A Level Ethics and Philosophy at Spalding Grammar School

A Level Ethics and Philosophy at Spalding Grammar School

East of Eden

I have just finished reading this wholesome novel.  I fully recommend it.  It charts the events and personal journeys of family members over two centuries.  Steinbeck is really gifted in portraying characters and there are some wonderful characters in this novel and some ugly characters, and through them, he explores the timeless essence of human nature.  This book is called East of Eden as the 16 verses in Genesis of the story of Cain and Abel are Steinbeck's inspiration.  In the Genesis account, just after Cain kills Abel he lives away from Eden - in fact to the East of Eden.  There is a wonderful scene in chapter 24 when Lee (the faithful Chinese servant to Adam and his sons) and Samuel Hamilton (a character you would love to come to life so that you can converse with him) are discussing the intricate nature of the story of Cain and Abel.  Lee, embarks on some study of Greek and then Hebrew to understand the command that God gives Cain directly after he kills Abel.

"Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order "Do thou" (rule over sin) and throw their weight into obedience.  And there are millions more who feel predestination in "Thou Shalt".  Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be.   But "thou mayest"! Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he still has great choice.  He can choose his course and fight through it and win"

Towards the end of the story, Lee again makes an observation of the human condition - he compares it to a fine porcelain cup (one that Lee often drinks his liquor from)

"Does a craftsman, even in his old age, lose his hunger to make a perfect cup - think, strong, translucent?  He held his cup to the light, "All impurities burned out and ready for glorious flux, and for that - more fire.  And then either the slag heap or, perhaps what no one in the world ever quite gives up, perfection"  He drained his cup and he said loudly, "Cal, listen to me, Can you think that whatever made us - would stop trying?".

The characters are sometimes conscious of their imperfections and sometimes unconscious of them, some are happy with them, and others try desperately to fight them, this is the story of the human condition.  If you want a story about redemption and soul making then this is the next book that you should read!

Sufism

The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriach Huineng, "I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas i do not quite understand. Please enlighten me."

The patriach responded, "I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning."

Said the nun, "You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?"

"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?"

The mystical aspect of religious belief appeals much more to me than doctrines and creeds as these leave open the possibility of one religious orthodoxy to denounce another religious orthodoxy.  Those who think other than the creed are deemed to be heretical - actively choosing another path; the wrong path.   The mystical approach seeks to abandon these labels, words, definitions, descriptions and instead connect with the source of existence.  I have always been curious as to why there is a need for hierarchy in any organisation when all beings are created and of the same substance as the source.   Plato emphasized the Forms - the absolute of Truth, Beauty, the original dwelling of our mind / soul.  This earthly existence is about remembering what it is we already knew when we were in the world of Forms.  I find it interesting that Knowledge or cognition is key to mysticism.  Sufi's say that it is re-cognising that helps us to realize and begin our journey to knowing who we are and ultimately knowing the source of the Reality beyond this veil of ignorance.  It's all good and well to describe the finger but look at what the finger is pointing to.

Religion, Belief and Education

This week (17th - 23rd November) is Interfaith Week. If you visit the relevant website, you can read a variety of testimonies from those who laud the idea of different faiths celebrating their contribution to society and their commitment to working together. The website suggests activities in which to get involved and provides examples of events being carried out around the country. There is particular importance attached to an event like Interfaith Week this year after the RE Council of England and Wales published a damning review of the state of RE in schools. Whilst it acknowledged that:

Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based, and which:

• promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils, and
  
• prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life and
  All state schools... must teach religious education...*
  

it also stated quite clearly that, for a variety of reasons, RE in schools has declined - both in terms of timetable provision and specialist staffing, and in student uptake - over the last decade. This follows a period of growth in the subject area in line with an emphasis on social tolerance and community coherence. So what has changed? Well, in the last three years, huge changes have been made in the Government's approach to education more generally. A raft of new policies have led to many alterations to GCSEs and A Levels in particular and, most recently, the Department for Education carried out a review of the National Curriculum. Tellingly, RE was not part of the review. In a speech given at Lambeth Palace (the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury) on 3rd July 2013, the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, conceded that he had assumed that the legal requirement to deliver RE in all state-funded schools would protect it from any responses to the curriculum changes brought about by the Department for Education. In particular, he acknowledged that leaving RE off the list of Humanities in the English Baccalaureate had made it  an "unintended casualty" of the changes. This was a direct result of the evidence of many RE teachers stating that schools had been left with little option but to invest their time and money into the EBacc subjects, to the detriment of those subjects left off the list.

