Blog 13

Bacon:

1. Define the word idols in the sense that Bacon seems to use it. Is the word idol a good term to use for the idea that lies behind it?

Bacon defines each idol as being an aspect of life, and how everyone has their own of these four idols in life. Because everyone thinks and believes different this could cause problems in society. Idol is used as a positive term, usually trying to be like something of good. 

2. Compare the importance of one idol with that of another. Is it possible to determine which is more likely to prevent the acquisition of true knowledge?

Each idol in Bacon rhetoric represents an error, the Idol of the tribe is errors we humans make together, idol of the cave is our own errors, and idol of the marketplace is errors of others, and idols of theatre are learned from people who are wrong.  The least serve is the idol of the tribe because everyone makes a mistake together, while the most serve is the idol of the cave because it's an error you made and everyone makes mistakes but it's something only you have to deal with. 

3. Which of the idols are the results of social intercourse, and which are the results of individual reflection? Would a person be more likely to be free of the tyranny of the idols if he/she were restricted in society? Is it possible that a hermit would be completely free of the idols? Or would he become more free the more he socialized?

Idols of social intercourse is the ideal of the marketplace. Idols of the tribe is the result of individual reflection. If someone was restricted in society they would more likely to be confined in the idols. No he wouldn't completely be free from the idols and would be more into the idol of the cave into his own error. The more someone socializes the more knowledge they gain. 

Darwin:

1. Define the phrase the survival of the fittest (the title of this chapter in a later edition of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection). Look for ways in which its implications can be fully understood. Look, also, for examples by which it can be illustrated.

The survival of the fittest is the strongest have a better chance of living. An example is a bird laid eggs only a couple survived due to lack of food for all. 

2. Compare the breeding of animals with natural selection. Which is more directed? Which is more dominated by chance? Which is more efficient? Which is more important?

Breeding of animals is taking the breeds you want and breeding them together. The outcome is somewhat in terms of the traits you wanted. You're taking pre-existing traits and trying to make the best one. Natural selection is the random selection of traits, and it could come out just as good or better as breeding something. I think are very important, but natural selection is more important in my opinion.

3. How does cloning affect Darwin’s views? Is cloning likely to undo the beneficial work of natural selection?

Cloning would be cool as if you had something that was very strong in its particular environment you wouldn't need natural selection to try and make the strongest of the fittest when everyone could be the strongest. Yes cloning would undo the beneficial work of natural selection, and what happens when those clones don't fit the changing environment. 

4. How does human social policy affect the survival of the fittest? Are modern medicine and modern social welfare agencies causing humans to be less fit? 

I don't think medicine is causing humans to be less fit, more so helping humans become stronger.

Blog 12

Discoveries and the MIND

The way the mind works in the face of problems, both within and outside the individual, is the subject of the six selections in Part Eight. The means by which we think clearly about issues in our world depend on how carefully we prepare ourselves to examine the evidence before us and on which questions we choose to ask. Psychologists ask questions that lead us inward to an understanding of our own nature and our personality. Investigators of the natural world lead us outward to help us know the truth and avoid superstition and the kind of error that leads to ignorance and its destructive social consequences. As Plato and Bacon show, we are sometimes easily misled.

PLATO QUESTIONS:

1. Consider the issue of what it is we know when we rely on our senses. Is sensory knowledge as unreliable as Plato thinks it is?
I believe sensory knowledge is very reliable. Our five sense is how we live our everyday life, and is essential. 

2. Are we materialistic when we praise sense perception? What are the alternatives to any such materialism arising from overvaluing (or solely valuing) sense experience?
I don't think we praise sense perception as a materialistic thing, but we alternatives to sensory details. When using common sense, logical facts, and critical thinking. 

3. If we could perceive the world beneath sense experience, what would it be like?
It would be a world without sense, so the earth would be plain. 

