimes breaking it. Poetry has its lines and stanza, prose fiction has its plots and characters.

The real difference for me is the starting process. I face the blank screen of a computer, the empty lines of paper, all the same. But when writing a journalistic article, you know what it’s about!

I write down the nutgraph, the paragraph that tells you what the article is about, as soon as possible so that I don’t lose my focus. And everything I write from there on circles around it. Everything expands, elaborates, or deepens your understanding about that one paragraph that is often just one sentence. In fiction and poetry I move around a scene, I play with the words, with the characters not always too sure what they’ll do or who’ll show up or what words will suddenly fit. Sometimes I knew to some degree where it would all ends up but for the most part I’m trying to find out what this damn story is going or what these stanzas are meant to mean.

In journalism, you know what the story is about. Your words are as clear as day or you’re not doing your job. You are the absolute tyrant of the piece. You know its borders and you keep to them. It’s 500 words, most important facts in the beginning, main argument here, contrary opinion there, etc. Then if you’re lucky to have it, a final quote (kicker quote) that ties to your anecdotal lede (in journalism it’s spelled lede, not lead).

As much as journalism has felt like I’m trying to master a completely different beast from any of the other literary forms, it has helped fine-tune my writing in general. I still write prose and poetry, both non-fiction and fiction with wild abandon. But with a journalistic eye I can edit my sentences to be more direct and make sure my lines to get to the point when needed.

And despite the strict structure in journalism, there is room to maneuver so that you can add flare to your article. Sometimes that means I can use a little poetic wordplay here or maybe I can write the news so that there’s a plot twist there.

When the word “writer” fell unexpectedly from my mouth in 9th grade, I didn’t realize how fitting it was. I didn’t say novelist, poet or essayist. I didn’t say playwright or journalist. I said writer. I have wanted then and still want now to work with words. To play in almost any field they are used creatively.

I must admit that I may not be a King in any single form; my strengths as a writer come from having been a Jack in almost all forms.

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1. Accessibility: This is why Blackboard can be a difficult tool to implement–you can only access it from going from annoying link to link and generally only on computers (the java software isn’t really conducive to mobile-device posting). An optimal classroom tool can be used from phones and computers–PC and Mac.
2. Multi-functioning: I don’t want my online tools to only be a blog. I want to be able to post videos, have web conferences, host images, etc. This is especially important for online-only courses. Imagine trying to host an entire course online in which you are limited to only posting written-out lectures. Ugh.
3. Streamlined: Call me petty, but the site needs to LOOK good and the layout needs to make sense. You should be able to do what you need to do quickly and easily, and students should have no difficulty accessing your material.

That said, NOW let’s talk about some of G+’s features:

1. Hangouts: Possibly the single coolest thing about G+. You can host a ‘hangout’ which is a multi-person video conference. All individuals in the call are placed in smaller screens on the bottom of the window, and whoever is speaking is brought to the forefront. It would be really interesting to utilize such software to host entire classes–allowing for classroom discussion in ways that chat sessions and forum posts cannot accomplish. You can lecture, and students can (face to face!) jump into the discussion. This tool could also be useful for students to meet up and perform group work. Myriad arguments have been made concluding the benefit of having an ‘avatar’ available as a physical manifestation online. By utilizing actual video chats, YOU become that manifestation, just as you would in a non-web classroom.
2. Circles: Adjuncts teach a LOT of classes. When utilizing WordPress, you may need to make totally separate blogs for each class. Blackboard? Different forums for each class. Want your students to respond to a question? Simply place all your students into an appropriate class circle (e.g. ENG 110, ENG 120) and make that question available to only that class. You can do all of your work on one page and very easily tag who has the ability to see it.
3. +1: You can share websites you find via google with your circles. Find an article you want to share with students? +1 it.
4. Sparks: Want to try to find articles relating to your class? Put in a Spark, or research interest, and G+ will aggregate posts relating to said topic. You can then share these with your students.
5. No posting limit: Facebook has a character limit for status updates and responses, but in its current form, G+ does not have that. This means you can say what you want to say in as many words as you need. Certainly a benefit for English majors!
6. Mobile device accessibility: Although Apple removed it from the iTunes store (Big Brother, anyone?), G+ does have mobile capabilities and I’m sure that in good time they’ll get back on iTunes.
7. Free: This is huge for me. Your school doesn’t need to pay to operate or update the software, you don’t need techies to help develop your page or to help get students on the platform. It’s as simple as signing up.