However, the situation of RE in schools is not entirely bound to the Coalition Government's education policies. At Fortismere, you are exceptionally lucky to be taught by a Department made up of three subject specialists (all to at least Masters Degree, thank you very much!). This is by no means the norm. Think also about how many of the sixth form colleges you looked at when applying for A Level study offered RE as an A Level option. RE can often considered to be a 'soft option' by teachers, students and parents - an opinion quickly rescinded by those who start the A Level course. It is often forgotten that the top universities in the country - including Oxford and Cambridge - consider the subject to be a rigorous preparation for undergraduate study. Indeed, many of our top universities were founded for the purpose of studying Theology. So, why the shift in how RE is seen in the UK today?

It's difficult to pin it down to one particular answer. It could have to do with the fact that the only thing a tolerant culture cannot tolerate is intolerance, and religion, by its very nature, is often intolerant insofar as it makes specific truth claims that are non-negotiable. It could have to do with the rise of secularism and what I would call fundamentalist atheism (the two are very different things). It could have to do with social changes. If one were not particularly religious in the past, one might still have chosen to get married in a church, for example, or have one's child baptised - more as a socially-recognised rite of passage, rather than as a result of a deep-seated religious conviction. Today, however, alternatives, such as Humanist Welcoming Ceremonies, are far more accessible and attractive to those without specific faith.

Given that this is so, the big question is, is my job secure?! Will religion - and consequently, RE, - decline inexorably until events such as Interfaith Week are distant memories?

As a teacher of RS, I work on the basis that a) it is possible to communicate meaningfully about religion, God and belief, and b) different faith groups - and in this I include those who believe in the non-existence of a divine being - can and want to communicate with each other. It seems to me that communication is at the heart of community and if faith groups cannot communicate to each other or, indeed, at all, then they cannot successfully contribute to the community in which they are placed. Being human is more than simply engaging with the world in an epistemological way. The very existence of art and music indicates that humans not only feel the world in ways that cannot be reduced to objective observation, but that they have a driving need to share this. If the way one experiences the world convinces one of the existence of God in ways that can be felt but not verified empirically, then that is one's authentic experience of life, and not an indicator of ignorance or wilful stupidity. 

The title of this post is 'Religion, Belief and Education'. More than anything, I believe in education - that it offers opportunities, not to pass exams or gain desirable qualifications, but to explore life and exercise curiosity. I am a linguist, as you all know ("Come on everyone, let's word detective!" *groan*), but I chose to pursue RE at school and Theology at university for two reasons: firstly, it was the only subject that made my brain hurt and thereby actively reminded me that I have one, and secondly, it was the subject that excited my curiosity about humanity and the world. As long as this remains true for others than myself alone, then this is a subject that will continue to have value in schools. 

Well, that's what I think, anyway. What about you? 

This is Adam's fault - Mulla Sadra's Ontological Argument

On Tuesday, whilst helping me cart things from one classroom to another, Adam said, 'So, Miss, what do you think of the Mulla Sadra thing I wrote about in my blog? I think Kant's objection might apply to his argument too." This posed a dilemma for several reasons: firstly, I hadn't had a chance to catch up with Adam's blog - should I admit to this? Secondly, I had no idea who Mulla Sadra was (is?) - should I reveal my ignorance? And thirdly, I had absolutely no idea how Kant's objection to the Ontological Argument might relate to Sadra's work. Some of this must have showed on my face because almost immediately Adam said, "Don't worry, Miss, read the blog then we'll talk." That's me told!

So, being a responsible teacher and a committed professional, I immediately went off to find out about Mulla Sadra and his connection to the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. For the next two hours I could be found in S03 clutching my head and moaning, 'But I don't get it...'. What is written below is the result of a further twelve hours of thoughtful reflection, some of which can also be found on Adam's blog. I have focused on Sadra's key ideas, rather than a historical biography of his life. 

Mulla Sadra is the most significant Muslim scholar after Avicenna. His work is heavily influenced by Aristotelian philosophy and the metaphysics of Neoplatonism. (Don't forget the relationship between Plato and Aristotle and where it fits into the table of key terms.) Aristotelian philosophy sees matter as being made of substance and accidents. Substance is the thing in itself; the very pen-ness of a pen, if you like, whereas the accidents are the qualities or properties that distinguish one thing from another (red pen, biro, fountain pen, and so on). For Aristotle, what is truly real - what exists - is the substance. The Neoplatonists, on the other hand, understand existence to be movements of acts of being; existence is a process, rather than a thing. 

Like Anselm, Aquinas and Descartes, Sadra distinguishes between the necessary and the contingent:

The necessary is pure existence without essence, quality or property that undergoes change or motion. In other words, the necessary is immutable (remember that word?). The necessary is a simple thing, rather than a complex thing, but it can produce the complexities of contingent things. For Sadra, God is the necessary.

Contingents are a combination of existence (i.e. they are) and essence (bundles of properties that define what they are) - that is, contingents are a combination of substance and accidents.

