Summer Program in Philosophy

Philosophers Reimagine the world

A Conceptual Toolbox for 21st Century Possibilists

Prof. Anthony Weston (Elon University)

Course Details

I am in the midst of a book manuscript addressing these questions. It’s meant for young philosophers – you! My hope for this summer course is to bring the book manuscript to you at just the stage when it is complete enough that you will have a lot of substance to work with, but not so settled that it resists much more change. We will have fun with it together – exploring, stretching, twisting, confronting, inventing and re-inventing – sometimes uncomfortably, too, but always in the fundamentally constructive imaginative space we create and sustain together. My bet is that your voices will end up in the eventual book right along with mine. I am looking to learn from and be provoked and challenged by you, just as I hope you will be looking to learn from me and be provoked and challenged by the possibilities that this course will pose to you.

I am in the midst of a book manuscript addressing the nature of philosophy and its (immense) opportunities in the present cultural and ecological crises. The book is called (tentatively) Philosophers Re-Imagine the World: A Conceptual Toolbox for 21st Century Possibilists. Indirectly it is addressed to professionals, but it is directly addressed to young philosophers – that is, you! – as well as anyone interested in the field and its prospects for making a difference today. My hope for this summer course is to bring the book manuscript to you just complete enough that you will have a lot of substance to work with, but not so settled that it resists much more change. We’ll have fun with it together, then – exploring, stretching, twisting, confronting, inventing and re-inventing – sometimes uncomfortably, too, but always in the fundamentally constructive imaginative space we create and sustain together. I am looking to learn from and be provoked and challenged by you, just as I hope you will be looking to learn from me and be provoked and challenged by the possibilities that this course will pose to you.

Organization. Let us plan to work out the detailed course outline and readings together on the first day of class. We all can introduce ourselves to each other, we can explore some possible topics and approaches and you can lay out your own various interests and backgrounds. (Some of this we can also do in advance – we’ll set up some online means for this.)

Already in the first moment, then, we will launch into a kind of experiment on ourselves: we all will take part in actually designing the course itself… and we’ll have to ask why – and how – we do that… (and also why it is so seldom done in philosophy- or school-as-usual.)

I will commit to sending you the full manuscript for Philosophers Re-Imagine the World:  by June 1st – in whatever state it is in by then. I will ask and expect you to commit to reading it by the time you show up for the course at Hamilton. This is essential because in our two weeks together you’ll only have time to re-read the chapters we will explore together, plus a few short additional readings, depending on how we decide to set up the course. The trade-off is that there are no further readings for those two weeks: this time is for rereading/reminding and interacting.

As to course outline, here is one baseline possibility – just an example – working on the assumption that we might choose to survey all of the book’s topics (which we might not), building some “give” and a few other themes into the schedule, and making time for philosophical reflection on our own process as well. (Also I would like to explore overlaps, synergies, and possible joint meetings and projects with your other two classes.) So again, take this just as a very provisional illustration.

Schedule

Monday 6/28  Opening: Toward a shared understanding and embrace of this class; key conceptual and creative tools; working out the class plan together; some initial practice.

read: Riane Eisler, “Pragmatopia: Re-visioning Human Possibilities”

Tuesday 6/29: Re-Imagining Philosophy

reread Philosophers Re-Imagine the World (PRW), chapters 1 and 2 (“Re-Imagining Philosophy” and “Meeting the Moment”) and William James “On the Teaching of Philosophy in Our Colleges”

Wednesday 6/30: Conceptual Tools

reread PRW chapters 3  and 4 (“How to Possibilize” and “Critical Thinking in a Possibilist Key”), plus short selections from Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Thursday 7/1  Radical Reframing

reread PRW chapters 5  and 6 (“Arts of Radical Reframing” and “The Hidden Possibilities of Things”) plus short additional readings TBD

Friday 7/2: Catch-up,

Catch breath, more practice, and maybe an exploration of America as itself a philosophical project (in honor of our 246th July 4th)

Read: (maybe) short selections from The Federalist Papers

Monday 7/5: Philosophizing while Earthlings

reread PRW chapter 7 (“Lost on Earth?”) plus David Abram, “A More Than Human World” (pdf)

Tuesday 7/6: Originary Eco-Philosophy

reread PRW chapter 8: “Next Earth Philosophy as Project”, and explore website for Common Ground Ecovillage (my other big project besides this book!)

Wednesday 7/7  Philosophers in Space?

reread PRW chapter 9 (“Getting Ready for Aliens”), plus short stories: Ursula LeGuin, “Paradises Lost” (abridged) and Arthur C. Clarke, “The Sentinel”

+ possible film (evening?): “Contact”

Thursday 7/9  TBD, probably a lot of catch-up, plus preparation for concluding symposium/festival. Meta-questions: the philosophy behind this book as a whole, and the pedagogical philosophy behind this class itself.

Friday 7/10  Concluding Symposium / Manifestival

We will plan this (or something else)! How, right here and now, could we manifest and carry forward the skills and attitudes we have developed in this work together? Some intensive form of practice, some edgy work out in or beyond the college, something drawing in your work for your other classes also?

 

Pedagogy: Our work together will take many different shapes, from exploring and elaborating the readings to role-play scenarios, design projects, structured debates or dialogues, and others. Sometimes you will know what is coming, often you won’t. Just be ready. One of our opening activities will be to give more shape to the way we’ll end. I will propose to end the course with a student-staged “Manifestival of Possibilities”, the anticipation of and preparation for which can energize and help structure at least our second week of classes. Along the way we will also periodically step out of the daily themes outlined above and consider and perhaps experiment farther with our modes of interaction themselves – also a philosophical subject in its own right.

The course will also offer you a window on a major writing project in process – certainly the excitement of just seeing it in progress, but also a chance to interact with it in both critical and creative ways and possibly to affect/move it as well. Even professional works of philosophy are not somehow “givens”! Here we can thematize not only the book’s contents but also its selection of topics, its voice, the range of ideas it takes seriously as well as those it does not, and its project of shifting fundamentals as opposed to “normal philosophy”.

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