mcdoodle

Habituation enables a creature to act in certain ways, and become more efficient at such actions - from balancing and walking to tennis shots and bein...

The first pro-feminist thing to do might be to ask a feminist or two. Me I respond to feminism by respect, egalitarianism and gentleness.

I agree with the tenor of what you're saying. But just to mention, both Germany and Italy are not so ancient, as they only became unified states in th...

The way the main media are constructed, together with the fact that all the main political parties went for a Remain campaign, has meant that the Leav...

There are some basics. Even the Churchlands or Dennett use the first person to describe opinions, themselves, what they did, what they thought and thi...

Un, Just to say this is exactly how I feel. Thanks for articulating it in a way I haven't been able to. I would say 'authentic' too but then I'm irret...

Nobody wants relentless pleasure, come to that. I was just putting the Pushkin point of view. I feel many people commit themselves to a life which par...

Well, fiction is an odd business, to invent it you have to enter in some way into the imagination of the character you're writing about. I had set up ...

PUSHKIN: My path is sad. The waving sea of the future Promises me only toil and sorrow. But O my friends I do not wish to die, I want to live - to thi...

I like reading groups too though it's hard to keep up. Not enough people here read the by-month material seriously so it died. I'm about to fill a hol...

Plus they are also rans in the league table of mass slaughter. They have Rwanda and Congo, lately, it's true, but compared to 80000000 deaths caused b...

Ariadne got dumped on Naxos...just for starting a thread.

Ceci n'est pas une phrase. (Quantum logicians need not apply)

Discussions belong in threads not the shoutbox. (Discuss) I come here to find out how people are doing. I'm ok since you ask, just about to go to Paro...

I'm an active member of the Green Party which is supporting a 'Greener in' campaign. (There's a fair-sized and moderately influential 'Green bloc' in ...

Let's just have restrooms, as you guys call them, unmarked by gender, and let there be someone keeping an eye on them at all times, a restroom-concier...

It looks like the French have said Non to TTIP. Good for them.

I was just looking at interesting maps of London, and thought - you could probably map the Establishment by people, meetings and societies. I think of...

Out here in the sticks, I didn't get elected to the local council. Again. I keep standing for the Green Party. It must be worthwhile or I wouldn't kee...

I confess I find my corner of Western society perplexingly unchaotic. Social cohesion continues in spite of everything. When the bastards in high plac...

My difficulty is...Who are you - who is anyone - to say to other people, 'It would be better if you didn't procreate?' Most people do procreate. Who a...

The icij has hq in Washington DC and a number of US journalists in its membership: https://www.icij.org/index.html

Angry individuals or groups may seek vengeance. An orderly society requires justice. The two ideas, justice and vengeance, are entirely different and ...

The UK law is summarised here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/discrimination/about-discrimination/equality-act-2010-discrimination-and-your-rights/...

You may not be aware of the case of the bakers in Belfast who were found guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake with the statement 'Supp...

Sorry, slow to respond. I suppose I think of the two strands, appealing to the same core notion, as trailing back to Hobbes and Locke, and therefore r...

I look back kindly on Carter but then I'm a Brit, what do I know? I think you should all vote for Jill Stein, that's how off-message I am.

I brought up 'state of nature' and I think your strictures are wide of the mark. From Rousseau to Rawls thinkers have addressed these issues by workin...

For me a human being begins, finds themselves unavoidably in a social situation. How shall we get along together? Any group rapidly finds some minimal...

Generalized label: Red Green Form of government: Social democracy with power delegated to the lowest possible level commensurate with the issue Form o...

I think heroism is being muddled with bravery/courage. A hero is a type in a narrative. I remember Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida, where Hector and ...

Hi jorn. First, you have to explain the converse. I know who I am, but what is this 'world' of which you speak? How, from an infantile almost undiffer...

I am wary of dwelling on the Game of Life, except as a rule-based game of something. Maybe its hubristic title puts me off. It's just a game people pl...

I've got an area I'd like to explore but will wait until Pierre-Normand has made his further case. Very rewarding essay to bounce off.

Please, being-frank, please, I have been-adjacent-to to lecture 7 in a ready-at-hand series about being-with Heidegger today and I'm being'd out. I ha...

Quibble accepted :)

Some of my momentary experiences are plans for future action, and some are memories of past action, each understood to be going to happen, or to have ...

There can be an appeal to the historical imagination, whether or not one believes one is talking about something that was 'really there'. On Meillasso...

Others can look at you when you're busy with something (I have experience of this, I get cluster headaches) and say to you, 'I think you're getting a ...

To defend Meillassoux (though I don't agree with him in the end, but to be fair) it seems to me that one can 'get' this Schopenhauer sentence and yet ...

John, I think there is a missing 'not' in your first para here - 'is not really different in principle' - and if so I agree with you. I don't understa...

Is there such a boundary? Humans, as compared to their nearest animal relatives, study each other a lot. I have very particular ways of talking about ...

I'm a Brit married to an American. Well, she is now a Brit too though you wouldn't know to hear her accent, but she has pledged allegiance to the Quee...

There is no value for me, though, in that, since to me, if you disclaim responsibility for your own writings, they are inauthentic. The least it's rea...

But what then would the value be in discussing it with you? Are you not accepting responsibility for your views, or just not accepting 'ultimate' resp...

To take one point: I hold you responsible for the document outlining your philosophy. Do you accept your own responsibility? How does 'ultimate respon...

In the bleak mid winter

Replying to Un, just jovially...I believe if you are with David Lewis regarding possible worlds, all possible worlds exist, it's just this one that is...

The theorists retreat into analysis after a snowfall. Muttering to each other, 'Snow is white iff...what was it again?'

And it's been snowing here. How beautiful snow is when it first falls. Soon a snowman appears on some waste ground. Three breathless girls pass me tak...