‘Merely’? They are very large subjects - topics for a term paper, subject of many books. I will start by saying that I think the trial of Galileo is i...
What I mean is that evolutionary biology, and science in general, now provides the kind of background guide to what intelligent people should believe ...
I don't want to fall into the science v religion dichotomy. My view is that when h. sapiens evolved to the point of being language-using, meaning-seek...
I’m very much attracted to that idea. I find the key figure there is Husserl. His ideas of the umwelt and lebenswelt, as kind of ‘meaning-environments...
I see. Actually I read your posts slightly out of order, I had not noticed the reply you gave above this one, when I asked the question ‘each of which...
The essay itself is interesting. You can find a copy here. Frege was not at all like Berkeley, from what I can see - more cautious, not prone to sweep...
I think that since the success of the nominalist attitude, which was one of the main forerunners of empiricism generally, that scholastic realism has ...
The device you're communicating with depends on the unreasonable effectiveness of maths. Interesting article, but the sense in which I'm arguing for W...
Well, you're against transcendentalism which doesn't leave a lot of options. Not everything about human kind is determined by biology. When we evolved...
Evolutionary biology is intended to provide an account of the origin of species. Evolutionary rationales of religion, music, and other aspects of huma...
Aristotelian philosophy generally is teleologically oriented - things have a purpose, a telos, which is the basis for what is considered good - being ...
Wasn't the whole issue of scholastic realism versus nominalism is that the former accepted the reality of universals (in Aristotelian form, as mediate...
Hartry Field is often mentioned by one of the mathematical philosophers on this site, his name escapes me at the moment, but thanks for the reference....
Eudomonia in Aristotelian philosophy is linked with virtue and with fulfilling your life's purpose (telos). I don't think it's difficult to differenti...
The original symbol for zero, 0, came from the hole in the middle seat of a dhow, where the mast was put for the sail. It was by virtue of that hole, ...
yep. Sure sounds exactly what I would expect ‘ancient hedonism’ to be. I think many philosophies and religions have recognised humanity’s two-fold nat...
I would have thought that the most obviously hedonist of the Greek schools was Epicurianism: 'The school rejected determinism and advocated hedonism (...
From the perspective of traditional cultures, both the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain are natural instincts that have to be moderated. In Gr...
Oh that's right! I'd forgotten where I'd read it. I took it as a sardonic backhander to Augustine's 'Love, and do what you will.' I don't think capita...
When I was at university, one of the books I loved to hate was B F Skinner 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity'. I always thought it called for a rejoinder na...
"Hedonism: the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life. " But inte...
can intellectual pleasure (derived from e.g. listening to music, mastering an intellectual discipline etc) be differentiated from sensory pleasure (an...
The background assumptions of Greek were still formed by near universal belief in spirits that animated the world (in Plato's philosophy 'the demiorgo...
That aside, presumably one of the main motivators for the West's long struggle to arrive at democracy, was the desire to provide individuals with the ...
I would say so, yes. But again, 'critical thinking' in the original Platonic context, started with very different background assumptions to critical t...
I wouldn't imbue 'it' (evolutionary biology) with agency in this way. Culture and society allow people to accept their impulse to seek dignity and dec...
Insightful. Our modern age, which is apparently so rooted in reason, actually bows to irrationalism by making evolutionary biology something which it ...
Just as well, as it can't account for 96% of the mass of the universe, nor the behaviour of atomic particles without resorting to the many-worlds extr...
Maths is predictive, though. It enables not only counting, but discovery of things otherwise unknowable. Much of modern science is an illustation of j...
Yes, that's it. The point of it is that it was composed as a rejoinder to an earlier verse, penned by the presumed 'dharma heir' (i.e. presumed next a...
'Original oneness' - samadhi, trance states whereby the sense of separateness is dissolved in union with the Tao. Parallels with other 'traditions of ...
Hence my delimitation of 1915. I also think of Lewis Carroll as a portent of postmodernism. There are probably others. There are always overlaps and e...
Roughly speaking: 'Modern' period - commenced with publication of Newton's Principia 1687. 'Post-modern' period - commenced with publication of Einste...
It (or Anglicanism, in my part of the world) was the religion I left, although I'm sure it left more of an imprint than I would like to admit. Still, ...
God does not exist - Pierre Whalon, Bishop in charge, Episcopal Churches in Europe. 'God made the integers, all else is the work of man' ~ Leopold Kro...
Take a look at the blog post I found. I don't necessarily agree with all the particulars but it makes a crucial distinction between 'existence' and 'r...
Comments