There is a long tradition in philosophy of thinking that memory and the self are intimately connected. Locke claims, for example, that what makes me today the very same person as I was yesterday, is, basically, the fact that I can now remember what I did or experienced yesterday. So memory, for Locke, is what actually determines who I am.
Suppose Ken and I buy tickets for the California Lottery. We go to the same 7-11, pay the same amount, push the same button to get a ticket with randomly generated numbers. Ken, lucky fellow, plays the winning number and collect $10 million. (This is a fictional example!). I play a losing number, and get nothing.
Like all things, Philosopy Talk has evolved. Indeed, on this, our 10th Anniversary, we have reached a…
We generally think that the past is settled and nothing we do in the present…
Since the next episode of Philosophy Talk is about the demands of morality, I wanted…
At the Conservative Political Action Conference a couple of months ago, Sarah Palin sipped from…
What does Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë mean when he says that dance is a form…
Questions about the value of the humanities and the relationship between the sciences and humanities…
Things happen. And things happening make other things happen. Drop an egg off the Empire State Building…
This week we’re stepping over to the Dark Side of Science. Of course a skeptic might ask, what dark side? Without modern science, we’d still be bleeding the sick, travelling by horseback, and using carrier pigeons for long distance communication. But there are no unmixed blessings.
It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month, and this week on the program we’ll be tackling…
Diogenes was born about 413 BCE and died in 323 BCE, the same year, and, at least according to legend, the same day as Alexander the Great, who had an unrequited admiration for Diogenes. Cynicism was a School of Philosophy that was founded in Athens by Antisthenes (455—366 BCE), a student of Socrates. The School lasted about 800 years after Diogenes, and was a major influence on Stoicism. Our modern words “cynic” and “cynicism” are historically connected to this School, but their meanings are only tangentially related to Diogenes views.
Richard Fletcher was a rarity among historians. A medievalist, Fletcher published books on Anglo-Saxon England…
I missed the X-Files in its hey-day. The nine seasons running from 1993 to 2002 corresponded almost exactly…
There’s a saying: as science advances, religion retreats. These days, the boundary between science and religion is clear. They’re considered completely separate domains, even if philosophers sometimes think about both. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part religion, these days, is not in the business of making claims about the nature of the cosmos or the origins of life. In the 90s, Pope John Paul II even declared that evolution was a scientific fact Catholics should wholeheartedly embrace. I take that as a real mark of progress.
Last week saw the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, situated…