Thomas Hobbes

July 26 - July 27

We studied Thomas Hobbes and his idea for two days this week. In class, we usually listen to the lecture from 9:40 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. And we take 10 minutes break. After that, sometimes we make 3 or 4 groups and talk about the reading quiz which the instructor gives us. For the other days, we continue to listen to the lecture. He uses projection equipment, OHP, to show his lecture note to the students. So, we are feeling frustration to write down his memo on our notebooks as fast as possible. There are lots of things to copy. It is really hard to listen his talking carefully and writing down at the same time though it is good exercise to improve my English skill.

Let’s go back to the topic about Hobbes.
His interest is Realism which observes what we are, not what we ought to be. Like Plato, he also considered how politics ought to be understood, organized, or altered. But the big difference between two of them is whether focusing on an ideal state or focusing the real state. The latter is Hobbes’ view. The key word we have to keep in mind all the time when we read his books is “fear.” Fear lies in his every single concept because his emotion was filled with fear every time because of English Civil War (1642-1649).

Have you ever heard of following phrase? “Every man, against every man.” His striking concept is that people will inevitably be in a state of war unless we live in under government. In other words, he says that we will kill each other if there is no government.

As well as him, the philosophers whom we will deal with during the course argue how people would behave in absence of government. For Hobbes, he says that we are allowed to fight one another for self-preservation. There exists a war because of three of conflict among man. First one is competition for property, stuff, and gain. Second one is diffidence which comes from fear for our conservation. Third one is glory which comes from concern for reputation.
This, he says citizens should give up all of their rights to one person called sovereign. To do so, he says, we can stay alive and live a peaceful life.

By the way, I found that there is a man who came from Guam, and one man from Filliping, and one woman from Ethiopia. As you know now, this is one of the differences between a school in the US and that of Japan. And one more big difference is that some students speak up their mind or questions in class. They never hesitate to expose their thinking or questions. The instructor seems to be a little puzzled their relentless questions.

*The picture on the left side:I took this picture in the HUB where most students have a lunch. You can eat pizza, salad,chinese food, and hot dogs or hamburgers at Subway.

*The picture on the right side: You can see Mount Rainer from the University on a sunny day.　

Plato

July 23 - July 25

Hi, everyone! How are you doing?
Today, I would like to tell you what I learned in the classes.
During last three days, we covered the Republic written Plato.
I have found lots of new things from the lecture.

First of all, we studied background of Socrates and Plato.
Socrates is a teacher of Plato and a first philosopher to focus on questions of ordinary living.
And he is believed to go barefoot all year around and could stay up for days in conversation and contemplation. Moreover, it is interesting to know that he spent most of his time in the public market to talk to people there. The characteristic of the book is dialogue. The use of dialogue tell us about philosophy is a part of daily life in Athens. Such kind of conversation was held not just in academic classrooms but in everywhere. Thus, everyone in the city could meet Socrates and talk with him even in a market. By the way, he was considered to be a social gadfly. Gadfly means someone who annoys other people by criticizing them. In contrast, Plato who wrote the Republic came from two prominent, politically-oriented Athenian families in Periclean era. In the Republic, he recorded ideas and life of Socrates for posterity. And he thought that the death of Socrates was am absurd and 'unjust' tragedy. That is why he stuck to 'justice' throughout the book.

The book overview is that Socrates seeks ideal society to find out the answer for his question, "What is the best way to live?" Above all, the question "how the state can be reorganized to realize the best qualities in human beings" becomes the theme of his central work in the book. In order to pursuit for his question, he creates the ideal state and try to discover the answer in it. Also, he thinks that there is a profound connection between the nature of society and the nature of individuals who populate that society. From his view, in the end, good society is constructed from good citizens.

First of all, I will try to show you how an ideal society is made up. The aim of an ideal society is not to exclusive happiness of any one class of citizens. Before building an ideal society, he states that just people live better than unjust person. Therefore, he also accounts that just society is the perfect one to live for. Then, what is justice or injustice? How and where are they generated? Socrates and the audience argue these topics as well. By the way, one of the elements for a good society is each citizen doing their own occupations fitted to their own innate faculties. For example, if your innate capacity is fitted farmer, you should be a farmer. In contrast, if your innate nature is fitted a ruler, you should be definitely a ruler. However, who can judge who is fitted what job? This question was raised by one student in the class. And does everyone agree with this idea? In the book, Socrates introduces the audience to the story which is expected to persuade citizens just to do their own jobs. The story is called "Myth of the Metals." Let me show you this story because I got interested in this allegory. Certain people were literally born from the soil, partly from Hesiod's account of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze races. The rulers, the soldiers and the whole community were down inside the earth. Then, they were sent up to this world. Because they were born from the same soil, they all are brothers. But the god mixed gold into the person who is fit to rule. This person, therefore, has the most precious quality. Next, He put silver into the soldiers, and iron and brass in the farmers and craftsmen. And now, since they came from one stock, their children are supposed to be the same as their parents. However, this story tells us sometimes a golden parent may have a silver child or a silver parent may have a golden one, and so on with regard to the other combinations. Even if an iron and brass child’s parents are gold, he or she ought to be a ruler or auxiliary. Such is a story. This story is said to be a noble lie in a class. Anyhow, Socrates proposes using this story to convince them not try to become out of their natural ability. To do this, he thinks that an ideal society can be constructed. One student related this story to an aptitude test. I think it is interesting to tie up the story with the modern issue. Although Hesiod's story show you one can become a ruler or a farmer based on his or her innate capability, it ignore his or her hope what he or she want to be.