I suppose the best features are, for me, hangouts and circles. It’s enough to provide engaging interaction, yet allows for separation when necessary. I like to be able to see and talk to my peers (or students, depending on what situation I’m in). I’d be really interested in hearing from anyone who plans on attempting to use this in their classes and how the integration (via hybridization or total online coursework) works out. I, unfortunately, won’t be teaching this term, so I can’t try it myself, but I definitely see some potential in it.

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Ok, that IS pretty bad.

But it’s not particularly realistic either. Teachers who are that abysmal get kicked pretty easily, or never even make it into the classroom. So what IS a bad teacher then? The simple answer is someone who doesn’t care or have a passion to teach. I find that it’s so much more than that though. So often I see Master’s students earning an MSEd who chat on Facebook in the classroom, never complete reading assignments, and cannot construct a 15-20 page paper. These students then become English teachers of our high school students. If we, ourselves, in the position of a student, cannot be bothered to put in the effort and work, why should we ever expect our students to do so? The thought of these lackadaisical peers of mine teaching my (future) children makes me want to hurl. And this, my friends, defines the beginning of a bad teacher to me.

Ok, I know what your counter-arguments are going to be.

1. The people getting MSEds are frequently already working, which gives them little time to complete the work.
2. The way a person functions as a student is not the way a person functions as a teacher.
3. Your students will not be working on the same level as you (e.g. writing 20 page papers), so why worry?

And it’s these counterarguments that concern me. If you say “Oh I’m working, I don’t have time to complete the work,” you would have to allow your students to say the same, or you become a hypocrite and poor example. If you sit on FB in the classroom, you cannot honestly ask your students to not do the same. And unless you can show a far greater level of excellence than your students, why would they ever listen to you? Passion is nothing without intellect and integrity.

Before a bad teacher ever becomes a bad teacher, he or she is usually–from my experience anyway–a bad student. Of course, the buffer to prevent that is state certification exams and whatnot, but anyone who has ever taught a group of students knows that when the fire is lit under one’s butt, he or she will study and pass any exam pretty easily. But in the meantime, he or she will write papers chock-full of grammatical and syntactical errors with flaws in argumentation and progression–usually from sheer laziness moreso than a lack of understanding. He or she will get a B+ in the grad class and move on and teach.

Isn’t this horrifically sad to you? We so frequently allow mediocrity to become a leader, which only spreads more mediocrity. It’s a parasitic virus, spreading to and feeding from the ambitions and smarts of our children. If we want to stop this we, much like many things in the education system, need to reform. We need to demand more from our teachers BEFORE they are teachers. Push them to greater levels of excellence. I should never have to hear in my life that “I don’t really know why I want to be a teacher. I guess I was OK in AP English and decided to do that” from someone who is ALREADY teaching. We need to stop them before they ever get that far.

A bad teacher is, first and foremost, a bad student, and unless we–the “good” teachers of the world–demand from our students ethical, intellectual, and creative traits; we will do no more than raise crop after crop of increasingly poor teachers.

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Lao Tzu and The Tao Te Ching.

First and foremost, we must pay homage to Lao Tzu. Though it is not exactly known when Lao Tzu was born and how long he lived (some reports claim he lived to 200 years of age), he certainly lived an interesting life and it is he who we must thank for Taoism as we know it today. Lao Tzu worked at an imperial library during the Zhou Dynasty and even outwitted Confucius in an argument about Confucian Ethics. He is also the author of the famed Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching is a book of poems and aphorisms that outline a way of life in accordance with the Tao. The story, as it goes, is that Lao Tzu quit his position with the Zhou Dynasty and traveled west to the great desert on a water buffalo. Upon reaching the western gate he was stopped by a guard who demanded that before he left he must write down all of his knowledge. The result was the Tao Te Ching, and afterwards Lao Tzu vanished into the desert forever.

