Category: Philosophy

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Can a religious studies class be a philosophy class?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my ideal list of classes for high school freshmen (see “If I could select the courses high school freshmen take”). More precisely, I wrote about the classes that I wish students at the school where I teach had to take. One key idea is that we would offer a class that helps students think deeply about what it means to live a good life, what human flourishing looks like, and how we should treat ourselves and others. I don’t have interest in teaching something preachy. The goal is to help our students learn to think about these types of things, important as they are. But it must be done in a way that encourages them to take ownership of the questions and what they might mean for their futures.

Now, I won’t say that my idea has the green light just yet. But we are having important discussions. Something like what I pondered could become a reality as early as next year, at least with a soft launch. I’m busy outlining this potential class while reading everything that I can to help me prepare the lessons I would teach if we decide to move forward with my proposal.

The class as I’m outing it is basically a philosophy class. The tentative title is “Philosophy of Human Flourishing” which takes its inspiration from “The Human Flourishing Program” at Harvard University. Today, I mentioned the possibility of this class to some of my students. You see, I have two rituals to start each class: (1) a “Song of the Day” that ties into the lesson and (2) a “Question of the Day” that sometimes is connected but at other times can be contextual (e.g. “favorite Halloween candy?” near Halloween) or frivolous (e.g. “what’s your favorite fruit?”). Today, for my “Religion in Global Context” students, I asked, “What’s one ‘big question’ that you would like to have answered some day?” They shared some excellent questions (e.g. “Is there a God?”; “What’s true success?”). This is why I told them about the possible class we may offer. Some students seemed quite excited. A couple of seniors in the class expressed disappointment that they’ll graduate before it’s offered (not that they’ll be graduated but that we didn’t offer it earlier).

Then one student asked a good question, one I’ve been asking myself: “And this is a religion credit?” He didn’t say it in a negative way. He sounded excited that such a class would count toward his religious studies requirement if he chose to take it next year. But it’s a question that I need to answer, whether it’s asked positively or negatively. Can a philosophy course be a religious studies course?

Let me provide a couple of reasons why my answer is “yes”.

(1) Paul Tillich’s definition of religion.
(2) Religion asks us to consider how we should live.

The Protestant Christian theologian Paul Tillich, wrote in his book Theology of Culture, pp. 7-8:

“Religion, in the most basic sense of the word, is ultimate concern.”

A philosophy of “the good life” or of “human flourishing” (A) is about ultimate concern as well, both in how we live for ourselves and how we live for others, and (B) religious answers can be explored philosophically. By this second statement I mean this: a religious answer doesn’t need to be mindlessly considered or submitted to because it’s “revelation” (if such a concept applies to a particular religious claim). All religious answers come from humans. Yes, the approach is often different when we come at things religiously rather than philosophically but that doesn’t mean that we can’t consider from a philosophical vantage point what religions claim. Religion exists, in part, because people have had questions about our existence. If Siddhartha Gautama thought that our primary problem was dukkha, i.e. “suffering” or “disease” or “dissatisfaction” we don’t have to dismiss his diagnosis just because it has been understood religiously. In fact, we don’t have to dismiss his prescription for healing, namely his Four Noble Truth and his Noble Eightfold Path, either.

Philosophy is a mindset that requires us to be reasonable, logical, open, critical in the best way. It asks us to question the traditions we’ve inherited not to ignore them. This means that even as a class is structured around asking students to think reasonably and critically and to be logical and sound in their arguments, not appealing to divine revelation or tradition as an easy escape from tough questions about how we should live, we can include the insights of the world’s great traditions and some of the most prominent minds like Jesus of Nazareth and the Prophet Muhammad. If they had opinions on how to live, and those opinions have shaped humanity, then we should consider them! Religion can be mixed throughout a philosophy-first course so that students are thinking about religious matters especially when ethics, morals, and values are involved.

This doesn’t depart from how we’ve taught religion at my school. Even in classes that are primarily “religious studies” there’s no side-stepping the rigorous demands of studying religion in an academic setting. For this reason, the dichotomy between religion and philosophy, at least when considered through a Tillichian definition, appears to be a methodological difference at best, and a false dichotomy at worst.

A final word on this from the perspective of someone teaching in an Episcopal school. The reason-revelation divide isn’t a strong one in my context. All texts, traditions, etc., that claim the status of “revelation” are engaged with “reason”. Anglicanism has the three-legged stool of (1) the Bible; (2) Tradition; and (3) Reason. Wesleyanism added a fourth: (4) Experience. Now, I’m aware that for many Anglicans and Wesleyans, these legs aren’t equal. The Bible and Tradition take precedent. But there’s an argument to be made that they’re equal because they’re mutually interdependent. The Bible contains reasoning about which we must reason. Tradition contains reasoning about which we must reason.

Episcopal schools face a unique double challenge. First, they serve as private religious schools that promote academics, scholarship, reason, science, and the Enlightenment values in a market where many religious schools don’t. Second, they serve as private religious schools in an increasingly—for better or worse—secular society. In all likelihood, the Episcopal Church must be prepared to represent an increasingly minority position both culturally, as the denomination shrinks and shrinks and shrinks, but also ideologically, as less and less space is made for those who value the benefits of a secular society, and who share a commitment to many Enlightenment ideals regarding rationality, science, and technology, but who remain drawn to religion/spirituality and what it offers us. Our culture is sometimes pulled between extremes like exclusivist Christian Nationalism on one side and religiously disaffiliated, even anti-religious, secularism on the other side. For those who don’t want to give up their Christianity, or maybe I should say their religiosity, but who also embrace what it means to be a modern person, what survives of the Episcopal Church will (hopefully) carve out this small space that will be an essential space for many. It must be a space that embraces pluralism and openness but also welcomes people to discuss, think, and practice spirituality and value-formation. For this reason, I don’t see a contradiction between offering a class that counts toward one’s religious studies in a private religious school that happens to be heavy on philosophy and that introduces and explores religious concepts from a philosophical perspective. It’s what I’ve been doing for over eight years now!

