Some people naively associate propaganda with totalitarian regimes. Certainly, the Nazis, the Soviet and Chinese communists, and brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein have made heavy and sometimes brilliantly effective use of propaganda. But totalitarians may not need to be true masters of propaganda, since they often merely bludgeon people into at least apparent belief and acquiescence.
Do genes make the person? If you listen to popular press reports of new genetic discoveries coming out at fairly rapid pace, you certainly might think so. Lung Cancer Gene! Gay Gene! Genius Gene! Little wonder that many people believe — or should I say fear? — that genes somehow directly and invariably determine who we are.
You might want to check out the twelfth edition of the recurring Philosophers’ Carnival, a…
This is a response to Ken’s fascinating blog on naturalism, Schopenhauer and value. I’m amenable to his naturalism. But I’m not sure I see the problem of value as a matter of getting something out of nothing. It seems to me that values come out of valuing, and that valuing starts with an attitude we might call “caring whether.” As we look to the future, many facts seem unresolved.
There is a website called OnHDTV.tv that claims it “provides show reviews and previews, HDTV-specific…
I do not want to distract us from the “heavy” (no pun intended) issues to…
I’m thinking about where values and meaning come from and whether a metaphysics anything like Schopenhauer’s has the resources to make room for value and meaning. I think that the answer is yes. And I suspect that Schopenhauer fails to see this, if he does, because he buys into a commonly held, but I think deeply mistaken criticism of naturalism. I’ll call it the “you can’t get something from nothing” criticism.
Interesting show on Schopenhauer. Here is a way of thinking about our commonsense asymmetric attitudes…
Schopenhauer’s view of life certainly seems bleak and pessimistic. Consider the following description of the life of man (and animals): Willing and striving are its whole essence, and can be fully compared to an unquenchable thirst. The basis of all willing, however, is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain.
I admit it: I’ve been reading a lot of Schopenhauer, especially his Essays on Pessimism. They are fascinating, and extremely beautifully (and of course provocatively) written. Here’s a cheery and lovely passage: “Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be siad; ‘It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to0morrow; and so on till the worst of all.”
During the call-in component of the show, Mohan asked a question about the relationship between…
Poor compatibilism. It is actually not all that bad, and it is defended by very able philosophers, such as my colleague, Gary Watson. But recall that I am a semicompatibilist. I do not think that freedom to do otherwise (regulative control) is compatible with causal determinism. But I do think that causal determinism is compatible with acting freely (guidance control).
Suppose you are a Martian Anthropologist, on a scientific expedition to planet Earth. Your goal is to understand the alien Earthling practice of holding people morally responsible for their actions. There are no such practices on the planet Mars. Let’s grant for the moment that your advanced Martian Science has once and for all established the truth of determinism or its functional equivalent.
John Locke came up with the original “Frankfurt-type example”. (The examples have been called “Frankfurt-type…
Suppose Ken and I are sitting at KALW, just before the program begins. I have forgotten to get myself a styrofoam cup of water, which I badly need, and there isn’t time to run and get one. There is one sitting beside Ken, which he has has clearly gone and gotten in his responsible way. While he isn’t looking, I snatch his cup and move it over to my side of the table.
In my pre-show reflections, I tried to isolate what exactly was being claimed by those who worry…