Introduction If one practices philosophy in some form or the other, how should one do it? What should one do? This question is as old as philosophy itself. Apart from dealing with problems like the nature of free will, the nature of mind, causation, the acquisition of knowledge, the existence of a supreme being, Being … [continue reading]
Monthly Archives: July 2019
The Fantasyland of Contemporary Absolute Idealism.
MA: I had some follow-up thoughts on your recent critical study, “On Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, Or, The Refutation of Absolute Idealism,” that I wanted to run by you. But first, a prefatory remark. I consider absolute idealism, and the various resultant constellations of self-consciousness, objectivity, knowledge and judgment, to be neither unintelligible nor … [continue reading]
Surrealism Is Not Fascism.
In a recent essay,[i] Andrew D. Chapman throws both Postmodernism and Surrealism into the “Fascism” pot. I won’t say anything here about whether Postmodernism belongs there or not, although I think this should be examined on a case-by-case basis.[ii] I doubt that such a blanket classification would stand up to scrutiny for all works and … [continue reading]
Captions #3–Philosophical Reflections On First Love And Picture-Perfect Experiences.
Previous Installments of Captions: #2: The Cartesian Corollary. #1: Captions (To The Cartoons We Live)–In Defense of Captions & A Curriculum Vitae. I met Annette when I was sixteen in a summer house on the Danish coast. She was 20. The summer I finished high school I went to Denmark to work on a farm. … [continue reading]
Why The Leiter Report’s Professional Academic Philosophy Rankings Are Misguided, Misleading, And Mistaken.
Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy, and they die if these roots decay (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations) Philosophy itself never begins anything. This beginning has already happened elsewhere. That is why the theme of the beginning, seen purely and simply from within the realm of philosophy, provides us with … [continue reading]
The Mind-Body Politic: Born On The Fourth Of July.
The Mind-Body Politic, by Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna, is now available from Palgrave Macmillan, HERE. And a preview is also available, HERE. PREFACE A few months ago, Michelle asked her students, on the first day of their Fall Semester class on “Theories of Human Nature,” to consider their level of agreement with respect … [continue reading]