Patrick Cannon uses a popular setting to explain Kant’s metaphysics. It’s Friday night and you’re at the bar. It’s packed. You snake through the sea of bodies. “Ah! There’s a free spot!” exclaims your friend, pointing to some stools across the counter. You part your way through a boisterous group of young women, sit down, …
Kant at the Bar: Transcendental Idealism in Daily Life Read More »
Sam Woolfe gives us a brief history of the idea that reality is unreal. Anyone who has seen The Matrix (1999) will know that the basic premise of the film is that our ‘reality’ is simulated in our minds by a computer intelligence. However, the idea that reality is a simulation is not new. The …
Mikhail Epstein sees a bright future for metaphysics in the hi-tech age. “Numerous universes might have been botched and bungled throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labor lost, many fruitless trials made, and a slow but continual improvement carried out during infinite ages in the art of world-making.” David Hume, Dialogues …
Peter Benson on why digital photos aren’t reliable records of anything. André Bazin (1918-58) was the greatest film critic of his generation. As Editor of the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma he encouraged young writers such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, who would later become film-makers themselves, creating the French New Wave of …
The Ontology of Photography: From Analogue To Digital Read More »
Angus Taylor argues that to be consistent, we must either exclude some humans from the moral community, or else include at least some animals. Let me begin with a story. My mother’s family were minor nobility from Transylvania, near the border with Hungary. When Romania was invaded by Soviet forces during the Second World War …
Peter Royle shows no vexation over Sartre’s crustacean fixation. Crabs? What have crabs to do with philosophy? It is well known that at a certain stage in his life Jean-Paul Sartre felt himself to be persecuted by lobsters, crayfish and other crustaceans, including crabs; and that crustaceans, especially crabs, figure prominently in his literature. But …
Krista Rodkey assembles wedding plans from Plato’s advice on romance and parties in the Republic, Laws, Symposium, & Phaedrus. WeddingsAreWe.com is proud to present this exciting new line of boutique wedding services designed in coordination with Plato son of Ariston. Our new product line Platonic Weddings TM brings together the exceptional quality of the WeddingsAreWe.com …
Alex Holzman sees the history of Golden Age Athens as a play with Pericles and Socrates as its tragic heroes. The most prominent dramatic distinction we’ve inherited from the Greeks is that between comedy and tragedy. Comedies end in marriages and happily-ever-afters. Greek tragedies are also easy to identify, as they usually end with the …
Charlotte Laws cautiously chows down with the Defender of Animals. I recently had the opportunity to eat, drink and make moral calculations with philosopher Peter Singer, who is sometimes called ‘the Father of the Animal Rights movement’. You might think that hanging out with a renowned and accomplished philosopher would cause a pain in the …
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? The controversial Peter Singer! Read More »
Matthew Gindin thinks that the Stoics have useful advice for us right now. The Stoic philosophers, who flourished in the Graeco-Roman world between the third century BCE and the fourth century CE, were profoundly interested in the natural world, and considered science essential knowledge for a philosopher. It’s likely that a Stoic time traveller, transported …