Socrates suggested that a philosopher or a ruler who gained philosophical idea should govern a society to construct a good . And he adds that a ruler should be well educated and nurtured from his childhood.

I found it interesting to know that Socrates or Plato's ideas are regarded as a radical way of thinking nowadays.

*The picture on the left side:This building is 'The University Book Store.' The UW students buy their textbooks there. Also, there are other books, stationeries, and UW goods such as T-shirt and cups.
*The picture on the right side:This is a bus called Metro. Especially, the UW students can ride free on the buses. When you get on a bus, you have to show U-PASS sticker which is attached to the back of your Husky Card(student ID card). It is very convenient to go anywhere you want to if you take a course here.

Thank you !!

Thank you very much for your wonderful gift on my birthday.
I have never dreamed that I could come to Seattle again, and I would become 20 years old here.
Also, I have never dreamed that I would be celeblated by all of you on the web.
I am so pleased with your surprising gift, cool music and amazing Ichiro.
Again, I want to express my gratitude to Yuri, Ayumi, Mayu, Tae, Yumi, and suguru!!
I love you!

Misaki

On the first day of class

On July 19, b-term started!
My course begins at 9:40 and ends at 11:50. It is so long that we take a break for 10 minutes at about 11:00. 21 students are enrolled at this point, but there were about 15 students there.
The ration between men and wemen is half. The instructer is a graduate student. He seems to be around 27 or 28 years old. To my surprise, he speaks Japanese!! It's because he has lived in Japan for 3 years as a ALT. In addition, there is a Japanese girl in the same class. So, he spoke to us when she and I was talking each other in Japanese. It really surprised me.

By the way, we got the syllabus of the course. And we looked over it on the first class.
On the first page, 'Course Description and Objectives' are illustrated. It says, for example, "This course is a survey introduction to some major texts in (primarily Western) political theory from the ancient to the modern period. No prior experience is required, although an interest in politics and curiosity about political idea is highly recommended." Survey introduction means that we will pick up some good sense in books. It doesn't mean we will cover all pat of books.

So, texts and materials we will read are:
Plato, The Republic
Hobbes, Leviathan
Locke, Two Treaties of Government
Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Burke, Reflection on the Revolution in France
Marx, Communist Manifesto
Mill, On Liberty
Ghandi, Selected Political Writings
Barber, Jihad v. McWord.
The coming week, we are going to study Plato and Hobbes.

According to the syllabus, this course is also writing intensive and is composed of one major assigment, a weekly analytic journal, short in-class essays/quizzes/group presentations, participation, and a final exam. First paper is due August 13. Paper is going to be 5 page paper.
On each Morning, we have to hand in an alalytic journal. It is going to be 1 page long. This will cover the material for that week. The instructer told us that journal is for making a habit of questioning. In this course, it is the most important thing to think what I think about some philosopher's statements. Realted to this, the instructer said that do not dismiss while we are reading the books. Instead, encourage disagreed opinion if you disagrees with the opinion in the book. Today, July 20, we were given the subject of the first journal.
Let me show you the content. "Imagine that you have boarded a bus and have just settled in for a long journey down the West Cast from rainy seattle to san Diego. Prior to departure an old man in a toga which is a long loose piece of clothing worn by people in ancient Rome sits next to you. He introduces himself as a Socrates and starts to ask you questions." Considering this situation, we have to imagine what he asks me about. As he does this, how do I feel about sitting next to him for the next 36 hours? And why do I feel this way?
For writing up this journal, we need to read the assigned part of the Repblic in advance. I will show you my answer after I finished writing it.

Misaki

Victorian Era

Through reading some books written by John Stuart Mill, I realized that I need to know the British history first. Some of philosophers we will take up in the course were British and Britain had a great influence on a lot of countries nowadays. Thus, learning British history will help you know most of history in other countries. If you don't know any of them, you will be lost definitely. However, I'm lost now at this point. So, I need the knowledge at any rate.

