Truth and Progress in Philosophy

One of the things that students find frustrating about philosophy is that they don’t get definitive answers to the sorts of questions that philosophers ask. These students aren’t frustrated because philosophy doesn’t give them any answers. They’re frustrated because it gives them too many answers. For example, I teach a course on freedom and determinism in which the students learn (a) that the macroscopic universe is deterministic, so free will doesn’t exist, (b) that we can make choices that aren’t determined by prior events, so free will exists, or (c) that the macroscopic universe...

Read more

Ai Weiwei: How Censorship Works

Most of us have probably heard of censorship in China, but how does it really work? And what are its effects? To what extent are ordinary citizens responsible? Who better to hear the inside scoop from other than famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who routinely has to deal with his work being censored. Ai Weiwei takes to The Stone, the philosophy blog on The New York Times, to make his case. Read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/opinion/sunday/ai-weiwei-how-censorship-works.html

Read more

Queerness

Is queerness something that all lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people have in common? Is it a sexual identity, a political identity, both, or something else entirely? No doubt we are all familiar with the term, but coming up with a definition for “queerness” presents quite a challenge. Sometimes “queer” is used as a slur, yet there are many people who proudly self-identify as queer. It’s not so unusual for slur words to get re-appropriated by the group targeted by the slur, but “queer” stands out in a certain way. Not only has the term been reclaimed as an identity, but since the 90s, we’ve also...

Read more

[VIDEO] What Makes for a Good Life?

It's one of philosophy's greatest and oldest questions: what makes for a good life? Regardless of what specific areas of philosophy we might be interested in, this question affects every one of us.  So, how should we live our lives? Seeking pleasure? Knowledge? Self-actualization? Is there meaning to be found in this life? Must we create it ourselves? The stances we take on all of these questions have the potential to shape how we think and act everyday. This episode of Crash Course Philosophy examines a number of takes on this long-pondered question, including the views of Camus, Aristotle,...

Read more

A Deep Dive into Democracy

America’s so-called democracy is under serious strain these days. And not just because of the November election and its aftermath. The cracks and tensions in our democracy have been building for a long time. But some, including me, fear that the system may soon be stressed to the breaking point. Since this summer clearly has the potential to be a long, hot one for our country, we thought we’d start out the season with a deeper look at Democracy in America. We’ve done a host of episodes over the years on the topic of democracy. We've discussed Corporations and the Future of Democracy with...

Read more

Nietzsche, Schmitt, and the Alt-Right

The journalist Graeme Wood, author of the groundbreaking investigation on ISIS titled "What ISIS Really Wants," recently interviewed Richard Spencer, one of the leaders of the alt-right, a noted fascist, and coincidentally on of Wood's high school classmates. The entire profile, titled "His Kampf," is worth reading, but in particular, I'd like to bring out Wood's exploration of Spencer's philosophical background.  Spencer draws inspiration especially from the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Schmitt, the former appropriated by the Nazis and the latter a devoted member. Starting with...

Read more

The Lifespan of a Genre

In this Aeon article, Lary Wallace discusses how a person's music tastes tend to stagnate in their 20s and 30s. But what does this stagnation have to do with the evolution and historicization of music genres? Should we respond to this finding by not taking at face value our historical associations with certain types of music? Also, ought we to encourage ourselves to listen to new music past our 30s? And the link to the article: https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-your-musical-tastes-get-frozen-over-in-your-twenties

Read more

[AUDIO] When Driverless Cars Go Wrong

The introduction of driverless cars to our roads brings with it moral and legal questions that we have never faced before. These new vehicles, controlled by artificial intelligence, are promised to make driving safer. However, with the inevitability of accidents, who is to blame for the harm caused by them? Does this responsibility lie with the car manufacturers, or must we simply accept that sometimes accidents happen?  David Edmonds speaks with John Danaher on this episode of Philosophy 24/7, "Robots and Retribution". In a future with more and more controlled by artificial intelligence, how...

Read more

Does Work Give Our Lives Meaning?

The possibility of a world without work is making plenty of people nervous: what would it look like, will it actually be good for us, will life even be meaningful anymore? In a recent editorial for The Guardian, Yuval Noah Harari has made the case that we don't need to fret, at least not when it comes to having meaningful lives. As Harari sees it there are already enough examples of meaning-making in the world—ranging from religious belief to Pokémon to consumerism—that we'll be able to impose meaning onto the world even if we're rendered obsolete as workers.  What do you think? Is...

Read more

Envisioning Eastern Hegemony

Considering the last couple centuries of history, it is clear that Western countries have reigned dominant over the rest of the world—whether through colonialism, imperialism, economic power, or military might. This book review in The New York Review of Books covers some of the reasons for the balance of global power may be shifting to the East. The author of the article ultimately concludes that the East is currently far from supplanting the West. But what would a world run by Eastern values even look like? Would the world look meaningfully different if the East did run things...

Read more

[COMIC] Postmodernism Attacks!

  There lingers an ominous line a thought in today's minds... it has infected experienced intellectuals and millenials alike, putting a spoke in the wheels of centuries of intellectual progress. Can the metaphysicians of the past join their powers to defeat this dangerous foe? It goes by the name of... Postmodernism! Enjoy this comic courtesy of Existential Comics, in which philosophers of the past must face the postmodernism of the present. Interested in Postmodernism? Check out our episode on it here and share your thoughts in the comments below!

Read more

Can Free Speech Exclude?

