Monday 27 July 2015

Does Philosophy Have A Problem With Women?

 Does philosophy have a problem with women?
( Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.
All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
Hypatia)
Only 25% of philosophy posts in UK universities are occupied by women. So what, if anything, should be done to redress the balance?
Mary Warnock, philosopher and writer
This question has been debated by women and men in philosophy for years, and last week became the cover story in the Times Literary Supplement. Of all the humanities departments in British universities, only philosophy departments have a mere 25% women members. Why should this be? How can the balance be redressed? On the whole I am very much against intervention, by quotas or otherwise, to increase women’s chances of employment, whatever the field, and there is nothing intrinsically harmful about this imbalance. I certainly don’t believe it shows a conscious bias against women. Nor that it can be explained by the supposition that, philosophy being concerned above all with arguments, women are naturally less adept in the field.

There may be some women who think emotionally rather than rationally; but, heaven knows, there are some men who do as well. Nor do I think that women dislike the idea of philosophy because of its supposedly adversarial style, its devotion to winning an argument rather than seeking truth or consensus. For I don’t think this style, when adopted in academic dispute, is peculiar to philosophy. No, I think that academic philosophy has become an extraordinarily inward-looking subject, devoted not to exposing and examining the implications of the way we think about the world, but to exposing instead deficiencies in the arguments of other philosophers. If you pick up a professional journal now, you find little but nitpicking responses to previous articles. Women tend to get more easily bored with this than men. Philosophy seems to stop being interesting just when it starts to be professional.

Julian Baggini, philosopher and writer
I agree there is little or no conscious discrimination against women in philosophy. But that is not to say there isn’t a great deal of unconscious bias. The puzzle is why this should be stronger in philosophy than in other disciplines. The answer, I think, is to be found in philosophy’s self-image. Philosophers have tended to have an inflated sense of their ability to “follow the argument wherever it leads”, as Plato’s old saw has it. What matters is the argument, not the arguer, which means there is no need even to think about gender or ethnicity. Philosophers have thus felt immune to the distorting effects of gender bias. Logic is gender-neutral, philosophy is logical, ergo philosophy is gender-neutral. I suspect this has led to complacency, a blindness towards all the ways in which, in fact, gender bias does creep in. It is a well-established finding in psychology that believing you are an objective judge actually makes your judgments less objective, and I’m sure philosophy suffers from this. I admit that this explanation for at least part of the under-representation of women in philosophy is somewhat speculative, but I would be interested to hear what you make of it.

MW I don’t accept that all our thinking is gender-permeated and that we therefore fail to notice our bias. I believe that one of the great merits of academic philosophy is that its central topics are as gender-neutral as those of physics, mathematics or linguistics. But I agree that women may have different hopes of the outcome of examining these topics, and that they are on the whole less likely than men to “follow the argument wherever it leads”, and change direction if it leads to absurdity or paradox. This is another way of saying that women are more restricted than men by the dictates of common sense. And this goes along with, or is part of a desire that philosophy should be intelligible to non-philosophers, if they are willing to give their minds to it. Of course, this desire is not peculiar to women (as your writings prove). The dislike of abandoning common sense may seem like over-simplification, though it may better be described as distaste for scholasticism. It certainly means that, in job interviews, women may seem pedestrian rather than brilliant, and this may damage their chances of success.

JB It may well be that women tend to have different intellectual priorities from men. But since we do not know how much these are cultural or biological, we should not assume that any such differences are fixed. More importantly, this would be all the more reason to endeavour to get more women into senior positions in philosophy, since there is no reason to suppose the traditional priorities are superior. It is important to distinguish the idea that all philosophical ideas are “gender-permeated”, which we both reject, from the idea that gender biases affect the ways of thinking and acting of all philosophers. For instance, Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby have argued persuasively that cultural norms and stereotypes can detrimentally affect the ability of women to be heard and taken seriously. I’m fairly sure this handicaps women in philosophy just as it does in pretty much every other domain. You are against quotas and other forms of intervention. Does that mean you think nothing can or should be done?


MW I find I agree with something you said earlier, that men are complacent, in believing that their intellectual priorities are the best. And this makes it more difficult for women to make their voices heard. But I am still against positive intervention because this always carries the risk that the woman appointed under, say, a quota system will be seen as not necessarily the best candidate, and so be further undermined. I think, rather, that, in philosophy if not in other disciplines, things are gradually changing. Partly because of the work of some women, such as Onora O’Neill, and some men, such as yourself, the application of philosophical methods to other subjects is becoming more widely recognised. For example, the connection between moral philosophy and medicine is now widely recognised; and perhaps more significantly, the interface between philosophy and psychiatry is being increasingly explored. This broadening of the scope of philosophy will inevitably, if gradually, attract more women to the subject.

