Philosophical Worldviews

Before I take my first graduate Political Science course, I thought that I would brush up on their research methods. I have taken a graduate Historical Research Methods course, but I know that the Social Scientists do things a bit differently. For example, most historians don't really worry about quantitative research (too busy finding scarce primary source documents, so you certainly can't find accurate numbers). However, American Military University in their wisdom gave me transfer credit for my Historical Research Methods class so I don't have to take the Research Methods in Social Sciences class. This is good, but I was sort of looking forward to learning about the research methodology.

So I ordered the textbook for the Research Methods class and am reading through it before my Public Policy class begins (Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, by John Creswell). In this textbook Creswell mentions four Philosophical Worldviews the different researchers may or may not have. He says that it is important to figure out your worldview before you start designing your research project so that you can use the best research methods that will complement your philosophical outlook.

I found out that I have two different outlooks depending upon what type of paper I am writing. As a Historian I have what Creswell calls the Social Constructive worldview. I look at the society and individuals in the time period without preconceptions and try to figure out what was going on way back when, understanding that different societies have different worldviews themselves. When I am working on a Political Science paper I realize that I am what Creswell calls a Pragmatist; more concerned with finding out what works in a messy world, than worried about creating a theory that fits all the facts. I then find out that Rorty (a philosopher favored by Andrew) has written about Pragmatism, and I should use this occasion to learn more about Rorty and Pragmatism.

Perhaps Andrew has a reading list for me.

New Class - New Direction

When Carol and I moved to our new house 3 years ago I stopped working on my Masters Degree and let my admission status with the American Military University slip to inactive. In the past 3 years, Carol and I have settled into our new house and have visited Hawaii 3 times, but I have also done a lot of soul searching about what I want to do with the rest of my life.

With Carol's encouragement, I have gone back to an earlier idea about what type of Masters Degree that I wanted to get. Instead of getting a M.A. in History, I am now planning on getting a M.A. in Political Science with a concentration on Comparative Politics. This degree will fuse my passion for politics with my passion for international relations. It will also allow me to teach at the community college level, and teach Dual Credit classes in high school. I have given this a lot of thought and now feel good with this situation. It also helps that all 3 of my History classes have also transferred into my new degree plan.

So on October 6 my new class starts. I am taking a class in Public Policy. This is a short, intense 8 week class so everything should be over before the end of November, so I will be free for the Christmas holidays (and not writing my research paper on Christmas Day)!!

Preparations for Rita

Carol and I tried to evacuate Houston and go live with Andrew in Austin. However, I was so busy getting Klein High School ready to survive a hurricane that I did not leave early enough on Wednesday. As a result we could not get any gas. So we have decided to "shelter in place." I thought you would like to see some pictures of our house pre-Rita.


Here is our Master bathroom. We have plenty of water in case we lose water service. We also have plenty of bottled water and have filled up every spare container with tap water.







We have moved all of our outdoor stuff into the house in order to have them avoid becoming projectiles in the possible 100+ mph winds. I like the grill in the slot where the refrigerator goes in the Garage apartment.






All the valuables are boxed and in the closets or interior rooms. We have planned for tree strikes and multiple window breaks. So everything that could become a projectile has been removed.








All four cars are in our 3 car garage. Note the new yellow Jeep in the bay. Also the smoker is parked in the garage. We will eat very well for the first day or two after the storm. We got T-Bone steaks, chicken, and sausage to smoke. Mmmmm!!





Carol has wrapped all the antiques that are near windows.










We don't have any plywood, but the ballroom windows have cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic that have been stapled over them. Ahh, it is nice to be married to an engineer. Carol is the handy women in this family.






The big oak tree in front of the house before the storm. Hope it still stands after the storm.













The study has no windows in it, so it has become our bunker. Short of complete structural failure, we should be safe here. Here are Stephen and Carol enjoying the bunker after a hard two days of work.






Stephen and I show you what we intend to do when in the bunker. We could also sleep in here if necessary.















Well that's all for now folks. The hatches have been battened down. Will post pictures that we take during and after the storm later.

Have fun


Jon

Some Reflections on Change

I have not posted to Historia in a while. I have not gotten into the habit of writing a journal on even a semi regular basis. However, I do keep reading other peoples blogs from time to time. I just read Andrew’s most recent blog on Rationality dated June 14th entitled some things have to be changed. I urge you to read it for yourself, but the basic gist of it is that some things just get neglected and nobody bothers to change them.

