RPE208 wiki

Please visit http://rpe208.wikispaces.com/ to see (and register to edit) the Indian Religions module wiki for what will be a student-written glossary of terms for that module (mainly Hindu and Buddhist terms).

Cheers,
Dave

Battleground God game

Hi. I just completed the game at http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm which assesses how coherent your beliefs are about God / what we can know about God. You may enjoy it...

I note that at the end - the Philosopher's Magazine trys to sell you a book, by one..... Roy Jackson... Try the game - and if you don't do too well - you know who to ask for help...

Cheers, Dave

Greetings from Beijing

Hi.

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I have discovered that blogspot.com addresses seem to be unavailable in China (but I am able to post to it). Having talked about the RPE blog this morning, I am looking forward to getting back to the University and to teaching.

I think the thing about the RPE blog that has interested people here is the manner in which Humanities students (thought of as bookish and un-technical) have grasped the opportunity to use a discursive on-line forum. I explained that RPE students never turn down a chance to argue: be it with each other, the staff - or anyone else for that matter...

Well - see you all back in the UK - RPE301, Love Sex and Death on monday!

Dave

A Year in the Blogosphere...

Hi - this is a quick post to say: how has this year been for students and other readers of this blog: In what ways has it been of useful / interesting / annoying - -etc...

I am also posting this to invite comments from those attending my E-Learn paper (in case you're too shy to speak in the session).

I am about to go and do my presentation - so hope this post will gather some comments over the next few days...

Dave

E-Learn 07 part2, Quebec City

Ok – as the days pass here in Quebec City, I get nearer to my paper (Thursday) on a year of the RPE course blog, I have been astounded by the work being done in many institutions.

Once back, I hope we can use a wiki-based e-glossary for the RPE208 Indian Religions module – and in ethics, well: we think about examples a lot. We ask you think of scenarios. It was that I mind that I listened intently to a paper by Jennifer Jenson from York University, Canada on, of all things, Lego.

Now, some readers will be aware of the craze for on-line Lego based animation (or maybe the Lego Star Wars video games) – and you may have come across the Biblical re-enactments created using the little Danish blocks of plastic (and their virtual form). The package we were shown yesterday allowed users to drop in a backdrop, create unique Lego figures and speech-bubbles – and animate them using the virtual equivalent of stop animation. This may not sound immediately applicable to RPE – but think of spending an hour making a short Lego-animation that demonstrates an example of an ethical dilemma (with no actors, or awkward ethical restraints). Maybe I’ll have to do one to demonstrate that it really does work: I’ll link to some examples when I get the address…

Beyond that, there is a lot of good practice here in relation to all kinds of e-learning – including blogs: I’ll let you know what people think of this one…

Some pictures here too, to give a flavour of the event – and to show that I did find the local Buddhist Meditation centre (but it was closed)…

Cheers,
Dave

E-Learn 2007

Well, greetings from far away. I write from E-Learn 2007, in Quebec Canada: where I am talking about this blog. As some if you will recall it began following my visit to E-Learn 2006 (see http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html and scroll to the bottom!)

It seems good to be back here to report on a year of using this blog – and using podcasts and the like. I hope we shall find ways on encouraging more of our students to be involved over the next year (so far, we have a group of very keen students who argue [about anything] , a large number of ‘lurkers’ (students who read the blog but do not join in) – and a few who do not read it all…

Anyway – as I find more technology and ideas here at the conference, I will post on the blog….
Cheers,
Dave

[BTW: it is freezing here!]

Philosophy Reading Group Blog

Just to remind those of you who are part of the Philosophy & Ethics reading group (and those who aren't) and who are currently reading Sartre's Nausea; we have our own blog open for comments on http://readingphilosophy.wordpress.com/

Please do post your thoughts / ideas as any discussion will be helpful for when we next meet.

Hey - Meat-Head!

I was reading a blog at http://www.philosophynews.com/PNS/blogs/exile/archive/2007/09/28/5511.aspx today and came across this claim:

Eating meat is totally inefficient, and in a world of desperate starvation and malnutrition, it is also criminal and immoral.

Do you agree (the article above may help)? You might take the view that vegetarianism is 'supra-moral' - good if you DO do it, but not bad if you don't - or you may feel it is morally fine to eat meat - and somehow wrong not to? Or you may agree with quote above...

Of course the implication above is that eating meat is wrong due to the consequences for humans... It seems to ignore the moral status of animals, if they have any..

Comments welcome

Nagel's Bat

Those First-year (or Level 1) students struggling through Nagel's What is it like to be a bat? may find the powerpoint at http://philosophy.hku.hk/courses/old/ronmallon/phil2022/2220nagel.ppt helpful - it explains the ideas (but does not do the work for the 160 course for you!)... Dave

The march of the militant atheists!

