How to be a Relativist
29
Apr 2005
Over at the blog Left2Right, the philosopher David Velleman has an interesting post about moral relativism. Prompted by recent news coverage of moral relativism and then Cardinal Ratzinger’s denunciation of modernity’s supposed move toward “the dictatorship of relativism,” Velleman argues that almost everyone who denounces relativism has it confused with some other doctrine. Relativism, Velleman claims, is an extremely implausible doctrine and has precious few serious adherents. Consequently, he...
Read moreTricks for Political Persuasion
21
Apr 2017
In our age of political polarization, it seems hard to convince anyone of anything that they didn't already believe in. This consistent inability to reach any real mutual understanding can lead some to "agree to disagree," but when it comes to serious matters, like the question of healthcare or whether Syrian refugees should be allowed to enter a nation-state, lives are at stake. Olga Khazan of The Atlantic explores a possible "trick" to bypass this problem of persuasion. Khazan looks at how certain "moral frames" are more convincing to some people than others. In the case of...
Read moreFood and Philosophy: Live at the Marsh
24
Mar 2010
Satisfy your hunger for food and philosophy on April 25th at the new Marsh Theater location in Berkeley. Join Philosophy Talk for two live recording sessions and a lunch break in between where you can break bread with Philosophy Talk co-hosts John Perry and Ken Taylor.11:00am Show: Democracy and the PressOur founding fathers believed that a free press would serve democracy by promoting unfettered political debate and by exposing the actions of the government to the harsh scrutiny of an informed and engaged populace. In today’s media landscape, however, large...
Read moreAmerican Pragmatism
14
Jan 2007
[Tom Burke, a Stanford Ph.D. and author of Dewey's New Logic, is associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina (http://people.cas.sc.edu/burket/). I invited him to guest blog on the topic of pragmatism, which he didn't think we quite did justice to on our program of a few weeks ago. --jp]
What Is Pragmatism?
by Tom Burke
Department of Philosophy
University of South Carolina
Like any philosophical "ism," pragmatism lends itself to easily-refuted straw-man characterizations; and in any case, no doubt, there are inferior (short-sighted,...
What Makes A Man?
19
Mar 2021
Does masculinity need a makeover for the 21st century? Should your gender matter to who you are as a person? Why think there’s just one thing it means to be a man? This week on Philosophy Talk, we’re discussing masculinity and what makes a man. Many people are suspicious of traditional masculine ideals, and for good reasons. We live in a culture that expects men to be dominant, powerful, and good at suppressing feelings (other than anger). These expectations, often called “toxic masculinity”, are harmful to men themselves, since ideals of masculinity are difficult and painful to...
Read moreWelcome Our New Language-Learning Robot Overlords
02
Feb 2024
Can we learn things from ChatGPT and other large language models that shed light on human language acquisition? Sounds like it would be cool if it were possible, but how would it work? Well to start, human babies have to learn lots of things: how the objects around them behave, the rules of social interaction, the various parts of language. And it certainly seems like A.I.s learn language too. But what if all they do is imitate human speech? Do they think and have actual knowledge, or are they just fancy computer programs? Of course, what if our own minds are just fancy computer programs,...
Read moreGut Feelings
11
Dec 2014
This week’s show is about gut feelings—and the art of decision-making. Sometimes we make decisions that we think long and hard about, but often we make decisions simply because it feels right. Call it a hunch, an intuition, or an instinct—what they all have in common is that we don’t know why we feel the way we do, yet the feeling can be so compelling, it moves us to act. The question is, when should we listen to our gut feelings and make decisions based on something we can’t explain? And when should we stop to think? A first approach to this question might be to consider whether gut...
Read moreThe Self
21
Feb 2013
What is a self? Here’s is a really simple answer. I’m a self, namely, myself. You are a self, namely, yourself. A self is just a person, a living, breathing, thinking human being. We use the particle ‘self’ to form reflexive pronouns, like “myself” and “yourself”, and these pronouns, refer to persons. So there’s the simple theory of selves: selves are persons. But many philosophers would say that there is a difference between myself--- that’s just me, John Perry --- and my Self. This self as some sort of...
