Category Archives: Philosophy

When an employee is not doing their job!

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Personal Experience, Philosophy, Professional

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I was asked recently to detail a situation where some employees were not performing their assigned critical tasks and how did I handle the issue.  My reply is below:

In these situations I have found that direct communication with the team or the employee is usually achieves the result. Find out what are the obstacles and help facilitate the removal of said impediments. Once knowing the issue, Conflict Management skills and Negotiation may be necessary. Part of a project manager’s job is to ensure that a good Risk Management plan is in place for human resource issues, as well as the more technical challenges that a project contains as well. I typically work as a collaborative manager thus ensuring more buy in from both the team and the stakeholders

Philosophy Quiz

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Philosophy

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Here is a quiz I found online that I thought would be great for a brain/philosophical exercise. 

  1. Multiple Choice
  2. Short Answer
  3. Lab Practical

Section 1: Multiple Choice

1. On Russell’s theory of definite descriptions, “The present King of France is bald” is equivalent to

  1. Socrates is a man.
  2. Socrates is mortal.
  3. All swans are white.
  4. Anything follows from a contradiction.
  5. The cat is on the mat.

2. If I could do something besides take this exam, I would prefer to.

  1. Intuit an essence.
  2. Analyze a concept.
  3. Dissect a brain.
  4. Have a beer.
  5. A deconstruction of the concept of will shows the bankruptcy of the very notion of choice, so a fortiori of multiple choice.

Section 2: Short Answer

  1. Define reality. Give two (2) examples.
  2. Using only basic first order logic, develop a rational foundation from which to prove the truth of radical relativism.
  3. Analyze the fundamental nature of being. Introduce new distinctions and obfuscatory neologisms.
  4. Escape the hermeneutic circle with only fishing line and a Swiss Army knife.
  5. Demonstrate the validity of the fallacy of composition.
  6. Evaluate the following argument: “If conventionalism is true, it must be true by convention. We do not believe in conventionalism. Therefore, we should change our beliefs because conventionalism is self-evident.”
  7. Translate Heidegger’s Being and Time into Latin and Aramaic. Provide an analysis of the nature of translation which explains why neither translation makes sense.
  8. Assume solipsism to be correct. Explain why more people aren’t solipsists.
  9. Explain the Cartesian distinction between res cogitans and res extensa without going into any intentional states, e.g. thinking of Descartes.
  10. List three beliefs held by eliminative materialists.

Section 3: Lab Practical

  1. On the bench you will find a slave boy. Prompt him to remember the Pythagorean theorem.
  2. Next to the slave boy you will find a cave. Break free of your shackles, climb into the light, and behold the form of the Good. When you’re done, return to the cave and wisely rule your fellows.
  3. On the bench you will find the thing-in-itself. Treat it as a limiting conception and say nothing further about it.
  4. Next to the cave, you will find a brain in a vat. Determine its principles of operation. Determine what philosophical problems remain after you have done so. Write down several dozen of them.
  5. By staring at the brain, you will be provided with sense data. Arrange and combine them so that everything you know can be expressed in terms of them.
  6. Amidst the sense data you will find the Given. Debunk myths about it. Show its equivalence to the Taken-away.
  7. In addition to the beings on the bench, you will find Being as such. Use it to explain the difference between temporality and Temporality. Then use it to boil an egg.
  8. After having found Being you will find Nothing. Determine who this is presenting himself as Nothingness on the grounds of the nihilation of the bench.

Picasso says Moof! This test ©1998 by P.D. Magnus and Ryan Hickerson. You are encouraged to use it for nefarious, quasi-educational purposes.

 

More On Religion: Three Faiths, One God, Conflicting Futures

06 Monday Oct 2014

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Medieval church ruin in CreteWhile superstition deals with the petty beliefs of day to day living, religion tends to answer the big questions of life and death. A religion is revealed knowledge handed to man from above. Whereas science is the discovery through gathering of facts, and although science also looks to answer the same questions about death and life, science tends to look at how, and not why. In religion, the questions and answers of life are, why are we here? What happens to us when we die?, and is there an ultimate goal? Are we all that we are? Science deals with facts, religion requires the faith. Unfortunately, ancient man’s belief that certain gods were responsible for good crops and abundance of food, it was science and observation that provides the answer in looking for the right soil, the right time of the year to plant and the right seeds. Religion dealt with questions that ranged from how to treat your neighbor to where do we go when we die.

Both Islam and Christianity are derivative of Judaism, as they worship the same God. Like the first Jews and Christians, the faithful of Islam originated as the descendants of Noah, through the line of Shem.  That lineage continues down to Abraham and to his first son, Ishmael, by his wife’s handmaiden, Hagar.  Islam and Christianity share many of the same prophets, including Jesus. Muslims, however, think that Christians went too far in that, from the Muslim point of view, Jesus was raised to the level of deity. Like the Jews and ancient Israelites, Muslims believe that there is only one God, and he has no children, other than humanity. Like both Christianity, and Judaism, that same God is also involved in shaping the lives, history, and the civilizations in this world.

Trapped By An Ideology

04 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in History, Philosophy, Politics

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What came first?  Was it the chicken, or was it the egg?  The answer is not simple. In a single human being, this relies on a balance of two forces, not necessarily opposing however, influential.  What helps us understand the underlying drive of a group of people is the balance between the material and the cultural world.  In the case of the Israelis, it is important to note that placing these people in a particular geographical location, at a particular time in history, commands a balance of many factors.  One factor drives the other.  Our culture grows from our circumstances, our weather, our terrain, our level of education, and our place in history.  Take note of the Israelis of today, although their history and religion are, to many, one and the same.  One can see, that although they have, in the last two thousand years  spent time in many lands, they are still a people whose past is influenced by political and economic events and whose future is tied ultimately to a particular place on Earth, “the land of Israel”.

To begin with, the Israelis, historically, come from the area we call the Middle East, particularly from an area known as the Levant.  The area on the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea, now known as Israel, formerly Palestine and was prehistorically known as Canaan.  In a land of low fertile valleys and rocky mountains and where rain is scarce at times, the ancient people settled in areas where their sheep and or cattle would be able to graze and where the people can grow crops of wheat and various vegetables.  With farming and herding of sheep and cattle, the size of various clans grew larger.  The scarcity of land becomes apparent. While telling a tale over the campfire at night, the tribal elders reduce the battle between the shepherd and the farmer for land to the legend of two brothers fighting and one killing the other. Continue reading →

Have you ever felt like you were born in the wrong decade or era?

29 Monday Sep 2014

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Church © Alptraum | Dreamstime Stock PhotosFirst I thought about being born around the beginning of the 20th century. But then I thought about the diseases and lack of utilities like the toilet and toilet paper. That already knocked off the 19th century off my list. I didn’t want to be born in the 1920s because I would be just right to be obligated to go to WWII. If I was born in the 1940s I thought it would be cool to experience the 1960s in my twenties with all the music and free love and living expenses were much lower. But that meant I would have to live a life similar to my father’s and I would want that. I thought about being born in the 1970s but cinematically and musically the 1990s wasn’t that great and the 80s were better. Being born anytime after 1980 isn’t an option for me because I wouldn’t know all that I know know to understand all that could have been.