Judith Jarvis Thomson, near the end of her well-known article “A Defense of Abortion,” writes,
… while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in
some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the
unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a
certain point in [...]
Archive for the ‘philosophy’ Category
Obama on Abortion
Posted in Politics, philosophy, rights, tagged abortion, Obama on August 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Survival Skills
Posted in philosophy, tagged survival on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s an excellent article on how to survive disaster—and cope with the lesser problems and annoyances that most of us are much more likely to face. (HT: Brian Lollar)
Plato on Craigslist
Posted in philosophy, tagged Plato on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
First edition! Signed copy! Thanks to Matt for telling me about it.
Changing Human Nature
Posted in Politics, philosophy, tagged human nature on July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Shrinkwrapped has an excellent post on the temptation to try to make people better, and the misery it inevitably entails. I trace the tendency to Rousseau’s second Discourse, which argues that private property makes people artificial, making them try to seem to be what they are not. This leads to Marx’s concepts of [...]
Essentialiszzzz….
Posted in philosophy, tagged essence on July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Lydia McGrew reflects on the essence of a pillow, with surprising results.
Is Everything Mathematical?
Posted in philosophy, science, tagged mathematics on June 19, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Max Tegmark argues that it is, delighting neo-Pythagoreans everywhere.
The Greatest Modern Day Thinker
Posted in philosophy on June 19, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Who is the greatest modern day thinker? Most of the responses are silly—Homer Simpson, Stan on South Park, L. Ron Hubbard, etc. The striking thing is that so few people nominate anyone contemporary philosophers tend to take seriously. Depending on how loosely one defines “modern day,” within philosophy Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf [...]
Two Kinds of Technical Vocabulary
Posted in Education, philosophy, tagged communication on June 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Rick Hills distinguishes technical abbreviations, which are helpful and often necessary, from shibboleths, which are designed to be unhelpful. Technical abbreviations function to express complex information efficiently by speeding communication. Shibboleths function to keep outsiders away by making communication difficult.
A Puzzle About Causation
Posted in philosophy, tagged causation on May 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Murder or suicide? (HT: Brian Hollar)
John McCain and Edmund Burke
Posted in Politics, liberty, philosophy, rights, tagged McCain on May 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Jonathan Rauch argues that John McCain is a true conservative, in the mold of Edmund Burke–and that “movement” conservatives aren’t. Rauch starts with a nice precis of an aspect of Burke’s thought that influenced, among others, Freidrich von Hayek:
Burke is the father of modern conservatism, and still its wisest oracle. Tradition-minded but (contrary to [...]