John Stuart Mill lived from 1806 to 1873. On 25 March in 1807, Britain abolished the slave trade. It ended more than 200 years of slave trading. The Abolition of Slavery Act, passed in 1833, freed all slaves in the British empire and provided for compensation for their owners. Above all, I want to show you Victoria era because Mill lived in this era. Victorian Britain starts in 1837 and ends in 1901. It starts when Victoria comes to the throne after the death of William IV. She became queen at the age of 18 after the death of her uncle, William IV. She reigned for more than 60 years, longer than any other British monarch. Her reign was a period of significant social, economic and technological change, which saw the expansion of Britain's industrial power and of the British empire. However there were riots over the right to vote and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been established to protect British agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century. Moreover, the country was connected by an expansive network of railway lines in this era. So, small, previously isolated communities were exposed and entire economies shifted as cities became more and more accessible.
There is much more things to study.

*The building in the picture is the Smith Hall in which my classroom is located.

Locker and Materialism

Hello, everyone. How are you doing? I hope you succeed in your exams. Today, I rented a locker at Husky Union Building (HUB). Let me tell you about the HUB in the beginning. According to the website (http://depts.washington.edu/sauf/hub/), “HUB brings together the campus community at the University of Washington. It is a place to gather with friends, watch a movie, study, get involved with a student organization, learn a new skill, grab something to eat, or just relax. The HUB offers Wifi access throughout the building in the meeting rooms and common areas.” As you can see now, we usually have lunch there and study on second floor thanks to the access to the Internet. The HUB Lockers are located on the Basement level of the HUB next to the HUB Games Area. I rented one smaller locker for $10 for entire summer quarter, b-term. There is larger one close to smaller one. If you want to rent a locker, you can go to the HUB information desk first. And you can ask the staff there to rent smaller or lager locker. However, you have to buy a key for your locker at the book store before using it. Renting a locker will be helpful to you.

Next, I'm going to tell you materialism. Through studying Hobbes, I noticed there is the other key term for me to understand. It is materialism. In philosophy, it is the view that the world is entirely composed of matter. Philosophers now tend to prefer the term physicalism. Materialism in this philosophical sense emerges in the modern period in Hobbes's Leviathan.

State of Nature

Hello, everyone. Five days have passed since I've arrived at Seattle. Sunshine is so strong that we feel very hot here.
Now, I'm at Asian Library where thousands of hundreds of Asian books are stored. There are, of course, Japanese books in the library. This library is the most comfortable for me to stay for long time when I study thanks to the atmosphere.

Today, I want to tell you about "State of Nature." (自然状態 in Japanese) It is a term in political philosophy. Some philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau argued this. State of nature is a condition without government. Thus, to consider this condition will help us thinking of the reason why government exists and why it is needed for human beings. This term was first suggested by Hobbes in his book, Leviathan. I think some of you know following phrase, "war of every man against every man." (万人の万人に対する闘争 in Japanese) That is, Hobbes believed that human beings without a government would behave "badly" towards one another because he also believed that human beings is allow to do anything to preserve their own liberty or safety. I think he stated a government is needed for basic security which brings comfortable, sociable, civilized life.

In addition, he assumed each people have a right to preserve their own lives. This right is defined by him as "the right of Nature." (自然権 in Japanese) I suppose we will deal with this topic in the course in order to discuss the need of a government.

[Description of a picture]
ABOVE:This is the Asian library.You can borrow book at the front counter in the picture.

BELOW:This is a picture of Suzzallo & Allen Libraries. It opens from 8:00 to 22:00 through Monday to Thursday.

Hello from Seattle

Hi. How are you doing? I'm in Seattle now and writing blog at the cafe called ZOKA CAFE sitting with Lee-sensei at the same table. We are doing OK.

We, Lee-sensei, Yuto and me, left from Sendai at about 9:00 a.m. for Tokyo. And we arrived at Tokyo station at about 11:30. Then, we waited for thirty minutes to get on Narita Express which took us to the Narita airport. It took for about thirty minutes to the airport.

There, our baggages were inspected if we had a illigal things in a suitcase by the staff at the airport. To my surprise, I was asked to stop for checking my suitcase because I was looked weird! And a elderly man started to open it and searched if there were any dangerous things to bring to the airplane. I could not believe my eyes because I had no such things in my suitcase. And there were absolutely no such things in it. The staff found out it after five minutes.

