Tracking Here-and-Now Issues
The number of philosophy majors has more than tripled recently as the department focuses on contemporary critical issues.
That philosophy is acting like a magnet to Union students these days is not surprising. Indeed, the department focuses on some of the most pressing issues of our time.
This winter, for example, Raymond Martin, professor and chair of the department, offered “Technology and Human Values,” a new course that he developed under a Converging Technologies grant. “The course covers philosophical aspects of pharmacology, human-external-world systems (all kinds of technological devices, some implanted… the whole idea of a cyborg replacing the traditional idea of a biological human as the entity of interest), and computers,” he says.
The rationale for the course? “Technological innovations, such as cosmetic surgery and replacement organs, are already posing special problems we have to think about-questions about who we are and what matters. As pharmacology evolves, you'll be able to take pills that bring about specific changes, and all of a sudden, you feel and act like a different person. It will become increasingly possible to design yourself.
“How does this play into the notion of the true self? Philosophically, what does this say about how we understand ourselves? Would this be a good thing? What sorts of abuses could occur?”
Martin was surprised at how popular the course was: “I thought twelve or thirteen students would sign up. There are thirty-four! I don't know why it's drawn so many.”
The students know why. As Nathaniel Brown '06 says, “What makes this class particularly interesting is its application to the world outside the classroom. Through philosophical methods, it confronts issues that stem out of our ever-increasing technological advancements. How might Prozac affect the notion of the self? Will computers ever be conscious? These are the types of questions that Professor Martin encourages us to consider in thoughtful and inquisitive ways. Finally, the material is completely new. The field is being created as we learn it.”
Brown, an interdepartmental philosophy and history major, plans to go on for a Ph.D. in philosophy. “Philosophy is by far the most interesting subject I have ever studied,” he says. “The very etymology of the word is synonymous with what a good liberal arts education instills in the student. Philosophy may not provide readily tangible skills, such as those an engineer might acquire in four years of college. Rather, philosophy fosters in the student a love of knowledge, purely for the sake of enlightenment. It develops minds in a way that other disciplines do not; it shapes thinkers and opens their thoughts to the world around them. Philosophy has taught me to love learning.”
Classmate Aaron Edelstein '05 believes that “ethics and ideologies motivate people's actions more than lust or fear. To me, philosophy is not an ethereal academic study but rather a living and influential force in societal and personal development.”
Edelstein, also an interdisciplinary major, is combining Americana studies and philosophy with a focus on ethics. He signed up for Martin's course “in part because technology, and especially psychopharmacology, is changing society's definition of the self. As computers (including pacemakers) and Prozac become inseparable from the self, how do concepts of ethics change? Is there a computer ethic or a Prozac ethic? Can extensions of the self influence one's sense of right and wrong? These are types of questions which I'm enjoying working through in the course.”
David Liepmann '05 admits that his majoring in philosophy was a “total accident.” He started out as a computer science major with a philosophy minor, “until I finished my minor and realized I had no intention of not taking more philosophy. So I'm doubling up between computer science and philosophy.”
What drew him to the course? “The idea that physical things around us shape our understanding of what we are, and what we want and value is at the same time completely wild and totally obvious. That's the best kind of class-the stuff makes sense, but you want to find out why.
“I have a history of taking philosophy courses that reflect the current chapter in my life, and this is no exception. We were hammering out a conception of the self just as I was dealing with conflicting pulls in my life. The class helps me think through, for myself, how I see the self and the things that affect it.”
Eleanor (Nell) Alk '06 agrees: “Philosophy holds high expectations of those who study it. It presents opportunities to challenge and expand the way we think. The successful student of philosophy can neither afford to ignore a lecture nor can she sink low in her seat and avert her eyes when called on. Philosophy is interactive, and discussion within the classroom is paramount. Studying philosophy has stretched my mind and expanded my understanding of numerous issues. It's taught me how to truly get my mind around an idea. Philosophy, and the professors who have taught it to me, have truly opened my eyes to a new level of learning-and living.”
Raymond Martin, who arrived at Union in 2002, taught the first philosophy course Alk ever took. “He is an amazing professor and person, thought-provoking and personable. The subject of this course, the ever-evolving evaluation of what the future holds for humans, sounded intriguing, while having the added benefit of being a cutting-edge area of study. Turning over in our heads where our world might be in the next ten, twenty, however many years was both delightful and daunting.”