The Eternal Tao and Wu-Wei

The first line of the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching is, “The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.” This seems like a contradiction because upon translating Tao we are left with, “The path that can be followed is not the eternal path.” The Tao that he speaks of in the Tao Te Ching is not the Tao itself. You cannot gain insight into what the Tao is by reading about it. It is something that you must experience yourself. The Tao is best thought of as an eternal life force in which we are all taking part of. No matter how resistant or persistent toward any experience that comes our way, we are nevertheless caught in the tide of life.

Taoism is ultimately “going with the flow” of things or living in accordance with nature. The principle of Tao known as Wu-Wei translates to action through inaction. It is not so much “doing nothing” as it is an allowance of the natural flow of life without human ignorance and folly. It is best here to use the example of water. When water fills a cup there is no sense that the water is trying to form to the shape of that cup. Neither is it the case that water tries to flow down a stream. Water is in perfect accordance with the Tao because it does not try, assume, attempt, or disregard. It simply does.

The Yin Yang Polarity and Dichotomization

The Yin-Yang symbol is the most popular symbol to ever come out of the Eastern world. In most cultures, Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Ugly and Beautiful are seen as in opposition against each other. The Yin-Yang principle holds that the opposites of the world are necessary constituents of each other. Alan Watts, a philosopher known best for bringing Eastern philosophy to the West, describes such cases of Good and Evil as being like a battery that has a + and – polarity. Even though they are opposite, each is necessary for the battery to work.

In Taoism it is necessary to see through this dichotomy and realize that drawing lines at all is against the concept of the Tao. As stated in Chapter Two of the Tao Te Ching,

All in the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful.
Here in lies ugliness
All recognize good as good
Herein lies evil.

Through identifying one thing as beautiful we have already severed the aesthetic environment in half. One creates a concept of ugly by creating the concept named beautiful. By recognizing “soft” we create “hard,” by recognizing “good” we create “evil.” For if everything were good there would be no evil, and if everything were beautiful there would be no ugly. We define things by what they are not and what that thing is not is necessary for it to be what it is.

Emptiness

Picking up where we left off, realizing this fact of polarity leads to one thing: Being is wholly dependent upon Non-Being. Commonly, the world sees that which does not exist as something meaningless. But, the Tao Te Ching has a remedy for that way of thinking. From Chapter Eleven:

Thirty spokes join together in the hub.
It is because of what is not there that the cart is useful.
Clay is formed into a vessel.
It is because of its emptiness that the vessel is useful.
Cut doors and windows to make a room.
It is because of its emptiness that the room is useful.
Therefore, what is present is used for profit.

But it is in absence that there is usefulness. (Ch. 11, Tao Te Ching)

Instead of what is, it is actually the empty space that contains existent objects that any of those things become useful. A doorway is useful because it allows one to enter and leave rooms or buildings, and it is because a cup is empty that it can be filled with water to quench one’s thirst. Emptiness and its practical uses are everywhere and only after realizing this one can begin to truly appreciate the nature of things.

Li

Perhaps the most significant concept attributed to Taoism is Li. In Tao, The Watercourse Way, Alan Watts speaks at length of the significance of this term. Li is organic order and is most often symbolized through the grain in a piece of wood. The universe is to be thought of as Li because it goes along ordering things without any real attention to what it is doing (just like water). At any point, we can zoom into an object and see chaos occurring. My hands seem uniform to me but on an atomic level, they are simply atoms thrashing about. The Earth Looks peaceful from outer space but if we zoomed into say, New York City, we would see a chaotic mass of people, cars, bikes and so on all randomly scattered around. Even if we looked at our galaxy from afar we would see a beautiful orderly spiral. But within, stars are exploding, planets are crashing into each other and this whole chaotic mass is swarming around a gigantic black hole at millions of miles per hour!

