Philosophers’ Corner

I should start out by admitting that unconditional love is rare and difficult thing. Parents may profess to love their children unconditionally. But how often do children test the limits of parental love? Couples in the first blush of new love may make dewy-eyed promises to love each other for better or for worse. But how often do such promises give way to betrayal and recrimination? Still, it’s an amazing gift when it does happen. And it’s one that we all want. We all want someone who will love us forever, through thick and thin, no matter what we do or become.

Maybe you don’t believe in reincarnation. But a lot of people have and still do. Schopenhauer said, “we find the doctrine [of reincarnation] springing from the earliest and noblest ages of the human race, always spread abroad on the earth as the belief of the great majority of mankind.”

Philosophical discussions about torture tend to focus on two things: whether torture is ever morally justified, and, if so, whether this should be reflected in the law. Such discussion tend to focus on extreme cases: torture the terrorist or let the bomb go off and injure hundreds or thousands of innocents.

  This week our topic is Forbidden Words!  Now when we say forbidden, we don’t…

There’s something odd about how psychiatry defines mental disorders—namely, by their symptoms. It’s to be expected, on some level. After all, how else could doctors diagnose psychiatric disorders, if not, in part, by their symptoms? The problem, though, is that in medicine, a cluster of symptoms isn’t usually what defines the disorder. Illnesses are identified by the underlying condition that causes the symptoms. And for good reason.