Week Eleven

Summary of Eisenberg's Limits of Reason:
"Reason as Crapshoot" by Y. Senyshyn
(Etobicoke Board of Education)

Abstract:
"Limits of Reason" is a rebuttal against those who espouse the determinacy of reason in knowledge. John Eisenberg's book examines practical and theoretical aspects of the indeterminable in reform programs in contemporary psychology, moral education, and the law. In particular, he establishes a philosophical basis for the latter as a Kantian noumenon. With this exploration, he discusses important consequences for society and brings us to the realm of creativity.

From the last paragraph:
"In conclusion, it is evident that the impasse of determinacy can only be "solved" by an investigation into the realm of creativity; but that, of course, is another book altogether. Eisenberg will have no choice but to live up to this next challenge. We will all be the richer for it."

Read the whole article:
Yaroslav Senyshyn, A Critical Notice on "The Limits of Reason: ... 1992); "Reason as Crapshoot," Interchange 24, no.3 (1993): 317–321, 319, 320

(Click HERE to search the eJournal database at SFU. You will need to search for the journal title (Interchange), and then find the year of publication, and then view/download the article.)


See first page below: click on it for large size.





















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Kant: Experience and Reality
Good summary here.

"According to Kant, it is vital always to distinguish between the distinct realms of phenomena and noumena. Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute the our experience; noumena are the (presumed) things themselves, which constitute reality. All of our synthetic a priori judgments apply only to the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal."

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“Old Texts and Opera—Inciting Students to Read ”.
(Educational Leadership, April 2005, Volume 62
(Click HERE to search the eJournal database at SFU. You will need to search for the journal title (Educational Leadership), and then find the year of publication, and then view/download the article.)

"Over the next couple of days, before their lessons in grammar and other tasks, I told the class the libretto, or story, of the opera, in which a young wife falls in love with a villager and breaks her older husband's heart. I used slang and milked the "love triangle" aspect. Between my embellishments and the inevitable comments of the students, it took some time to finish the tale, but the class was intrigued by the plot with its double murder and suicide. When we reached the end of the tale, I mentioned, very nonchalantly, that someone had actually written a musical for this tragic story."

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Pavarotti "Vesti La Giubba" - I Pagliacci

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ENGLISH TRANSLATION of "Vesti La Giubba"

"Go on stage, while I'm nearly delirious?
I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm doing!
And yet, chin up! I'll try harder. Bah, you think you're a man?
You're just a clown! On with the show, man,
and put on your white-face.
The people pay you and you must make them laugh.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine, laugh,
you're Pagliaccio, and the world will clap for you!
Turn into banter all your pain and sorrow,
and with your clowns' face hide grief and distress...
Laugh loud, Pagliaccio, forget all of your troubles,
Laugh off the pain that so empoisons your heart."

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"Che gelida manina" Puccini: La Bohème Act I
Luciano Pavarotti (Rodolfo) Ileana Cotrubas (Mimì) Maestro Carlos Kleiber Teatro alla Scala, 1979




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"La Bohème" an Opera handbook
by Arthur Groos, Roger Parker
(a Google book)


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"La Bohème" libretto in Italian
http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/LaBoheme/libretto.html

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"La Bohème" libretto translation into English
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13843/13843.txt

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Some fun "philosophy" comics:
"Dungeons and Discourse."


First page,


Second page.