Chaos and Order are also dichotomies created by humans. They are just two ways of looking at the same thing. All that is, is Li, an organic order created by the Tao. Scientists claim that the causal laws of physics are what determine this order. In response to that I’ll leave you with a quote from Alan Watts, “The notion of causality is simply a lame way of connecting the various stages of an event which we have distinguished and separated for purposes of description; so that, beguiled by our own words, we come to think of these stages as different events which must be stuck together by the glue of causality. In fact, the only single event is the universe itself. Li, not causality, is the rationale of the world.”

Conclusion

Well this certainly tops off as my longest article ever! But it is necessary to not skip any of the essential parts of Taoist philosophy. This article itself is proof that concepts in Tao are all in accordance with and interconnected to each other. The concept of Emptiness itself in all of Eastern thought is quite interesting and is sure to be a post in itself some day. For now, we should all take a step back and realize that even though we have discussed some pretty cool stuff about Taoism, we haven’t really learned anything about the Tao at all. The Tao is a path that we each must discover on our own. But you can’t go looking for it, for that Tao would be false. The true Tao will find you, and if it’s just right, you won’t even know it. Until next time, and perhaps for the first and only time, do as Bruce Lee once stated: “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water…”and cease thinking my friends!

- Joseph

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Before I continue, I must admit that I wield an Android smartphone, iPad and PC laptop (although I did have a Macbook Pro when it first came out). I consider myself well versed in new technology products and am an avid reader of BGR and Engadget. I have few “party” affiliations. But, I digress…

As I held the Playbook in my hands, I was surprised at how well-built it felt. But perhaps most intriguing was how fast the machine was. I thought back to my Android phone (before I put a custom OS on it) and how laggy it was “out of the box.” The same goes for the Samsung Galaxy tablet I played with at the ATT store the other day. In a world of instant gratification, instant performance is paramount. This “instant gratification” element, I feel, qualifies or disqualifies a device from the race. Once qualified, other factors determine who the winner is (e.g., number of apps, features, etc). These secondary factors is where the Playbook falls short.

One might say, “Chuck – Android activations have grown well beyond that of iPhones.” While that is true, other external elements are in effect in which mobile operator choice and incentives undoubtedly play a part. In other products where there are no restrictions (e-readers, tablets, computers) growth favors devices that are snappy, load quickly, and deliver features that people want. The winner, clearly, is Apple, which single-handedly took over the e-reader and tablet market with the iPad. I contend that it was quickness of the device and operating system as much as the “apps” that allowed it to rise so quickly to prominence. It is something that companies who manufacturer devices for Android consistently fail to realize, and until they do, I expect it will very difficult to compete outside the mobile phone market. To differentiate themselves, companies must keep in mind Professor Kevin Lane Keller’s idea of “points of parity,” which states that a company must perform at a certain level of customer expectations to “be in the game”.  That is why, I believe, e-readers and Android powered devices (other than mobile phones) have fallen by the wayside and also why sales of Macs are growing at an exponentially high rate.

My suggestion for Android? Android-touting companies should work on tweaking the Android software so that it works quicker than the competition, rather than stuffing it full of features that no one uses or wants. Who uses the features of Samsung Touchwiz? I sure don’t know anyone who does. (I pick on Android, by the way, because it inhabits the hardware of almost all touchscreen devices, from the Nook to the Xoom.)

Back to the original question, “What is so bad about the Playbook?” Well it certainly qualifies based on upbeat reviews by CNET, BGR and Engadget. But does it compete? Does an app store really matter if it can perform all of the functionality needed (obviously it can’t yet because it lacks a native email client and video chat application). Surprisingly, Apple, for the longest time, was a proponent of “it can perform all the functionality you need” until the advent of the iPhone and the app store. Now, they have replicated the same concept throughout their products and just recently to desktop/laptops. Perhaps the “app-store” concept has become a point of parity. An “airbag” of mobile phones, even if one doesn’t intend on using, one still requires at purchase. I have likely raised more questions than answers in this post, but there is clearly a philosophical debate raging and I am, as everyone else is, eagerly awaiting the next evolution of devices.