4. I often ask my students to choose a sense that they do not already have and add it as a sixth sense that cannot be a merger of any of the five. It has to be new—not smelling, seeing, or hearing from a great distance. If nothing else, this exercise helps them begin to realize how hemmed in we are by our senses — particularly when I point out the ultimate similarity of touch, taste, and odor, three the five senses that constitute virtually one sense with three “flavors.”
I would choose the sense of reading people's minds as my sixth sense if that counts. 

FREUD QUESTIONS:

1. Do you feel your dreams have a significance that would be useful to understand?
I do think my dreams have significance that would be useful to understand. With my dream, you have to understand to keep fighting, even when things get hard. 

2. What dreams most mystify you?
The ones that test your persistence on your weakest assets. 

3. Which dreams are frightening? Describe a recent frightening dream.
The dreams that are the most frightening are the ones you are fearful of. My most frightening fear is losing my boyfriend, my mom, siblings, the people i care most about. 

4. Why do you think most people forget their dreams?
I think most people forget their dreams because it has not happened yet, and in a way it is a made-up situation we make up. 

5. Is dreaming a mental activity?
I do believe dreaming is a mental activity, as you only dream when your sleep or daydreaming which requires you to use your mind more than anything. 

Blog 11

Virginia Woolf

1. It is useful to point out that this essay was originally delivered to women students at two Oxford colleges. Ask your students to identify what evidence there is to suggest Woolf was aware of the nature of her audience.

Yes, Virginia Woolf was aware of the nature of her audience. She talked about how women were treated less than, and even in fiction, it was almost as they didn't exist. In Shakespeare's sister, she goes on to say how "her" can do so many things, but all people knew was it was "he" that did it and she was the property of the man. 

2. What do the chapter headings from Trevelyan’s History of England (para. 6) reveal about historians’ concerns?

It reveals the life of a woman and how they were treated by men on a daily basis.

3. What would Woolf propose as the most important changes in society that would alter the situation most talented women find themselves in? Why does talent make a woman’s situation especially difficult?

I think she would propose that women become their own independent people. This would allow them to have the freedom and not be the property of the men or family in their life. Having talent as a woman made everything difficult because in a way women had no role in life, in a way the talent became the property of the man if it was known. 

M. Mead:

1. What are the temperamental traits of women? Of men?

In different tribes, the temperamental traits vary, in the Mundugumor tribe both men and women are both know to be aggressive, ruthless, and sex-driven. The Arapesh men and women both are very similar as they are mild and responsive people. In the last tribe, the women are very dominant and independent emotionally, while the men were the complete opposite.

2. What price does society pay for restricting the opportunities of one sex or the other?

People would turn out to be like the sex that isn't restricted.

3. Given that our culture has standardized temperamental expectations for each sex, what price does the opposite sex pay for that standardization?


Women are supposed to be emotional and stay at home people, as the men work and are very put together on a daily basis. But when the roles are reversed, women are way doing too much, and men are teased for being so emotional. 

4. Why should our modern industrialized society be concerned about the ways of “primitive” cultures?

The way a person acts can be altered the way they're raised. This creates many culters and traits for everyone. If a specific culture wants you to do something, every one of that culture would because that's what they were raised to do. 

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Blog #10

Wollstonecraft

Woodson

Kozol

1. Define the phrase "pernicious effects" on the basis of what is stated in the essay.

In the essay, the pernicious effect is the meaning of life being altered due to the power of a man. You can't have a family without a man, and divorce isn't an option. In a way, men have all the power over women, and women have to be dependent on a man. 

2. Is it possible to compare women with property on the basis of this essay?
Yes, as women are like property in this time, men had all the control and used the women for everything. Men of the time though the right women was someone who would do whatever they wanted and give everything they needed. Just like a property you own it, and the men owned the women of this time. 

3. Clarify in what way the “unnatural distinctions” affecting women in society cause them to behaveas Wollstonecraft says they do. Do you feel it is a genuine cause-

and-effect relationship?
Yes, I do feel it was a genuine cause-and-effect relationship. As someone continues to belittle and beat you down, eventually you get tired of that treatment you rebel or find a way out. 

