Tomorrow (Wednesday, December 2nd) will be SHAFT’s last event of the semester. SHAFT member and philosophy major Aaron Orlovitz will be giving a presentation on whether one can have meaning or purpose in life without God. Aaron is a brilliant guy and has invested a lot of time into this presentation, so you won’t want to miss it!
The event is Wednesday @ 5:00 PM in Old Main 117. Again, it’s our last event, so let’s make it count.
I’ve been forwarded a request (or at least an idea) that was sent to info@usu-shaft.com. It’s from Steve Nelson in the Language Department at the College of Eastern Utah. In case you haven’t seen it, Jon, I’ll post it here:
“What do you think the possibilities are of broadcasting this or future meetings down to CEU (soon to be USU-CEU)? Are you inclined to do so? I would be happy to facilitate an EdNet session and advertise here on campus if something like this could come to fruition. Just a thought.”
I really like this, although since the meeting is tomorrow, I’m not sure what we’d have to do or how practical it is to arrange this in just over 24 hours. I’ve sent him a reply, so we’ll see.
If you do see this, Steve, go ahead and post here and let us know what we need to do.
I’m all for it, James. I don’t know if Aaron would be comfortable with it, though–I bet he wouldn’t mind.
I appreciate your willingness to include CEU. I think our students would really benefit from association with your group. It is probably too soon to arrange something for tomorrow, but if there is a presentation next semester that would be appropriate to include us in, I would be happy to get the word out on our campus and facilitate the meeting. Thanks.
I am excited to attend the event… after all, this is the same Aaron Orlovitz who shouted at me over the healthcare bill!
im becoming infamous!
Great presentation, Aaron.
I can’t help but think that Sartre is holding you back. I just don’t know that you can make his existentialism compatible with as substantial an ethic as you want.
A suggestion: read Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Pay particular attention to his concept of “species-being”. It is not exactly a metaphysics since Marx is not interested in doing metaphysics. But what it gives you is a view on human nature that might suffice for grounding the “solidarity ethics” you discussed in your presentation. The view is fairly thin, so you are not committed yourself to some big metaphysical system. And Marx of course thinks that this nature can be worked out without appealing to a divine craftsman.
The downside: it would, I think, require you to forfeit the existence precedes essence claim, or at least it would likely require you to ditch the most robust Sartrean understanding of that claim. But I don’t think that cost is too high. Sartre thinks you can only get responsibility if you are radically free (no determining nature), but I don’t think this claim is warranted. Marx gets pretty hefty social responsibility out of his species-being.
Just a thought.
Great presentation, Aaron!
Please upload the presentation!
Jon’s working on it. It should be up sometime soon.