(Of course, there’s nothing that says we can’t reframe the requirement as “Religion and Philosophy” which would be something you might see in many Catholic schools where theology and philosophy have been in dialogue from the beginning; where Thomas Aquinas, arguably the greatest and most influential thinker within Catholicism, was shaped by Aristotle as much as he was the Bible and Catholic Tradition.)

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“If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself.”

Major in the Being an Influencer?
Texas Public Radio reported this week that, “The University of Texas at San Antonio is launching a college degree program in becoming a digital social media influencer.” When I saw this news on my Facebook feed, I had to check to make sure that it wasn’t April 1st. It wasn’t. The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) received “Carnegie R1 classification,” so it’s a good university but this didn’t sound like the type of degree program that a good university would launch. I presume that the people putting together this program know better than I do whether there’s a market for it and whether or not such a program will enhance or harm their brand. So, the only thing I know to say about this is what I said on Threads last night:

I’m old enough to remember when blogs, and then social media like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, was fun. It was fun because it allowed you to connect and reconnect. It helped you find people with similar interests. It could turn ugly at times—especially blog comments—but most of the time it seemed like Internet 2.0 was constructive. Something changed with the ability to “Like” this or that. And when Twitter shifted away from calling connections “Friends” to calling them “Followers,” it felt like we entered an era where social media was performative, theatrical.

We’re constantly tempted to “build an audience”; to turn ourselves into a “brand”. I won’t lie, it would be nicer to get more than 2-3 responses on Threads. I would like to have more people reading my blog. But I don’t have in me what it takes to turn one’s self into something marketable; into a product. This may be why I don’t understand what people at UTSA appear to understand.

Plato’s Warning
In Book I of The Republic, Plato’s Socrates says the following of “good men” who will consent to lead others (Lee’s translation, p. 29):

“So good men will not consent to govern for cash or honors. They do not want to be called mercenary for exacting cash payments for the work of government, or thieves for making money on the side; and they will not work for honors, for they aren’t ambitious. We must therefore bring compulsion to bear and punish them if they refuse—perhaps that’s why it’s commonly considered improper to accept authority except with reluctance or under pressure; and the worst penalty for refusal is to be governed by someone worse than themselves. That is what, I believe, frightens honest men into accepting power, and they approach it not as if it were something desirable out of which they were going to do well, but as if it were something unavoidable, which they cannot find anyone better or equally qualified to undertake.”

I don’t think it’s true that people who want to lead should be completely adverse to pay, or honor, or even power. I do think there remains something to Plato’s/Socrates’ observation though. Many misguided people are drawn to leadership, politics, power, influence, etc., for the worst of reasons. Many good people have found themselves in the mud of politics for the sole reason that their opponent, if not defeated, would wreak havoc. As Socrates quips, “That is what…frightens honest men into accepting power”. They know that if they don’t do it, someone who shouldn’t do it will. They would be happy not leading, not influencing, but they lead/influence to prevent those who shouldn’t lead/influence from doing so.

I thought of this when I heard of UTSA’s program. Who will it draw? What kind of person wants to be an influencer for the sake of being an influencer? What kind of culture creates what has become, in essence, the job “influencer”? Have we lost the necessary fear of misleading people? Do I want people to spend money on a product just because it was given to me for free, or to take up a trend because by encouraging others to do so, I gain more attention? This seems unhealthy. It may be that it isn’t. I can’t know for sure. But if it’s to be done in a healthy way, there needs to be a lot more self-reflection from the students than we see from your average influencer.

Epictetus’ Warning
I’ve increasingly been thinking about what it means to live a good life—a genuinely good life. I presume that the nearness of fatherhood has intensified this for me. So, tonight, as I was reading excerpts from Epictetus’ Encheiridion (translated by Nicholas White) found in The Good Life edited by Charles Guignon, I came across these lines (pp. 57-58):

“If you want to make progress, let people think you are a mindless fool about externals, and do not desire a reputation for knowing about them. If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself. Certainly it is not easy to be on guard both for one’s choices to be in accord with nature and also for externals, and a person who concerns himself with the one will be bound to neglect the other.”

A footnote explains, “‘Making progress; (prokoptein) os the Stoic expression for movement in the direction of the ideal condition for a human being…” It’s implied that this saying suggests that those who truly want to experience full human flourishing can’t be concerned with how one is perceived. In fact, flattery and praise should give pause: “If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself.”

“
18th-century portrait of Epictetus, including his crutch” via Wikimedia

Again: “distrust yourself”.

I read in this the reminder to not let one’s ego become inflated by the praise of other. You can’t buy into your own brand. You must maintain a healthy sense of skepticism toward your own ideas, accomplishments, successes, and especially when others praise you. Distrust the part of you that, in the words of St. Paul (Romans 12:3), “think of yourself more highly than you ought”. As he said in the next part of that statement, “think of yourself with sober judgment”. Remain self-aware. Remain transparent to yourself. Remain honest about your flaws.

Our world is full of people who never second guess themselves when they should—the Andrew Tate’s, the Jake Paul’s of this world. And we’re becoming a culture that increasingly celebrates that stubborn narcissism. But I presume that such lives have dark, hidden areas that none of us would want to live with on a day to day basis and I predict that they’re untenable. Self-destruction awaits those who show no concern for wisdom. We need more of what Plato, Epictetus, and St. Paul offer us, so I hope students applying to UTSA will consider programs in higher education that cultivate their humanity

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Would Plato approve of children reading the story of “Noah’s Ark”?

