In “How an 18th-Century Philosopher Helped Solve My Midlife Crisis,” Alison Gopnik explores fascinating links among Hume’s “bundle of perceptions” theory of self-identity, the European Enlightenment, Buddha, Tibetan monks, Siamese kings, Jesuit missionaries … and her own midlife crisis.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy … a model for the rest of the internet
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “has achieved what Wikipedia can only dream of.” Lovers of wisdom have set a standard for the rest of the internet. “The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy may be the most interesting website on the internet. Not because of the content—which includes fascinating entries on everything from ambiguity to zombies—but because of the site itself. Its creators have solved one of the internet’s fundamental problems: How to provide authoritative, rigorously accurate knowledge, at no cost to readers. It’s something the encyclopedia, or SEP, has managed to do for two decades.”
John Malkovich reinterprets Plato
… with the help of Yoko Ono, OMD, Placebo. Like a Puppet Show is an album to be released November 27 on which John Malkovich read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” against an eerie musical landscape.
Extreme altruism
The world is full of suffering. How far should you go to prevent the suffering of others, especially the suffering of strangers? Ought you spend way too much to enjoy a fancy coffee drink while children are dying of starvation? Larissa MacFarquhar discusses extreme altruism, illustrating her points with a fascinating example. “In wartime – or in a crisis so devastating that it resembles war, such as an earthquake or a hurricane – duty expands far beyond its peacetime boundaries. In wartime, it is thought dutiful rather than unnatural to leave your family for the sake of a cause. In ordinary times, to ask a person to sacrifice his life for a stranger seems outrageous, but in war it is commonplace. Acts that seem appallingly bad or appallingly good in normal circumstances become part of daily life. This is the difference between do-gooders and ordinary people: for do-gooders, it is always wartime. They always feel themselves responsible for strangers; they know that there are always those as urgently in need as the victims of battle, and they consider themselves conscripted by duty.”
Are you a story?
Some philosophers and others claim that the best way to understand self-identity is to think of it as a story you work on and tell yourself as you live. It’s that story that gives your life focus, meaning, and purpose. But in “I Am Not a Story,” Galen Strawson disagrees: he thinks the idea that life is a story is false and even dangerous.
When the truth hurts
Is it ever worth not knowing the truth? Sometimes there are downsides to knowing the truth. For example, the truth about health or personal relationships can sometimes produce more pain than good. But we don’t always know when the truth will be worth it and when it wouldn’t. So what should we do? In “When the Truth Hurts,” Jess Whittlestone proposes this approach: “If I’m right here that the risks involved in seeking the truth too little are greater than those involved in seeking the truth too much, then aiming to always seek the truth might be a good general rule of thumb. This isn’t to say that the truth is ultimately valuable, or that there are no cases where we’re better off not knowing the truth. Valuing the truth doesn’t mean wasting time on understanding trivial, boring things, or asking everyone you meet what they like least about you. But given that most of the time we’re operating under a great deal of uncertainty, we might benefit overall from believing – falsely! – that the truth is what matters most.”
Disease and self-identity
When does the deterioration of your brain rob you of your identity, and when doesn’t it? Is it when you lose your memories, or is it the loss of something else that robs you of your self? In “Your Brain, Your Disease, Your Self,” philosopher Shaun Nichols and psychologist Nina Strohminger say it is your morality more than your memory that makes you you. “It is only when our grip on the moral universe loosens that our identity slips away with it.”
An experiment: tell the truth
“One day I decided to stop lying. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been a big liar before in my life, but I decided to – to the best of my abilities – not lie at all. I defined some borderline case rules for myself, for example, it is ok to avoid or withhold the truth, when the effects of telling it would be harmful for myself or someone else (do I look pretty in this dress?), but not to tell a direct lie, however small.” Jacob Henricson gives the result of his experiment in “Honesty in Business – A Stoic Experiment.” Kant would approve.
How to succeed in business with Stoicism
Well, not exactly how to succeed as much as how one CEO practices Stoicism. Jules Evans interviews Jonathan Newhouse CEO of Conde Nast, about his practice of Stoic philosophy.
Should vegans compromise?
Some activists for animal rights “reject any compromises with welfare-oriented groups that aim to secure incremental improvements — such as larger cages — for animals raised and slaughtered in horrific circumstances.” They think that working for more humane treatment of animals in an unjust institution like factory farming violates their moral principle that it’s wrong to use animals for food in the first place. Bob Fischer and James McWilliams question whether it makes sense to put moral principle ahead of preventing suffering.
Socratically Speaking 