Philosophy Professor, Dr. Ernest Wolf-Gazo, Gives a Lecture about Monotheism

By Kenzi Bahgat, Farida ElSersawi, and Lobna El Shirbiny

(Cairo, Egypt) On Wednesday, November 4th, the Philosophy Professor, Dr. Ernest Wolf-Gazo, hosted a lecture on "Monotheism" where the lecture took place at The American University of Cairo.

The lecture focused on Max Weber and the world historical significance of ancient Egyptian monotheism. It also discussed how this affects individuals’ actions today.

Dr. Gazo has been a Philosophy professor at AUC for twenty-four years. He is well-known for his volume on, A.N.Whitehead -- Einfuehrung in seine Kosmologie, which is a basic text at the German Universities.

The event was co-organized by the Office of Student Development (OSD) and the Philosophy Club. The Philosophy Club is known for organising the series of lectures addressing various philosophical topics since 1992.

Before the speech, the audience, who were about 50 people, had to fill a signup sheet with their information based on the registration. The Executive Assistant to Chair, Aya Morsi, and the Secretary, Amanda Naguib, were responsible for organizing the events and distributing giveaways, which were zipper bags with the logo of the Philosophy Department.

Monotheism focuses on one principle, which is that there is one deity that does everything. This goes back to Akhenaten, the pharaoh who established monotheism by making Aten, the Sun God, the only God.

Dr. Gazo started off by explaining how monotheism could be understood within the context of ancient history. The speaker mentioned that one principle affects our actions.

Monotheism is "the emergence of formal rationality," he said. This doesn't mean that polytheism is irrational. When asked about this, he explained how in ancient history, there was a division of labor among the Gods whether it was in Egypt, Greece, or any other country.

"They’re not irrational, they have a practical intelligence," he explained.

Throughout his lecture, Dr. Gazo was focusing on how religion affects individuals’ actions rather than arguing about whether religion makes sense or not.

"We need it today more than ever before," he said.

"It was a little bit complicated, but overall useful. I have enjoyed it to an extent, but it was so hard for me to understand and comprehend completely," said Ahmed El Semary, a Mechanical Engineering student at AUC.

Spinoza on the Relationship between the Mind, Body, and Technology

By: Hanan Khayal, Nourhan Tomoum and Salma Rizk

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CAIRO, Egypt - The Department of Philosophy and the Philosophy Club held the lecture “Spinoza, the Mind/Body, and Technology” by Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, associate professor of Philosophy and Dean of HUSS, who discussed Benedict Spinoza’s conception of the relationship between the mind, body, and technology.

         Bowditch began the lecture by giving a brief biography of Spinoza. Benedict Spinoza was a prominent philosopher of the 17th century whose ideas are still popular today. He then discussed some of Spinoza’s speculations. “Human beings are modes of God and nature who strive to expand their power of being," said Bowditch. He explained how passion could literally make a person less powerful physically. 

         Spinoza’s ideas revolve around the fact that there’s only one substance: the universe, which God created, and therefore, everything revolves around the idea of “God.” The lecturer continued to explain the relationship between the mind and body. He gave the example of how the creation of something like the printing press allowed for massive spread of books like Luther and Erasmus. Such books expanded the human minds and suggested new ways of thinking. Also, “The internet is simultaneously a physical and mental entity,” Bowditch emphasized.

         At the end of the lecture, Bowditch related Spinoza's classic ideas to modern times. He explained how technology played an vital role in our mental and physical lives. In the interview, when asked about further notes on Spinoza, Bowditch said, “Spinoza is a useful text, a useful metaphysical picture, saying what's going on.”

         The lecture was hosted in The American University in Cairo last Sunday in the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall. Steffen Stelzer, former chair of the Department of Philosophy, members of the Philosophy Club, students, and faculty members also attended the lecture. 

The Object-Oriented Approach to Philosophy

By: Sarah Hassan, Hania Elkady and Mayar Maged

Cairo, Egypt - The American University in Cairo hosted a lecture on “Object-Oriented Method in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Art and Architecture” on Sunday, March 30, where Dr. Graham Harman introduced his new approach in philosophy, discussing the various criticisms posted against his view.

Harman initiated the event by discussing the term object-oriented, as he assumed the audience had no background about the method. Apparently, the term is driven from computer science in which he borrowed from the object-oriented programming without having prior knowledge in the field.

Although he uses many terminologies, Harman stuck with naming the term “object-oriented” because he realized that people became more familiar with it.

Harman defined what an object is, and how its definition varies from ordinary people to the one that he believes in. According to him, an object for most people tends to be limited to midsize durable things and does not include ideas, events and large collections of objects like armies, countries or universities.

Despite what others perceive, he believes that the definition of an object is broader. An object contains all of those cartoon characters like squares or circles. It is also anything that has a certain individual consistency to it as well as anything that cannot be reduced either to its component piece or to its effects.

“I think his view goes against most famous ones and many people attack him on the Internet. I was eager to hear what he has to say about this,” Mathew Crippen, philosophy professor, said as he was commenting on the fact that Harman has a lot of opponents against his object-oriented approach to philosophy.

When asked what he has to say about the criticism held against him, Harman replied, “criticism can be a good sign, especially if you are being criticized for opposite reasons. Some people say I’m too based on science, some people say I don’t take science seriously enough. It’s a good sign that both of them are missing the point.”