With that, I will wrap this up in saying that my own personal points of parity for touchscreen devices are:

1. Responsive
2. Great UI (easy to navigate)
3. Can do what I need (e.g., send an email)
4. Quality hardware

Once those are met, my points of differentiation are:

1. Price
2. Can do what I want (e.g., play a game)
3. Interconnectivity with other devices

Interested in hearing your views? Also, looking beyond app store, what is the next big thing? Is it the cloud? web applications? Or even 3-D?

Image obviously copyright of Apple.

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But you know–it totally pissed me off. So many people think that students don’t read or cannot form full sentences without “lol” or “gonna” or whatever else. And I’m sure that’s true. But what gets me is that people are missing the bigger picture.

Many moons ago, a man was chiseling something into a stone. It looked like a line, an X, a triangle, etc. This guy was totally happy carving rock with those symbols. You know what this is? Runic. The basis of English and most other languages. But then some dudes came in and conquered Britain, and, with it, learned about writing stuff down, allowing different shapes to form more letters. Super long story short, a major change happened and Old English came to be. Later, some major changes happened and we had Middle English (think Chaucer), then Early Modern (Shakespeare) and now Modern.

So when I say, “Look at the bigger picture,” what I mean is we’re at a time where we’re going through a major language shift again. And instead of viewing it as the denigration of language, why don’t we view it as the next step? In a way, each step is a denigration of the previous step–Old English killed runes. Early Modern ruined dialectal writing. Modern killed “thee” and “thou.” I would say that having no way to differentiate between a superior (with “thee” etc.) and someone on your level (“you”) is a denigration of the language!

On the small-scale level, I completely understand the apprehension of a full-scale change in language. I’m unnerved when my students write “tuff” instead of “tough” in a paper as well. However, I think these uncomfortable feelings are happening because I genuinely feel this will be the Big One, where we enter a Post-modern form of English that is seeped in technology. It’s been happening slowly and surely for eons. Putting the words “assembly” and “line” together in the 1700s would not have had a real meaning. Compare that to now, where we have a firm semiotic understanding of what “assembly line” means. Why did this happen? After the rise of the industrial revolution and increase of factory labor, we needed to devise a word to match our surroundings. And now, with technology changing at such a rapid pace, language cannot keep up. But it has to, and it will. And we need to understand that there is not much we can do other than fall under the wave of this new language and, much like a tidal wave, it will hurt and damage everything that currently exists in its wake–but then we rebuild and change.

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Modern and Post-Modernism: Drawing a line… sort of?

Modernism (at least as far as philosophy is concerned) outlines a trend of philosophical discourse that is strictly involved with matters of truth or, for a lack of a better explanation, figuring out the entire gambit of reality. This is a time period that included such philosophers as Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, and Kant. Philosophy in this time was dedicated to solving the riddle of life and most importantly contended that the answers could be discovered, and by way of reason, could also be solved. But, as time went on, the world began to change. Marx arrived on the scene, and critiqued capitalism for all of its demands of production and alienation, giving the populations of the world no time to develop as individuals. Nietzsche attacked many of the modernist philosophers for their childish search for the ultimate truth. These two, along with other philosophers, made many observations about the way the world was developing, and lets just say they didn’t like the way things were turning out.

So where’s the line? Like I said, it’s pretty blurry. Nevertheless, as the Existentialist movement was occurring in continental Europe, and the rise of analytic philosophy was occurring in America and England.  The world as a whole was going through some rapid and frightening changes. World wars, Communism, genocide, etc… things weren’t looking too good.

Who Lit the Fuse?

