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Shevek

['Member']Joined: October 28, 2015 at 20:29Last active: April 13, 2016 at 21:44None discussions42 comments
Location: The info-sphere

Bio

Turning Hegel on his head right-side up.

Favourite Philosopher

Wishy-washy dubious types

Favourite Quotations

Manifest slips symptomatic of underlying pathology.

Comments

It's mystifying when it serves as a reductionist explanation for something like contemporary practices of tax evasion. Why the practices revealed in t...
April 11, 2016 at 11:36
To a state, these two are indistinguishable. Their primary concern is any challenge to their monopoly of violence (and ideology), and so their monopol...
April 09, 2016 at 07:16
To use something like 'human nature' (qua 'natural law', perhaps biologically coded) to explain the current situation of tax evasion I think is mystif...
April 09, 2016 at 06:49
I'm not insisting otherwise, but just seeing why, in principle, unborn babies couldn't enjoy the kind of existence that some attribute to fictional ch...
April 07, 2016 at 05:44
Why not? What would qualify an unborn person being a fictional character? Does it have to be in a published novel or short story? What about unpublish...
April 07, 2016 at 04:42
Yeah I'm with you, I'd probably be a hermit. Especially seeing as I try to be a hermit in our universe, where I don't think people are any better.
April 07, 2016 at 02:58
I tried giving them a shot, got about a third of the way through the first one before I put it down. I really don't think the books are any better, bu...
April 07, 2016 at 02:55
They can enjoy a particular kind of existence, as fictional characters. Or barring discussions on the existence of fictional entities, or modal realis...
April 07, 2016 at 02:18
Keep in mind that Mossack Fonseca is the fourth-largest offshoring law firm. The three others are likely to contain a majority of the world's elite. I...
April 07, 2016 at 01:17
In: The media  — view comment
I'm picking up what you're putting down. I'd add though that, while 'ego-enhancement' (and wanting to gain the most social capital or whatever), doesn...
April 01, 2016 at 00:41
In: The media  — view comment
I don't know what you mean by "deification of the risk". And I would agree that wealth and power insulates one from reality, or at least a major aspec...
March 31, 2016 at 23:42
In: The media  — view comment
Think of it like a giant echo chamber, with the elite having control of the most sophisticated and powerful instruments and sound equipment, and endle...
March 31, 2016 at 23:30
In: The media  — view comment
This is a central part of my point and I don't think it contradicts my view of ideology and control. The elite grow up and exist in an idiosyncratic s...
March 31, 2016 at 23:07
In: The media  — view comment
Our culture does it, and pretty much every culture in some form or another and to some degree of severity or another. The point is that in doing so, w...
March 31, 2016 at 22:34
In: The media  — view comment
Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, penned the following in his book Propaganda: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the...
March 31, 2016 at 22:11
In: The media  — view comment
I think when it comes to looking at the broad cultural effects of media, it is a bit wrong-headed to rest our conclusions on being able to demonstrate...
March 31, 2016 at 21:42
'Ownership' is a legal contrivance created to regulate a situation and set of practices that were already at work in society before it was written int...
March 27, 2016 at 22:41
More topical to the OP, since his posting, Bernie has swept Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska. But it is not enough, as it is likely Hillary will sweep N...
March 27, 2016 at 20:59
Having left the United States myself for some time (albeit nowhere long as your stated 23 years), encountered countless travellers from all across the...
March 27, 2016 at 20:45
We're obviously working with different definitions. Going by the traditional usage of those terms in the literature, having both 'private property wit...
March 03, 2016 at 13:35
Fair enough. We're all allowed to contradict ourselves. We all contain multitudes.
March 02, 2016 at 20:48
Pick one.
March 01, 2016 at 20:07
Seems like a lot of people's posts are shot-through with an undercurrent of contradiction; that is, between our 'ideal-state' and what we could reason...
March 01, 2016 at 19:40
Why not? Ideally, the spaces where the actual decision-making is happening should be the most public. Although I'm reminded of something that Yanis Ve...
February 27, 2016 at 17:28
Id: Trump, Ego: Rubio, Superego: Cruz
February 26, 2016 at 15:28
I suspect this is the sentiment that runs deep in the popular political psyche in America, and it's probably why Bernie Sanders performs better in hea...
February 25, 2016 at 08:31
Okay, have you conducted an empirical study of 'Marxist governments' and its level of totalitarian power over the individual? What 'Marxist states' do...
February 25, 2016 at 06:55
You're just spewing ideology but missing the point. Those same governments that place restrictions on government to protect individual rights also hav...
February 22, 2016 at 22:15
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Don't all governments necessarily back up their authority on principles that the state maintains some lev...
February 22, 2016 at 19:31
Of course there are certain restrictions and limitations. I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise. Like I said in the sentence prior to the one you...
February 22, 2016 at 18:08
The Dialogic Imagination - Mikhail Bakhtin The Ecology of Freedom - Murray Bookchin Libra - Don DeLillo I have Transcritique: On Kant and Marx by Koji...
February 21, 2016 at 17:54
Actually Marx is occasionally criticized by political theorists within the Marxist tradition for having too overly-emphasized groups of people as self...
February 21, 2016 at 16:17
In: Dreaming.  — view comment
I don't recall him focusing specifically on spacial or physical characteristics as a part of "form" either. But I suspect Freud would consider those a...
November 08, 2015 at 14:00
This is a fair observation and one that I wouldn't object to. But I think there's something worth pointing out about philosophy as a craft. As per my ...
November 06, 2015 at 10:35
Absolutely not. In some trivial sense, everyone does philosophy in that they, perhaps sometimes on a lonely night, 'wonder what it's all about', or ha...
November 05, 2015 at 22:20
For Heidegger, Dasein is being whose own being is an issue for it, and it is also related to the fundamental basis of being-in-the-world as conditione...
November 05, 2015 at 21:01
Professional philosophy? More often than not. Okay, I won't be facetious. Your question is about 'philosophy' proper. It will come down to what we thi...
November 05, 2015 at 18:36
In: Dreaming.  — view comment
Huh? That's not right. The 'dicks' is probably tongue-and-cheek (ba dum ch'), but it still reflects a misunderstanding to consider Freud's concern wit...
November 05, 2015 at 17:36
I think that it ultimately depends on worldview. The meaning of particular events emerges when it is fit coherently as a part of a narrative or contex...
November 05, 2015 at 11:54
I don't necessarily think that the debate should hinge on the particular ontological status of whatever (if at all) a purportedly fictional or nonfict...
November 04, 2015 at 13:59
As far as Derrida goes, he would resist the idea that your experience, your dreams, or some 'inner' unarticulated psychological reality offer some fou...
October 29, 2015 at 00:11
One can observe that nationalism today not only persists but is rearing its ugly head in new movements. Far-right nationalist parties are gaining in p...
October 28, 2015 at 22:55