Since God, the necessary, bestows existence on contingents, existence is ontologically prior to essence (existence comes before essence). This means things are, and then they take on particular properties or qualities. 

Despite this, Sadra understands existence to be a predicate (a quality or property that tells us something about a thing), or else when we say 'green exists' we would be saying 'green is green', which doesn't tell us anything about what green actually is. In other words, 'exists' has to be a predicate - it has to describe something about the thing to which it refers. This leads us neatly onto Sadra's version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God, which he calls The Proof of the Veracious.

Mulla Sadra's Ontological Argument unfolds thus:

1. There is existence.

2. Existence is a perfection above which no perfection can be conceived [i.e., existence is the supreme perfection - remind you of anyone yet?].

3. God is perfection and perfection in existence. [In other words, God, by definition, is perfect and this perfection includes necessary existence.]

4. Existence is a singular and simple reality; there is no metaphysical plurality [there are not different types of existence, or different forms, or qualities of existence - existence is one thing and so all things that exist originate from the same thing - can you guess where he's going with that?].

5. That singular reality [existence] is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection [all things that exist are the same to a greater or lesser degree of perfection].

6. That scale (of perfection) must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence [there must be something that exists in a supremely perfect way, than which nothing is greater].

7. Hence, God exists.

Take a breath and read it again! Mulla Sadra is basically saying that existence is a perfection (a la Descartes) and that God, as the supremely perfect being, not only exists necessarily, but is the source of all existence. The latter is what makes this an interesting contrast to the arguments of Anselm and Descartes with which you are already familiar. 

Problems? Of course! All the same criticisms we could raise against many versions of the Ontological Argument: it is tautological (its conclusion is the same as its first premise), it relies on definitions, it treats existence as a predicate - and unashamedly so, - and so on. Nonetheless, its important to see how theologians from a variety of faiths use a priori reasoning to better understand God. 

Now go and make a cup of tea and eat cake - if you've got here, you deserve it!

And another one...

Just found this!

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6358756

Religion and Freedom?

I had intended to write about Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Byron, but I think that it will have to wait for another post. Articles that have been appearing on the BBC News website have caught my attention, and I feel that they need exploring.

A series of events have occurred recently that all revolve around one issue: the niqab. 

(See this link for a useful explanation of the different types of veil used by Muslim women.) 

On 16th September, Judge Peter Murphy ruled that a woman on trial at Blackfriars Crown Court in London could wear the niqab, unless she was giving evidence. Moreover, the judge offered that the woman could be screened whilst giving evidence so that only he, the jury and the lawyers would be able to see her face. A refusal to comply with this ruling would result in the woman being arrested for contempt of court. 

Why did the woman not wish to remove the niqab?

Why did the judge feel it necessary that she remove it whilst giving evidence?

(See article here for more information.)

On the same day, the BBC reported the view of Lib Dem Home Office MP, Jeremy Browne, who stated that he felt a debate needed to be had about the place of the veil in certain public places. He said that he was concerned with restricting freedom, but he was also worried about the veil being imposed on young girls. It was, he claimed, an attempt to protect freedom of choice for these girls. He believed we needed to be cautious of "imposing religious conformity on a society which has always valued freedom of expression". 

(Read more here.)

Yet again on the same day, Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (a headteachers' union), wrote in response to Jeremy Browne that full face veils (i.e. the niqab and the burka) were not appropriate in the school context because it is essential that teachers can see students' facial expressions. He admitted that individual schools could decide their own uniform policies, and the article noted that no headteacher has yet recorded a student being asked to remove a head covering worn for religious reasons. 

(Read the full article here.)

Three days later, the Department of Health announced that a review was to take place into whether NHS staff in England should be allowed to wear full-face head coverings. 

Now, this week we have been studying Hannah Arendt's theory of the banality of evil. She claims that evil is not necessarily the action of individuals, but the collective 'lack of moral imagination' that can result in a failure to prevent oppression or injustice. I have long been concerned with the rise of legislation across Europe that prevents the wearing of certain types of head covering or specific religious symbols. Although often fairly generic in wording, they are also often practically focused on the banning of Muslim clothing. In some cases, the introduction of such legislation makes sense in the context of the individual country's approach to the relationship between state and religion (thinking in particular of France). However, it seems to have been creeping from country to country, with a variety of justifications (security, educational progress, justice, infection control, and so on...). 

The crux of the matter is whether wearing the niqab is a freedom guaranteed by one's freedom to express one's belief.

If it is, and our society is starting to find reasons to reduce that freedom, what do we do? More importantly, what do I do? For, as Hannah Arendt notes, the collective lack of moral imagination that can lead to evil is a collection of 'I's who think someone else will say something.

A final thought on this topic:

Ought a tolerant society be able to tolerate intolerance towards its own ideals?