Today we are used to change in our lives, very radical changes in technology and society happen all the time. Yes, many things stay the same and have been inherited from the past. To give you a completely random and uncontroversial example (I just happened to be reading about banking reform today) the banking system in the U.S. would never have been designed the way it is today, it just sort of evolved that way and now it has sort of gotten messy. Our society is similar, our attitudes towards women are ancient hand-me-downs passed on from one generation to the next. However, modern Americans have taken change for granted. I have seen attitudes change in my short lifetime of almost 40 years, and I expect attitudes to be very different 40 years from now.

In the past, I mean 200+ years ago, things changed very gradually. Change was rare. Of course there were radical changes, wars revolutions, but society and history as a whole would change very little. For the most part, change was invisible to the ordinary person, sort of like plate tectonics is for us today. Things started to change more rapidly for people in Europe with the French Revolution (guess what another one of my reading assignments was today?). The people who came together in 1789 at the Estates General were not radical revolutionaries. France had to change, everybody knew that, but they did not know what was going to happen. They did not know that once the status quo was shifted, it would give way like a row of dominoes. Many of the people supporting change in 1789-91 lost their heads to the guillotine only a few years later.

French society was in a straightjacket, resistant to all change, such that when one thing went so did the entire society. Today change is pervasive and modern society is used to adapting to it. So if something in our society changes, life just goes on. Many people get hurt by change in our society, but it does not collapse. So for the people who want to make a change in today’s world I say stand up and make your mark. People may be angry with you for changing society, they may call you dirty names, it might ruin part of your life, but you probably won’t go to the guillotine for it

Seminar in World History

Well it has been awhile since I posted here. A short explanation is in order. Shortly after finishing my last graduate class, Carol and I found out that her parents wanted to live permanently in Tennessee, and stop commuting to Texas to live here half the time. In other words the dream home that Carol and I built 6 years ago with 3,800 square feet designed for 6 people and 2 cats would now only be inhabited by 2 people and 1 cat. We would have to put the house on the market. This we have done and now we are waiting for the right buyer to come along and buy our unique property (most people are not into ballrooms).
While we wait, I have decided to start work on my next history class which is a Graduate Seminar in World History. I figure that if I can get far enough ahead on my reading and assignments (my professor has kindly sent me the syllabus in advance) before the end of spring break, then I can sign up for the class and keep up until the summer when I can become a full time student for two months. This class should be double the reading and double the writing of my previous course.
Most of my experience with World History concerns Western Civ and neglects the rest of the world until the West shows up and colonizes them. One of my reasons for pursuing a Masters degree is to rectify this oversight in my education. The first book on my extensive reading list is the Rise of the West, by William McNeill. This 800+ page book is a little dated (it was originally published in 1964), but is my professors favorite overview of World History. We will be contrasting it with a newer, but less favored, view from a different author later in the course.
I am finding some astonishing gaps in my basic knowledge of early World History, stuff that I thought I should have already know. For example, take the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. From all of the basic history textbooks that I have read earlier, I have always assumed that iron weapons were better than bronze weapons because iron was harder than bronze. After all bronze is harder than copper and harder weapons in battle give a decisive advantage. But alas this is incorrect. In reality iron and bronze weapons have about the same degree of hardness and bronze weapons in fact are superior in the fact that they don’t rust. However, bronze is a composite metal and the raw metals are relatively difficult to find in large quantities, whereas iron is relatively abundant in nature. This meant that warfare in Bronze Age civilizations was essentially an aristocratic affair because only the wealthy could equip themselves with bronze weapons. Iron Age civilizations on the other hand could outfit a much larger army with iron weapons due to the better availability of iron ores. The reason why the Iron Age did not happen earlier was because bronze is relatively easy to work, it can be cast while an ironsmith has to work the iron into a primitive steel for it to be useful as a weapon.
The myth that iron is harder and better than bronze perpetuated in role playing games. In RuneQuest for example iron weapons are much better than bronze weapons and are the weapons of the elite fighters, while the common masses have to make due with bronze. In reality Iron Age civilizations were superior to Bronze Age civilizations not only due to the fact that they could equip a larger army, but also that the common person could have access to a hard metal. Farming outside of the rich alluvial plains took off with iron plows which could cut through the harder soils. Therefore, Iron Age civilizations could increase their food supply by putting turning formerly unproductive land into food producing farmland.

