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“Post #1, 1/31: Jean Monnet, the Father of Europe

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“Post #1, 1/31: Jean Monnet, the Father of Europe

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Jean Monnet was born in 1888. He is considered the Father of Europe because he is just that. If it weren't for him, Europe as we know it would likely not exist. Ever since early in his career, he was looking for ways to integrate European countries. In World War I, the French government agreed to his principle of coordinating economic wartime resources in order to maximize both France's and Britain's money, leading to the Allied Maritime Transport Council. Having leveraged himself as a notable figure in internal politics, as a result, he was eventually named the Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations. At the cusp of World War II, he supported the proposed unity of France and Britain to curb German militarism. After World War II, Monnet was in charge of the French General's Office for the Modernisation and Equipment Plan. For this, he realized that the best way to run the economy involved the cooperation of many countries in key sectors of the economy. Through this, he used it to become a realist agent of future political integration. In writing a proposal to Robert Schuman, he suggested that the coal and steel sector should be integrated supranationally to maximize that sector's efficiency and make it materially impossible to wage war between France and Germany. This idea took hold, and he created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. While this was just a single sector of integration, he postulated (correctly) that this would present a domino effect of different functional sectors being integrated. This drives the similarity of institutions, which drives the similarity of rules and laws. This ultimately unites cultures and the technocratic bureaucracies about them in order to snowball into more intense integration. Through this, supranational institutions developed and expanded until we have the European Union we know today.

“Jean Monnet.” Global Governance Forum, 3 Nov. 2020, globalgovernanceforum.org/visionary/jean-monnet/.

Jean Monnet, a Founding Father of Europe | Europeana, www.europeana.eu/en/exhibitions/the-jean-monnet-house/jean-monnet-a-founding-father-of-europe. Accessed 31 Jan. 2025.

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The concept of laïcité began to develop in France in the 14th century. Laïcité is the French legal standard of secularism, separating Church and state. This started with Philip IV of France, who rejected the Pope's attempted interference in his kingdom. What ensued was a policy that dictated that no judiciary was superior to the civil jurisdiction of the French government. This was furthered under Louis XIV when the Declaration of the Clergy of France of 1682 was passed. This clarified that the Church's authority was relegated to nontemporal, representational, and spiritual authority. This, notably, does not coincide with French civil society.

Furthermore, the Enlightenment continued to perpetuate rational engagement with society to order it and those in it toward the most intellectually robust ideal (which happens to exclude theology outside of deism). During the nationalization of France in the 19th century, this religious fervor was further publically dismissed as they attempted to form a civil myth of superiority and intention. This culminated in a 1905 law, which says, in Article 2, "the Republic neither recognizes nor employs nor subsidizes cults." It still protects their freedom but will not continue to fund them, and this has expanded to this day. Students could not bear religious signs in school in 2004. In 2010, religious face coverings were not allowed to be in public. By 2016, nativity scenes were banned from being in governmental buildings. This has finally risen to the most prominent international debate by their hijab bans, which got popularity with a women's soccer team.

“Laïcité: Why French Secularism Is so Hard to Grasp.” Institut Montaigne, 12 Nov. 2017, www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/laicite-why-french-secularism-so-hard-grasp.

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For this Padlet entry, I will explain the rationality and philosophical background of a famous idea espoused by renowned French philosopher René Descartes: cogito ergo sum! In 1640, Descartes set out on an arduous mental journey that philosophers today are still reeling over. It all began when Descartes decided he wanted to be sure of the reality around him. In order to do so, he had to question everything, including his most fundamental assumptions about existence. Descartes descended into skepticism. He did not trust his body because he recalled how he dreams and hallucinates, misperceiving bodily input signals. How can he know if he's dreaming or not? He cannot. He only knows when he wakes up. As a result, Descartes rejects sensory-based epistemology. Then he thinks about reason: can that be wrong sometimes? Yes. People get math wrong all the time. What seems reasonable in one moment may not be reasonable in another. Therefore, combining both of your ideas, then propose that reality is neither mental nor physical, reality is real. Descartes descended into terror as he feared that his entire life was an illusion by some demon god, and he'd never know. However, his darkness was split open by the three-worded ray of sunshine: cogito ergo sum! He thinks. A thinking thing must have some quality of existence in order to think about its existence. From there, Descartes attempts to rebuild all deistic epistemology, but few philosophers recognize his validity past his deconstruction. Regardless, that method of skepticism spurred questions in philosophy up to now if we are in a computer simulation.

Maden, Jack. “I Think Therefore I Am: Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum Explained: Philosophy Break.” Latest Breaks RSS, Philosophy Break, philosophybreak.com/articles/i-think-therefore-i-am-descartes-cogito-ergo-sum-explained/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2025.