I’ve been rereading through Plato’s The Republic recently. In Book II, as he has his characters Adeimantus and Socrates imagine the ideal society, they begin discussing what kind of books they would want the youth of their society to read as part of their education. They agree that education should focus on “mind and character”. And that this education should “include stories” of “two kinds, true stories and fiction” (Lee’s translation, p. 68).

But then Socrates asks:

“Shall we therefore readily allow our children to listen to any stories made up by anyone, and to form opinions that are for the most part the opposite of those we think they should have when they grow up.”

Adeimantus replies, “We certainly shall not.” Socrates goes on to say that the ideal society would have to supervise what books are read (p. 69). Now, at a time where our country is debating the banning of books in libraries and schools, this may sound a little fascist. I don’t know if Plato should be read as saying he wants this to happen, or just that this is what it would take to create an ideal society even if he’s not committed to the actions that Socrates floats. Either way, Socrates says, “The greater part of the stories current today we shall have to reject.”

For Socrates, this includes Hesiod (e.g. the Theogony) and Homer (The Iliad; The Odyssey). Adeimantus asks, “What sort of stories do you mean and what fault do you find in them?” To which Socrates responds, “The worst fault possible…especially if the fiction is an ugly one.” He explains this as “Misrepresenting the nature of gods and heroes…” (p. 69).

The Gods Aren’t Good
Anyone who is familiar with Greek mythology knows that the gods aren’t moral exemplars. They’re powerful but often they’re not nice, or honest, etc. Of these stories, Socrates says, they are “not fit as it is to be lightly repeated to the young and foolish” even if these stories were true! He believes only a small select group should be trusted with these stories and their memorization. But this would never include youth.

Socrates says, “Nor shall any young audience be told that anyone who commits horrible crimes, or punished his father unmercifully, is doing nothing out of the ordinary but merely what the first and greatest of gods have done before.” Additionally, “Nor can we permit stories of wars and plots and battles among the gods; they are quite untrue.” For Socrates, young, impressionable minds can’t discern how to interpret these texts. The gods are important. This is how they live. Shouldn’t they be mimicked?

Teaching Children Healthy Theology
A few years ago, I had a friend who said they were generally comfortable with the church they were attending because they knew that their kids were being taught things like “God is love” and “God loves everyone”. Like Socrates, this friend didn’t think his children should learn stories from the Bible where the theology is suspect; where God is violent or behaves in such a way that if humans mimicked the Bible’s God, we’d have problems! Socrates ays, “…we should therefore surely regard it as of the utmost importance that the first stories they hear shall aim at encouraging the highest excellence of character”. In other words, choose good and uplifting theology if you’re going to teach any theology at all (p. 70).

Later, Socrates argues that good theology takes precedent over stories about the divine (p. 71). He says, “God must surely always be represented as he really is…in reality of course god is good, and he must be so described.” Socrates’ god is the source of good and not evil: “…while god must be held to be the sole cause of good, we must look for some factors other than god as a cause of evil.”

What about Noah’s Ark?
A few years ago, I wondered aloud how old a child or adolescent must be to read, say, the story of “Noah’s Ark” with maturity. As I read Plato, this thought crossed my mind again. I agree with my friend, and Socrates, that if you’re going to participate in god-talk with children then your theology better be about love and goodness and all that nurtures, uplifts, and provided security to a child. Some of the trash theology that I heard when I was young—like the idea that the “Rapture” could happen leaving me on earth during the “Great Tribulation” to suffer divine wrath—shouldn’t be taught period but especially to young children. That can be traumatizing! And I know from experience that it harms adolescents as well.

In spite of these concerns, many parents read books like this:

The animals are so happy. Noah is so happy. Yet humanicide occurred and most of the animals are dead underneath those waters. I see no reason to sanitize this story just to share it with children. We can wait until they’re older. As Socrates said about the stories of Hesiod and Homer: even if they’re true, indelible minds shouldn’t encounter them during formative years.

How Old is Old Enough?
Four years ago, I asked these questions in the aforementioned post:

“So, when should children read the story of Noah and the Ark? When are they mature enough? Is it ok to introduce it to them as a happy story about God saving animals when they’re young and then return to it later to discuss some of the more complex, even disturbing aspects of the story later?”

When I consider the kind of media my students consume through YouTube and TikTok, I presume their readiness to read and critically engage stories like this one. But I’m not sure the middle schoolers at my school should be learning about stories like these. Maybe they’re ready. Maybe they’re mature enough. But we must remember that many people who read religious texts presume that the presentation of god in those texts is prescriptive to our theology in some way. If this is so, then maybe they should wait until high school to read Hesiod, Homer, and “Moses”. Until then, we should emphasize positive theology.

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The apocalyptic Jesus is Plato’s just man

I live with a form of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, I find Jesus of Nazareth to be the greatest moral exemplar, likely due to my upbringing, culture, and religion. On the other hand, I’m aware that his morality was shaped in a context very different from my own, most importantly as a first-century CE Jewish person living in Galilee and Judea, which was under Roman occupation, who held to an apocalyptic understanding of the world which from our perspective seems to have been somewhat misplaced. For this reason, mere parroting of Jesus’ ethics may not be wise for most of us, if such a thing is even possible. So, as a Christian, I try to ask myself what it means to live in some form of alignment with Jesus’ vision of the good, though a version of the vision that is applicable to the twenty-first century.