Enter Max Horkheimer, a man who many consider to have thrown the first grenade at the traditional philosophical concept of reason. Traditionally, reason was considered an end in itself, a process intrinsically used for the further development of the world. Writing in the midst of World War 2, Horkheimer points out the malicious consequences of reason in the new era. No longer did reason serve as the ultimate goal in -itself and for-itself. It just became another tool for greed. Companies were reasoning out the best way to make the most amount of cash possible, even if that meant paying people poorly and work 14 hours a day. Governments were reasoning out ways to dominate the world, even if that meant killing as many people as possible in order to attain power. As Horkheimer explains “When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they poses the most tanks, they were rational enough to build them, others should be rational enough to yield to them.”

Post-Modern Philosophy, specifically Critical Theory, began to develop as a critique of “modern” thought. It’s around this time that we see a return of Marx’s and Nietzsche’s ideas. As quickly as the concepts of art, media, and culture were shifting, the Post-Modern philosophers were right there to back them up.

Architecture and Post-Modernism

Many Post-Modern philosophers continued the trend of attacking capitalism, Fredric Jameson for example had pointed out many of the artistic and architectural effects of this highly established capitalist world. While buildings in the past had been shaped into grandiose pieces of art (think Victorian houses, and churches), the building styles of today are rigid, and plain (think office buildings). Before global-capitalism dictated every aspect of life, architecture was solely concerned with making buildings look good, now they seem to just be monuments to capitalism themselves. Think of your local mall – since they all look the same. As you walk through a mall you are bombarded with advertisement after advertisement, there’s plenty of space in the middle for you to walk around, but each and every wall is packed with stores doing whatever they can to coax you into buying their products. It is the same way with office buildings which are designed to fit the as many workers as possible in order for a company to “get its money worth” of all the space. Architecture is a good example because old world elaborate structures and new world economical buildings are reflections of Modernism and Post-modernism. One reflects the age of reason as an end in itself and its directfulness at enlightening humanity, the other symbolizes the use of reason as a tool to make the most money.

Communication Overload

Another interesting idea that came out of Critical Theory, and perhaps that is most relevant today, was developed by Jean-Baudrillard in his essay, “The Ecstasy of Communication.” In the past, before telephones, radio and Internet, there was only the small-scale stage of the immediate environment. Now, in the information age, everyone in the world is connected and the small-scale stage of the past has been made microscopic by global connection. Out of this interconnectedness arises what Baudrillard calls “hyperreality.” Hyperreality consists of blending the real with the fantastic. Day-to-day life is jam packed with blaring advertisements, non-stop newscasts, and hardly realistic TV shows and movies. Commercials for example constantly push the limits of reality and create bizarre and strange situation to convince anyone to buy their product. Think about the old-spice commercials, funny right? How much of that hyperreal situation that is presented to someone really makes sense? The fact is, we’re just so board with reality that we have to make things elaborate and over the top or they just won’t sell.

Conclusion

After all of this Critical Theory, one should ask his/herself a few questions. If we are all being told what it is we want to buy, what it is that will make us cool and how we should act based upon what the media presents to us, then are we really ever an individual? Are subjects  just a collection of the products we own? If you work all the time and worry about your money problems too much, then how much of your life is really yours? At least, these are the questions Critical Theorist would like you to ask yourself .

There is so much to talk about in post-modern philosophy. We’ve have really only discussed the Critical Theory side of things; I didn’t even get to many of the other influential post-modernists such as Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida and have already surpassed my usual word limit! Although many of these guys overlap with Critical Theory (Foucault especially) they really fall into a specific category called Post-Structuralism and Deconstructionism. To simply brush over these folks would do them an injustice; so look for an article on this stuff later on. For now, the brief history, and critiques by Horkheimer, Jameson, and Baudrillard will have to suffice.

Until then,

Keep Thinking!

-Joseph

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So let’s get right down to it!

