Tabla de contenidos para February - March 2024 en Philosophy Now

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the adjective ‘stoical’ means “resembling a Stoic in austerity, indifference, fortitude, repression of feeling and the like”. This gives us some idea of what it is like to be a Stoic. Indeed, the key teaching, arguably the fundamental point, of Stoicism, is that we should focus on controlling the things that are under our control, such as our thoughts, emotions, and actions, whilst accepting those things we cannot control, such as most things that are happening in the world. How did they get there? To consider this question let’s look at the ideas of the Roman philosopher and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (4 BCE-65 CE). As a top advisor to the paranoid and murderous Emperor Nero, he probably found Stoicism a particularly…

Hello Professor Pinker. In your book, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), you discuss the decline of violence and how, despite appearances otherwise, our own era is by far the most peaceful in human existence. Are there unconscious biases we hold as a society that prevent our seeing a decline in violence? It’s hard to make a generalization about a whole society. But you certainly can talk about the beliefs of an individual, and there are a number of cognitive biases that get in the way of our individually appreciating the ways in which violence has declined. In particular, there’s an interaction between a cognitive bias which Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman dubbed the availability bias, where we use images, narratives, and stereotypes from memory as a guide to…

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Sophie Dibben Sophie Dibben is a 24 year old Londoner working in a prison. She studied Classics at Trinity College Dublin and has a podcast called Sibyl Service, which interviews historical characters, including Diogenes, along with Paris of Troy and Marcus Aurelius. Patrick Brissey Patrick Brissey is an instructor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on modern philosophy and the philosophy of religion. He earned his PhD from the University of South Carolina and regularly teaches classes on speech, applied ethics, God and goodness. Stiofán Ó Murchadha Stiofán Ó Murchadha has interests in theology, philosophy and literature, with masters degrees in both Theology and Philosophy. Currently, he serves as a Healthcare Chaplain and is a PhD candidate in Philosophical Theology with the University of Exeter.…

“There is of course such a thing as Irish thought, but it cannot be characterized in imperially nationalistic terms, or in any terms that presuppose privileged identities or privileged periods of social and cultural evolution.” (Thomas Duddy, A History of Irish Thought, Routledge 2002, p.xii). A few years back I had the pleasure of being the Faculty Director for a Study Abroad Program at the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway (now known as the University of Galway). Part of my duties involved teaching a course to the twenty students who had accompanied me abroad from the US. Since I’m a Professor of Philosophy, I thought it would be appropriate to organize an Irish Philosophy course, but then realized that other than Bishop Berkeley, I…

Edmund Burke (1729-97) seems to be a contradictory beast. On the one hand, he is considered by some to be ‘the father of conservatism’; on the other hand, he was an ardent reformer. But the two impulses – conservatism and reform – are not contradictory if there are things to conserve in society as well as things to change. For instance, if a society has a functioning democracy, concerned citizens should be as active in its preservation as in reform. And reform should be a cautious process that improves rather than undermines democracy. Even while identifying faults, we should acknowledge positive attributes. Edmund Burke exemplified this attempt to balance the reforming and the conservative instincts. Burke was born in Dublin to a Catholic mother and a Church of Ireland solicitor…

Throughout our history, we human beings have been trying to transform ourselves with a view of overcoming our limitations, even death. There is a tendency in humanity to search for a way around every obstacle and limitation, and to make one’s life happier and better in this world. This discloses our yearning to become better than we are – better than human: to move from being mere Homo sapiens to become Homo superior. Transhumanism is a movement which advocates this transformation of the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing technologies, and then making them widely available. Transhumanism itself has gradually evolved over the past couple of decades. Now it promotes research into areas such as life-extension projects, cryonics, molecular nanotechnology, human enhancement projects such as bionics, artificial intelligence,…

WHAT DOES A ‘’PROFES-SIONAL, middle-class, middle-aged, white, polyamorous feminist’’, from a ‘’lower-middle-class British household’’ characterized by ‘’a focus on underdogs, pessimism, left-wing political satire and toilet humour’’, who today has two live-in partners (one active, one not), know about love? It seems that what she knows is that love is ‘sad’. Carrie Jenkins unloads all that personal information on readers right at the start of Sad Love (2022). Did we need to know all that? Did we even want to? Perhaps not. But she seems to feel it’s vital to spill it anyway. And in a way, it’s good she does. If nothing else, it serves to explain the rather strange structure and procedure of her argument. According to her bio, Jenkins is a professor at the University of British…

Back Issues in Print Issue 158 Metaphilosophy: What is philosophy? Why write it? What went wrong? etc / Hannah Arendt focus / Transparency / Just society / Prince Shotoku / Socrates Issue 159 Free Will vs Determinism: varieties of free will, determinism & compatibilism benchtested / Zizek on cancel culture / Torture & ticking bombs / Hegel focus We also still have copies of these earlier back issues: 55-63, 65-80, 83-89, 91-98, 100-106, 108-115, 118-121, 126-139, 142-144,148-157 You can also buy PDFs of all past issues. For full details, please visit philosophynow.org/shop Back issues in print cost £5.50 each if you live in the UK (inc p&p) or US$12/9€/A$15/C$15/NZ$16/£9.50 elsewhere via airmail. For every three you buy, we’ll give you a fourth for free (please tell us which you would…

