Philosopher's+Island+2

=Island Relections Number 2=

Portraits of Sadness...
=Sadness in the Philosophy of Mind=
 * [[image:sad15.jpg align="center"]] || [[image:sad14.jpg align="center"]] || [[image:sad12.jpg width="215" height="270"]] || [[image:sad8.jpg align="center"]] ||
 * [[image:sad9.jpg width="204" height="284"]] || [[image:sad18.jpg]] || [[image:sad17.jpg width="186" height="285" align="center"]] || [[image:sad11.jpg width="198" height="276"]] ||

Throughout the book, the father describes how his sadness affects him and how he tries to cope with it.
|| || ==//Where is sad?//==
 * [[image:sadbook1.jpg width="283" height="386"]]

//I want to be thin air.//
//- Michael Rosen// || =Our reflections on their reflections...=
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//Dear Peggy//

//Why didn't the story make them feel sad? This is the question I've been pondering.// //(And also, why did it make me feel SO sad,and what variety of sadness was it that I felt?)// //The students' response was that they didn't know the people in the story, so the events and// //emotions didn't affect them. Even when we added the information that this was the 'real story'// //of the death of the author's son, this made no difference.// //Hmmm...I wonder though whether this 'not knowing' the characters is more a case of not having// //enough in common with them to really make a connection.// //Possibly a story about someone closer to their own age (or an abandoned kitten!) would have// //elicited more of a response.//

//Another interesting comment was that they didn't "want to be sad".// //This raises the question of how much control you have over your emotions.// //Can you protect yourself from feeling sadness? At what cost? Do some people go looking for it?// //Does our attitude to sadness (our own and that of others) change with age?//

//There was also discussion of the idea of helping others who are sad or in distress.// //If the sadness of others doesn't impact on us, why would we bother to help?// //The general consensus seemed to be that humans tend to respond to the sadness of others// //(but perhaps it needs to be more 'real' or immediate than the book was to the girls?).// //So are we born this way? Or do we learn it? And can we lose the ability to respond to others' sadness?// //And perhaps this takes us back to last week, and the ability to see through the eyes (and the emotions?)// //of others?//

//Would we have been sadder in a gloomier environment?//

//The students were able to pinpoint sad events from their own lives, but found it more of a challenge// //(or perhaps just less relevant to them?) to discuss the actual experience of sadness.// //Elizabeth raised the idea of a "face mask" of sadness...so are we wearing the sadness or hiding it, or both?// //Lily wondered: If trust was a piece of cake, If love was a piece of heart, What would sadness be a piece of? Darkness?// //Perhaps, (they reflected), sadness is an "invisible gas" like air, that happy people can't see.// //(So is the world always sad, and does it depend who is looking and when?)// //The students tried to come up with a word for the combination of sadness and anger in the book,// //suggesting that maybe this feeling is more than the sum of its parts.// //Interesting ...//

//See you next week,// //Michelle//