Analytic Philosophy

Analytic philosophy refers to a method of philosophy relying heavily on the virtues of logic. It dominated most English speaking countries, especially England and America from 1900-1960. Philosophers in this field were all about argumentation and attempting to clarify their arguments as much as possible. Analytic philosophy found a comfortable seat next to more scientific fields such as Mathematics and Physics. They adopted the belief that Philosophy was more closely related to the sciences then any other field. Most safely say that it all started with the ideas of Bertrand Russell. In his book The Problems of Philosophy, he sets out to explain and analyze issues within the field of philosophy. By doing so he turns to an idea that hadn’t been brought about for some time. Empiricism ( the idea that all knowledge is discovered via experience) found a major part within Analytic philosophy and from then on was the staple of the Analytic style — of course later on this was subject to change.

Analytic philosophy also spawned other movements within itself. Logical Positivism became a popular view that was forged from some of the ideas of Russell and Wittgenstein. Logical positivists were strict believers that Empiricism is the only method of doing philosophy and that no problem could be named solved unless it was solved through experience. Those who took part in this movement include The Vienna Circle. They didn’t seem to regard philosophy as having a large role within the world. Instead, they felt that philosophy is only concerned with the verification of thoughts. They found areas like metaphysics, meaningless and useless.

Another emerging idea was Emotivism. Ethics had always played a big role in philosophy, but some analytic philosophers were looking to refute that. Emotivism is the idea that all ethical claims are really only statements of emotion. For example: “Capital punishment is wrong.” can be translated to “BOOO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT SUCKS.”

A short list of notable analytic philosophers: Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayre, Ludwig Wittgentein, G.E. Moore, The Vienna Circle, W.V.O. Quine

These are some of the basic themes that came out of Analytic philosophy, now let’s check out what the Continental Philosophers think.

Continental Philosophy

With an emphasis on such fields as Existentialism, Phenomenology, German Idealism, and Structuralism continental philosophy was taking shape outside of the analytic movement. Continental philosophy roots back to Immanuel Kant who contributed to what many call the beginning of continental philosophy, German Idealism. The term comes from the locations where those doing this kind of philosophy lived, Germany and France. Where analytic philosophy was taking place all over the place, continental philosophy was being mostly done in a centralized area of the European continent.

There are a few things that differ from that of continental philosophy as opposed to analytic. First of all, most continental philosophers reject the scientism that the analytic philosophers heavily rely on. They also rely on historcism in their work. This means that unlike analytic philosophers who look at a problem as an individual problem separate from time and those who posed the question, continental philosophers believe all philosophy should be done with a strong emphasis on where it came from. With a strong unity between theory and practice most philosophers in this field are considered to use their work as a personal or moral transformation and showing a very passionate demeanor towards their philosophy.

As the 20th century rolled around analytic philosophy was gaining a lot of notice. Through the 1900′s, especially after 1930, continental philosophy was rarely discussed. As the years passed by continental philosophers were continuing to get a bad rap from the opposing analytic philosophers. Recently though, continental philosophy is starting to see a comeback. Many fields of academia are incorporating more and more continental philosophy and many schools in North America are actually designing their departments specifically to that of continental philosophy.

A short list of notable continental philosophers: Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Soren Kierkegaard, Jacques Derrida, Hegal

Conclusion

A lot of things went on between the divide of analytic and continental philosophy. In fact, there’s way too much to fit in one post about it! But nevertheless you can see the interesting  fundamental differences between the two types of philosophies. The future of philosophy still holds a lot of questions to hopefully be answered, but will we ever discover the “right” way to do philosophy? Personally, I don’t think so. Though, with a  statement like that, I’m sure the  analytic philosophers aren’t looking at me too highly .

Until next time, keep thinking!

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But I’m getting ahead of myself. I suppose I should begin with some of my proposed methods and ideas.

