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"Analytic and Creative Thinking: A Conversation",,"Analytic and Creative Thinking:
Conventional descriptions of the way teachers and students learn about Science and the Humanities are under-girded by the assumption that these disciplines are cognitively exclusive. That is, what is taught by scientists falls under the vocabulary of the analytic and that what instructors of Humanities do is congruent/appropos with creative thinking. Closer analysis reveals, however, that both camps share more than they realize, and that a not-so-evident part of what it means to think like a scientist requires forms of creative thinking in the same way that analytic thinking is part of the project of thinking like an artist. A good example of this is what architects do. Inventive architects, like Buckminster Fuller, required themselves to think about the aesthetic value of a structure (e.g. a geodesic dome), as well as its alignment with geometric forms. It is for this reason that teachers should allow themselves to think in a interdisciplinary way. When students see that their imaginations are part of what it means to think like a scientist, they can also understand the precision is part of what artists do too.
",,"My interest in the relationship between the Sciences and the Humanities",,"Science Seminar Presentation at my College","John Cleary 60 Associate Professor of Philosophy",,,,,,analytic-creative-thinking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,E-mail,"Architecture,Creativity,Interdisciplinarity,Science & the Humanities,Teachers & Teaching",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/404/Geodesic_dome_HM.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Are we Important?",,"Werner Heisenberg in his book ""Physics and Philosophy"" wrote: “It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of human culture, in different times and different cultural environments or different religious traditions, hence if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting developments will follow.”
And thus what does important mean? Are we important in relationship to whom and to what? By important we mean any conversation, observation, fact or theory about the human experience that describes, explains or substantiates our affect and influence in the world. What is the evidence to demonstrate that our construction of what is called civilization has resulted in importance to both the scientific way of looking at life and the world, but also the philosophical?
We explore today both the claims of both scientists and philosophers that if people are rational actors on the world stage, what evidence is there to conclude that we have a hold what are importance means for the future of the human species, and how the scientific or philosophical account writ large may inform us of just how important we are.
The problems that Physicists and Philosophers wrestle with of course needs no introduction. Scientists, theologians and philosophers have wondered how to interpret our relationship with the material world (as well as other definitions of our experience) and the kinds of vocabularies we employ to understand who we are and how we should situate ourselves physically, and psychologically and ontologically. If the sum of our accomplishments include a definition of progress that rests on achievement, what are the ways in which we can identify how we can see ourselves as unique, and therefore “important” (or not important) with and through multiple experiences.
Various accounts, including historical, sociological, theological and scientific/philosophical have provided a narrative framework for explaining how to construct our importance or insignificance. Insofar as history give us examples of how people have affected change, we want to ask how various explanations and interpretations have aligned with the assumptions we have about our place in the world. For example, if people are “thinking animals” how have they evidenced behavior that reflects uniqueness within scientific, social and political contexts?
Within the discursive landscape of science and philosophy this reflection will address the questions of our importance insofar as it will identify some of the ways in which alternate narratives explain how we understand our importance and, furthermore, how scientific and philosophical thinking may share, or not share, paradigms for who and what we are. For example, if science concerned with what is verifiable and testable, how might we understand its epistemological rigor in terms of identifying our overall importance? Furthermore, if the claims of philosophy offer a counter-narrative of what is explained as reality and truth, how does this stand in contrast to scientific truth? If the meta-narratives of religion (cultural values) tell us something about what and who we are, can we rely on this as a way of explaining our significance? Alternately, can we depend on the scientific account (i.e. the laws of science) in the hard sciences, such Physics, to properly explain the role of humans and their interaction and influence in the world?
While we want to acknowledge the length and breadth of the questions posed above, our project is investigating the role of self-reflective/objective positions in unfolding (exposing?) how we ARE or NOT important/special through the lens of scientific and philosophical inquiry and what implications this has for teaching and learning. So in this respect, our attempt to consider this subject is not exhaustive but exploratory.
