Some Things to Consider...
 

     When we are considering what our lives mean, what we have accomplished up until "now," and what we would like to accomplish tomorrow, what do we look for? By what criteria do we define our accomplishments? What do our lives mean? Do we try to get what we can for ourselves, weighing our material acquisitions and equating them with success and with the fulfillment of our Selves as human beings? Or do we look at how our life has affected the lives of others?

    It seems, really, that we all do a little of both, but if we are honest with ourselves, we would see that there is a primary emphasis on one of these things. Knowing that we have a limited time--that our mortal lives are temporary--do we somehow look to Immortalize our Selves in other ways? The pharaohs built pyramids. Some people hope that things that they have written will carry on beyond them. Some try to make marks on other people's lives. Some want to have material wealth to pass on to their children. Some simply want to carry on through their children. There are many ways that we try to propagate our existence beyond our existence. Why? How many of us periodically sit down and seriously contemplate what our Lives mean and think about what we really want to accomplish before we are gone? Even if we do, how honest with ourselves can we be?

    Are there different categories of death? What do we mean when we say "emotional death"? Is it just a euphemism that we use to accentuate the irrevocability of what we are attempting to express, or is it also a way to downplay the inevitability of actual death?
 

Highlights from the last meeting. . .
 

     At our last meeting a few brave souls (ignoring the necessity to define "brave" and "souls") discussed the possible reasons for the uncharacteristically low attendance at this meeting. It seems that Death (our topic) scared most of our participants away. It is ironic that one of our many questions dealt with the hesitancy of people to face the prospect of their mortality.

    Many had given us good (and/or well thought out) reasons why they would be unable to attend. Dr. Nordenhaug (latter day Ivan Iliyich?) claimed to have guests visiting from out of town. The Dean of Darkness (A.K.A. Dr. Nordquist) suggested that perhaps the only guests he had were his own fears. More likely, it is not Death he would fear, but facing the perspectives which might surface and reveal the ghastly truth of what is really of value to humanity in terms of life.

    We speculated that Dr. Cooksey was busy having dinner with Death. There is some (questionable) evidence that Dr. Cooksey has been around since Chaucer. It is rumored that he is very good at Chess. (There is less questionable evidence suggesting that he is not human.)

    Another participant was tempted to go out with friends who she doesn't see very often. She took Oscar Wilde's advice--the best way to deal with temptation is to give in to it. Even philosophers like to have fun once in a while. (Time could run out, you know ... )

    And by the way, where was Mr. Clancy?

Death: The Highest Cost of Living

By: Micheal R. Torrance
 

     First of all I'd like to thank and pay homage to Nell Gaiman for the title of this article. Now my question to all of us in the living world (and maybe some of those in the dead) --Is death the ultimate cost for living? Are we given life at the expense of and sole purpose of death? Or is death just a part of life, a part of the cycles In my opinion, death is the price that we pay for living.

    Think of it this way- a man lives his life in the same town, in the same house from birth to death. He does not travel to exotic places, meet hundreds of people, or get rich and famous. Instead, he lives a quiet life, marries, has a child, and teaches math at the local high school. One day in his late 60's, he dies of a heart condition. He has paid the ultimate price for his life. A life that was spent honestly and morally. A life that tried to make a difference in society and affected many lives, some that even want to "be" someone in society.

    This scenario is fictitious-any similarities to anyone alive or dead is accidental. But the message is not. This man lived a good life, he did not give up on himself or society and earned the life that he had. He paid for his life with his death, but through his payment we rejoice in his life. We feel the joy because we realize that his life was well spent and that through his death we might understand a little more about life.

    It is as Mary Shelly wrote: "To truly understand life, we must first have a recourse to death." I hope that when I die that people don't sit around mourning at my funeral, but instead, part and laugh, like a good ole' New Orleans wake, and that they can celebrate my life and the good times that were contained within it. My only regret would be that I would miss out on one heck of a party.
 
 

Next Meeting
May 23rd
8:30 pm
Gamble Hall, 106

Our topic:
What is Time?

     Time is a subject that has been tackled by both science and philosophy throughout the ages, with a range of explanations and definitions rising out of the mix over the centuries. Plato referred to time as "a moving image of eternity," Aristotle as "the number of movements in respect to the before and after," Plotinus as "the life of the soul in movement as it passes from one stage of act or experience to another," and St. Augustine as "A present of things past, memory, a present of things present, sight, and a present of things future, expectation." There are interesting implications in each of these perceptions.

    All of these definitions, however, rely on a circular reference; each uses temporal phraseology to define time, forming an infinite loop. Science has married time to space, allowing for a "relative" time, and has supported this view with experimental data, but does this help us discern what time is? If we base the validity of definitions on how well they allow us to manipulate or understand our environment, what does this imply about what we consider "valid definitions" to be? Can they be valid today and invalid tomorrow? What provides continuity through time? But that question assumes that there is a continuity. Should we assume this? Continuity of what?

    The 1996 Oxford Dictionary of Current English defines time as the "Indefinite continued progress of existence, events, etc., in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole." This, again, refers to temporal phraseology, specifically "past, present, and future." So time is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the past, present, and future combined, but what is time? Why is there, or why do we perceive, a past, present, and future?

    Is time, as we view it, a natural phenomenon, or a concept that we impose on the universe through our (limited) perceptions'? For Kant, time was not a natural phenomena, but, rather, a concept that we superimpose on nature.

    Is time a continuum or is it discreet in nature, or, is there a "smallest possible unit of time", as there is a smallest possible unit of discreet matter -- the atom.

    Whitehead gave a temporal analog of Zeno's paradoxes, which showed that things cannot endure in a continuous manner. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy comments that "the seductiveness of this paradox rests upon an implicit anthropomorphic demand that the operations of nature must be understood in terms of concepts of human agency." We always seem forced to try to understand the "unknown" by or through what we do understand, our own concepts and tools of human agency.

 
Special Announcements

     *Deadline for the final issue of Volume 2 of The Philosopher's Stone is Friday, May 23rd. Bring your submissions to The Thought Box, located in the Writing Center in Gamble Hall.

     *If you would like to be included on our mailing list for the 1997-8 academic year, please drop your name, address, and phone number in The Thought Box.

     *The Bible As Literature, Eng 500-1, Will be offered this summer during D Session from 9:30 - 10:50 am, MTWTF.

     *The Results from the Philosophical Essay Contest are in!!!!
        The awards will be presented on Thursday, May 29th, at 12:30 pm in Gamble Hall, Room 106.

    First place ($50.00) was awarded to Carol Linskey for her essay, Searching for God in Goodness, or, An Ancient and Medieval Revival; Aquinas, Augustine, and Cicero as Authorities on the Question, "Must We Have God To Have Good? " (With special references to J Benthan, W James, T Huxley, and Erasmus of Rotterdam)

    Second place ($30.00) was awarded to Lorinda J. Couch for her essay, The Political Philosophy of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.
 
    Third place ($20.00) was awarded to Susan Thompson for her essay, Criseyde: A Tragic Look at Femininity.

    Congratulations to our winners, and thank you to all who participated in this competition.

    SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR JUDGES: DR. COOKSEY, DR. MURPHY, DR. NORDENHAUG, AND JENNIFIER STEWART.