JB Quotas are indeed problematic but there are other possible affirmative action interventions, such as requiring departments, conferences and journals to monitor closely the number of women applying or submitting papers compared to those accepted. Simply forcing people to attend to any apparent imbalances is a forceful way of raising awareness.

Another priority is to make philosophers understand better the psychological effects which interfere with their supposedly clear, rational thinking. They should all know, for example, about Sally Haslanger and Jennifer Saul’s work on how psychological phenomena such as implicit bias and stereotype threat might be at work in their subject. But the most important and effective change is simply for philosophers to face up to the depth of the problem in their profession. Too many complacently assume that any sexism in the subject is now minor and residual. Seven years ago, Haslanger, wrote: “In my experience it is very hard to find a place in philosophy that isn’t actively hostile towards women and minorities, or at least assumes that a successful philosopher should look and act like a (traditional, white) man.” Haslanger persevered, but if other talented women are either giving up or being overlooked, that is as much philosophy’s loss as it the sisterhood’s.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/25/philosphy-women-warnock-baggini-debate?CMP=fb_gu
* * *
Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.
Hypatia
P. S .. Hypatia was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Egypt, then a part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy.
According to contemporary sources, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria.
There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more'
—Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History

 * All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
 * In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.
    Hypatia
Photo; "Death of the philosopher Hypatia, in Alexandria", 1866, by Louis Figuier.
 ****************************************************************************
Socrates Scholasticus (born after 380 AD, died after 439 AD) The death of philosopher Hypatia.
"Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them, therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home and, dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. "

John of NikiĆ» (7th century) The death of Hypatia
'And, in those days, there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes, and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through Satanic wiles . . . A multitude of believers in God arose under the guidance of Peter the Magistrate . . . and they proceeded to seek for the pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the Prefect through her enchantments. And when they learnt the place where she was, they proceeded to her and found her . . . they dragged her along till they brought her to the great church, named Caesareum. Now this was in the days of the fast. And they tore off her clothing and dragged her . . . through the streets of the city till she died. And they carried her to a place named Cinaron, and they burned her body with fire . '

P.s How many women was killed physically? And how many women was killed 100 times in only one life?   That's the big question...:((  Think about and Imagine? Imagination isn't a crime, anyway, officially.. .
So, does philosophers have a problem with women? Does philosophers/men are afraid of women?  
Are you afraid of women? And if so, why? :)))  
 K. Shiuka
( I never meet a free man, that's makes me sad, sometimes. K. Shiuka) 


 I think therefore I am a witch. 
Khatia Shiuka



Saturday 25 July 2015

William Penn; To be like Christ is to be a Christian

 William Penn (1644 –   1718) was an English  philosopher and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom. As a pacifist Quaker, Penn considered the problems of war and peace deeply. He developed a forward-looking project for a United States of Europe through the creation of a European Assembly made of deputies that could discuss and adjudicate controversies peacefully. He is therefore considered the very first thinker to suggest the creation of a European Parliamen.
A man of profound religious convictions, Penn wrote numerous works on Christianity.  He was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London due to his faith, and his book No Cross, No Crown (1669), which he wrote while in prison.
 * Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
 To be like Christ is to be a Christian.
* Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
 * Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.
 * Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.
* Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.
 * Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty us slavery.
* Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love.  
* Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature... no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.
William Penn

Wednesday 22 July 2015

World Debate; Why Poverty?

  Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Mandela


Humanism


*  Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.
 *  When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.
 * Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet - the only one in the whole Milky Way - with a century of transportation whoopee.
   Kurt Vonnegut


Saturday 18 July 2015

Marilyn Monroe; Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.


*  I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
*  A man makes you feel important - makes you glad you are a woman.
*  It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone - so far.
*   Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
*  Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.
 * What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers.

Friday 17 July 2015

:((

 Orphan Child
This photo was taken by an Iraqi artist who caught a little orphan girl drawing an image of a mother on the ground. The little girl eventually fell asleep with the thought of her mom just right beside her. It’s extremely touching and heart-breaking to see any child of tender years long for the love and care of a mother.

Thursday 16 July 2015

When Woman Is Boss, An Interview With Nikola Tesla (1926)

 Albert Einstein was once asked, “How does it feel to be the smartest man alive?”, he responded, “I don't know, you'll have to ask Nikola Tesla.”
Nikola Tesla (1856 –  1943) was a Serbian American  inventor,   physicist, and futurist.
 ( Photo;  Nikola Tesla doing research)
         An interview with Nikola Tesla,
               by John B. Kennedy
         When Woman Is Boss
            (Colliers, January 30, 1926)

The life of the bee will be the life of our race, says Nikola Tesla, world-famed scientist.

