part II below
This film is one of the results of the fifth conference on Santayana that was held in Berlin in July 2016
Webinar on Philosophy in Cartoons
Erica Szabo, one of Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum’s founding members, is an American illustrator, living in Berlin and Barcelona. Her current project Olibot is a series of cartoons, designed and pictured by herself, with a philosophical and existential message. The story shows a misfit robot, expelled from his native planet for being different than other robots; being different by look (other colour than the rest of the robots), by function (having wings rather than claw-like limbs), and by spirit (he wants to create, not destroy). He sets forth to find out some friendly souls in the outerspace, and actually finds some misfits like himself, for example, a robot-bat, too shy to bite. Szabo’s work is a skilful combination of an eye-catching drawing and terse writing that encompasses a pro-social message.
Reflexiones en Alcalá de Henares
Pasear por las calles de la antigua parte de Alcalá de Henares provoca reflexiones. Especialmente cuando el objetivo de la visita del extranjero es dar clases de metafísica a los estudiantes complutenses en la lengua cervantina; cuando uno se aloja en la residencia San Ildefonso, una de las más importantes obras del Renacimiento español y declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad, con el “Patio de Filósofos”; cuando muy cerca está la casa natal de Cervantes, un convento reformado por Santa Teresa de Ávila, y las salas donde estudiaba San Ignacio de Loyola. La antigüedad se mezcla con la modernidad dandonos una riqueza enorme para penetrar y disfrutar más. De manera semejante comprendo el sentido de la metafísica – el tema, al menos a primera vista, terriblemente duro, pero si se trata este tema con simpatía y tolerancia, se puede convertir en un asunto importante para la gente normal y corriente. Eso es exactamente lo que intenté a hacer con mis estudiantes españoles: es decir, a demonstrarles que cuando estamos hablando sobre, por ejemplo, los valores no vale la pena ignorar las especulaciones que normalmente hacen los filósofos que se especializan en las cuestiones metafísicas. [Read more…]
Santayana on Values
Santayana on Values. Although Santayana did not use such phrases as a ‘philosophy of values,’ ‘axiology,’ and ‘value theory,’ almost all his numerous works are full of references to the problem of values. He gives us, in his works, an answer to the question as to what is valuable, how values and the valuable emerge, and what constitutes the processes of evaluation. We can talk, then, about a need to reconstruct his philosophy of values or his theory of values, although he saw the practice of becoming a worthy person doing valuable activities much more important for a philosopher than producing a theory in an academic style; as Arthur Danto commented on the example of the value of ‘beauty’, Santayana “doubtless would have said that it is better to create beauty than to analyze it” (Danto xvi). [Read more…]
Why values are important in everyday life?
Free Webinar: Why values are important in everyday life?
Every day, many people from all walks of life think and talk about values. Any time we use such words as ‘worthy/unworthy,’ ‘value/valuable,’ ‘good/better/worse,’ ‘nice/beautiful/ugly,’ and many others we willy-nilly refer to some forms of evaluation and values. Some of these evaluations are short-term, as when we refer to some goods to be achieved soon; some of these evaluations are medium-term, as when we think of our education, partnership, etc.; they refer to long-term, as when we ask questions about the worth of our lives: does my life have any sense/worth? What is or should be its direction? [Read more…]
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