The tricky business here is that this kind of mindset often leads to Christianities that may as well abandon any affiliation with Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, I would say that most American Christianities function in complete independence from anything related to Jesus. His “Sermon on the Mount” is critiqued as “woke”. His ideas are rejected by Christians as impractical (should we really treat people who are poor that way?!). Therefore, the label “Christian” retains a cultural significance as one that secures some form of status but it has little to do with the person that “Christians” have called “Christ”.

There is a part of me that thinks that only certain radical groups, like Anabaptists/Mennonites (with their emphasis on non-violence and simplicity), or the Christianities practiced by the oppressed and marginalized, are worthy of being affiliated with Jesus. This would leave me on the outside looking in, sort of like Nicodemus in the first part of the Gospel of John. But this might not be a bad thing. It reminds me of the American author and poet, Maya Angelou. When she was asked if she was a Christian, she responded:

“I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‘I’m a Christian.’ I think, ‘Already? You already got it?’ I’m working at it, which means that I try to be as kind and fair and generous and respectful and courteous to every human being.”

The long history of Christianity has shown that the word can mean anything. Therefore, the label “Christian” can mean anything. Christians can support unjust imperial power. Christians can be violent. Christians can demonize people because of their ethnic identities (think of the centuries of persecution of the Jews). Christians can be as addicted to wealth (think of the Prosperity Gospel). Christians can be harmfully superstitious (think of the “Word of Faith” movement or popular forms of “spiritual warfare”). Many brush this off by saying something like “Christians aren’t perfect, only Christ is” but that’s an excuse for maintaining the cultural value of the label Christian without taking seriously the demand that this word should have upon our lives (think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship*).

I live in South Texas where being “Christian” is an important label. To respond as Maya Angelou did would earn you suspicion from many. But when I say I’m a Christian, I mean something like what she did: “I’m working at it”. And honestly, many of the people who quickly and definitively name themselves “Christian” are the type of people who make the word mostly meaningless. I think, “if you’re a Christian, then clearly being a Christian means nothing for the world”. But I also think this of myself: if I’m a Christian, then Christianity needs help. I guess the important difference is self-awareness.

This being said, I find that Jesus can remain a moral exemplar even if his apocalyptic vision of the Kingdom of God coming to earth seems to have missed the mark. (Whether there’s some eschatological truth to his vision is impossible to address because we can’t know that truth until the end of our lives or the end of human history, so I find that debate unhelpful except to give people a reason to maintain a certain form of Christianity, which is fine if that works for others.) Jesus remains the type of person who stood not only for the marginalized and oppressed but with them. He wanted to see people restored, healed, and whole. He wanted to see oppressors regain their humanity. And he refused to contribute to our cycle of violence when he was cornered. (Whether Jesus was ideologically pacifistic seems beside the point; that he refused to engage his enemies violently when it really mattered says what needs to be said.)

"The Death of Socrates" by Jacques-Louis David (1787)
“The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

In Book II of The Republic, Plato’s Socrates is discussing the meaning of “justice” and what it means to be a “just person”. Is “justice” just a construct that the powerful use to justify themselves? Or is justice something objective that can be measured over against whether someone has power? Socrates says to his interlocutor Glaucon, that the truly just man will be just for justice’s sake, not for the appearance of justice since being just for the appearance of justice is being “just” in order to gain a reputation that can be used for selfish gain. Socrates proposes that the most just a person can be is “to be and not seem good” (p. 45 of Lee’s translation). He states:

“We must, indeed, not allow him to seem good, for if he does he will have all the reward and honours paid to the man who has a reputation for justice; and we shall not be able to tell whether his motive is love of justice or love of the rewards and honours.”

For Socrates, the only person who can be clearly just, is the one “we must strip…of everything except justice”. He continues:

“Our just man must have the worst of reputations for wrongdoing even though he has done no wrong, so that we can test his justice and see if it weakens in the face of unpopularity and all that goes with it; we shall give him an undeserved and life-long reputation for wickedness, and make him stick to his chosen course until death.”

It has been noted that Plato likely has Socrates in view. Socrates was charged by the Athenians for being “impious” and for “corrupting the youth”. In a sense, these charges were accurate but the question is whether or not Socrates’ “impiety” and “corruption” were clearly evils or just evils perceived by the misguided worldview of the Athenians. Plato’s views seem clear here.

Jesus was perceived by his followers in much the same way. In short, Jesus is presented as a just man who was unjustly condemned by an unjust society. In fact, Plato writes something that is hard for Christians to read without thinking about Jesus, even though it was written centuries before Jesus** (again, from Lee, p. 45):

“…the just man, as we have pictured him, will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned, his eyes will be put out, and after enduring every humiliation he will be crucified (or “impaled” depending on the translation), and learn at last that one should want not to be, but to seem just”

With those words, Plato’s Socrates draws a line between true justice and seeming justice. Justice exists, though rare, in the form of people who are so just that they will die for justice rather than take the easy path. Now, in a sense, this helps me with the question of whether or not Jesus’ ethics are completely relativized by his apocalypticism. If we read Jesus’ actions through Plato, what matters is that this just man Jesus was not rescued by divine intervention but went to his grave refusing to muscle the “Kingdom of God” into existence, which would only contribute to the cycles of violence that consume us. He used what life he had to try to bring the “Kingdom of God” by means of healing, care, forgiveness, empowerment, etc.

From this perspective, people like Martin Luther King Jr. are Christians. On the other hand, I’m in a category with Maya Angelou: “I try to be as kind and fair and generous and respectful and courteous to every human being”. I fail but I try. And I think Jesus’ vision, as read through Plato, remains worth our effort even if, as Jesus’ crucifixion, Socrates’ trial, and Dr. King’s assassination (not to mention all the other innocents) teach us, most of us must settle with wanting to be just rather than achieving it. More precisely, we must settle with wanting to want to be just, since is Jesus, Socrates, King, etc., are the measure of a just person, I think many of us would prefer to never be truly tested.