After that, we could get our "boarding pass" from the machine and handed our suitcase to the staff. We should hand a suitcase unlocked. For getting boarding pass, we had to simply hold our passports over a scanner. And then, we could get "boarding pass" from the machine. It was very easy to use. Because the elderly woman behind us, however, did not know how to use it, Yuto showed her how to get "boarding pass." After that, we changed money from yen to dollor at Mizuho Ginko.

By the way, our airplane was Northwest Airlines. My seat was "31-D". Lee-sensei and Yuto sat far away from me. Chinese man was sitting to my right side. And Korean man was sitting to the left side. I could know where they came from because Chinese man was talking Chinese with his wife and Korean man was reaing the book written in Korean and was speaking to the air-hostess he is Korean. It's annoying that the Chinese reclined on my right side of shoulder when he was sleeping. I just had been waiting the timing when he changed his sleeping position.
It took nine and half hours to get to San Feancisco. It was little sad that I could not see the view of a city in San Francisco from the airplane because I sat in the middle seat. At the San Francisco airport, we spent our time waiting to get on the Alaska airplane. We did not go out of the airport. We had a cup of coffee, good tasted, there. Yuto fell asleep onto the chair while reading the book. Lee-sensei and I were talking about the woman behind us. Finally, the Alaska airplane took off at 2:00 p.m.

Alaska airplane is a little smaller than that of Northwest. And three seats are placed on right and left side. I had a cup of orange juice in the plane. Since I could sit close to a window, I enjoyed seeing the view above the city of Seattle. Actually, I was sleeping almost one and half hours on the plane.

We arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International airport at around 3:30 p.m. While we were waiting for taking back our baggages, A father whose son was Yuto's roommate last summer came to pick him up. As for Lee-sensei and I, Lee-sensei's friend, Charlas, came to pick us up and gave us a ride to his house. So now, we are staying at his house which is close to Green Lake. (http://www.cityofseattle.net/parks/parkspaces/greenlak.htm This website is sbout Green Lake)
The room is very comfortable to live and sleep. I appreciate him offering his room.

However, we are looking for a house we can stay at. Though I will leave for the dorm on 18 July, Lee-sensei will live a house with the other person after I move to the dorm. She is going to share a house with two or four people they are really new to her. I heared that it is common here to share one house with four or five men or women to live for paying law price. I hope we will be living on a new house tomorrow.

Thank you FUJIYAMA members writing me a message card and some of you who sent me an email before I left for Seattle!!

Misaki

On liberty

John Stuart Mill is a British Philosopher. He argues "liberty".

His famous argument is that harm principle. The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, unless these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself.

Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Who is Thomas Hobbes? He was very affected by Wars of the Three Kingdoms (sometimes known as the Wars of the Three Nations) between 1639 and 1651. His work, Leviahan, was written in 1651. After he experienced the wars, he thought over how the nation could stay carm and wrote his idea about it on the book.

"Three" in three kingdoms means Scotland, Ireland and England. The best known of these conflicts is the English Civil wars. The English Civil War was a really profound political event in seventeenth century Europe. During this period, the Stuart kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland, and the Principality of Wales were ripped apart by religious and political unrest. It was also part of a wider struggle between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. Oliver Cromwell, by the way, played a key role in the war.

Leviathan

I will read during the course Leviathan written in 1651 and written by Thomas Hobbes who was an English philosopher.

He acclaims that human beings are not naturally good but selfish. People behave just what he or she want to do if they are at natural state. He tried to describe the human society without a government or a rule. And he concluded that people would fight against one another in order to pursue their self-interests. Then, he stated that the way to avoid such cruel situstion is that to have commonwealth.

Misaki

Socrates could not convince Plato's brothers any more, he tried to prove just is superior to unjust using a city as a model. He thought it would be better to clearfy what just is in a city rather than in a man. From then, he started to talk about why a city arose.

And what they found is each people should do one thing, one job inherited by nature.

Misaki

Justice or Injustice

In summary, the core argument in the Republic is about justice. Throughout the book, main points is what the virtue justice is and why a person should be just. Now, we are going to track the discussion about them.

In the first part of the book, it says that returning debts owed, and helping friends while harming enemies are justice. But Socrates think the definition is not adequate. In the next step, one of philosophers says justice is the benefit for strongers more than anything else. Socrates does not agree with his idea. After some discussion, Socrates succeedes in persuading him to admit his statement was wrong.

After that, Plato's two brothers challenge Socrates to define justice. One of Plato's brother, Glaucon, uses the legend in which a man discovered a ring that gave him the power to become invisible. Glaucon argue that every man would do unjust things if he had the opportunity like that. Thus, no man would be just by his nature. Graucon's statement is that the just person is forced to be just because he is just afraid of doing injustice for fear of being punished. He defend the position that the just life is better than the unjust life with the legend.

The story continues on and on. I will show you the next time.