Read moreMind the Gaps!
11
Mar 2019
In previous installments of my series on Freud as a philosopher I described how during Freud’s lifetime the sciences of the mind were guided by assumptions about the nature of the mind and its relation to the body that he came to reject. These included the notion that mind and body are categorically distinct (“dualism”), that all mental processes are conscious, and that the best way to explore the mind is through introspection. Freud turned his back all these propositions. Instead, he arrived at the view that mental states are brain states (“materialism”), that mental processes...
Read moreAnti-Sacred Spaces
27
Feb 2020
In my last blog I wrote about rough humor. I defined it (roughly) like this: humor that deals with culturally sensitive issues in a way that bumps into or violates taboos, such as taboos on certain words or on talking about or mocking certain things. The point of bringing this up—in addition to complementing the episode on humor—was to investigate what assumptions people make about rough humor’s psychological effects. I maintained that those assumptions seem to fall into two more or less conscious theories, which I called “Blowing Off Steam” and “Reinforcement.” Blowing...
Read moreDo Religions Deserve Special Status?
07
Sep 2016
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects our right to say and publish whatever we think, but doesn’t in general guarantee the right to do any more than that. I can believe that people shouldn’t wear fedoras, and I can publish my view. But I can’t go around knocking fedoras off the heads of those that wear them, and I may get in trouble if I fire employees for wearing fedoras. But it seems to go further with respect to religion. In addition to ruling out the establishment of a state religion, it also guarantees “the right to the free exercise of [religion].” You cannot...
Read moreBioethics – Myths and Realities
10
Oct 2015
Developments in genetics – in particular the mapping of the human genome – are tremendously exciting. For example, if we can correctly identify the disease carrying genes, we may be able to eradicate cancer. But new knowledge gives us new abilities. And new abilities give us new ethical dilemmas. This is so true in the field of biology that a whole new discipline has emerged – bioethics. Designer babies are a common specter when people think about genetics and bioethics. Sounds pretty benign if you’re just envisioning parents who choose to have kids...
Read more[VIDEO] The Slippery Slope
16
Jan 2018
The slippery slope argument is an argument where one action is argued to start a chain of events that will result in undesirable consequences. Take, for example, the argument that "If gay marriage is allowed, then people will want to marry objects or animals." When is the slippery slope argument fallacious and when is it—if ever—compelling? This video from Wireless Philosophy gives a helpful explanation of the slippery slope argument and how to avoid committing a logical fallacy. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxylBjtzMNQ
Distortion in Philosophy
14
Jun 2018
Philosophy has, of course, become more diverse in recent years, with more women and people of color entering the field. However, that hasn't changed the lack of diversity in the canon of philosophy. In particular, as Ray Briggs, Stanford philosophy professor and featured contributor on our blog, argues, some of the philosophical examples used over and over again are misogynistic, or rely on false hypothesis. Briggs worries that “when most of the authors we read are white and male, some aspects of the subject matter get distorted, and it’s hard to tell where the essential stuff ends and...
Read morePhenomenology
20
Apr 2017
Husserl founded phenomenology a century ago. Many important philosophers are phenomenologists, like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. But What in the world is phenomenology? Let’s start with the word. In the relevant sense, “phenomenon” means something observed, for which one wants to know the unobserved cause or explanation. For example, glaciers are an interesting phenomenon. But where did they come from? The phenomenological move is to say, “Let’s study the phenomenon itself first, and leave the explanation aside, at least for the time being. But of course Husserl wasn’t...
Read moreHow Will Racism Be Eradicated?
22
Sep 2017
In this long, honest, and insightful piece, discusses the way forward for our racist society. How will we eliminate racism from all facets of our society, from the institutions to the quotidian interactions? Kendi gives credence to the following suggestion: Take those people who have been oppressed by racism and give them the positions of power. Kendi reaches this conclusion by reflecting on the last fifty years of racist and anti-racist back-and-forth in this country. There's a lot to glean from this splendid article. Read it as part of "The long read" series at The Guardian: https...