*Sadly, the copy of this book that’s available on Amazon has a forward by Eric Metaxes, who embodies how worthless the label “Christian” can be.

**For those who are curious about how Plato’s ideas about justice have been read with Jesus in view, see the very thorough article by Mateusz Stróżyński titled “Plato the Prophet? The Crucified Just Man in Republic and the New Testament”.

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A reflective note on Stephen Mumford’s “A Philosopher Looks at Sport”

As I’ve been asking myself (1) how I, as a father, want to teach my child about thoughtfulness and (2) how I, as a teacher, want to educate my students, I’ve been coming around to the idea that one way to engage younger mind with subjects that we think they should study is to package that subject in an accessible manner. By this, I mean teach them (A) a subject with which they’re less familiar through (B) a subject with which they have greater, and maybe more natural, familiarity. As I mentioned in a recent post (see “Sports and non-dualistic education”), as I reflect upon the adolescent version of myself—who was a mediocre student, at best—I recognize that one of the best ways to have engaged me would have been by connecting what we were learning to sports. I was obsessed with sports but not Algebra, or U.S. history. Yet it was sports that led me to be learn about Jesse Owens embarrassing Hitler, or where Baltimore is on a map, or how to calculate a batting average. For this reason, as I think about the need to teach my students the skills that will help them evaluate the wave upon wave of information that comes their way—how to be critical, skeptical even, before embracing something just because Google found it or because someone said it on TikTok—a conclusion that I’m tentatively reaching is that, for example, if I were to teach a philosophy class at my school in the future, a philosophy of sport would be the way to go. It would start with (B) sport, which matters to a majority of high schoolers, and then guide them to (A) the skills that philosophy can provide them.

As I’ve been reading on the philosophy of sport, one book that I finished recently is Stephen Mumford‘s A Philosopher Looks at Sport. It’s a small book (at 5 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches) and a short one (at about 133 pp. of content) but it’s very good. It built around six topics: physicality, competition, definition (of sport), spectacle, ethics, and inclusion. One of this main points is that we find joy in developing an ability and in displaying that ability. Sport is a venue for that development/display but it adds competition. Competition can be a negative thing but Mumford sees athletic competition as a sort of bubble where we can put forth a certain level of effort without the negative effects because ultimately, the goals are themselves “unimportant”. For example, if I were wrestling for a high school state title, it would matter to me, it would be important, but not in the same way as if I were wrestling a potential mugger or a wild animal that I encountered on a walk. The latter has my very life and well-being at stake in a way that sport doesn’t…or shouldn’t.

Once Mumford provides a working definition of sport, he addresses why we enjoy the spectacle of it all (which is very relevant right now as the Summer Olympics are in full swing) and he asks questions about the ethics of sport. Both of these topics are fascinating. I’ve long wondered to myself why I can spend a Sunday watching three or four NFL games and enjoy it. And the ethics section had me thinking about why we allow for certain things in sport (e.g. boxers pummeling each other) that we wouldn’t allow in general (boxing on the street is assault). Mumford addresses whether there is an “internalist” ethic that differs from the outside world or if the line between sport/not-sport is more porous.

Finally, his section on inclusion felt very relevant because as I was reading it, the ugly debate over Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif’s eligibility was reminding me that the Internet really does bring out some of our worst characteristics. We need to calmly and thoughtfully ponder the relationship between sport and gender and transgender athletes in a world that wants us to be reactionary and vitriolic. And with the Paralympics beginning, we should be cognizant of our thoughts around ability/disability and sport. Mumford addresses topics like these and this reinforces my first point. Sport may not be as high stakes as some things (e.g. the wars in Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine) but sport is a place where many high-stakes debates are magnified, including things like gender, ability, bodily objectification, fairness in pay, etc. These topics may be intimidating in themselves but studying them through the lens of sports can provide students with an otherwise unattainable accessibility and books like this one go a long way toward helping us in this endeavor.

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Philosophical Parenting: Tom Whyman’s “Infinitely Full of Hope”

I know that every generation worries about the world into which they are bringing children. When I was born in 1982, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were still in the Cold War, so the threat of nuclear holocaust loomed over the planet. I’m sure that this worried my parents. (That threat remains. If you’ve not thought about it recently, listen to the episode “The world after nuclear war” on “The Gray Area” with Sean Illing.) As I prepare to become a father for the first time, four decades later, we can add climate change, the rise of right-wing populism including “Trumpism” where I live, the unregulated race to develop Artificial Intelligence, etc. I’m aware of all of the reasons to not reproduce. But my wife and I chose to become parents, later in life, even with these risks in view. (See my post “Philosophical Parents: Mara van der Lugt’s ‘Begetting'” for a look at a book that has helped me process this decision.) Since the decision has been made, I need hope in the face of these threats.

If you’re in a similar boat, I recommend Tom Whyman’s Infinitely Full of Hope: Fatherhood and the Future in an Age of Crisis. Whyman takes a philosophical look at what hope is. He chooses to avoid religious definitions of hope. (Sorry, St. Paul!) Hope is defined as (1) “a recognition of the possibility of the better. (2) An active desire for the better to occur” (p. 46, emphasis his). He contrasts hope with cynicism, resignation, and despair.

Whyman has chapters addressing whether or not we’re, in reality, hopeless. What hope can accomplish. How we can “hope better”. What we can hope “for”. The book has memoiric elements but it’s also definitely a book of philosophy filled with a lot of critical theory. Whyman interacts with the work of Soren Kierkegaard, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Mark Fisher, and others. This isn’t a book review, just a note and a recommendation for people who may have similar interests and curiosities, so if you’re a parent, about the become one, or thinking of becoming one, but you’re unnerved by some of the existential threats we face, and you don’t find the jump to religious hope to be an easy one to make, then this book is a must read.

