Let’s start with the modest metaphysical assumption that we all live on planet Earth. This means we have a shared reality. One that is populated with various and sundry objects (or better, containing stuff that c […]

One of the hazards of teaching philosophers like Descartes and Hume is that some students are too willing to embrace the skeptical claims and sit content with not being able to know. The idea that “It’s all just […]

I’m not sure what it is for something to be true to a person. For a person to believe something is for them to take it to be true. So maybe that’s what people have in mind when they talk about something being […]

One of the joys of having an open-source text out there is occasionally getting pleasantly surprised with who it reaches. Glad you’re finding my Intro worthwhile. In an introduction to philosophy I’d rather hope […]

A popular view in our culture is that people who do wrong should be punished as a matter of retribution. Retribution is holding a person responsible by treating them according to the standard they set for […]

We humans are very prone to suffer from a psychological predicament we might call “the security blanket paradox.” We know the world is full of hazards and like passengers after a shipwreck we tend to latch on to […]

The big discoveries in philosophy are more often problems than new ideas. People have been thinking about philosophical issues forever and philosophers have entertained a super-abundance of seemingly good ideas. […]

Cancel culture has taken lots of criticism recently, and in so far as cancel culture means hastily judging people without trying to understand them, I’m on board. But for the same reason I worry about the […]

Cultural norms often go far beyond morality. Morality has nothing to say, for instance, about whether men should grow beards or women should wear veils or makeup. So what is accepted or disapproved of in a […]

I’ll have to research this one, but I’m pretty sure Nietzsche would count righteousness, the sense that bad must absolutely be punished. as a sublimated impulse to cruelty, a diseased manifestation of the will to […]

I’m not one to wish suffering on others, but what I wish for Trump’s followers is probably going to involve some of that and I’d acknowledge that with a good deal of sorrow. It’s not that I think anyone […]

Thoughtful and lovely essay here:

Self-Censorship in the Academy. Two cheers for inclusivity | by Aaron Kunin | Dec, 2020 | Arc Digital

Through 3rd and most of 4th grade, I lived in Ganado, in the Navajo nation. I don’t recall a paved road in town. Horses and dogs roamed free. So did children. My friends and playmates were all Navajo save for one […]

We are living through a period of deep mistrust. This is most obvious at the level of national politics where tens of millions of Americans distrust the results of our recent presidential election. But this […]

In everyday language we often treat “subjective” and “biased” as synonyms and likewise “objective” and “unbiased”. But we don’t really need two different words to say the same thing, and this way of speaking […]

The futility of offending the offenders: We must speak out on behalf of the oppressed. Silence amounts to consent to their oppression. But, then there is the question of how to speak out when you see people […]

Knowledge and understanding both require some critical thinking skill. But they aren’t the same thing and cultivating some understanding of how they differ is a worthy critical thinking exercise in itself. […]

Important Essay here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/the-end-of-denial/614194/. Kendi’s policy recommendations are made clear at the end.

“The abolition of slavery seemed as impossible […]

Barr Says He Sees no Systemic Racism in Policinghttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/us/politics/justice-department-barr-racism-police.html?searchResultPosition=1

Speaking as an avid fruit preserver, I wish […]

Discussion post in PHIL&101 in response to student asking, “If there are moral truths, should everyone believe them?”

There is a sense in which everyone should believe and abide by truths. The goal of rational […]