parresia

Bias: same yesterday, today, and

Bias: same yesterday, today, and tomorrow

I have a very similar philosophy-class story as this one. I'm currently studying "free will and determinism" with a professor named Kaiser. He is a blatant atheist who seems very interested in convincing the class that any notion other than atheistic-materialistic-determinism is not only ridiculous, but only fools believe in such. On a typical day he spends the majority of the time buttressing his own arguments and he all but passes over the "opinions" of those who would disagree with him (all the while he makes these faces that must be intended to show the class that even talking of different views than his own, if it must be done at all, must be done with rubber gloves).

The majority of the class is made up of beginning philosophers, and most of them seem to agree with the professor's "analysis" thus far. Thus far I have been the only voice of dissention, and it has not gone unnoticed. Hence my story:

Monday, after a 20 minute monologue on the "explanatory strength only found within atheistic determinism, and the lack of reasons to even believe that we have free will," I decided to, once again, take issue with the professor. (side note: by this time in the quarter He already knows me by name, and he very often delivers his lecture looking right at ME, as if to say, "I know the class is going along with me, but it's YOU I want to hear this.") I pulled out the big guns: I went straight for the atheistic determinist's under-belly, namely their presuppositions. I pointed out 1. The atheist is begging the question when he makes claims to rationality. 2. The atheist does not have "explanatory power" on many of the most crucial issues, including morality, the laws of logic, and language, and 3. The atheistic determinist position is self-refuting because those who hold to the view cannot even account for their own knowledge of that view.

let's just say that he was a little perturbed by my comments. He spent the next 20 minutes or so attempting to address the issues I had raised. He didn't get anywhere close to defending his position, he spent most of the time back-peddling; he kept saying, "well, I really didn't want to focus today's lecture on this anyway," yet he continued to defend his view all the way up the break.

I had to leave class at the break (I had a paper to finish and print out at the computer lab). In my next class (Aristotle), a girl who also happens to be in my Kaiser class, comes up to me and says, "He [Kaiser] sure did shoot you down didn't he?" I said, "what do you mean?" She answered, "Oh, you weren't there, that's right. He was talking about you after you left, he said things like, 'somebody needs to tell this and that to Jeremy.'" Evidently, the professor went on at length attacking my position, even with me not in the room so as to defend myself! I could hardly believe it.

now fast-forward to yesterday (wednesday). As soon as professor Kaiser walked into class, the first thing out of his mouth is, "Jeremy, that's your name right?" (as if he didn't know) "you raised some questions last time that I wanted to address..." He spent another 30 minutes of class time redefining the arguments (again) and basically playing "clean-up" concerning the arguments from Monday. It seems he had spent quite a bit of time in thought over the past couple days dealing with some considerations that were raised. He only allowed me one opportunity to clarify my position (which I did), but other than that he did his best to alleviate any worries that the class might be having on account of these "new questions." He tried to make it sound as if, the worries I raised are not really worries that we need to be concerned with. He said these are "interesting" questions, but that they are NOT at the heart of the issue (just the opposite of the truth).

The good news is that he has offered for me to write my midterm paper on the topic (which will afford me the opportunity to argue with greater clarity, and he won't be able to cut me off), and more than two people have come up to me stating that they in one way or another agree with my arguments. Moreover, one girl has expressed interest in learning more about arguments for God's existence, which is great news. So, as wayne ohh said, this will make for an interesting quarter.

Your prayers, as always, are welcomed. Godspeed.