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Experiencing Olympic triumph vicariously

Recently, I’ve been wondering to myself, “What is it that causes us to enjoy watching sports?” The TED Radio Hour episode a couple of weeks ago tackled this question (see “Why we love watching sports”), so I know I’m not alone in my curiosity. Clearly, there isn’t a single answer to this question, nor should we expect one. In his book, A Philosopher Looks at Sport, Stephen Mumford provides several reasons for why we enjoy watching sports: (1) sports, when done well, are like theater in that they break us free from the mundane (“the exceptional makes a greater impression on us than mundane, everyday experiences”); (2) there’s a “social aspect” as “groups of people” gather “together for a shared experience”; (3) as he argues in the first chapter, we enjoy exercising our own physical capabilities (it feels good to jump high or lift a lot of weight or hit a baseball far), so maybe it’s pleasurable to see others do the same (pp. 69-70).

I’m interested in his focus on (3) because he explores why it is that we may enjoy watching others do what we used to be able to do/dream of doing/wish we could do/never could do. But he dives further into what might lead to our committed fandom. It’s true that for some people, it’s easy to admire the skill of other humans no matter who is performing (p. 72). I can imagine someone like Joe Buck, a broadcaster who is the son of a broadcaster, enjoying baseball as baseball or football as football, but I wonder if Troy Aikman feels the same “objectivity” when they call a Dallas Cowboys game together, being that Aikman was a Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Cowboys. He has an intimate connection to that team in a way that Buck doesn’t.

For many (most!) of us, we’re inspired by people with which we identify in some way. Mumford writes about how sports provide us with “vicarious experiences”. He says, “It can be easier to have vicarious experiences when one is able to identify with the person undergoing the original experience (p. 71).” “One can sometimes feel a part of the victory if one identifies in some way with the winner (p. 73).” I know this is true. I can watch the World Series or the Super Bowl with enjoyment if my team isn’t in it but it’s a lot more interesting when they are! And I don’t know how others feel but it’s difficult to enjoy these events when it seems like a rival might win. I don’t enjoy a World Series where the Los Angeles Dodgers (the archival to my San Francisco Giants) seem poised to win or a Super Bowl where the Dallas Cowboys or Seattle Seahawks or Los Angeles Rams (rivals of my San Francisco 49ers) have a chance.

I was thinking about this dynamic during the Opening Ceremonies of this year’s Olympic Games in Paris. While there was plenty of drama around those ceremonies, my brain was stuck on the quasi-tradition of singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”. This year it was Sofiane Pamart but it’s also was sung at games in 1996, 2006, 2012, 2018, 2020, and 2022. The lyrics that have inspired this tradition are the following:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace

In some sense, this is a weird choice for the Olympics. We divide Olympic teams by nation. I’ve played this song for my religious studies classes and asked them to critically consider the claim because I’m not sure that the Olympics would be better without nations or even that the world is necessarily better without religions and nations. Yes, nationalism and sectarian religion can be dangerous. But there seems to be something quite naive about claiming that there would be “nothing to kill or die for” if there were no countries or religions. Humans have killed each other since long before the establishment of the nation-state or established, institutionalized religion. The nation-state and institutionalized religion can be/have been used as tools of violence but humans find rationale for their violence anywhere. Personally, I think the difference put on display during that parade down the Seine offers us something better than the erasure of nations and religions.

Identifying universally with humanity has its idealistic worth but I’m not convinced that this demands something like rooting for each athlete equally, as I saw someone on Threads say recently. There seems to be something to (1) relating in a special, responsible way to people who are closer to you, whether than be because they’re family (biological or chosen), co-religionist, political allies, or even because they share a geographical space and (2) embracing a sort of yin-yang understanding of the “opposition” that recognizes their essential place in our lives not in spite of their difference but because of it.

I mentioned above how much I disdain the Dodgers and Cowboys but paradoxically I appreciate these teams and their fanbases because Giants/Niners fandom is improved by Dodgers/Cowboys fandom. While these rivalries can spill over into violence, Giants-Dodgers and Niners-Cowboys “disdain” is a soft disdain, usually. I’ve gone to Giants games with friends who are Dodgers fans. During the game, there’s a “dislike” but it’s contextual and doesn’t really suspend a friendship. But for the few hours that we’re at the game, my friend who is a Dodgers fan is the opponent and all of the strangers wearing Giants hats are my people. Similarly, as I watch Simone Biles perform feats beyond anything I could imagine doing, I root for her as an American because her victory gives all of us Americans a vicarious sense of accomplishment and joy since we relate to her as Americans. This doesn’t follow that I must dislike the gymnasts from other nations though. I can appreciate them as necessary opposition without which there would be no sports to bring us together.

This is the difference between something like the Olympics and a war (Mumford says a bit about this in his book, so maybe I’ll do another post on that topic). When you’re at war with another nation, the goal is different and the opposition is seen as an existential threat. The stakes are higher. It could be argued (and has been) that sports serves us in a way similar to a vaccine in that we taste a little bit of something that can be dangerous (rivalry, difference, othering, competition) in a way that will hopefully prevent us from engaging in the full-blown, life-harming and threatening version of these aspects of our nature.

