Thoughts on morality, politics and history
I. Past and presentIf we ignore the past, not only do we forego the opportunity to understand our own social and cultural situation in more than a superficial way, we disrespect ourselves. We are to...
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Culture and language: some personal reflections
Much is written about shared narratives and their role in creating a common culture. But what is a culture?The idea of a common culture – whether that culture is defined in regional, national or...
View ArticleScientism
At The Electric Agora I recently discussed the views of Alex Rosenberg and some other thinkers on science, knowledge and consciousness. Rosenberg embraces the term 'scientism' (which, of course, was...
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Knowledge of the past, knowledge of the world
Is it acceptable to distinguish between, on the one hand, an account of the past (whatever kind of account it may be) and whatever it is which such an account is, or purports to be, about? I ask this...
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Lee Smolin's realism
Lee Smolin is a respected physicist who has always had strong philosophical interests and convictions. He recently articulated his realist views in a public lecture. What follows are my notes on his...
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Scholarship and activism
David Ottlinger has (as I see it) sound intuitions about the nature of postmodernism and other unfortunate intellectual fads and fashions but, as a committed Kantian, he inhabits a very different...
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A few thoughts on intellectual history, abstraction and values
Terms like “pragmatism” as it applies to philosophy and the history of ideas – most isms really – are intrinsically vague and useful only to the (necessarily limited) extent that they help to bring out...
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Language and thought: some metaphysically skeptical reflections
Conceptual frameworks are always provisionalThe logical positivists took a very hard anti-metaphysical line. They were right, in my view, to see traditional metaphysics as being futile and pointless....
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Speaking of time
A confusing and (arguably) confused article about time which appeared late last year at The Electric Agora prompted me to set out a few of my own thoughts on perceptions of time and time and...
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Is art a useful concept?
Daniel Kaufman recently talked about art and art criticism. His concerns were basically with what certain philosophers have said about these things. He explains that he used to accept Arthur Danto’s...
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Time and physics
Einstein's rejection of the notion of time as we know and experience it was squarely based in classical physics and classical mathematics. One problem with such a view is that it assumes the existence...
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When is a discipline not a discipline?
Disruptions to business as usual, such as we have been experiencing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, inevitably raise questions regarding which activities or institutions are essential or...
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Literature, cinema and truth
Is there any point in trying to set out one's personal criteria for judging fiction, plays and films? I think there is. For me good writing etc. represents human realities without undue simplification,...
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Epistemic relativism in a digital world
Extracts (slightly revised) from an essay of mine which appeared earlier this year at The Electric Agora under the title "Thought control and cultural decline".[...] One consequence of the cultural and...
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Conceptualizing language
[This piece was published at The Electric Agora earlier this year. Chomsky's ideas on linguistics are very polarising and even my qualified endorsement of some of his central ideas prompted some...
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Why I haven't been posting
I have been preoccupied lately with developing a podcast with the Electric Agora network. It is called Culture and Value and it is still a work in progress. For the present, at least, it will consist...
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Karl Kraus and close reading
Young children are notoriously poor liars, but even mature and sophisticated users of language reveal themselves in ways of which they are all too often unaware.Listeners and readers inevitably make...
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Individualism and cultural embeddedness
I talk here about my general goal in this series of podcasts of presenting and defending a form of individualism which takes seriously our cultural embeddedness, noting that universal political...
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More on culture and language
I recently set out some of my basic beliefs and assumptions about what there is and about what makes a person."Biology and culture. Culture and biology. That’s not all there is, but – with the...
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Distorting history
Bharath Vallabha used to be a regular contributor to The Electric Agora. He returned recently with a piece about how, in his view, some of the central and most polarizing debates of post-World War 2...
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Dreams, perceptions and delusions
I have never considered dreams – my own or anyone else’s – worth recording or trying to analyze in any serious way, but I have always maintained an interest in the various manifestations of...
View ArticleThe decline of literacy
I find myself frequently having to modify and simplify my language to avoid misunderstandings. This is partly because of traditional divergences between British and American usage and the inevitable...
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Remarks on culture and religion
I want to recapitulate here and expand on some points I made elsewhere in partial response to a piece written by Daniel Kaufman entitled "Remarks on religion".First of all, I should explain that I am...
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Against ideology
As we watch economies fail and societies move into the more advanced stages of dysfunction and dissolution, there is a lot of political finger-pointing going on. Blame is typically assigned in such a...
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AI, work and human dignity
Speculations about the impact of AI and imagined technological utopias or dystopias necessarily draw on – and reveal a lot about – our fundamental assumptions about human nature. Robert Gressis...
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