When is the last time you knowingly did something wrong? If you’re being honest, it was probably in the last 24 hours. But there were probably some other things going on at the same time. You were probably tired. You […]
We often think that our experience of reality shape and determine the words we use. It’s intuitive to see experience, concept formation, and speech as a strict one-directional flow. But what if we’re wrong about where language comes in? What if language actually […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Is it all really about sex in the end? Is it naive to tell the truth to your enemies? Is it ever too […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Is death really the enemy? What can the mind control of the White Walkers teach us about free will and evil? Is it ever […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Is forcing people to serve a good cause ever OK? When do you become responsible for the evil that’s happening around you? And what’s up […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Should Jon Snow bend the knee to Daenarys Targaryen? Is it moral to use weapons of mass destruction – like dragons – in warfare? And […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* I feel like the only real way to honor this episode is to keep the introductions short. This is Game of Thrones Philosophy Breakdown. It’s […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* When should you betray someone? Should you keep ALL your oaths? And is cowardice really unvirtuous if it saves your life and the […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Is it ever OK to slaughter your family’s enemies in pursuit of revenge? Should you kick your enemies’ children out of their ancestral […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Season 7 of Game of Thrones may have ended last night, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave the world of Westeros […]
What do you think of when you hear the word “libertarian”? Do you think of selfish big business apologists? Reactionary constitutionalists? Naive utopians? Pot-smoking hippies? Rational economic thinkers? Political labels are confusing, which is why it’s so necessary to define […]
Faith is belief. Faith is trust. Faith is a belief system. Faith is loyalty. Faith is oathkeeping. “Faith” seems to be quite a lot of things. What holds these things in common? I don’t normally fight to reclaim words, but […]
The philosopher Albert Camus once wrote that the only meaningful philosophical question was “why shouldn’t I commit suicide?” Jarring, I know. But there’s more to the question than you might think. This is not just philosophy for emo kids. Camus […]
I purposefully don’t watch the news much. But since I heard that two of the world’s most dangerous governments (North Korea and the United States) were threatening to use nuclear weapons against each other, I’ve dipped my feet back in. We’ve seen saber-rattling and […]
Is it possible to harm dead people? Can we violate their rights after death? These are the questions we set out to answer in our most recent Praxis philosophy night call with College of New Jersey philosophy professor and medical ethics expert […]
Every now and then in discussions of human psychology and motivation, someone inserts the witty remark that humans are just “advanced monkeys,” or “monkeys with smartphones,” or something of the sort. Everyone laughs. Oh, humans! This smuggest of all YouTube videos […]
Why is a handmade candle generally considered better than a manufactured one? The materials and quality may actually be exactly the same: the same candle wax, the wick material, the same kind of burn. So it can be puzzling why most people seem […]
Can studying philosophy make you a worse person? It’s certainly not guaranteed to make you better, if you believe the findings of a study recently covered in the Scientific American: For almost a decade, Schwitzgebel and Rust have compared the self-reported and […]
Impressionable young people are picking the worst ideas these days. Go to most college campuses and you’ll find ideologies not far different from socialism on the left and not far different from fascism on the right. This generation is not […]
Dying for values is easy. Millions of young men do it every time we have a war, which seems to be pretty often. Why do generation after generation of young men get suckered in to killing and being killed? Honor. […]
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts….” One day, you will be a part of someone’s slanted story […]
Take the truth seriously. Take your efforts to reach the truth seriously. Just don’t take your ideas about the truth too seriously – too seriously to give them up when something better comes along. Have strong opinions, but hold them weakly. […]
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower I’ve never killed anyone. My war experience – my lack thereof – […]
Dear historians,* ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED? Since my first encounter with history, the main stream of your profession has pretty much been broadcasting one story of the human past and how we got here. That story […]
I believe that humans are creatures of limitless, radical responsibility. We are in some sense responsible for everything that happens to us. When I say that, it’s bound to raise a few eyebrows. Sure, you might be responsible for getting […]
I owe inspiration for a good bit of this post to Jordan Peterson and Friedrich Hayek. I wrote last night about the games which we all play on the individual level, from Make-The-Best-Grades to Impress-The-Boss. There are also games which […]
II like it when people explain big concepts to me with fun little drawings. I like it better when those explanations are narrated by deep British voices. Make it an explanation by an author like C.S. Lewis, and I’m sold. I came across […]
In this month’s second installment of Praxis philosophy nights, the gang and I discussed a peculiar epistemological (how do you know?) problem with certain metaphysical (what is the nature of things?) views. Can a view be self-defeating – and therefore unbelievable […]
“It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect.” – Aristotle “A is not non-A” – Classical Logic’s Formulation of the Above Is […]
I have a massive wolf-head banner with the words “winter is coming” hanging next to my desk at work. For people who don’t know its source in book series and television show Game of Thrones, this banner means that I am […]