My problem then with Lennon’s “Imagine” is that it falls short of the ideal as I understand it. I shouldn’t have to reject my affinity for American athletes in order to appreciate the athletes of other nations. Even as I root for the United States, it was wonderful seeing all the athletes from all the different countries and it was worth celebrating them as an American because they contribute to the joy of sport and the joy is deepened, for someone like me, in having a specific team (here the U.S. Olympians) with which to identify. A healthy pluralism doesn’t means a faux unity, complete conformity, or the denial of difference. Instead, sports, as the Olympics are showing us, allow for us to imagine pluralism that recognizes difference but demands that there are limits to our understanding of the “opposition” and to our “othering”. I don’t think that it’s in most of our natures to blandly relate to every single person we encounter without there being some hierarchy of value (e.g. I’m closer to my wife than to some random person I meet on the street or even to coworkers with whom I share much of my day). We are not capable of seeing from a universal vantage point most of the time and I fear that such bland universalizing wouldn’t make us close to everybody but instead close to no one—no one would really matter to us. I’m going to root for the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams against other countries because I’m an American and this socially constructed aspect of my identity shapes me but I’m going to do so realizing that our basketball teams need all of those other teams for the whole thing to work. Erasing difference isn’t the answer; embracing it’s necessity seems like it might be.

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My favorite definitions of “philosophy”

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s the hosts of The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast who ask their guests the question, “What is philosophy?” It’s fun to hear the responses of philosophers who must articulate a definition of their discipline. Like many words, we “know” what something means until we’re asked to provide a concrete definition. Words like “religion” or “philosophy” mean a lot of different things to many people. As I’ve pondered the question “what is philosophy?” I haven’t created my own answer but I’ve found a few that I like from others:

  1. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Logical Clarification of Thoughts” Definition (from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.112): “The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions,’ but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.”
  2. Raymond Geuss’ “Systematic Spirit Without…a System” Definition (from David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, Philosophy Bites, p. xvi): “I’m afraid I have a very unhelpful answer to that, because it’s only a negative answer. It’s the answer that Friedrich Schlegel gave in his Athenaeum Fragments: philosophy is a way of trying to be a systematic spirit without having a system.”
  3. Clare Carlisle’s “Making Sense of All This” Definition (from David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, Philosophy Bites, p. xv): “Most simply put it’s about making sense of all this…We find ourselves in a world that we haven’t chosen. There are all sorts of possible ways of interpreting it and finding meaning in the world and in the lives that we live. So philosophy is about making sense of that situation we find ourselves in.”
  4. Wilfrid Sellar’s “How Things Hang Together” Definition (from Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man): “The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Under ‘things in the broadest possible sense’ I include such radically different items as not only ‘cabbages and kings’, but numbers and duties, possibilities and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death. To achieve success in philosophy would be, to use a contemporary turn of phrase, to ‘know one’s way around’ with respect to all these things, not in that unreflective way in which the centipede of the story knew its way around before it faced the question, ‘how do I walk?’, but in that reflective way which means that no intellectual holds are barred.”
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Sports and non-dualistic education?

I have a confession to make. As much as I enjoy sports—more watching than playing them at this stage in my life—I’ve had a love/hate relationship with high school athletics. There are two reasons for this: (1) it seems that many student-athletes are making the “student” part carry more of the adjectival weight than ever, so that we have athletes who happen to be students rather than students who happen to be athletes and (2) athletics can make it difficult for teachers to plan lessons and assessments with the whole class in mind. Let me explain both further.

With regard to (1), most students won’t be D-1 athletes, let alone professional athletes. Their studies seem to matter more for their long-term success than their participation in athletics. Even though I value athletics, I’ve worried about how much emotion and attention my students put into sports compared to the subjects that may have something to do with their future professions or actions as citizens in a functioning democracy.

With regard to (2), it can be a pain to chase down student-athletes who miss class, especially when they miss a lot of class. I’ve seen student-athletes who seem completely lost at times because they (a) missed class where I’m present to teach/explain concepts and then (b) rush through the supplementary homework, aiming to complete it in a hurry rather than taking the time to learn the content. Because they miss several classes on, for example, days when they have to travel, this can cause the missed work to pile up on the student so that their concern is to simply do what has to be done to maintain a good grade. This leads to frustration in the classroom. I’m frustrated because I know they’re doing the minimum; they’re frustrated because they can’t keep up with the conversations or understand the assignments that were created with their presence in mind.

As NIL rights have come to dominate college athletics, I’m sure that many of my colleagues in higher ed are feeling some of this pressure. College athletics has become a profession. College athletes are athletes first; students second, much (most?) of the time. But at the collegiate level, most students aren’t participating in the athletics programs. (In fall 2021, there were 15.44 million undergraduate students in the U.S. and 520,000 NCAA student-athletes.) For many high school teachers, most of our students play at least one team sport, maybe more. According to EducationWeek, between 1991-2019, 57.4% of high school students “played on at least one school or community sports team in the past year”. It seems like there may be a decline in youth sports participation but in small schools like mine where students have an easier time making a roster, it often feels like students are playing sports all the time.

A couple of books that I’ve been reading have caused me to pause and rethink my intuitions/criticisms. First, in Emily Ryall’s Philosophy of Sports: Key Questions, there’s a chapter titled, “Is the Body Just Another Tool in Sport?” In the first paragraph, Ryall comments (on p. 67),

“Traditionally, and certainly in academia, the body is reduced to secondary consideration. It is the mind or soul that is of primary importance and of greater worth; the body is often considered an imperfect vehicle that contains these elements. Indeed, those who spend time perfecting their bodily appearance, whether through cosmetic surgery, steroids or pumping weights are often denigrated by the learned elite. Spending time on your body is considered vain and shallow, spending time on developing your mind by contrast is not.

