Philosophy in the News
- Why Do Anything?
But no need to decide right now. Procrastination is always an option. Maybe it will ease your actualization anxiety.
- A Bot Lot of Ethics
Bots are now. You rely on them daily, knowingly or not. But whom do these bots really serve? You or your service provider? With personalizing touches in user interface, it is easy to think they are all about you and have your best interest at heart. And when you to, a bot load of important ethical issues get sidelined.
- Should We Ban Lollipops? Is It Okay To Eat Your Pet?
Five new episodes from the Short and Curly crew asking the hard questions for the younger set: Should be ban lollipops? Should you eat your pet? Do you have to love your sibling? Who gets saved first in a fire? Should celebrities keep it real? Is Pokemon Go Playing You? (video)
- Ming and the Social Order
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on logic and language in early Chinese philosophy. Scholarship on early Chinese views on logic and language tends to concentrate on the contributions of the school of Mohism, which helped to critically refine early Chinese conceptions of the content and function of logic and language in relation to their aspirations for developing a comprehensive ethical theory about the proper governance of the state and the individual's role within it.
- Zeno at the Comedy Stoa
"When people hear that I made a stand up comedy special about Stoic philosophy their response is usually “why?”. Fair, that's fair. A lot of beginner comedians think that it's impressive to make jokes out of complicated ideas, but it's much more impressive (and more entertaining) to find the simplest way to convey a complex idea."
- Perceptual Particularity
Seeing some actual trees and hallucinating some trees are different in some obvious ways. The trick is to see exactly what is the same about them. Philosopher Susanna Schellenberg discusses better understanding perception through hallucination. (audio)
- Pascal Is on Our Team
Blaise Pascal, best known for Pascal' Wager, set out in the 17th century, the most effective way to get someone to change their mind. Some four hundred years later, experimental psychologists studying persuasion are coming to the same conclusion. (Be nice. Playing catch up with the mother of all disciplines is tough.)
- Every House a House of Logic
Logic works in a surprising range of places, from the law to your smart phone. It's all about propositions and connectives—if you infer validly you should end up with truth. But the question of why logical relations should hold across unlike domains remains a serious philosophical mystery. Is there a grand cosmological truth here or just a game of words between consenting adults? (audio)
- Whacking the Metaphysics Out of Science
Scientists regularly postulate unobservable things to explain the things we observe. Philosopher Bas C. van Fraassen says this "insidiously enchanted forest" is a thicket of metaphysical speculation where scientists get lost.
- The Meaning of Meaning
Philosopher William Starr works across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics, and computer science to unravel the meaning of meaning.
- Nobility of Soul in Three Easy Lessons
Descartes on how we acquire nobility of soul and the crucial difference between confidence and pride. "Pride ... is always a serious fault, the seriousness of which is greater in proportion as the justification for one's self-esteem is less."
- Just Hoping the Superobots Believe in Animal Rights
If animals have rights, should robots? We can think of ourselves as an animal's peer—or its protector. What will robots decide about us?
- Bringing Ethics to Wall Street
Calls for a "moral economy" should not just be dismissed as idealism. For if war can have ethics, wall street can have ethics, too.
- Why Policy Needs Philosophy
Policy needs philosophers as much as it needs science. Philosophers can help policy makers to ask the right questions.
- The Art of Living Together
The United Nations has left you a message: "Philosophy is the art of living together." In honor of World Philosophy Day, UNESCO encourages the people of the world to "dare to open spaces for free, open and tolerant thinking."
- Seeing Reason
Aristotle firmly held that reason sets humans apart from other animals. It's considered the crowning achievement of the Enlightenment, banishing superstition and errant ideas. But somehow, on the long path to becoming rational, we've lost our reasonableness. Follow-the-argument might be a simple and powerful directive, but sometimes the argument delivers us to the wrong place. (audio)
- Aristotle Goes to Baghdad
Arabic translators did far more than just preserve Greek philosophy.
- The United States of You
An interview with philosopher Marya Schechtman.
- The Perpetual Lineup
About half the adult US population have had their faces scanned by facial recognition software, and put into databases searchable by local, state, and federal authorities. If we just look at African Americans and other minorities, the percentage is much higher. There is to date little regulation or oversight in place for how local police and the FBI use this facial recognition software. Any questions of justice and freedom and the ethical use of such data are having to be sorted out after the fact.
- Is Sexual Deception Sexual Assault?
Is lying in order to get in bed with someone a form of sexual assualt? Whether the lie is about one's gender or one's job, some say it should legally constitute sexual assault. Philosopher Neil McArthur discusses.