Philosophers’ Corner

Groups of people, and corporations too, can do a number of things that people do. They can make promises, tell lies, incur debt, and the like. Perhaps the concept of corporations and other collections of human beings as fictional persons simply recognizes that fact. Groups of people were issuing statements, true and untrue, buying and renting buildings, going into debt, and stuff like that long before the law or Supreme Court came into it.

This week, we broadcast our fifth annual summer reading list show.  Over the five years…

Koro is mental disorder, characterized by a debilitating fear that that one’s genitals are retracting into ones body and that once they are fully retracted you will die. You don’t find many instances of in Western societies. But Southwest Asia koro epidemics have been known to break out. There was such an epidemic in 1984-85 in Guangdong, China. And between 997 and 2003 in several different West African nations, there were local outbreaks of koro-like panics.

When one hears the word “apology” in a philosophical context, one naturally thinks of Plato’s famous Socratic dialogue, “The Apology”. And then it strikes one that Socrates doesn’t sound all that apologetic. Historically, “apology” often meant “reasoned argument or writing in justification of something”. Nowadays it mostly means “a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure”. It’s in this latter sense we are interested in apologies, including apologies in the political sphere, whether sincere or self-serving statements pretending to be expressions of regret.

How can we know what a person is feeling by looking at their face, and in particular can we know if they are lying? There is clearly both a psychological side to this and an epistemological side. Our guest is famous for his work on the psychological side, with a positive result: we can know what a person is feeling, and whether they are lying; at least the information is often there in the face. But it’s not always so easy.

Is water-boarding torture? If it is, does that make it wrong? Always? Usually? What is torture, and why is it always, usually, or sometimes wrong? Almost every dictionary gives two definitions of torture: a narrow one… inflicting great pain. And a broad one… severe mental anxiety and suffering. Water-boarding clearly counts as torture by the second definition, perhaps the issue isn’t clear given the first definition. But sure if our topic is the ethics, or morality, of torture, we need the more inclusive definition – severe mental anxiety and suffering.

Satisfy your hunger for food and philosophy on April 25th at the new Marsh Theater location in…

Well,  it’s been awhile since we’ve updated our blog.  Since both John and Ken are…