A visitor to the class one afternoon found the students, having read from Peter Kramer's Listening to Prozac, discussing what constitutes a person's true self. A lot of what-ifs were being tossed around: What if, while you were sleeping, an evil scientist attached electrodes to your brain that caused foreign desires to pop into your head? Would that have any implication for who your true self is? “No,” was the consensus. “It would be considered static or interference.”
In the real-life case of Charles Whitman, who went on a shooting spree from the University of Texas library tower in the 1970s, the autopsy revealed a brain tumor that had been interfering with the part of the brain that controls aggressive impulses. “We don't think he freely went up there to shoot people,” says Martin, “but that he was in the grip of something external, and things went amok.”
But it's hard to draw the line. “Isn't a tumor natural?” exclaimed one student. Martin replied, “I should have said 'normal, healthy functioning,' assuming, of course, that we knew enough about what that is.” Another student asked, “But what if a kid had bad parents, or an upbringing in Nazi Germany?” This led to an exchange about nature vs. nurture. One student wondered if a technological intervention like Prozac isn't a form of nurture. As Martin pointed out, “The kinds of changes that come from taking Prozac come about, in the first instance, through direct chemical manipulation of the brain, not through increased self-understanding.”
The discussion, animated and thoughtful, continued, about a recent behavioral modification experiment in some Maryland schools. Yes, learning increased in the schools, and test scores went up. But there was a shadow over the project. “When behavior gets molded, people aren't changing for reasons they now understand better,” Martin said.
Drug therapy produces the same kind of dark cloud. Ritalin has lots of positive effects, but do you lose something more valuable in prescribing it for kids? Before that, there was Mother's Little Helper-Milltown, the pill of the '50s, where something very significant was lost in the process of calming down and causing less of a disturbance. “So the cure can be worse than the disease!”
These days, almost everyone is involved in some kind of self-improvement program, pointed out Martin, even though most of these don't work very well. What if you pursued one that did work well, but there was a price to pay? What if you could choose to change one thing about yourself-would you do it? If you lost a portion of your personal memory in exchange, would it be worth it? Personal memory is integral to our identity, but to someone otherwise in bad shape, the change might be a boon. In any case, arguably, if enough personal memory were lost, after the change that person might not be the same as the one who elected to undergo it.
Martin is experienced in posing tough questions. He came to Union straight from early retirement. He had been professor and director of graduate studies in the Philosophy Department at the University of Maryland. It was “the lure of making a fresh start,” he explains. “I'm very happy with the change. Union is completely different from Maryland, which has a huge campus and a very research-oriented department.” So far, he even likes winter in Schenectady. “New snow is beautiful,” he says.
For more on what's happening in the philosophy department, visit www.union.edu/academic/majors-minors/philosphy/
New directions
Last year, Robert Balmer, dean of engineering and computer science, offered liberal arts faculty an incentive to devise courses that would fit in with Union's Converging Technologies initiative. Raymond Martin was one of three philosophy professors who took Balmer up on his offer. Felmon Davis and Linda Patrik are the other two-this year offering courses titled “The Self in Cyberspace” and “Cyberfeminism.”
Comments Martin, “In a way, it's understandable that of five new Converging Technologies liberal arts courses, three are coming out of the Philosophy Department-the technology connection is so close. A lot of contemporary philosophy tracks science pretty closely.”
As for his proposal for “Technology and Human Values,” Martin says that teaching around technology was something new to him. He devoted the summer and fall to reading extensively and planning, looking for books and trying to find things he thought would work. “This went on right up to the last minute, when I discovered Andy Clark's book, Natural-Born Cyborgs, and substituted it for one I had selected before.”
Martin is also teaching “New Directions in Philosophy,” a two-term course requirement for philosophy and interdisciplinary majors. The course is built around the department's Philosophy Speakers Series, which brings top people to campus every other week. “It's as good as any such series at any university in the country,” Martin says. “For the students, as well as for us on the faculty, being with people of that caliber is very valuable.”
Also new is the Philosophical Café, which is designed to deal with a timely topic that wouldn't ordinarily get covered in class. The café has a group discussion format, moderated by an expert, and everybody's invited-students, faculty, staff, the off-campus community. The February café session was a stimulating debate on same-sex marriage. Andi Clark, of the Theater Department at the University of Albany, spoke in favor, and David Lefkovitz, of the University of Maryland Department of Philosophy, spoke against. Their presentations were, by design, relatively brief, followed by a thoughtful, but spirited, discussion by more than forty attendees (the Philosophy Department now has more than thirty majors).
Other Philosophical Café topics have included the death penalty, free will, reality and appearance, and difficulties of being religious in a secular academic environment.
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