Slavoj Žižek says Hegel doesn’t need to be a prophet to point us to a better tomorrow. The claim I want to defend is that Hegel is the philosopher most open to the future precisely because he explicitly prohibits any project of how our future should look. As he says towards the end of the …
Matthew Barnard comprehends and condemns celeb culture in Heideggerian terms. I am about to argue something that ought to make your head turn: celebrity culture is philosophy. The often bemoaned idolisation of celebrities; the prevalence of talent shows such as X Factor; the popularity of reality TV shows; the phenomenon of ‘being famous for being …
The Birth of Celebrity Culture out of the Spirit of Philosophy Read More »
Dale DeBakcsy recalls his personal journey from Positivist to Pragmatist and back again. “Aristotle was a learned, encyclopedic, first-rate nerd. With no imagination.” It was September of 1998, and I was a dewy-eyed sophomore who had bluffed his way into Richard Rorty’s seminar on William James and Friedrich Nietzsche. I had taken philosophy courses before, …
Patrick Wilson argues that it’s irrational to trust an untrustworthy God. It is important for many theists to show that their belief is rational, and this often involves them rejecting obviously irrational beliefs. Holding that the Earth is six thousand years old is irrational because it directly conflicts with strong scientific evidence to the contrary. …
Harry Whitnall considers how best to react if you find out that the world isn’t real. It’s Sunday. You wake up after a very pleasant sleep. You feel good. You decide to check your email. You have one new email in your inbox; and what d’you know, it’s from Elon Musk! It contains clear evidence …
James Sirois gives us a strong warning about overusing the net. The internet has become so all-pervading that even the word seems a little old-fashioned now. No-one really uses it much anymore. We ask each other for wifi, or talk of going online, or complain about a lack of data, but rarely do we talk …
Brett Wilson judges the case for laws for robots. Some time in the near future your cat Tybalt, while sunning himself on the lawn, suffers a hair-raising experience which scars him for life. The first you know about it are the cat calls that alert you to a standoff between feline and machine, just before …
Seán Moran asks amiable Aquinas about amity. It’s not Friar Tuck I’m talking about. The jovial gourmand of the Robin Hood stories was apparently a good friend of the Merry Men and Maid Marian in Sherwood Forest. But the religious order of Friars, the Dominicans, was founded in 1216, so it is hard to see …
Tim Delaney and Anastasia Malakhova categorize and analyze the different kinds of modern-day friendships. What is friendship? It links people who share dispositions, a sense of intimacy or feelings of affection, and have an attachment or association with one another. As such, friends are bonded by expressions of harmony, accord, understanding, and rapport. There are …
Steve Taylor says of determinism: “I refute it thus!” One of the main trends of recent academic culture has been to take freedom and autonomy away from human beings. I don’t mean that professors armed with guns have been locking up their intellectual opponents; I mean that from sociology to philosophy, from psychology to neuroscience, …