Adding philosophical depth to anything and everything
A strip of cloth. Really? That’s what matters? Yes, according to some right-wing politicians. I can’t remember the last time I wore a tie. I have two or three stuffed somewhere in my wardrobe (the one that doesn’t lead to Narnia). I’ve carried these strips of cloth with my possessions […]
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David Hume was a Scottish philosopher in the mid 1700s. His philosophy was a culmination of British empiricism. This was a tradition that began with Francis Bacon and continued through Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and then was critiqued rather effectively by George Berkeley. Berkeley had said that it is […]
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If I was conspiratorially minded, I would believe that Big Tech is out to control every aspect of our lives. I do not engage in conspiracy theories, instead, I recognize that power will exercise its power, and often without regard to the consequences. In the world today, arguably the biggest […]
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Epistemology is the philosophical study of what knowledge is and how we can come to have knowledge. It is a field of philosophy as old as philosophy itself, and epistemology underpins everything in philosophy, and not just philosophy, but everything that human beings do. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke […]
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The man at the head of Spanish football, Luis Rubiales, kissed a woman player, Jenni Hermoso, against her will. His defense for his act was that the kiss was consensual. The video showed that it wasn’t. The man then claimed he was a victim of “false feminism” and “social assassination.” […]
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People are smart. We call ourselves Homo sapiens for a reason. People are smart enough to figure out how to go to the moon. So why do a small minority of people choose to believe we didn’t go to the moon, or stupid things like that the Earth is flat, […]
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UFO Mythology Meets History – Would people really freak out when they learn that ETs are real? Accompanying the rise of public awareness of UFOs in the late 1940s was the idea that people will panic in the streets at the idea that there are extraterrestrials. This assumption is still a […]
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Monty Python showed us how not to have an argument. An argument is more than the automatic nay-saying of what the other person said. Beyond that, however, there is a considerable amount of subtlety and complexity in conducting an argument. First off, I should make clear that in talking about […]
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For the last seven years, I’ve had quite a few people here in Europe ask me to explain Trump and his MAGA sycophants. Their incredulous questions are understandable. What’s in MAGA minds? How could they believe such things? Why are they so full of hate? Europe has its own history […]
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Spoiler Alert: I will divulge as little as possible about the specifics of the movie as I talk about the real-life implications of its philosophical ideas, but, obviously, some content of the movie will leak out. Yes, Barbie is a surprisingly philosophical movie. I had low expectations for Barbie. I’ve […]
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