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Keyword: philosophy

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  • H.G. Wells vs. George Orwell: Their debate on whether science is humanity’s best hope (tr)

    12/22/2017 9:24:27 AM PST · by fishtank · 11 replies
    Industrial Equipment News ^ | 12-21-17 | Richard Gunderman
    H.G. Wells vs. George Orwell: Their debate on whether science is humanity’s best hope continues today. CONTRIBUTOR: Richard Gunderman In the midst of contemporary science’s stunning discoveries and innovations – for example, 2017 alone brought the editing of a human embryo’s genes, the location of an eighth continent under the ocean and the ability to reuse a spacecraft’s rocket boosters – it’s easy to forget that there’s an ongoing debate over science’s capacity to save humankind. Seventy-five years ago, two of the best-known literary figures of the 20th century, H.G. Wells and George Orwell, carried on a lively exchange over...
  • Kids? Just say no: There is a moral case against procreation [tr]

    10/20/2017 6:30:07 AM PDT · by C19fan · 27 replies
    Aeon ^ | October 20, 2017 | David Benatar
    In 2006, I published a book called Better Never to Have Been. I argued that coming into existence is always a serious harm. People should never, under any circumstance, procreate – a position called ‘anti-natalism’. In response, readers wrote letters of appreciation, support and, of course, there was outrage. But I also got this message, which is the most wrenching feedback I have received:
  • How is it that progressives confuse "society" and "government"?

    09/02/2017 7:06:31 AM PDT · by ProgressingAmerica · 30 replies
    Society is society. Government is government. They are two entirely distinct, and completely separate things. Not in the land of Progressivism, however. For progressives, society is government and government is society. They are equally the same and there is no possible distinction. You can routinely see the rotting husk of this when someone proceeds to inform you that "they believe society should do x or y" but when talking of x or y they are instead referring to government action. "I believe that we as a society should take care of the poor, and that's why I support {insert name...
  • Phil 103--Liz Harman on abortion

    08/09/2017 10:13:57 AM PDT · by Lorianne · 4 replies
    You Tube ^ | 25 July 2017 | Liz Harman
    Liz Harman of Princeton University joins James and Eliot to talk about the ethics of abortion. Video 5:14
  • Europe's Childless Leaders

    07/10/2017 5:36:50 AM PDT · by afraidfortherepublic · 37 replies
    Powerline ^ | 7-9-17 | Paul Mirengoff
    James McPherson, writing in the Washington Examiner, makes a remarkable observation: the leaders of Europe have no children. France’s Emmanuel Macron has none. Same with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister Theresa May, Italian prime minister Paolo Gentilon, Holland’s Mark Rutte, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission. Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Lofven has no biological children. The prime minister of Luxembourg is also childless. I mention him not to cherry pick, but because it means that of the six founding members of what evolved into the European Union, five are now led by childless...
  • OPINION: Left-wing politics will be the demise of the Democratic Party

    06/22/2017 4:22:21 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 13 replies
    The Hill ^ | June 21, 2017 | Shermichael Singleton
    You don’t have to be a seasoned political operative to question the logic behind Democrats investing so much money into a congressional district that has gone Republican for nearly 40 years, yet that is exactly what the Democratic Party did. They believed they could switch moderate Republican voters to vote for a Democratic candidate and mobilize Independents by spouting a progressive message, which is philosophically antithetical to the values held by most voters — such as limited government due to a fear of government encroachment and excessive regulation — as well as utopian ideas about society, which many frankly believe...
  • Political Iatrogenics: Why Socialism Doesn't Work

    06/20/2017 12:55:24 PM PDT · by Thalean · 6 replies
    National Economics Editorial ^ | June 20, 2017 | Spencer P Morrison
    "Socialism is predicated on action. When socialists see problems, they want to do something about them. They want to take action. Starving children? Give them food. Poor people? Give them money. Climate change? Invest in solar panels. The solution is always to add something. Add food, add money, add technology and the problem will go away—just like how taking penicillin will cure your infection. And if the solution fails? Try again. Send more food. Spend more money. Invent new stuff (just like you would take more penicillin). The underlying assumption is that there is a solution for every problem, that...
  • Has Trump Stolen Philosophy’s Critical Tools?

