Debating Kant … or “nerds gone wild.” “… a headline worthy of instant fame on Reddit or Buzzfeed: ‘Man shoots another man following argument over philosopher Immanuel Kant.’ ” Was the fight about the categorical imperative or perhaps the categories of the understanding?
Year: 2013
Happiness and/or meaningfulness
Do you want a meaningful life or a happy one? “Happiness is not the same as a sense of meaning. How do we go about finding a meaningful life, not just a happy one?” From a psychology professor at FSU, some psychological research … and philosophy … about “the meanings of life.”
Personal identity v. personal brand
You are what you tweet. Does personal identity equal personal brand? “So, to reiterate: wear the right clothes, attend a well-squeegeed church, and project seamless consistency and competence across every department of your life—you know, be yourself. “
The moral dilemmas of doctors during disasters
Katrina and medical ethics. “Which patients should receive priority in a disaster? Should doctors abandon the critically ill? What should they do if they believe those patients will suffer? Should they receive legal immunity for decisions made under duress?”
Color … appearance or reality?
Color … an example of the reasons philosophers have tried to figure out how, if at all, we can distinguish appearance and reality.
The Melian Dialogue …
Why do the battles over ancient Athens still rage, and were the Athenians too aggressive or not aggressive enough? What does “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” really mean?
Descartes’ bones
A skeletal history of the conflict between faith and reason. “Alas, poor Descartes: meditations on a well-traveled skull.” More here.
The passions of John Stuart Mill
Right again. “Certainly no one has ever been so right about so many things so much of the time as John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth-century English philosopher, politician, and know-it-all nonpareil who is the subject of a fine new biography by the British journalist Richard Reeves …”
Bentham’s body
The auto-icon. “At the end of the South Cloisters of the main building of [University College London] stands a wooden cabinet, which has been a source of curiosity and perplexity to visitors. The cabinet contains Bentham’s preserved skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, and surmounted by a wax head. “
A moral sense?
The moral instinct. “The human moral sense turns out to be an organ of considerable complexity, with quirks that reflect its evolutionary history and its neurobiological foundations.”
Socratically Speaking 