I find many tech-based composition/literary scholars are far too “liberal” with their studies for my liking. I don’t feel comfortable allowing my students to compose videos as a form of rhetorical analysis instead of writing an essay about it–and yes, I understand the fundamental flaws of that thinking due to rhetoric’s roots stemming (ha! See what I did there?) from oratory. On the other hand, I find classical rhetoric/literary scholars too conservative. It’s mind-boggling that some academics do not acknowledge the breadth of information available readily online, and many still do not “trust” ANY and ALL .com websites. Although most people don’t consider themselves strong conservatives or strong liberals in politics, I find that in academia–at least in composition and literature–people tend to fall into one category or another, whether they intend to or not. I, on the other hand, try to be a moderate.

So how do I do that? I believe in technology, I believe in gaming, but I also believe in using these things to enhance the subject matter at hand. It’s easy to let the technology and the “coolness” of it all to take over the classroom. Too easy. It’s also too easy to allow your hobbies to control the subject matter (e.g. let me structure a class around my favorite musicians–everyone likes music right? Well maybe not your or my music). Let’s say I’m a gamer (I am). I can implement gaming into my classroom without forcing the subject matter to be ABOUT gaming. Likewise, I don’t need to make my students who aren’t gamers feel like they’re forced to play video games like Second Life. One thing I proposed at a CCCC conference was structuring a class to function similarly to specializations in an MMORPG. In an MMORPG (let’s not worry about terminology and such for now), you choose a specialty and become an expert in a particular “field.” You may be the person who kills the “bad guys,” or you may be the person that helps your allies stay alive while they kill the bad guys. Your choice. We can allow similar specializations to our students without neglecting our subject matter?

How?

Let’s start with a Freshman-Year Composition (FYC) course. FYC is taught in many different ways at many different universities, but they have the same goal: create a class in which students learn the fundamentals of writing at the college level. Now let’s say you’re a hard-core classicist. You want to teach old-school paper writing like narrative, argumentative, persuasive, and research. You make your students read Aristotelian and Ciceronian rhetoric. You can still implement the game classroom structure. Allow students to pick a specialty that they are interested in, and have them build up that specialty until they become an “expert” in it. Then, have the students present their field and “teach” the other students. Have group-work comprised of different specialties and see how they work together. They can become narrative experts, persuasive experts, argumentative experts, research experts, etc. This is a really brief form of my CCCC presentation, but you can get the gist of how it works, I think.

Suggestions such as this create a more educationally balanced classroom. It teaches classical techniques (e.g. different forms of writing) with a modern twist. We don’t have to jump into the deep end of the pool if we’re not ready to with technology and the like–nor do we have to walk around in the shallow end if we’re ready to take on more. Integration of technology and new pedagogies doesn’t need to be “fashionable.” You don’t need to be pressured into having blogs in your classroom that have flash animations, but at the same time you don’t need to dig your heels into the ground and pout every time someone suggests a new technique. I’m just learning this balance between the two, and it’s certainly not easy. I only hope that others, too, will begin to question both extremes and try to find some sort of comfort in the middle.

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We have merged (un)Enlightened English and (un)Enlightened Philosophy and have added two more categories (Education and Technology) as well. While the goal of the site is primarily to help answer students’ questions, we now have the space to accommodate the queries of educators who are looking for new pedagogical techniques, and those who are looking for discussions on technology. Some of these pieces will be an op-ed style, which will allow returning visitors to have something to look forward to, not to mention allow them a greater contribution in the content and tone of the site.

The topics will be (pretty much) as follows:

English: This will cover grammar quick fixes, detailed posts about grammar, and general writing advice.
Philosophy: This will cover famous philosophers, common questions about philosophy, and breakdowns of philosophical theories.
Education: This will cover pedagogical techniques in addition to op-ed pieces about the state of educational affairs.
Technology: This will cover theoretical discussions of technology and gaming in addition to assistance with simple technological problems.

Of course, topics may deviate from this basic structure as time goes on, but this should give you a basic overview of the new site’s functions.

So, if you’re an (un)E English reader, there will be posts from more than just Kelly and Charles, and if you’re an (un)E Philosophy reader, there will be posts from more than just Joseph and Zack. I hope you enjoy the changes!

Be sure to check out our About page for more info.

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