A NEW sex order is coming--with the female as superior.  You will communicate instantly by simple vest-pocket equipment.  Aircraft will travel the skies, unmanned, driven and guided by radio.  Enormous power will be transmitted great distances without wires.  Earthquakes will become more and more frequent.  Temperate zones will turn frigid or torrid.  And some of these awe-inspiring developments, says Tesla, are not so very far off.

At 68 years of age Nikola Tesla sits quietly in his study, reviewing the world that he has helped to change, foreseeing other changes that must come in the onward stride of the human race.  He is a tall, thin, ascetic man who wears somber clothes and looks out at life with steady, deep-set eyes.  In the midst of luxury he lives meagerly, selecting his diet with a precision almost extreme.  He abstains from all beverages save water and milk and has never indulged in tobacco since early manhood.

He is an engineer, an inventor and, above these as well as basic to them, a philosopher.  And, despite his obsession with the practical application of what a gifted mind may learn in books, he has never removed his gaze from the drama of life.

This world, amazed many times during the last throbbing century, will rub its eyes and stand breathless before greater wonders than even the past few generations have seen; and fifty years from now the world will differ more from the present-day than our world now differs from the world of fifty years ago.

Nikola Tesla came to America in early manhood, and his inventive genius found quick recognition.  When fortune was his through his revolutionary power-transmission machines he established plants, first in New York, then Colorado, later on Long Island, where his innumerable experiments resulted in all manner of important and minor advances in electrical science.  Lord Kelvin said of him (before he was forty) that he had contributed more than any other man to the study of electricity.

"From the inception of the wireless system," he says, "I saw that this new art of applied electricity would be of greater benefit to the human race than any other scientific discovery, for it virtually eliminates distance.  The majority of the ills from which humanity suffers are due to the immense extent of the terrestrial globe and the inability of individuals and nations to come into close contact.

"Wireless will achieve the closer contact through transmission of intelligence, transport of our bodies and materials and conveyance of energy.

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole.  We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.  Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone.  A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

"We shall be able to witness and hear events--the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle--just as though we were present.

"When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized.  Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance.  Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence.  Pictures are transmitted over wires--they were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago.  When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train.

Woman--Free and Regal


ALL railroads will be electrified, and if there are enough museums to hold them the steam locomotives will be grotesque antiques for our immediate posterity.

"Perhaps the most valuable application of wireless energy will be the propulsion of flying machines, which will carry no fuel and will be free from any limitations of the present airplanes and dirigibles.  We shall ride from New York to Europe in a few hours.  International boundaries will be largely obliterated and a great step will be made toward the unification and harmonious existence of the various races inhabiting the globe.  Wireless will not only make possible the supply of energy to region, however inaccessible, but it will be effective politically by harmonizing international interests; it will create understanding instead of differences.

"Modern systems of power transmission will become antiquated.  Compact relay stations one half or one quarter the size of our modern power plants will be the basis of operation--in the air and under the sea, for water will effect small loss in conveying energy by wireless."

Mr. Tesla foresees great changes in our daily life.  "Present wireless receiving apparatus," says he, "will be scrapped for much simpler machines; static and all forms of interference will be eliminated, so that innumerable transmitters and receivers may be operated without interference.  It is more than probable that the household's daily newspaper will be printed 'wirelessly' in the home during the night.  Domestic management--the problems of heat, light and household mechanics--will be freed from all labor through beneficent wireless power.

"I foresee the development of the flying machine exceeding that of the automobile, and I expect Mr.  Ford to make large contributions toward this progress.  The problem of parking automobiles and furnishing separate roads for commercial and pleasure traffic will be solved.  Belted parking towers will arise in our large cities, and the roads will be multiplied through sheer necessity, or finally rendered unnecessary when civilization exchanges wheels for wings.

The world's internal reservoirs of heat, indicated by frequent volcanic eruptions, will be tapped for industrial purposes.  In an article I wrote twenty years ago I defined a process for continuously converting to human use part of the heat received from the sun by the atmosphere.  Experts have jumped to the conclusion that I am attempting to realize a perpetual-motion scheme.  But my process has been carefully worked out.  It is rational."

Mr.  Tesla regards the emergence of woman as one of the most profound portents for the future.

"It is clear to any trained observer," he says, "and even to the sociologically untrained, that a new attitude toward sex discrimination has come over the world through the centuries, receiving an abrupt stimulus just before and after the World War.

"This struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end in a new sex order, with the female as superior.  The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomena the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fermenting in the bosom of the race.

"It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.

"Through countless generations, from the very beginning, the social subservience of women resulted naturally in the partial atrophy or at least the hereditary suspension of mental qualities which we now know the female sex to be endowed with no less than men.

The Queen is the Center of Life

"BUT the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose.  Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.

"The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their gradual usurpation of leadership, will dull and finally dissipate feminine sensibilities, will choke the maternal instinct, so that marriage and motherhood may become abhorrent and human civilization draw closer and closer to the perfect civilization of the bee."

