42 Fallacies for Free

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:51:58 +0000

Image via Wikipedia As a free gift to the readers of the Talking Philosophy blog, I offer my 42 Fallacies. It is a PDF book containing definitions and examples of 42 common fallacies. I assure you that it is worth every penny. Perhaps the best (and meanest) use was suggested by a friend of mine: email the file to [...]

Christopher Hitchens, running and personal identity

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:34:05 +0000

This is another quality piece of writing by Christopher Hitchens. The bit I’m interested in comes halfway through: As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” He’s [...]

Eye of the beholder?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:20:16 +0000

Aesthetics always used to focus on the question of beauty. Indeed, as an undergraduate it seemed to me to be almost entirely about two questions: What is beauty? What is art? We’ve got more sceptical about beauty since then, in philosophy and outside of it, in part, I think, because we seem to have become persuaded [...]

Weight Discrimination?

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:31:18 +0000

Image via Wikipedia CNN recently aired a segment about a woman who was charged an extra $5 by a salon for being obese. Or, to be more precise, she was charged a fee for the extra wear and tear her extra weight placed upon the salon chairs.  This situation, not surprisingly, once again raises the matter of [...]

Morality, whether you want it or not

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:58 +0000

People worry. That is, sometimes people worry about whether or not morality is real. If morals were real, then it would mean that there are facts about the world that, by their very nature, motivate us to do good. We would know right and wrong by our instincts. If morals were real then we would not [...]

Defining a Belief System

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:09:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia One rather interesting problem is determining who or what determines the true tenets of a belief system. While this is an important matter in many fields, it seems especially important in regards to religion. To use a current situation, there is considerable debate over the true nature of Islam. When Muslims commit acts of [...]

The Evolution of the Irrational

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:25:51 +0000

Image via Wikipedia While doing my part to keep the print media alive, I read Sharon Begley’s “The Limits of Reason .” Yes, I do see the irony in linking to the online version. Begley begins her discussion by pointing out the obvious: humans are bad at reasoning. While she notes that psychologists have been documenting this from the 1960s, [...]

No Such Thing as Islamophobia?

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:07:56 +0000

A phobia is, obviously enough, a fear. What distinguishes a phobia from other fears is that a phobia is persistent, intense (though the intensity can vary) and irrational. Having a rational fear is not a phobia. For example, a person who is momentarily afraid because he discovers a black widow on his arm does not [...]

Maybe we’re not living in a simulation

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:08:56 +0000

Nick Bostrom has this interesting simulation argument thing (see also his discussion in our Ideas of the Century series). It holds that at least one of the following three propositions must be true: Almost all civilisations at our level of development become extinct before becoming technologically mature. The fraction of technologically mature civilisations that are interested in [...]

Same Sex Marriage, Majority Rule & Bias

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:33:33 +0000

Judge Walker recently ruled that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. For those who have been watching Jersey Shore and not the American news, Proposition 8 banned same sex marriage in California. The proposition had passed with a slight majority. Not surprisingly, those who are opposed to same sex marriage have been quick to argue against this ruling. One [...]