Tag: philosophy
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Convinced or able to be convinced?
Most people calibrate their positions on issues by observing others. The social family provides a structure of costs and benefits, a sort of behavioral and attitudinal economy. And most people are instinctively invested in and responsive to that market. And well they should be. It’s actually very hard for a single person to effectively judge…
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Progress and moral relativism
The idea of progress is indefinable and incoherent if there is no fixed value (even in a merely numerical sense) toward which you are progressing. A series of random numbers does not progress toward anything. It merely changes. And there is no essential difference in position between any particular number in the series and any…
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Morality without religion?
One statement I often hear from humanistic atheists like Stephen Fry that I think is obviously false is the claim that you can have morality without religion. I think that claim is not only untrue, but definitively untrue. And recent events should prove that. Sam Harris and Stephen Fry themselves would have to admit that…
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Religious musings
These are not only things that are, they are things that must be. 1. People crave moral legitimacy and moral justification. 2. Sacrifice is continual. 3. You can’t get rid of the need for sacrifice, it just goes somewhere else. We are piñoned between past and future, caught at their intersection. We must be released…
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Comments on the talk between Jordan Peterson and Michael Schermer
I think what Jordan is basically arguing about religion is that it is at least symbolically or psychologically or archetypally true. And that that’s an important, maybe the most important, way something can be true (in an almost Platonic sense, as an abstraction or a aggregate, a bit like math is true in relation to…
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On making other happy and meaning
I find that trying to make yourself happy is often far more difficult and less effective than trying to make someone else happy. Somehow, when you focus on yourself, it just doesn’t have the same effect. It’s very hard to do things for yourself and have them be very meaningful. For one thing, there is…
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Why are humans so powerful?
What is a durable foundation for a life? What will last and create power, regardless of circumstances or technology? What is the fundamental mode of being that can make humans succeed and grow regardless of their situation? It cannot be something we invent, it must be something we already possess or possess access to, because…
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Discrimination
The idea of discrimination is a tough one to crack. People use the word pejoratively, and use it specifically as a justification for the enactment of legal powers and penalties against organizations and individuals. In a purely common sense manner, though, there is no such thing as outlawing discrimination. All thought, all value assignment, all…
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A children’s guide to Marxism
I recently read a summary of Marx’s ideas in a philosophy book for children that summed up his cultural and intellectual contributions thusly: He really cared about poor people, he was unpopular for his ideas, but his ideas ended up being very influential, so maybe they weren’t so wrong after all. That was pretty much…
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A letter in thanks for an article on Sir Roger Scruton by his literary executor
Thank you so much for your article on Sir Roger today. I enjoyed reading it. It’s strange how someone dies and then everyone tries to lay claim to their legacy. I confess I didn’t discover Roger until more recently, despite having spent my life studying philosophy and British literature. I confess I most ignored most…
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