The significance of this lies in the principle dominating the economy of the bee--the most highly organized and intelligently coordinated system of any form of nonrational animal life--the all-governing supremacy of the instinct for immortality which makes divinity out of motherhood.

The center of all bee life is the queen.  She dominates the hive, not through hereditary right, for any egg may be hatched into a reigning queen, but because she is the womb of this insect race.

We Can Only Sit and Wonder

THERE are the vast, desexualized armies of workers whose sole aim and happiness in life is hard work.  It is the perfection of communism, of socialized, cooperative life wherein all things, including the young, are the property and concern of all.

Then there are the virgin bees, the princess bees, the females which are selected from the eggs of the queen when they are hatched and preserved in case an unfruitful queen should bring disappointment to the hive.  And there are the male bees, few in number, unclean of habit, tolerated only because they are necessary to mate with the queen.

When the time is ripe for the queen to take her nuptial flight the male bees are drilled and regimented.  The queen passes the drones which guard the gate of the hive, and the male bees follow her in rustling array.  Strongest of all the inhabitants of the hive, more powerful than any of her subjects, the queen launches into the air, spiraling upward and upward, the male bees following.  Some of the pursuers weaken and fail, drop out of the nuptial chase, but the queen wings higher and higher until a point is reached in the far ether where but one of the male bees remains.  By the inflexible law of natural selection he is the strongest, and he mates with the queen.  At the moment of marriage his body splits asunder and he perishes.

The queen returns to the hive, impregnated, carrying with her tens of thousands of eggs--a future city of bees, and then begins the cycle of reproduction, the concentration of the teeming life of the hive in unceasing work for the birth of a new generation.

Imagination falters at the prospect of human analogy to this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee; but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation dominates life in its normal and exaggerated and perverse manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that this instinct, with the continuing intellectual advance of women, may be finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples that bar the way to such a simiply and scientifically ordered civilization.

We have seen a beginning of this in the United States.  In Wisconsin the sterilization of confirmed criminals and pre-marriage examination of males is required by law, while the doctrine of eugenics is now boldly preached where a few decades ago its advocacy was a statutory offense.

Old men have dreamed dreams and young men have seen visions from the beginning of time.  We of today can only sit and wonder when a scientist has his say.

                          Something about the flying machines :))) 

Monday 13 July 2015

Russian Occupants Get Out!

Russian Army Get Out From Georgia!








Poetry book "Back In The USSR & Black Poems", by K.S
P. s  The book cover is about symbolic protest; Anti - occupation and anti - conformism. 

Thursday 9 July 2015

Democracy In America

Democracy In America
      Alexis De Tocqueville 
* In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
 * There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
 *  Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
* Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
Democracy In America by Alexis De Tocqueville 

Friedrich Hayek; Free Society = Equal Treat

There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, 'a new form of servitude'.
 ***********************
* A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

*A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he's entitled to follow, can have no respect for the dignity of the individual, and cannot really know freedom.
Friedrich Hayek
(Photo; F. A. Hayek at the London School of Economics)





Sunday 5 July 2015

The Greek Referendum 2015

The Greek Referendum 2015
I am worry about the Greek referendum!;( Stay in the EU, Greece! Don't vote 'No to Europe', No vote means you are out of Eurozone, more No vote means 'No to Europe' and yes to Russia. You know that your "No to Europe' will make Dr. Strangelove Vladimir Putin very happy. He loves very much a weak Europe. My Greek friends, please, don't made big mistake.
I wish you the best of luck ♡ ♡♡ ♡

     Khatia Shiuka

               "Greece: My Birthplace, Europe: My Homeland"
Demonstrators gather during a rally organized by supporters of the YES vote for the upcoming referendum in front of the Athens Parliament.
 So, sad situation. heartbroken!  
 Who ate the pensioner people's money?:(((
 


Saturday 4 July 2015

Dante Gabriel Rossetti; English Artist & Poet

 Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet  and painter.
Giotto Painting the Portrait of Dante, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
'Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.' DGR
The Beloved, by  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

                     Giotto Painting the Portrait of Dante, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti


Friday 3 July 2015

Abstract Art, by Khatia Shiuka

                              Abstract Art, by Khatia Shiuka

The Beautiful music and abstract video art.  The video don't touch my soul, match my soul and spiritual movement, I love abstract lines' explosion. And  the music Gustav Mahler's Adagietto, symphony N°5  is so beautiful, too.


Thursday 2 July 2015

Director of the Liberty Shami Chakrabarti

 Shami Chakrabarti; The Guardian's columnist and director of human rights group Liberty.

Shami Chakrabarti and I, we are in University there was discuss about the Human Rights Act, 1998, human rights and freedoms and responsibilities and about her book " On Liberty".
I'll upload videos, later...