On The New York Times's philosophy blog, The Stone, Professor Ulrich Baer defends student protests of speakers with whom they disagree. Baer's core argument is that some voices in the public debate may end up excluding others from the public debate. This happens when someone's discourse dehumanizes certain groups in society. In these cases, Baer sees it as appropriate for students to protest in order to prevent these individuals from speaking. In fact, Baer sees this as maximally protecting our right to free speech, because those individuals who have been dehumanized can no...

Read more

Should Belief Aim at Truth?

Should your beliefs aim at the truth? Or should you just believe whatever makes your life better, whether it’s true or not? These are the questions we’re thinking about in this week’s show. You might think that the answer is obviously that our beliefs should always aim at the truth. But consider this—sometimes it’s actually to your advantage to have some false beliefs.  Psychologists study a phenomenon called “positive Illusion,” happy beliefs that can have powerful effects, despite not being true. For example, imagine you’re competing in a race and...

Read more

Because You Are, I Am

The phrase "I think, therefore I am" or "Cogito ergo sum" might make Descartes the most-quoted philosopher of the last 400 years. The Frenchman's theory—if I am thinking, I must also be existing—is foundational to modern philosophy. For Descartes, the Cogito formed the foundation of all other knowledge: in the depths of Meditations, as he doubts everything, the Cogito is the one truth of which Descartes is sure. However, since Descartes, doubt has expanded. David Hume and Immanuel Kant questioned the “I” in I think, therefore I am. For there to be...

Read more

Watered-down Philosophy for Tech Bros

Being told that philosophy is still useful—for tech executives who like ingesting pop wisdom in order to eliminate bullshit in their business lives—might make one wish philosophy were just dead instead. But this philosophy-as-bullshit-killer approach to the discipline is currently spreading around Silicon Valley in part due to the influence of a man named Andrew Taggart, who holds a PhD in philosophy. In a recent profile in Quartz, Taggart explains the services he provides as a "practical" philosopher who provides counseling: "Philosophers arrive on the scene at the moment when...

Read more

Nozick, Libertarianism, and Philosophy

In this Aeon article, historian Brad Baranowski highlights two of Robert Nozick's most important contributions to philosophy: first, his libertarianism; and then, his vision for what analytic philosophy could be—not as technical and obscurant. Nozick wrote perhaps his most famous book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in 1974 as a reply to Rawls' 1971 classic, A Theory of Justice. On the one hand, what are the merits of a libertarian, small-government way of looking at things? On the other, why did Nozick himself move away from libertarianism as his views on philosophy...

Read more

The Limits of Medical Consent

This week, we’re thinking about the Limits of Medical Consent. To get yourself in the right frame of mind begin by asking yourself whether it is ever permissible to force medical treatment on a patient against their will? What if they are so emotionally distraught that they can’t think straight? What if they might die without the treatment?   Clearly, there are some people who are not fully competent to make their own medical decisions. But where exactly do we draw the line between the competent and the incompetent? At one extreme, we’ve got children. If a skittish nine-year old kid refuses...

Read more

[AUDIO] What Constitutes Consent?

California law defines sexual consent as "Yes means Yes". In other words, the consent is "affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity," that can be revoked at any time. The bill that enacted this change in 2014 was aiming in particular to improve the way that sexual assault and rape cases are handled at Universities. However, does this definition properly capture what constitutes consent? Does Yes really always mean Yes?  On this episode of the Philosopher's Zone, Eleanor Gordon-Smith gathers a variety of opinions to determine whether this definition truly...

Read more

Defense of Transracialism Goes Awry

In a recent article titled "In Defense of Transracialism" for the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia, philosopher Rebecca Tuvel penned a defense of "transracialism" through an argument that the logic which supports transgender individuals also should lead one to support transracial individuals in their decision to "change" races. The idea for the article came after Rachel Dolezal's controversial case, in which Tuvel "perceived a transphobic logic that lay at the heart of the constant attacks against her." Her article "is an effort to extend our thinking alongside transgender...

Read more

Is Human Monogamy Genetic?

A few months ago, I wrote a story about a philosopher defending (and engaging in) "polyamorous relationships"—romantic relationships with multiple partners. The philosopher, Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, argued that much of the stigma regarding polyamorous relationships stemmed from obsolete and stifling social standards.  Recently, I saw a study out of Harvard that suggests humans are "genetically programmed" towards monogamy to ensure that offspring are cared for. I'm always dubious of drawing conclusions from single studies (this one used mice, not people, as subjects), and I'm especially wary...

Read more

All Machine and No Ghost

For thousands of years, philosophers have tried to figure out the relation between mind and body. Until very recently the doctrine of substance dualism—the idea that minds are made out of spooky non-physical stuff, while bodies are made out of clunky matter—was virtually the only game in town. It was the theory of the mind-body relation that British philosopher Gilbert Ryle ridiculed as “the ghost in the machine.” But by the middle of the 19th century, a new wind was blowing through the musty corridors of philosophy. Cutting-edge developments in physics, biology, and neuroscience were...

Read more

Slower Reading for Better Philosophy

To be slow is to be radical. In cinema, for example, there has been a recent global movement of slow cinema "whose aim is to rescue extended temporal structures from the accelerated tempo of late capitalism." Such an approach to film is meant to create a cinematic viewing experience that demands the active contemplative participation of the viewer, and allows for a sense of time and world that helps the viewer share the experiences of the characters. Now, the return to slowness has emerged in a study of the discipline of philosophy in a new book Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the...

Read more