Since the time of pre-Socratic philosophy, early scientist/philosophers such as Anaxagoras, Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Anaximenes speculated about the origin of life and what the world consists of. What is the nature of change? And what are we to understand that which appears to be constant or changing in the material world in relationship to ourselves. Indeed the questions that physicists ask today are ones that that early philosophers asked as well. Who are we? Why are we here? What motivates us to act the way we do? Similarly early Greek tragedians such as Sophocles and Aeschylus posed the question: if we are free to make our decisions as autonomous subjects, how is it that the will of the Gods also controls the way we act and see ourselves in the world? Or as Socrates asks: if we consider ourselves important are our actions good because they are approved by the Gods or whether the Gods approve of them because they are good. Certainly we can see this revisited in the Faust legend where one scholar is blinded by his desire to over emphasize his importance. Machiavelli takes up this theme with greater rigor, arguing that rulers need not actually be virtuous, but appear to be so …thus diminishing, as some might argue, our importance as guides of virtue.
And yet scientists like Galen, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Plank, and others let their information guide the re-construction of our importance in relationship to the coherence or correspondence theory of truth, then, unlike the theologians and mystics of the past (Boethius, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Meister Eckart and others) who drew their relationship to God as a way of signifying the importance of the supernatural in defining who and what we are, science draws on the tradition of Descartes, Hume, Locke and later philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell to re-establish the Greek tradition in observation and ""following inquiry where it leads.""
So what we may be left with is an example of an ongoing epistemological struggle that makes us aware of the competing truth claims of both sides of the conversation. While it may be accepted that the discoveries and facts of scientists may be radically different from those of the philosophers, we know from the historical account, and even today, that both physics and philosophy wrestle with the same speculative questions which invariable lead us, once again, to ponder our importance. And so we ask the overriding question: Are we important?
As a physicist might ask: in relationship to the physical world how we might match to other material processes, evolutionary changes and other scientific discoveries that may make us pause and wonder about our importance as a species, as organisms controlled by entropic forces, and as evolving beings. And, as philosophers have wondered as well, what kind of beings are we to make claims of ontological importance to what we have accomplished and lived by. Has the counsel of the wise about our importance really turned out to be wisdom itself? and do the values and institutions that make up the power structures of society point to our overall importance in a metaphysical sense? Are the facts that one learns through looking through a telescope such as the moons of Jupiter, more important than the shape of a snowflake or an electron? What is the role of our importance in this respect? Similarly, do the capital T truths of Philosophy outweigh the truths acquired through hypothesis, experiment and conclusion? Has the creation of truth been more important than finding truth and importance? And what does our own impulse for certainty suggest about our importance personally and collectively?
Colin McGinn once wrote in his book “The Making of a Philosopher” that “ There are extremely general concepts that crop up everywhere—time, causality, necessity, existence, object, property identity. No scientific discipline can tell you what these concepts involve, because they are pre-supposed by any such discipline; we need philosophy to understand these concepts. For example, is causality just a matter of mere constant conjunction of events of “one damn thing after another” as A.J. Ayer used to put it—or does it involve an element of necessary connection? These are all questions human beings naturally ask. Children spontaneously ask philosophical questions, much to the frustration of their parents. The philosopher is just someone with a particularly strong interest in these age old universal questions; she is the embodiment of one kind of human curiosity—the kind that seeks the general, not the particular, the abstract, not the concrete. Of course it is easy to be impatient with such questions, because they do not admit to scientific resolution. However, we should not run away with the idea that a question is either scientific or nothing.”
And yet the supposed insignificance of our accomplishments in relationship to the size of the universe, the power of nature to change how we live, the triumph of selfishness and ignorance throughout the ages, the reality of people behaving more like beasts endowed with intelligence more than anything close to a saint makes us ponder. The wheels of history show that our desire to overcome ourselves and our troubles throughout the language of the science and the humanities point to one shining beacon of hope: creativity. It is our creativity that allows for the hope of change in our education system, our governments and projects and plans within the artistic trajectory of technology and scientific inquiry to lead to new ways of thinking about ourselves. Along with the philosophers, it will be the creativity of the scientists as artists and the imagination of the mathematicians to assist us in seeing how important and therefore how seriously we should take ourselves in the ""here and now"" and in the ""there and then."" Our creativity helps us to know that our desire to re-invent, re-examine, and re-focus our values of what we identify as important is what guides us to interpret the problems ahead. New systems of thought in all walks of life that re-invigorate our importance by relying on our imaginative instincts to enable us to envision a better world in which we are not systematized, and to re-invigorate a new way of seeing that the union of creativity and analytic thinking will mean new freedoms for our life worlds as people overcoming the stagnation of intellectual orthodoxy, Phillistinism and seeing the true meaning of our importance not based on hubris…or mis-placed values…but stalwart emphasis on the hope than we are better than what time has done to us. The new world order may call for the increasing technological paradigms as to how to run our lives, yet the creative impulse to solve problems through the language of scientist/philosophers will collaborate to emphasize our importance despite the overwhelming reality of our planetary insignificance.
