philopapers

Nicholas Maxwell says we need a total rethink concerning the way we think. Are we philosophers responsible for global warming? It sounds absolutely crazy to suggest we are. How could our harmless, minute community of scholars, agonizing about abstruse intellectual problems, have any major role in bringing about global warming? But consider… Humanity has known […]

Tim Madigan asks, why did the featherless biped cross the road? “When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, ‘Nay, it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher.’ Again, when some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, ‘And I

Andrew Lewis considers the ethics of using GM to help prevent global warming. There seems little serious doubt among climate scientists that a key factor in global warming is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that there is a need to very quickly reduce these levels very substantially. Reforestation is one proposed

Rich Grego compares John Dewey’s and Martin Heidegger’s views on ecology. Martin Heidegger and John Dewey both flourished in the first part of the 20th century, but the two thinkers had very different concerns about the environment. We ’ll examine how their respective concepts of nature, human nature and philosophy of science might apply to

Paul Keeling reacts with a Green perspective on religious insult. The deep sense that some things are sacred underpinned the outrage felt by many Muslims upon the publication in 2005 of offensive cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. While the resulting violent protests cannot be condoned, the universal principle of respect for another ’s beliefs can

Robert Griffiths looks into an anti-religion, pro-God way of thinking. Deism is belief in the existence of a creator God who does not intervene in the universe, and in particular, in the lives of people. Cleverly, deists try to detach God from religion. As far as religion is concerned, they look and sound like atheists:

Tony McKenna relates how theology beat philosophy to fundamental metaphysics. Many people today still hold the stereotypical view of medieval theologians: a bunch of monks squabbling interminably over how many angels can fit onto the head of a pin. Yet some of them were profound and subtle thinkers. Some of their metaphysical arguments surprisingly anticipate

James K. Wight looks at how cultures define our views of machines. The word ‘robot’ first appeared in Karel Čapek’s 1921 play, Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti – Rossum’s Universal Robots. The word robota in Slavic languages translates as worker or serf, with the term implying mechanization and technology. Importantly, it is a man-made creation. Using the

Joakim Vindenes says VR could be a useful addition to the philosopher’s toolkit. Virtual Reality is in some ways a simple concept: it can be reduced to an act of representation, symbolism, or language. Through technological means – be it a pencil or a VR headset – we can represent the past as we remember

Derek Leben computes the risks of general AI. In 2008 European physicists at CERN were on the verge of activating the Large Hadron Collider to great acclaim. The LHC held the promise of testing precise predictions of the most important current theories in physics, including finding the elusive Higgs Boson (which was indeed successfully confirmed