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Post #4: Lambert and the Weak Anthropic Argument

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Post #4: Lambert and the Weak Anthropic Argument

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Dominique baron Lambert (ennobled by King Philippe of Belgium) is a Belgian physicist and philosopher educated at Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium's largest French-speaking university. He has a Ph.D. in both philosophy and physics. Educated in both of these fields, Lambert brings together these ideas in his philosophical cosmology. His papers deal with the anthropic argument. The anthropic argument rejects the Fine-Tuning argument for God's existence. The Fine-Tuning argument (FTA) for God says that because of the Universe's specific laws that make life possible. According to the FTA, the odds that this randomly occurred without divine intervention are so low that God must exist as an intelligent designer of the laws that allow for human life. However, as Lambert says in his paper “Quelques réflexions sur le statut et la portée du “principe anthropique,” the Weak Anthropic Argument (WAP) disproves this possibility. Lambert explains how this argument means that, from an infinite set of modally possible worlds, the physical laws that set the conditions for human life could only be observed as "objective laws." Combining the rationality of his physics background and the metaphysical inquisition of his philosophical background, he uses analytical propositional and modal logic to demonstrate these points.

I will explain his argument based on the following symbols and meanings: H (Human life exists), NCH (Necessary conditions for human life exist), → (implies), ∨ (or), ∧ (and), ◊ (modally possible), □ (modally necessary), and finally ¬ (not). Therefore, a summary of his argument for the WAP would be: H→NCH, thus ◊H, thus ◊H→◊NCH, thus H→(NCH1​∨ NCH2​). However, supporters of the FTA will, as he lavishly critiques in this paper, believe the following incorrect manipulation of logic: □H, thus NCH→H, thus H→□NCHj​, thus ¬NCH1​→¬H. This false algebraic manipulation of analytic logic is a misunderstanding of God's existence. Lambert adds specificity to the intense reasoning of anthropic bias.

Lambert, Dominique. "Some Remarks about Uses of Cosmological Anthropic' Principles.'" Origins and Evolution of Life, edited by Muriel Gargaud et al., 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 14–25. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511933875.004.

"Dominique Lambert." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Nov. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Lambert.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau is often associated with the Enlightenment French movement. However, he was not French. He was a Genevan philosopher who spoke French. He was talented at many things, including philosophizing, composing, and writing. His philosophy largely revolved around politics, economics, and education. He was raised in a Calvinist/Protestant city-state and was a part of the Swiss Confederacy. His philosophy centered around a few different concepts. First was his opinion of human nature. He believed that the state of nature of human beings in the singular sense was that they are good. Their nature only becomes evil when they group into groups of people. But until then, because they don't owe anyone anything, no obligations. Because of that, there can be no envy because there is no property either. No jealousy or lack that will drive that. Many people will critique Rousseau for this claim about the state of nature. If one deconstructs the idea of personal property into the concept of advantaging scarcity for one's self-preservation. It is a place where Rousseau has very unsatisfying answers.

From this, many philosophers use the state of nature to determine natural rights, the primary philosophical undergirding of the United States (and Nations) constitutional system. This ties into another idea that Rousseau deals with: the social contract. Because in the state of nature, all are free and without obligation. Therefore, anything drawn together for government must be done by the will of that freedom of the goodness of the people. According to Rousseau, the general will is what is right. Many people suspect his ideas were heavily influenced by his upbringing in Geneva because of the very integrated practices of democracy and representation that surrounded his everyday life.

“Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Mar. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau.

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UC Louvain was founded in 1425, making it the oldest Belgian university. It is a Catholic research university, and because it is Belgian, it is inherently immersed in the Francophone culture. The full name of the school is Université catholique de Louvain. At Louvain, the Higher Institute of Philosophy is known for containing the archives of Edmund Husserl, a German phenomenologist. Because they contain such a fast swathe of a great philosopher at this school embedded in francophone culture, it is worth digging into this. After he died, around 40,000 pages of his manuscripts were smuggled out of Nazi Germany to Louvain by Franciscan priest Herman Van Breda. Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician who lived from 8 April 1859 to 27 April 1938. He established the school of phenomenology, and his more well-known predecessor is Heidegger. This thought influenced many other philosophers, like Sartre, Derrida, and even Pope John Paul II. Unlike Heidegger, Husserl was Jewish, and the Nazi regime impeded his studies. Heidegger is known for being a Nazi, often hailing Hitler in class while giving lectures. Husserl pioneered the phenomenological method. Phenomenology is thinking about thinking of being, creating a removed sense of convoluted complexity. His contributions centered on being's intentionality and the "about" -ness that consciousness has. Everyone directs their attention (their consciousness) to something. All of our thinking angles our being at objects, regardless of whether they're objectively "real." From this, the focus on experiences emerges, which, for Husserl, are more transcendentally real than any possible objective truth. What use is an objective truth if we can't do anything with it? Husserl's foundational work is kept in UC Louvain, and it is continually studied at the Higher Institute of Philosophy

“Edmund Husserl.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl.

“Leuven.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuven.

“KU Leuven.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KU_Leuven.