Austrian-British philosopher of science Karl Popper, Generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century once wrote “The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears. Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.” It is for this reason that we ask in the context of the study and teaching of Physics and Philosophy: are we important?
",,,,,"John Cleary, 60, Associate Professor of Philosophy",,,,,,are-we-important,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"E-mail contact","Interdisciplinarity,Philosophy,Philosophy Education,Science & the Humanities",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/406/Greek_statues_HM.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Discovery and Creativity",,"The advancement of civilization as it is often situated in the narrative of scientific inquiry is matched by the enlightened aims of the humanities; both are dedicated to improving the human condition. As such, they are undergirded by a critical interplay between discovery and creativity.
There is reason enough to feel a sense of wonder and awe about the complexity of the universe. The spectacular nature of the solar system is often punctuated by a vastness that may agitate our existential uncertainty and, further, it has often made us recognize how this pertains to our experiences of boundlessness and incomprehensibility in nature and, in turn, our responsibility to ponder its meaning as it applies to science, (e.g. physics and astronomy) philosophy and literature.
The facts and theories of scientific progress, inventive as they are in the pursuit of knowledge, (discovery) can tell us much about the grandeur and magnificence of the heavens. In a similar way the humanities, (creativity) by utilizing the lantern of imagination, has offered ways of constructing a view of space (the night sky) through the explanatory power of metaphor and narrative.
How can our understanding of astronomy be complemented by poetic experiences such as what is often illustrated in theatre? For example, Bertolt Brecht's play ""Galileo."" In addition, how might we see these kind of ideas converge, and what new relevations and teaching strategies could arise from them?
",,,,,"John Cleary, 60, Associate Professor of Philosophy",,,,,,discovery-and-creativity,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,E-mail,"Creativity,Interdisciplinarity,Philosophy,Science & the Humanities,Teachers & Teaching",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/405/Astronomy_HM.jpg,Text,,1,0
"Finding “the Truth” in Music","Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.","In June 2017, I found myself in a cramped, sweltering apartment in New York’s East Village. I was there with three high-school students to interview William Millan, founder of the seminal 1970s Latin band, Saoco. The students were working on a documentary film about the history of musical communities in New York City. After playing several Saoco albums for us, William described how his interest in the roots of Latin music led him on an intellectual journey to understand the cultural history of the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Then he said something profound:
“I wasn’t a very good history and geography student when I was in school… it wasn’t until I really got into the music that I realized it’s not that I don’t like history and geography—I really love history and geography. It was the information they were giving me in school that I couldn’t relate to because it had nothing to do with what I was living. If you go into the music, and you check out the artists’ lives, that’s going to give you a truer picture of history; and in their body of work you’re going to see what the truth is.”
In 20 years of teaching, I have never heard a better articulation of music’s power to engage students in the study of history and culture.
Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.",,"Interview with William Millan, musician and founder of the band, Saoco",,"June 2017","Ben Wides, age 46, social studies teacher, East Side Community High School, New York City",,,,,,finding-truth-in-music,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Art,Cultural History,Documentary Films,Geography,History,Interdisciplinarity,Latin Music,Millan, William,Music,New York, New York,Saoco,Teachers & Teaching",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/7/95/Willie_Millan.jpg,Text,#Humanitiesinclass,1,0
"Human Ecology of Health","While my background in the humanities spans numerous perspectives, putting the various disciplinary puzzle pieces together in an applied manner hadn’t occurred. On the flight back to the United States, I began to recognize what is more formally referred to as the human ecology of health that examines aspects of population, habitat, and behavior. The clinic physician and accompanying nurses had medical training that allows them to understand disease pathogens, prescribe medicines and suture wounds. Yet they didn’t understand daily lives of the people they served. The community health worker, by contrast, was trusted and accepted by the community. She knew how to communicate to them and understand their body language. It was if a light bulb had been turned on in my head in which I realized that no single discipline had a monopoly on understanding. Solving problems that I had just observed in Bolivia were no longer a theoretical exercise, but I now realized that both breadth and depth in the liberal arts were needed to address real world problems. ","Walking the cobble-stone streets of a Bolivian village, I witnessed how a new clinic in a medically underserved area hadn’t made much of an impact. I was visiting a remote outpost to better understand the challenges in promoting health in poor Latin American communities. People come here only as a last resort because of the relative high costs and they are suspicious and reluctant to enter a facility staffed by foreigners. Only two came to see the doctor during the three days we were there. Likewise, latrines build by the clinic hadn’t improved sanitation because nobody uses them for cultural reasons.
