Category Archives: philosophy

Contemplations from the Oort Cloud

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So it has been a while since I created a post here.  My bad.  But with teaching, working on conferences, committee work, and life in general, I find little time for blogging.  I have, however, discovered Cowbird and love the image/narrative cadence it offers.  I have posted a couple of modest contributions in recent days.

oortcloud2Today, however, I am reveling in the idea of the Oort Cloud.  This cloud of frozen rock is the source of comets that race by our planet in regular intervals. Nothing living/but multiplicity with motion, ‘goals’ or impetus to move beyond into our regions and towards the sun–the death of all that enters it. Or perhaps it is a cloud composed entirely of Oorts–little creatures with big red eyes and bat-like wings that flit around the solar system, looking for minds that have wandered into territories unknown.  Attracted by the chemical scent of curiosity and the glow of visions unseen, an Oort hovers over the unsuspecting being, watching, waiting… much as we used to imagine angels did.

What is outside over there (as Maurice Sendak captured so beautifully in his mysterious picture book) that invites us to look up at the moon, to seek out the stars?  And why does the Oort cloud image resemble Parmenides’ idea of Being?

bigoort

Philosophy and women

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women-phil

I found this image when I googled ‘women philosophers’ and was struck by the piercing eyes and absent mouth

Well this news item showed up this weekend in the New York Times about the philosopher Colin McGinn who has set off a debate about sexism in the profession.  There is a news flash, right?  However, in all fairness, my personal experience cannot testify to this wide-spread sexism.  I entered graduate school a long time ago; so you might think that it would have been even worse then.  Plus I went to a Jesuit institutions where all the faculty but one were men and most of my fellow graduate students were men as well.  I think that I can recall one other woman but she left soon to study religion in Hawaii.  Whether I was just incredibly naive and oblivious or whether I represent the women who did not experience sexual harassment, I am not entirely sure.  The Times article referenced this blog by  philosopher Jennifer Saul whose work I have used in my own classes and I have to say it is a damning collection of reports of sexual harassment, bias against women and just overall dismissal of women in philosophy.  Even my own anecdotal observations at the APA (American Philosophical Association) meetings noted the decrease in the number of women in the profession as represented by attendees.

There are indeed women, fine thinkers, in philosophy if one looks.

There are indeed women, fine thinkers, in philosophy if one looks.

In my recollections of my own graduate school experiences, I did note that the men in my  department never had any doubts whatsoever about their skills, intellectual potential and future in the discipline.  I was riddled with self doubt but frankly, based on what I still claim to be a realistic appraisal of my own limited talents.  And yet my professors seemed to accept me on the basis of what I could do, not type me by gender.  Maybe sexism has worsened since the 70s-80s?  Or do many of the current issues arise in top drawer programs which are so caught up with their own self-importance that they implode at the suggestion that anyone really deserves them, much less women?  Something to think about.

Portrait of the artist as a young child

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Jackson Pollock considers

Jackson Pollock considers

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Hazel also considers

So back in November I went to the “Patchogue Art Museum,” a well-intended but perhaps over-stated site where the person in charge had installed art from two local schools.  I had offered to give a talk on children’s art and this was the reception.  When I arrived, I quickly calculated that the attendees, preschoolers and their families, were not particularly interested in any theoretical lecture on the nature of artistic endeavors by children so I re-calibrated and spoke with the children about what they had done.  Fair enough.

But what about children and art?  Can a child be an artist, other than in the eyes of a doting mom and dad?  Why do we not take their work seriously beyond the display on the refrigerator?  And how do adult artists emerge from childhood to become the artists that they are?

Project Zero at Harvard University has been dedicated both to studying and to encouraging art in children’s’ lives for many decades now.  Ellen Winner, Howard Gardner, and associates have written many books and articles on how children manipulate the media of art to produce the striking products that they so often do.  Interestingly enough, young artists are at their best in preschool and even earlier.  Once they hit elementary school, the art becomes more formulaic and typical.

I will be working on an article that explores how children do art, reflect on their art, and whether we ought to consider it “real art” or not.  Stay tuned…!