Books worth reading and things worth saying.

There was a request in the comments of a previous post for some info about current books and authors in philosophy and history. I can't say that I know of any contemporary works of history, but I'll list a few philosophy books that have caught my interest lately.

Ways of Worldmaking - Nelson Goodman
I'm not sure if Goodman is always classified as a post-modernist, but in this book he certainly reflects the sentiments of the movement. He describes how the worlds we perceive consist of parts that we recognize as relevant or irrelevant - what we choose to acknowledge as relevant is one aspect of worldmaking. Scientists for example are searching for facts and truths, but not just any old fact will do; the scientific world is built from certain facts and only select groups of people are even aware of the scientific world. Goodman uses the term "worldmaking" because what he's trying to describe is something more than perspectivism or relativism, he is analyzing the substance behind our worlds because there is more to perception than reality* alone.
* The world-as-it-really-is or Truth with a capital "T"

Philosophy and Social Hope - Richard Rorty
This is a collection of essays, journal articles, and other of Rorty's writings that bring forth a very accessable introduction to his philosophy. He brings together continental philosophy and true leftist American thought (has anyone else noticed that 'the left' today is what 'moderate' was not that long ago?... if politics is your game check out his book Achieving our Country). Rorty would classify himself as a neo-pragmatist although few people call him anything other than a post-modernist. He has a flare for story-telling at times which lightens the heavy intellectual-elitist feel that can creep up among the plethora of references he makes to other writers/works/ideas in philosophy and every other field. His top three influences are John Dewey [Democracy and Education], Charles Darwin [The Origin of Species, as if you didn't know], and Thomas Kuhn [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]. Rorty is my current favorite, and if it wasn't clear from the title of his book, he is a hardcore optimist just like me.

That's it for the brief book reviews. I thought it would be worth mentioning here that anyone who got Jon's invitation to this site has the ability to post here on the main page... c'mon now, I'm still waiting for that warm fuzzy community feeling!

Goodbye 2004

Many people look upon the end of the old year as a time to say “good riddance.” Time to be done with the old bad year and to look forward to a new good year with high hopes and expectations (to be dashed and rubbished when it too is old next year). Of course there are always going to be bad things happing in every year. This year we had the almost a full year of death and destruction in Iraq, and Sudan; poverty and starvation around the world (as usual, sigh); domestic politics (I am not even going to go there); and a year ending tragedy of almost biblical proportions (120,000+ killed in the tsunami so far). Some might say this qualifies 2004 as an annis horribilis, but then almost every year would qualify, and 2005 probably will not be much better (and could be worse).

It would probably be better to assess the old year in more personal terms; history in general tends to be the record of bad events. I remember my own annis horribilis being in 1999. Carol and I moved into our new house and we spent so much of our time making in possible for my Grandmother to move into it with us. She died a week before she was supposed to move in, but that year was the year of death for both our families. Between Carol and myself we had 5 relatives who were close to us die in 1999 (although Carol’s grandmother technically died a few hours into 2000). However, 2004 has not been that way for us and particularly for myself, quite the reverse in fact.

Since rejoining academia, after a 10-year hiatus of working in the real world, I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on new challenges. I started teaching high school in 2002 and found out that I am very fond of teaching (corrupting the minds of the future). I started graduate school in 2004 and am finishing my second class (term paper due January 14th). Also, I am teaching honor students for the first time this year (which presents very different challenges than a regulars class). 2004 also has brought me closer to Carol, whose support for me in teaching and in graduate school has made both of these things possible for me, and my family as well (I really enjoy being with both Andrew and Marian, two of some of the finest people that I know). I felt I have grown personally as well, my understanding of myself as a human, scholar, and husband have all improved in 2004 (once again Carol gave me the support and every now and then a badly need kick in my complacency).

Yes, 2004 had some personal failings for me (as all years do), but as a whole things are getting better. I hope 2005 will be a banner year for myself as well as for all of you. Remember to be there for someone else in your life because we all need other people to succeed in life. I would not be where I am today (and 2004 would have been a bad year for me) if it was not for other people. We might not be able to achieve world peace, but we can make a difference in other peoples lives, one life at a time.

Happy New Years All!!!

Jon