    04/28/2017 7:34:57 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 56 replies
    The New York Times ^ | April 17, 2017 | Casey Williams
    Truth is pliable in Trumpland. In March, the president fired off a tweet accusing former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower. Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, dismissed the claim. But the Trump team doubled down, writing off media reports and insisting that evidence of wiretapping would soon surface. It didn’t. We’re used to this pattern by now: The president dresses up useful lies as “alternative facts” and decries uncomfortable realities as “fake news.” Stoking conservative passion and liberal fury, Trump stirs up confusion about the veracity of settled knowledge and,...
  • Great Courses: Mathematics, Philosophy

    01/28/2017 5:49:45 PM PST · by rey · 34 replies
    28 Jan 2017
    Is anyone familiar with the Great Courses, particularly Mathematics, Philosophy, and the Real World? I have Building a sentence and Shakespeare word and Action. They are ok. I am using them with my home schooler. My library book store has the Mathematics and Philosophy one for $30. Curious if anyone is familiar with it and if this is a good deal. Thanks
  • New film asks "What if Uncle Sam crashed on my couch?" (VANITY)

    09/13/2016 5:28:25 PM PDT · by bfkirk · 3 replies
    Vimeo ^ | 9-13-2016 | Brian F. Kirk
    Three years in the making, "Sam & Me" is a dark comedy that imagines, "What if Uncle Sam crashed on my couch?" It personifies the dysfunctional relationship between taxpayer and government. The movie is pro-freedom and pro-faith. More details at www.samandmefilm.com. To watch, visit https://vimeo.com/ondemand/samandme The film is absolutely free to the first 50 Freepers who use the promo code Freep at checkout.
  • The Cambrian Explosion: Falsification of Darwinian Evolution

    09/07/2016 11:34:29 AM PDT · by kimtom · 277 replies
    www.apologeticspress.org ^ | 5/1/2016 | Jeff Miller, Ph.D.
    One important task of science is to develop testable theories. And one important characteristic of a theory is the ability to falsify it with evidence gathered from experimentation. Predictions should be able to be made that would verify the theory if those predictions play out, or falsify the theory if the evidence contradicts the theory. If, for example, one theorizes that gravity is a force that causes objects with much larger mass, if unimpeded, to pull objects with smaller mass towards it, one can make the prediction that if he drops an apple from his hand, the larger mass of...
  • Pulling up Roots from Reality - A Review of a Cogent Analysis of the Post-Cartesian West

    05/03/2016 7:22:04 AM PDT · by Salvation · 25 replies
    Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 05-02-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope
    Pulling up Roots from Reality - A Review of a Cogent Analysis of the Post-Cartesian West Msgr. Charles Pope • May 2, 2016 • René DescartesOver the years I have attempted to trace the philosophical disaster of our modern world. Certainly the fundamental roots can be traced back to the breakdown of the medieval synthesis, the rise of nominalism, and the doubts of Descartes. These introduced a disconnect from reality. Descartes introduced a radical doubt in anything seen or experienced, and this disconnects us from reality. If we pull up roots from reality and the revelation of creation, we...
  • Should you retreat from the public square?

    03/31/2016 2:26:00 AM PDT · by iowamark · 30 replies
    Mercatornet.com ^ | 3/9/2016 | Rev. James V. Schall SJ
    For many people the state of America’s presidential campaign is an index of the corruption of our national culture. At the moment, though anything is possible given the fickleness of the electorate, the flawed personal lives and political views of the candidates, and a savage media, it seems that Donald Trump will face Hillary Clinton, though at this writing, this match-up is not certain.* It’s damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t for voters, a choice between two evils. The choice is a symptom of a culture which has been corrupted over the past 50 years by the decay of the family, moral relativism, fading...
  • Weekly Prepper Thread

    03/18/2016 4:45:38 PM PDT · by TMSuchman · 48 replies
    Myself | March 18,2016 | Mike Suchman
    Ok folks we have been talking about a lot of things, food,long & short term food preps, comm., & a lot of other subjects. Well now, we're gonna talk about some topics that may be a little harder to deal with. We're looking at ourselves & our values [both good & bad]. We know nothing lasts forever, parts break, wear out, get stolen by others, traded off for other items, ect.. [Now we are looking at a worse case theory here.] 1] How do you define theft/looting, from salvaging/scavenging? 2] When does it become permissible to threaten deadly force a)...
  • The Inclination to the Truth

