What are facts? We often think of facts as statements which are obviously or always true. But how do we know? One definition might be that a fact is something that is true "at the moment" of experience only, since we can't know for sure that something in the past is a fact and we can't really know that something in the future will be a fact. If fact is taken as a momentary perception, then how can we define it in terms of a larger context-our own lives, or history? Also, if it is a perception, how can it be objective?

    One way that we can get around the problem of subjectivity is to look for facts in a realm where our perceptions do not interfere with objectivity-Reason. But would we want to assert that facts exist outside of Mathematics? Mathematical propositions make sense because it is self-referential; the predicate restates the subject. Also, Math is a system that we created.

    Interestingly, the word fact comes from the word factum in Latin, which means "to make." Can we only be sure about the things that we create ourselves? This would mean that there could be no verifiable reality outside of the self. If reality is not external to us, then what would the verb "to be" mean?

    David Hume also had a problem with empiracle verifiability. He noted that when we have a sensation we assume that there is something that caused it; but there is no logical reason to believe that. He shared with thinkers like Berkley, Locke, and Descartes the problem of logically getting to the world outside of the mind.

    The Philosophical Debate Group sponsors this annual essay contest in order to encourage students in all disciplines to dabble in philosophical thought. Essays can be either personal or academic. The only content requirement is that they focus on a philosopher, any historical figure's philosophical contributions, or some philosophical topic.  Certificates and awards will be given to the First, Second, and Third place Winners.  *Competetors must be students of AASU during the 87-98 academic year.
*Essays must be a minimum of 1,000 words (at least 4 pages) and include name and phone number.
 

    People have always sought something to irrevocably separate them from animals. Most people will agree that there is something that makes people different from the animals, but what is it?

    Plato once said that man is a featherless biped. This was disputed by Diogenes of Sinope who plucked the feathers from a chicken and hailed it as "Plato's Man". People have pointed to the abilities to think, love, reason, and become neurotic as sources of the discontinuity between humans and animals.

    Some recent studies seem to show that at least some animals do possess reasoning skills and self awareness, and the line between man and animal is forever becoming more blurred. One of the differences between man and animal pointed out last Wednesday was man's fear of death in an abstract sense; the obsession with the inevitable which, as far as we can tell, does not seem to affect members of the animal world.

    Humanity does seem, however, to somehow transcend the natural world, if only in that humans have the ability to distinguish between things that have been created "artificially" by people, and things that occur "naturally" through the works of the elements and the other creatures that share the world with humans. No other creature that we know of goes through such lengths to distance itself from it's surroundings and control it's environment on the scale that humanity does.

    Is it merely humanities excessive cleverness with tools that separates us from the rest of the natural world? While it certainly appears that humans are the only ones to engage in philosophy and art, or to reason and understand the concept of the "self", is there any real way to know whether or not a beaver considers it's dam a work of art, or whether whales contemplate the meaning of existence?

    Also inherent in the division between human and animal is the issue of where this division originated. Is the division of human and animal the result of divine intervention, or is it a product of evolution? Evolutionarily speaking, did the quantity of cleverness that early humans possessed result in a qualitative shift into true intelligence and reasoning? And if so, will we be able to one day carry on philosophical debates with poodles?

    The lecture will be held at 12:15 p.m. in Ashmore Auditorium. Afterwards, we will be sponsoring (thanks to the College Union Board) a luncheon at which we can speak with Dr. Hartle. This gathering will be held in the Faculty Dining Room in MCC.   Please call or e-mail us if you need directions. This event is free and open to the public.

    "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is the statement we often hear in reference to the subjectivity of opinion and taste. But on what basis does our "eye" detect beauty? Re there qualities within an object which we can objectively identify as beautiful? Does beauty have its own system of values/ Is it something we superimpose?

    If we say that something is beautiful only in so far as the perceiver deems it to be, then we cannot say that an object is objectively beautiful. I.E. That beauty cannot exist beyond our own minds. The beauty that others perceive in an object exists uniquely within their minds. Consequently, we have no shared experience of beauty. Or do we?

    According to The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, beauty has been historically conceived in several ways: "(1) a simple, indefinable property that cannot be defined in terms of any other properties; (2) a property or set of properties of an object that makes the object capable of producing a certain sort of pleasurable experience in any suitable perceiver; or (3) whatever produces a particular sort of pleasurable experience, even though what produces the experience may vary for individual to individual." What are the consequences of each of these assertions?

    On what basis do we call something beautiful? Do we use the term simply to mean that it is something that gives us pleasure? We apply this term to a variety of objects--art, people, literature, nature, etc.

    Kant introduced the notion of dependent beauty. We use different foundations to judge beauty in different objects. For example when i say that i have a beautiful mother i mean something fundamentally different than when i see a 57 Chevy Bel-Air hard top, black and red with a flame job on the hood and i say "that is a beautiful car." In the first i am referring to a comprehensive human value, in the second to something that simply gives me pleasure. I mean something different, too, when i say "beautiful computer," referring to a value of utility. What do these different values have in common--why do we use the same term? What does it mean?

    The Greek term, , which is roughly translated as "beauty," was more precisely connected with an object's "excellence" or moral worth and/or usefulness, rather than being predicated on some autonomous aesthetic value. In the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest reference to the English word "beauty" i could find is from 1275: "Heo is cristal of clannesse, Ant baner of bealte". In the OED, the earliest definition given is "such combined perfection of form and charm o colouring as affords keen pleasure to the sense of sight." A further definition, first cited around 1300, is something that gives pleasure to the other senses, or "which charms the intellectual or moral faculties, through inherent grace, or fitness to a desired end."