Read moreGod had a Technical Difficulty
20
Dec 2005
We had a really great show on Tuesday. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, no one will ever be able to hear it again. Because of a series of miscommunications, the show didn't get recorded. We are terribly, terribly sorry about this. We apologize to our affiliates and to those who listen to the show via the internet. Personally, I was crestfallen when I heard the news, shortly after we got off air. I thought it was one of our liveliest shows. Walter was really great. We...
Read moreTime To Take Off The Tinfoil Hat!
12
Jan 2017
One person says the medical establishment pushes autism-causing vaccines on the public, and “they” perpetrated a massive cover-up. A second person claims the tobacco industry colluded to distort the evidence that smoking causes cancer. Each of these persons is pushing a “conspiracy theory,” a theory that says a group of people did something bad and is conspiring to cover it up. But the first person (the anti-vaxer) is badly confused. The second, however, is right: the tobacco industry did collude to distort and suppress science about the link from smoking to cancer. This comparison highlights...
Read moreThe Idea of a University
05
Nov 2010
I’m really happy universities exist, and that they support philosophy departments, and seem to think I do something useful. But the longer I have spent in universities, the more I've become familiar with the vast differences in schools and departments, the complexity of funding, how different things are done in other universities, particularly those in other lands… and, frankly, the less I have a feel for what universities are really supposed to be. Here are four issues around which my doubts and confusions cluster.Research versus teaching. At Stanford we...
Read moreEmergence: Live Blogging
22
Nov 2008
Share your thoughts about today's show. Don't have time to add any thoughts myself but I want to get this blog going again. If you have a comment, post it here, if you are willing to share it with the world.
Read moreMemoir, Truth, and Self
29
May 2022
This week we're thinking about truth and memor. Many of us love reading memoirs, but how many of us could write one? It might be fun for everybody to know the truth about our sordid lives—assuming those lives were interesting enough. Chances are many of us would have to make half of it up. Now is that really a problem? After all, everyone embellishes a little bit when they tell stories, especially about their own lives. Well, it may be for memoir: either you’re there to tell people what actually happened, or you’re inventing things—in which case, just write a novel. Or maybe it is...
Read moreBeing Human is Like Being Here
26
May 2014
In my last blog posting, I explained that “human” is a folk-category that doesn’t map clearly and cleanly onto scientific categories like Homo sapiens, and that consequently, science can’t tell us what it means to be human. This time I’m going to consider some folk-conceptions of the human to see if they can offer us anything that’s more useful. One way to get a handle on folk-conceptions of the human is to focus on the phenomenon of dehumanization. When people dehumanize others they exclude them from the category of human, usually with horrifying results. We see...
Read moreDeconstructing the College Admissions Rat Race
03
Sep 2011
Getting into the college or university of your choice – especially if it's highly selective one -- has become more daunting and more stress-inducing than ever before. The odds are stacked against students from the start. Consider Stanford. This year we had just over thirty two thousand applications to fill about sixteen hundred freshmen slots. So we accepted just seven percent of those who applied. Those are astounding numbers. And Stanford's not alone. Harvard admitted seven percent of its applicants, while Yale admitted eight percent and...
Read moreA Puzzle About Sacred Values Part I
29
Aug 2019
Classic theories of choice posit that our preferences are transitive. That sounds fancy, but the idea is straightforward. It means that if you prefer A to B and B to C, then you’ll also prefer A to C. For example, if you prefer the apple to the orange and the orange to the banana, then you’ll also prefer the apple to the banana. Now one interesting question in psychology is the extent to which human preferences actually conform to such axioms as transitivity. There are many complications that arise on that issue. For example, as Daniel Kahneman says, “People don’t choose between...
Read moreSimone de Beauvoir
29
Feb 2016
Simone de Beauvoir was probably best known as a novelist, and a feminist thinker and writer, but she was also an existentialist philosopher in her own right and, like her lover Sartre, thought a lot about the human struggle to be free. As a philosopher trained in the analytic tradition, I have to admit, I don’t know a whole lot about existentialism, so I’m curious to discover on this week’s show with guest Shannon Mussett how Beauvoir’s feminist thought relates to her existentialist philosophy. Beauvoir’s most famous work was The Second Sex from 1949, a hugely influential...
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