Syllabus supplement

Notes on Robert Nozick

William Jamison - Instructor

On reading Nozick

In an Introduction to Philosophy course students are usually introduced to a whirlwind of different philosophers each with very different views. Even when the views of various philosophers are best understood through a realization of how they differ one from another, it can be very confusing trying to imagine how the different philosophical positions might amount to something practical. It is for that reason that I have chosen Robert Nozick's little book The Examined Life as an example of how a philosophical point of view can be used to address the practical aspects of life.  

You can certainly read this text through from start to finish. Some chapters might make better sense if you had read the previous chapters in order. What I am trying to do is fit the chapters to the topics. Some chapters fit the topics I have selected better than others. The topics of Time and Art strike me as hard choices especially. I would have like to put Creating with Art but that left me with nothing exactly appropriate to go with Time. If after reading the book you feel a different sequence would be better, please let me know!

On Nozick on emotions: I suppose an awful lot of philosophy (one reason some mathematicians can’t stand it) is a fight over how to properly use words in relation to one another. One mathematician I know likes to be very precise. Wittgenstein argued that most philosophical problems could be solved just by clearing up the language. Once we clarified our language we would see that the problems were pseudo problems – fake! But we don’t use our words in clear ways especially when talking to lots of people who use language in different ways among themselves – some people will understand you one way and others another and still others won’t understand a bit. I myself have had the fun of saying something only to be clearly understood by many people to have meant just the opposite of what I was intending to mean! But imagine what it would be like to try to get everyone to use words in exactly a certain way and no other. “Precising” definitions – well, I suppose that is what school is for! But is Nozick an authority? Actually, I prefer Damasio’s use of “emotion” in “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness -- by Antonio R. Damasio. Sorry if you find his treatment of this frustrating!