L_E: Greetings to SK, Z, OP, and Y! For this anarcho-philosophical dialogue, I’d like us to think and talk about the nature of memory. I’ve been concerned with the question of whether the past exists and/or is real, and whether our memories of past events are reliable at all. Some studies have suggested that memory … [continue reading]
Author Archives: Z
Dialogue, Debate, and Conversational Pathology in Professional Philosophy.
1. The Decline and Fall of Philosophical Conversation from Socrates to Chalmers Philosophy as we know it began in Socratic dialogue, and in Plato’s Dialogues; and in certain ways, it has been going downhill ever since. From Socrates and Plato forward, till the specious present, the activity of real philosophy consists in (i) synoptic thinking … [continue reading]
“What’s Wrong with Contemporary Philosophy?” (Topoi Re-Post. With an Afterword by Z.)
1. “What’s Wrong With Contemporary Philosophy?,” by Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith In Topoi (2006) 25:63–67 I: Philosophy in Three Parts Philosophy in the West now divides into three parts—Analytic Philosophy (AP), Continental Philosophy (CP), and History of Philosophy (HP). Analytic Philosophy, although it comes in many varieties, has four striking properties. First, … [continue reading]
Thinking Inside the Box: The Institutional Structure of “Hard” Problems in Professional Philosophy.
1. Gaps, Knots, and Philosophical Pictures A classical or typical “hard” philosophical problem has a three-part structure. (i) There is an explanatory gap between some set of basic facts and another set of basic facts. E.g., in the classical mind-body problem: “how is consciousness or subjective experience, which is fundamentally mental, possible in a fundamentally … [continue reading]
Philosophical Works, Philosophical Theories, Real Philosophy, and REAL Philosophy. Anarcho-Philosophical Dialogues 2. By Boethius, L_E, OP, X1, Y, & Z. (Re-Edited December 2017)
OP: I hope you all feel ready for a new discussion! My question is: What type of philosophical theories should real philosophy produce? This has been on my mind since the discussion on APP that followed “The Pre-Structured Professional.” In that discussion, the participants agreed that some or even many current philosophical theories don’t do … [continue reading]
How the “Continentals” Internalized Their Oppressors.
1. Scientism and Noumenal Realism in Analytic Philosophy. It cannot be rationally denied that “Analytic philosophy” (henceforth without the shudder quotes) has always been predominantly and even aggressively scientistic, whether by way of formal science (logic and mathematics) or by way of natural science (primarily physics, but also chemistry and biology). The Analytic tradition began … [continue reading]
What (the Hell) is Enlightenment? Anarcho-Philosophical Dialogues 1. By Boethius, L_E, M, OP, SK, X1, Y, & Z.
Z: Hello Boethius, L_E, Otto, SK, and X1! M is running a little late, but will join us as soon as she can. In any case, I think it’s not only amazingly amazing, but in fact cosmopolitanly cosmopolitan, that seven philosophers on four different continents were able to get together for this conversation. What I’d … [continue reading]
Real Philosophy Re-Discovered 4: Simone Weil’s “Lectures on Philosophy.” With an Introduction by Z.
1. Introduction, by Z Simone Weil was a French philosopher, religious mystic, and radical political activist. She died of tuberculosis in 1943 at the age of 34. Her Lectures on Philosophy is a 1978 translation of the transcript of a set of lectures Weil presented in French in 1933-34. In his Introduction to the translation, … [continue reading]
Real Philosophy Re-Discovered 3. Bertrand Russell’s “Proposed Roads to Freedom,” Chapter VIII: The World As It Could Be Made. (Cornwall, NY: Cornwall Press, 1918, With an Introduction by Z.)
1. Introduction, by Z In part 2 of Proposed Roads to Freedom, Russell discusses many concrete social and political issues, and proposes a number of concrete solutions, in line with his favored doctrine, Guild Socialism–a federalist development of Kropotkin-style social anarchism. And in the last chapter, “The World As It Could Be Made,” he quite … [continue reading]
The Organicist Conception of the World. By L_E & Z, On Behalf of the APP Circle.
The one intelligible theory of the universe is … objective idealism [which acknowledges] the physical law as derived and special, the psychical alone as primordial … [and] matter [as] effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. (C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers, 6.245, 1891) The attempt to understand nature remains one of the basic objectives of Western … [continue reading]