By contrast, in another rural area, a woman with less than a fourth grade education has had a great impact as community health promoter. Because she grew up in the village, she is trusted and understands the problems the people face. Every 15 minutes it seemed liked another person up at her door, quite a contrast to the clinic. No outbreaks of childhood diseases have occurred since she began inoculating children. While limited in formal medical education, she has been trained to understand the importance of clean water and sanitation. More importantly, she had empowered other people in ways to improve their health.
Witnessing both projects created dissonance. While medical knowledge is necessary, more is required. I kept asking myself if the clinic was really addressing the needs of the underprivileged.
While my background in the humanities spans numerous perspectives, putting the various disciplinary puzzle pieces together in an applied manner hadn’t occurred. On the flight back to the United States, I began to recognize what is more formally referred to as the human ecology of health that examines aspects of population, habitat, and behavior. The clinic physician and accompanying nurses had medical training that allows them to understand disease pathogens, prescribe medicines and suture wounds. Yet they didn’t understand daily lives of the people they served. The community health worker, by contrast, was trusted and accepted by the community. She knew how to communicate to them and understand their body language. It was if a light bulb had been turned on in my head in which I realized that no single discipline had a monopoly on understanding. Solving problems that I had just observed in Bolivia were no longer a theoretical exercise, but I now realized that both breadth and depth in the liberal arts were needed to address real world problems. ",,,,1989,"Edward Kinman, age 59, Professor of Geography and Coordinator of the Virginia Geographic Alliance",,,,,,human-ecology-of-health,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Bolivia,Community Health Services,Health Promotion,Human Ecology,Interdisciplinarity,Local Knowledge,Medical Personnel,Professors,Public Health,Transcultural Medical Care,Villages",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/7/102/images-1.jpg,Text,#Humanitiesinclass,1,0
"Rolling with Difference",,"The image I chose for my humanities moment is representative of how I have come to understand myself, society and the cities around the world. While many might see poverty and struggle in Africa, this man is a waste-picker (recycler) in Johannesburg who plays a critical role in the overall sustainability of the city. After my early career as an urban planner in South Africa thinking through many ways of reducing urban poverty I have had to unlearn the developmental approach to cities in the 'global South'. This image is representative of the shift I believe urban specialists need to make. That is, following normative global trends in urban design, policy and planning is not always the most appropriate change to make in a particular context due to its situated differences. In Johannesburg a waste-picker's lane or a shared bike/waste-picker's lane would address environmental and economic sustainability more holistically. In a postcolonial world teachers and researchers of urban-related disciplines need to be critical of extant theories and practices that disenfranchise cities through entrenched mechanisms of spatial violence.
More personally, this relates to a life-long journey of understanding 'difference'. As I white child born at the end of the Apartheid era, having anti-racist liberal parents but also born into an Afrikaans family, I am exposed to stark identity juxtapositions. Being sent to one of the first multi-racial and multi-cultural schools in South Africa I grew up fortunate enough to build strong, life-long relationships across social borders. Without knowing it, from a young age I embarked on a process of unlearning unjust, societal norms. In my career and personal life I continuously work to understand differences that exist within me; those that are and that which is different to me.
My doctoral research delves into understanding and articulating the tensions that exist from stark differences found in urban space and how this may change the meaning making and conceptualization of 'place'. ",,"Walking through the busy streets of Jo'burg, South Africa - my home city.",,"Summer 2018","Lené Le Roux, 34, Urban planner, Urban Geography PhD candidiate, South African",,,,,,rolling-with-difference,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"National Humanities Centre","Geography,Interdisciplinarity,Johannesburg, South Africa,Poverty,Race Relations,Sustainability,Urban Planning",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/15/325/Waste_collector_HM_option_2.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Summer Residents 2019",1,0