So, how do "we" know that people are pretty much all anguished, even though they don't look like it? "Oh, you are happy? You must be in denial." Maybe...
The past is pretty clear -- from now back to eternity, and so is the future--from here forward to eternity. What is unclear is the present -- at least...
Google Ngram reports the frequency of words and phrases in print. Here is the Ngram for "time nowadays". Its heyday (another time-expression was in th...
Every philosophical question has a musical answer. The dodger from the American Song Book, Aaron Copland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOPNH3mMfzk O...
I too would dodge the direct question because I can not give you a full explication of my life's meaning. My life has meanings, I am quite sure, but I...
They say philosophy is like a 2500 year old conversation. So you walk into the laundromat and there are two guys standing by a dryer arguing about THE...
By all means read his works and prepare a talk about Nietzsche. The problem comes in comparing Nietzsche and Hitler, tracing influence. It isn't that ...
The subject of Nietzsche & Hitler is too broad unless you have quite a bit of time to prepare and talk. Adolph Hitler did not invent antisemitism -- i...
I don't follow, Wallow. I stick to the shallows. Drums sound good because they are hollow. Be careful what you swallow. Even great minds can choke on ...
Your method is sound. So sound, it's foundational. But... you say "minimum requirements". What more can one do to determine the meaning that a divinit...
True enough; I can't experience your consciousness, but I can sample it by way of your words, physical expression, emotive affect, and so on. Even peo...
That happens quite a lot. But it wasn't my wisdom; I was just quoting. There are people here who do not like biblical quotes. I can't blame them (cons...
Suppose you didn't juxtapose matter and mind in that way? Suppose you just said, "Matter and mind." If consciousness arises and exists in the material...
Thank you for your exhaustive answer to my question about "Faustian". You exhibit a very Faustian Urge in your study of Spengler, Nietzsche, et al. I ...
Past performance is the best predictor of future performance, but as the investment disclaimers say, "Your results may vary". So, your parents' past l...
A classics professor said "Magic is religion one doesn't believe in; religion is magic one does believe." I do not know (no evidence either way) that ...
I don't feel like reading a book about ancient atheism at the moment, but the publisher's description of Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in ...
It is certainly possible that that some people in the ancient world (3000 years ago) did not believe in the gods, but how much evidence do we have for...
What I respond to most enthusiastically when I read the Bible or other religious works (Christian or other) are general principles that I can understa...
Nils Loc, 1-4-19 in "The Future Of Fantasy" "The only virtual world is the actual world." Your pithy post was put in The Philosophy Forum Quote Cabine...
NK doesn't pose all that much of a threat to the United States, but nukes or not, it poses a huge threat to South Korea. Seoul is about 9 million+, an...
You know, come to think of it, people do tell me to "get real" quite often. Maybe I am virtual, unreal. It seems like that some days. As Marx noted, t...
I read an interesting book about your part of the world (northern Florida?) -- Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season with the Wild Turkey by Joe Hut...
The needs of the body weren't dealt with on any deck of the Enterprise, never mind the holodeck. Do you recollect seeing a urinal in any Star Trek epi...
While it's nice to fantasize about the future of fantasy and virtual reality, let us remember that you aren't going to get so much as a cheaply printe...
There are Biblical verses one hears a lot because they are part of liturgy, or because they are repeated frequently (like Psalm 23). There are some ve...
Several professions claim to have the highest rate of suicide; it's a contest, I guess. But how do we identify and count all these suicides? From obit...
As one of my old psych profs said (back in the antediluvian 1960s, "Want to is more important than IQ." This prof had been a professor for decades on ...
It's an elite profession requiring successive successful leaps over significant hurdles. Becoming a doctor is expensive, very time consuming, and diff...
That Classical Greece and Rome are not Western Civilization per se makes sense. There were at least two breaks between Classical Athens and us: One is...
As well you should not! I grew up in a mainline Protestant (Methodist) home, where the Bible was taken seriously. I went to Sunday school, church, bel...
Yes, there is no squaring this circle. The two verses are contradictory. But you know the Bible is a collection of texts from different authors and ed...
Yes, literally contradictory. Oh dear, God screwed up. Woe is you! Look, if you don't want to believe that the Bible is the word of God, that's fine b...
Of course your friends is prejudiced. Yes, most blacks do not commit crimes. Blacks are disproportionately imprisoned. Etc. Your friend's prejudices a...
Why Vikings? Why not the English, the French, or the Irish who, one book says, saved Western Civilization? True, the Vikings took the initiative and r...
Here are a couple of books you might be interested in reading: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Sha...
Do not despair, for I bring you tidings of how to post pictures! Most pictures on the Internet picture (like one resulting from the Google search for ...
You are doing fine. Nobody dipped into Marx and instantly got it all. I read it several times as part of a socialist study group. It takes time for th...
Fanning the Flames of Discontent Department According to a management consultant, “Employees can (and should) be underpaid, overworked, exhausted and ...
"Surplus value" isn't the stuff that is left over after a sale. Here's a simple illustration. In one pile is iron ore. In another pile is coal. Next t...
One of the reasons that the poor stay poor is that poverty is useful in the capitalist system. Having a batch of poor folk around serves as a labor re...
Comments