Today I will bathe in the sun and catch up on some sleep. Last night the dogs were barking, the birds were chirping, the whores were whoring, the drunkards were drinking, and this culmination of sounds seemed to echo around my jar, keeping me awake all night. I tried to sleep again in the morning, but alas, I received the usual shouts and spits from the chitonwearers. They flaunt unnecessary and mannered garments which I rid myself of even as a young boy. After the chiton, I also rejected money and other human conventions, and any last crumb of ‘civilisation’. And as a sleep-deprived old man, I stay away from anyone who claims to be civilised. Or anyone who desires possessions; or anyone blames the gods for their own mistakes.…

Antonio Negri The influential Italian philosopher and political scientist Antonio Negri, known for his radical leftist views, has died at the age of 90. Born in Padua in 1933, his first experience as an activist was in the Catholic youth organisation Gioventú Italiana di Azione Cattolica. He started organising demonstrations, founding workers’ associations and writing political manifestos as early as his student days. He became a professor of political science at the age of 33, soon after completing his doctorate. Negri was a leading theoretician of the Italian radical left, especially in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and his friendships with extremists made him an object of suspicion as Italy passed through its infamous ‘years of lead’. In 1979, Negri was arrested, together with other left-wing intellectuals, having been falsely accused…

G.E. Moore (1873–1958) Such obscurity: Needless confusion contrived. Analyse the truth! George Edward Moore is rare among philosophers, because for the life of him he couldn’t understand why other philosophers made everything so complicated. His approach to philosophy, proceeding on the basis that things don’t need to be complicated, was so radical that Moore was considered revolutionary – or alternatively, was dismissed as a naïve simpleton posing as a philosopher. Early twentieth century English-speaking philosophy was dominated by thinkers who said that ordinary language was hopelessly inadequate to the task of ascertaining absolute truths – what was needed was some arcane, abstruse, recondite, incomprehensible idealist investigation, which alone would reveal to us the timeless verities we seek. George’s response was to pen ‘A Defence of Common Sense’ (1925). Feeling compelled…

The following are some points that apply to the task of promoting social or political change in the modern world. The first three points are my attempts to apply Burke. Points four and five are quotes from Oakeshott: 1. There is no perfect society. Humanity is congenitally flawed, and this fact should moderate our objectives. We should also be aware that many needs are met in existing social democracies (so there is much to be admired), and that misconduct by any given authorities is not itself cause for rejecting the political system as a whole. Nonetheless there’s always room for improvement. 2. Society is complex and the results of interventions are therefore uncertain. So intervention should be piecemeal, in order to reduce the size of unforeseen consequences, and to allow…

If you’ve ever found yourself staring blankly at a spreadsheet or nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee while daydreaming about your next vacation, this is for you. Yes, you, the one who periodically contemplates existential questions between email exchanges and Zoom meetings. If your work feels like a necessary yet uninspiring pursuit, a means to fund your ‘real life’ outside the office, let us delve together into the philosophical underpinnings of work. Who knows, we might find ways to render the banal a little more bearable, or even meaningful. Aristotle and the Dignity of Work Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers in Western thought, had distinctive views on work. He made a clear distinction between chrematistics (wealth acquisition) and oikonomia (household management). In his view, work performed purely for…

ATLAS SHRUGGED, published in 1957, is a novel by Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand. It’s considered one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century and has had a significant impact on libertarian movements. It’s a massive tome, clocking in at over a thousand pages in most editions. However, its length is justified by the sheer amount of ideas and philosophical concepts it contains. Rand explores themes of individualism, capitalism, personal ambition, and the role of government. The novel tells the story of a dystopian society whose brightest and most productive members go on strike, leaving the rest of the world to crumble. Here I want to briefly examine the relevance of the themes of Atlas Shrugged to our own culture. Plot Atlas Shrugged is set in a world…

What’s more important than everyday life in our world, where philosophical issues such as love, justice, freedom, and are acting upon us in the most vivid way possible? The most important element for philosophy is the need for depth and precision concerning our everyday lives and surroundings. In this, philosophy is like a shopper who stands in front of a shelf in the local supermarket. Every time he studies that shelf he finds new things that might be of use to him. That shelf is our life, and everything in philosophy depends on this carefulness in studying what might otherwise be routine. Therefore, we should learn to philosophize at the peak of being alive; and that time is every morning when we wake up. Islamic philosophers paid a lot of…

A goddess she is, so perfect, so GreekCarved in marble with classic poseIdeal perfection from toe to cheek,Paradigm of Beauty – or so the story goes. Fixed and frozen forms of artMight show some sacred ideal.My love be not perfect in every part,But I love her best because she’s real. © CLINT INMAN 2024 Clint Inman is a British-born poet and painter, with a BA in Philosophy from San Diego State University in 1977. He’s now a retired high school teacher living in Florida with his wife, Elba.…