    03/15/2016 7:32:22 AM PDT · by Salvation · 4 replies
    Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 03-14-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope
    The Inclination to the Truth Msgr. Charles Pope • March 14, 2016 • In a recent post (Is There a Way Back to Undeniable Reality and Universally Binding Norms?) I discussed how we today tend to “live in our heads” a lot more so than did the people living in biblical times and even those who lived up to and including the High Middle Ages and the Scholastic Period. Prior to that time, the “real world” was taken to be largely self-evident. But in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a school of thought later called “nominalism” began...
  • A Fight for the Soul of Science (physicists, philosophers debate boundaries of science)

    12/17/2015 10:01:58 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 28 replies
    Quanta Magazine ^ | 12/16/15 | Natalie Wolchover
    A Fight for the Soul of Science String theory, the multiverse and other ideas of modern physics are potentially untestable. At a historic meeting in Munich, scientists and philosophers asked: should we trust them anyway? Laetitia Vancon for Quanta MagazinePhysicists George Ellis (center) and Joe Silk (right) at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich on Dec. 7. By: Natalie WolchoverDecember 16, 2015 Comments (17) Share this: facebooktwitterredditmail PDF Print Physicists typically think they “need philosophers and historians of science like birds need ornithologists,” the Nobel laureate David Gross told a roomful of philosophers, historians and physicists last week in Munich, Germany,...
  • From Marxism/Communism to Post-Modern Liberal Fascism

    11/07/2015 12:54:57 AM PST · by Cincinatus' Wife · 29 replies
    American Thinker ^ | October 7, 2015 | Mark Musser
    ".......It is here where the modern Left made its transition away from communism into a postmodern existentialism. Dr. Hicks strongly argues that postmodernism is rooted in the Counter Enlightenment movement featuring German superstars such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. According to Hicks, postmodernism favors subjectivity over objectivity, the inadequacy of language to communicate over reason and truth, various collective multicultural groupings over individual identity and autonomy, willpower over realistic experience rooted in rational analysis, communalism and solidarity over individualism in values, markets and politics, and finally, suspicion, if not hostility, toward science and technology. As such, the postmodern critique...
  • Idea War Are Fought by People Who Think, Have an Idea, Understand the Enemy's Ideas, Stay the Course

    10/11/2015 7:33:48 AM PDT · by CharlesOConnell · 6 replies
    Claremont Review of Books ^ | Summer 2007 | Robert R. Reilly
    Winning the War of Ideas American public diplomacy is in disarray. We are not winning--indeed, we are hardly waging--the war of ideas, and it is vitally important that we do, because in our war against the radical Islamists the final victory will take place not on the battlefield but in the minds of men. The purpose of U.S. public diplomacy is to reach key audiences in foreign countries, outside of the bilateral channels of traditional diplomatic relations, with ideas that are powerful enough to form their disposition toward us and our political purposes in the world. In essence, public diplomacy...
  • Does the Arc of History Bend Towards Tyranny? An Excerpt from Michael Walsh’s New Book.

    08/19/2015 6:27:05 AM PDT · by fredericbastiat1 · 5 replies
    Benweingarten.com ^ | 2015-08-19 | Ben Weingarten
    Michael Walsh’s new book The Devil’s Pleasure Palace is pivotal in its explication of how poor and purely evil ideas have subverted America, and eaten away at the pillars of Western civilization. While we often hear the refrain “ideas have consequences,” too frequently we attribute the decline of the American system to politics or particular political figures, while giving the power of ideas short thrift. But as Walsh’s important work illustrates, ideas are everything, and if you lose the war of them you lose all of the other battles too. One such idea that has trumped to date deals with...
  • Unlawful Union: How “Gay Marriage” Has Conquered America

    07/19/2015 1:10:31 PM PDT · by markomalley · 13 replies
    Institute for Catholic Culture ^ | 7/16/15 | Robert Reilly
    Why are Americans being forced to consider homosexual acts as morally acceptable? Why has the US Supreme Court accepted the validity of same-sex “marriage,” which, until a decade ago, was unheard of in the history of Western or any other civilization? Where has the “gay rights” movement come from, and how has it so easily conquered America? This is a recording of two lectures given on 7/9 and 7/16 at St Mary of the Sorrows Catholic Church in Fairfax, VA. It examines, from an Aristotelean perspective, the philosophical shortcomings of the culture that led to the insanity of the Obergefell...