Ryall notes that in Ancient Greece, “a common view was that the body and soul were inter-dependent and inseparable (p. 67).” In Greek thought, “A body without a soul was simply a corpse. As such, physical education was a much more holistic practice; training the body was also considered to be training the soul (p. 68).” Ryall reminds us that one of the founding fathers of western philosophy, Plato, was a “competitive wrestler” so that “one of the most renowned ancient Greek philosophers, and the first person to establish a higher-education academy,” happened to be an athlete (p. 68)

For Ryall, it’s the mind-body dualism of René Descartes that may be most to blame for our current dichotomy between training the mind and training the body. Anyone who knows about Descartes program of “extreme skepticism” knows that Descartes determined the one thing that he can’t doubt is that he is a thinking reality: “I think therefore I am.” Since the existence of physical matter could be doubted, but Descartes own thinking mind was necessary for him to even doubt, the physical and the mental had to be separated with the mental being something more real than the physical (pp. 68-69).

In A Philosopher Looks at Sport, Stephen Mumford makes the same connection. He observes that “Philosophers spend much time considering the nature of the mental and frequently ignore the significance of physical activity (p. 8).” But this is a mistake: “we are bodied beings, able to take pleasure in what we can do with our physical existence (p. 8).” Mumford “credits” Descartes with this the preeminence of this view, one he rejects. He states, “…we are essentially physical beings and this is a fact upon which the pleasure of exercising physical capacities to a degree rests (p. 9).”

For Mumford, we should prefer philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty who emphasize embodiedness. He rejects the Cartesian idea that we are “essentially a thinking thing”. In fact, Mumford is so committed to this point that he writes, “I am slightly nervous about use of the term ’embodied'” because this implies “that there is a thing, in the body, which has become embodied” which means it exists before a body is given to it (p. 9).

Mumford prefers to say we’re simply “bodied”. He comments, “Everything that I learn, of that stimulates my senses, has come originally through my body (p. 10).” Borrowing from Wittgenstein’s comment “if a lion could talk, we would not be able to understand it” (Philosophical Investigations, section 326), Mumford argues that “if a disembodied soul could talk, we would not be able to understand it (p. 11).” Like Thomas Nagel’s “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” the claim here is that being bodied as humans is how we know the world. Even if we somehow outlive our bodies as “mind,” the experience would be radically different than our current one: “There would be nothing recognisably us in this disembodied thing.” Why? “To be human is to have a body…” (p. 11).

Even if we were to reject this view as being too reductively materialist, the basic points are sound. We are bodied. If mind can remain after the death of the body, it seems to be an emergent property of the body that somehow continues after it’s source has passed (unless we embrace a concept like pre-existent souls and/or some form of strong mind-body dualism or maybe panpsychist ideas). But we don’t experience that form of existence until we die. As long as we’re living, we’re bodied. If this is correct, then our education is bodied. While sitting in a classroom learning Algebra is bodied, so is running drills in practice to help students learn the playbook. Both are ways of learning. Both are forms of education. So, as an educator, I should try to see my teaching as one way of contributing to student learning, but not the only way and not in a way that is inherently superior to athletics.

On a related note, if I’m honest, when I was in high school, sports was everything. Like most kids, I didn’t dream of getting a PhD in “Religion and Theology” but instead of playing left-field for the San Francisco Giants or cornerback for the 49ers. As I aged and realized that I didn’t have the necessary skills or size, I imagined being the next Bob Costas or Dan Patrick. I hated reading, except for Sports Illustrated or ESPN the Magazine. I hated math, except sports statistics. I learned American geography by looking on a map to see where the Chicago Bulls were located and I learned about international geography through events like the Summer Olympics. While I have no intent on throwing shade at the adults in my life at that time, I can imagine that if someone could’ve connected the subjects that I hated to athletics in a clear way, it may have peaked my interest! As a high school teacher, I find myself asking how I can connect what I teach to what already matters to my students. Sometimes this is difficult. Sometimes, I’m successful in showing the value of religious studies to students who will one day major in business, or economics, etc. Sometimes, students who are religious already or who appreciate literature will be excited about my biblical studies classes. But I find myself working to create and hopefully get approved classes like “Philosophy, Religion, and Sports” (which I’d like to start teaching in fall ’25 if I get approval) because I want to bring the educational skills that matter to me, and that I believe with benefit my students, to where they’re at already. (Obviously, many students aren’t interested in sports, but many are!)

This doesn’t erase the two concerns that I mentioned earlier though. Maybe schools need a full-time student-athlete czar that’s not the school’s athletic director. We have roles for school psychologists, for accommodations oversights, etc., but there may be a temptation to leave things to the student-athletes, or expect coaches to play the role of a go-between for students, athletes, and their families. A student-athlete czar would be responsible for coordinating schedules, assignments, etc., overlooking the academic performance of all active student-athletes while insuring communication on homework, missing assignments, key assessments, and so forth. What we don’t want is a dualism that goes the other way: a type of mindlessness. Athletes need to cultivate their minds. We admire athletes who combine their physical prowess with an intellectualizing of the game: think Peyton Manning reading defenses, Michael Jordan learning how to use the fadeaway jumper as he aged, catchers with a grasp of analytics, or former players like Greg Olsen who can explain the game to viewers from an insider’s perspective. Analytical and communication skills should be formed in athletes and pairs quite naturally with their athletic goals. I’d like to imagine that a “philosophy of sports” class would contribute to the holistic education of student-athletes.

Now, a final thing should be noted: sports aren’t the only path the non-dualistic education. Dance is bodied. Theater is bodied. A variety of fine arts classes are bodied. While it’s difficult to make a topic like religious studies bodied, some lessons can included bodied activities. But in the ecosystem of a school, physical education makes sure that the overall education of most of our student is a non-dualistic one, and I can appreciate that.