Are atheists the unsung heroes of the modern age? You may have read in the papers that 'Darwin's rottweiler' Richard Dawkins is spearheading a campaign in America to trumpet the voice of the nation's atheists who are seemingly downtrodden by the religious majority. Check out what John Brooke has to say about Dawkins in his podcast. What contribution would an 'atheist bloc' make to society anyway? Does religion still have an important public role bearing in mind the Buddhist protests in Burma as an example?

Philosophy & Ethics Reading Group

I am pleased to announce our preliminary meeting will be next Tuesday (2nd October - Week 2) at 6pm in FCH bar.
It will be an opportunity to meet each other, collate some ideas for our reading material, and to discuss other issues of place and frequency of meetings.
Anyone is welcome to attend. It might be useful to send me an email (eryall@glos.ac.uk) so I at least have an idea of who is interested: but turning up on the night is fine too.

Hope to see you there...

In Our Time

The excellent BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time has returned after a summer break with a discussion on Socrates. You can listen to this at any time on the net and, for one week only, you can download it as an MP3 and chill out to Socrates on your iPod!

Gloucestershire Philosophical Society - programme

Hi - below is the programe for the GPS. I would encourage all RPE students (and others) to attend these - you will be made very welcome... [the guilt debate still continues at http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2007/09/guilt.html ]

Dave

Gloucestershire Philosophical Society.
Programme: Autumn Term, 2007-08.

Sessions held at 7.30 p.m. room 203 FCH Campus, Swindon Road, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham,
(Other than Brown Jug meeting on December 5th.)

1. Wed. October 10th. 2007. Professor Christopher Norris, University of Cardiff. “Maths, Ontology and Politics: The Work of Alain Badiou.”
Chris Norris will talk on the work of the prominent contemporary French philosopher, author of “Ethics: an Essay on the Understanding of Evil” and “Metapolitics”.

2. Wed. October 31st. 2007. Dr. Ian Jones, University of Gloucestershire. “Race and Reality: Foucault and Jim Crow”.
Ian Jones will discuss his recent study of the medicalisation of racism in the United States as codified in many of the ‘Jim Crow’ laws and practices, and the work of philosopher Michel Foucault in their understanding.

3. Wed. November 14th. 2007. Dr. Stella Sandford, University of Middlesex. “Approaching .the Work of Simone de Beauvoir”.
Stella Sandford, a member of the Radical Philosophy journal editorial board, will discuss her 2007 book How to Read Beauvoir, on the work of the French existentialist and major figure in the history of feminist ideas.

4. Wed. November 28th. 2007. Liz Rolls, University of Gloucestershire: “Containing Grief: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective”.
Liz Rolls will be talking about her extensive research over the last few years into the issues of grief and childhood bereavement.

5. Wed. December 5th.2007. 10.30. a.m. at the Brown Jug, Bath Rd., Cheltenham. Gloucestershire Philosophical Society Seminar: Cracker Barrel Philosophy: innate wisdom and its critics”.
Is there an innate wisdom shared by or sharable by all: are technical, professional languages merely ‘vernacular wisdom gone to college’? Or do they give us more powerful means of enquiry? What is ‘experience’ and how do we measure or apply it?

6. Wed. December 12th. 2007. Dr. Ieuan Lloyd, formerly University of Wales, Swansea: “Relativism: A Modern Fad?”
Ieuan Lloyd will investigate the issues in the ongoing debate over the currency of relativism in philosophy, and raises pertinent questions regarding its status in the climate of postmodernism.

The dates of the AGM and annual dinner will be fixed at the first meeting.

Natural (2)

Thanks to all students who took part in the Week Zero (Freshers week / Induction week) activities last week. They worked hard - both on the trip and back at FCH.

Our trip to Westonbirt Arboretum allowed us to reflect on was is meant by 'natural' - and the groups took a range of approaches - from the narrative account of a lost little leaf - to more detailled work on a range of philosophers. I have posted more pictures to the RPE Flickr book so go there for a look if you're interested. We hope to get a cross-year social event organised soon...

Cheers,

Dave

Guilt?

This morning I was with our friends at BBC Radio Gloucestershire talking to John Rockley about guilt. We covered eco-guilt, parental guilt and charity use of guilt to get us to pay up.



Two questions spring to mind that students might be interested in:

• What makes you feel guilty?


• Is guilt a bad thing / is it pointless / should we not feel even more guilty?

I look forward to your responses... please use the 'comments' option to respond..

Cheers, Dave