4. Describe Diversity in Schools according to Kozol and what your definition would be.
My definition of diversity in schools is a close to equal representation of backgrounds within a school and correct funding. Kozol believes diverse schools are created by wealth and race, which I agree with.

5. What does Woodson mean by mis-education?
The education for American Americans isn't what they need, or school be getting. They aren't receiving the proper education needed to prosesper. 

Blog #9

1. What is the basis of scientific pedagogy for Montessori? The use of the scientific method when a teacher is teaching. Students can have freedom physically, mentally, and environmentally. She agrees students having freedom in the classroom makes learning more enjoyable. Rather than lecture, students tend to learn more when they're interactive with the lesson.

 2. How does school furniture affect the education of the child? Furniture in the classroom is essential, as it is what makes students feel comfortable or at home. With every educational resource, it allows a more welcoming environment.

 3. What effect does freedom have on the education of the child? Students who have freedom in their education allows them to have more control over their education. With more freedom, students become less bored in their education. 

4.What does Dewey seem to mean by the expression "thinking in education"? Dewey thinks thinking is essential to education. Now thinking is referred too as critical thinking, but he believed thinking wasn't done without experiences.

 5. What conditions must exist for the student to use thinking in education? Students must be presented with interesting information to keep them engaged. The things they think are used to solve challenging problems and gain skills.

 6. What seems to be the best process of education, according to Dewey? Dewey thinks social interactive is apart of learning. With the combination of experience and learning interesting things, learning becomes like first nature. Critical thinking is used to find solutions to problems. After using what you've learned to solve a problem Dewey things you should test the solution to fully understand the outcome and what has been done.

Blog #8

1. How would you defend Smith’s views as expressed in this essay? In what sense is he right in establishing

the “natural progress of opulence” as you observe it yourself? He describes the world

as he knows it in his own time and then imagines how it might have become that way. How well does he satisfy your curiosity about the way in which nations grow rich?

Adams Smith thought natural progress of opulence is that agriculture should be first, then manufacturing, and lastly foreign commerce. He only talks about how the country development should come before the town development which would help both. 

2. Smith places a great deal of faith in the value of land for maintaining wealth. Since most people

today, including wealthy people, do not necessarily see their wealth in terms of land, what in our

time might substitute for land? What would a wealthy person interpret as a secure or conservative

capital investment?

We say a wealthy person now would invest in stocks now instead of land. They would only invest in secure stocks though that they know would not have a very high chance of losing money and a good chance of gaining money. 

3. Argue in favor of or in opposition to Smith’s statement in paragraph 8: “According to the natural

course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed

to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce.” Because in

the early 2000s the United States is in the midst of a “new economy,” this statement will need

to be examined closely and augmented. How would you continue the “evolution” that Smith

observed?

As a group we don't agree with Adam Smith's statement about how agriculture comes first, then manufacturing, and lastly foreign commerce. We think agriculture is last now. 

Blog #7

Galbraith:

1. One of Galbraith’s most basic premises is that America is now an affluent society. Examine in detail the society that you know for the purposes of validating or contradicting that assertion. Is America an affluent society? What are the signs of affluence? What qualifies as affluence? What are the results of affluence?

Galbraith's most basic premise is that America is now an affluent society, and I agree with him in some ways. For some America is a place of an affluent society, while for others it isn't. Some resources are harder to obtain for people especially lower-class citizens. Compared to other countries I would say America is an affluent society. The qualities or sign of affluence is someone or something with money, property, or materialistic goods. (Someone rich and wealthy) The result of affluence is some people having more power over others. This leads to different social classes in our country and division.

Reich:

2. To what extent is it the government’s responsibility to provide jobs to people who would otherwise not be able to get them? For example, should the government provide jobs for routine workers if their opportunities dry up? What arguments favor or oppose such a proposal?

Reich believed the extent of the governments' responsibility is to provide jobs to people in job areas of the government. I think the government should provide jobs for routine workers if their opportunities dry up. Routine workers who have been laid off due to money cuts in a workplace should be guaranteed a job. It keeps everyone in a job unless they don't want one.