PU #247 - WOULD YOU RATHER? - On the Value of Silly
Read More“instead of answering it, I asked a different question: why do we think dumb “would you rather” questions like this are worth answering?“
PU #238 - CENSORING TOURETTE'S - Baffled By The BAFTAs
Read More“How the BBC dealt with John Davidson’s attendance at the BAFTAs last week is definitely morally questionable and offensive, but not because they let the racial slur slip past the censors when other insults were cut…“
234. WHAT IF THEY WERE RIGHT? - On Kids These Days
Read More“What if what our parents warned us about did cause us harm but we were too harmed to see?“
233. BANGING THE DRUM FOR PHILOSOPHY - How Music Can Reveal What Is Hidden
Read More“It is one of the oldest questions in philosophy — to ask if the world we perceive is the world as it really is. If what we think we know about the world from our experiences is the truth about the world. In many ways the drums are a perfect instrument for showing us this. After all, their job in a song is to make explicit hidden time signature(s) the music is following. Reveal the ticking of an internal clock that has always been pulsing just beneath the perceptual surface.”
230. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING - In Defence of Chainstores
Read More“This is not a defence of capitalism, nor a defence of the current order, but it is a defence of the notion that perhaps the proliferation of corporate chain-stores everywhere, which once made me mourn the quirky individuality of the independent high street, is not necessarily a bad thing.“
226 - TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER - Or How To Burst A Bubble
Read More“It’s always worth paying attention when you get your insular little bubbles popped. “
225. NIGHT TERRORS - On the Possibility of Impossible Hauntings
Read More“But seeing no good evidence is not a total dismissal of the possibility. Perhaps “paranormal” occurrences have a natural explanation, but that explanation still goes beyond our current understanding of the nature of reality? “
214. I'M GOING FOR A WALK - Connecting and Disconnecting from Nature
Read More“We take these walks through nature, I think, on some deep level, to remind ourselves that the majority of our lives are illusions. That nothing is permanent and eventually the march of nature will stomp right through our assured lies that we are someone separate from it; somehow protected. We check in with the world as it really is, to both maintain the illusion for little while longer once we get home, and to ready ourselves for what is inevitable: when the illusion necessarily ends.“
213. IS GOOD CONTEXTUAL WHEN IT COMES TO ART? - Aesthetics and Geography
Read More“This conclusion doesn’t intend to demean our ideas of what we find good or bad in art. Rather it intends to expand our definition. Recognise that the thing we have written off before might only be written off because it was the wrong time or place to receive it. That everything can be given a second chance, or a third, or even a fourth if you are open to seeing what it is that others seem to appreciate but which you cannot, yet, seem to access.“
180. WHAT PHILOSOPHY COULD BE - Breaking The Norms That Don't Have To Be Norms
Read More“Philosophy is difficult. But it is only as difficult as we choose to make it. Rigorous thinking does not have to be alienating. It does not have to speak a secretive and opaque language different from the way non-philosophers speak. That is a choice, not a necessity. Nor too should academic specialisation and disciplinary complexity be mistaken as necessary components of philosophy. Navel-gazing is still just navel-gazing, even when it props up an entire job market. So too is self-interested gatekeeping intended to preserve a questionable system rather than make it accessible to the masses.“
167. THERE CAN BE NO JUSTICE THROUGH BLOODSHED - Israel, Gaza, Palestine, and the need for some different thinking.
Read More“Politics should not be a team sport. When it is, we’re doing it wrong. Usually because we’ve been manipulated by those who benefit from the division. It should never be Israel versus Palestine. My team versus yours. It should be ensuring our collectively assured mutual existence, always. Finding new ways to live together. Mutual aid. Walls and borders torn down. Sharing instead of seizing. Acknowledging wrongdoing and finding a way forward.”
161. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY - On Philosophy Classes and Dangerous Thought
Read More“conspiracy thinking - the initial pathway that leads to conspiracy answers - trades on many of the motivating assumptions of philosophy as an activity: a desire to get to some underlying hidden truth beyond the superficial understanding of everyday life.“
157. I WON'T MISS SIR - On Naming Our Teachers
Read More“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“
156. USE YOUR ILLUSION - Magicians and Reality
Read More“I used to think it was the clowns who were the real heroes - speaking truth to power about the absurdity of power and mocking those in authority with satire and parody. But nowadays I think it might be the magicians.“
155. THE IMPERMANENCE OF VALUE - Fluctuating Perspectives on Worth
Read More“Philosophers might ask: if value changes all the time, is there really such a thing as value at all? If we can’t pin it down - define it - then is it really anything? Is there anything eternally valuable and undeniably valuable to all? But even in philosophy value fluctuates based on who is doing the valuing. To some thinkers that question is important. Personally, I see no value at all in finding an answer to that question and would rather set my mind to other things.“
152. INSPIRED PHILOSOPHY - Where Do Ideas Come From?
Read More“When I sat down to write this post I was uninspired, yet now I have no doubt that I will, yet again, meet my self-imposed deadline and have a new Philosophy Unleashed post completed exactly when it is needed. Inspiration was there all along. I just had to find it. But what is inspiration?“
147. NOT ALL GOBSTOPPERS ARE EVERLASTING - Why I'm OK With Changing The Words of Roald Dahl
Read More“Don’t let the illusion of sole authorship fool you. Published writing has always been edited by many and influenced by audiences. If you want to read the unblemished, pure and unfiltered draft straight from the author’s mind and onto the page, read something self-published (like this blog…although I do tend to do a few drafts). Anything else you read, assume there have been drafts, edits, alterations, corrections, and the input of many. The author, often, is a group of authors. Dahl is no different.“
144. CHALLENGING PERCEPTIONS - Why Top Tier Football Clubs Continue To Do Women's Football A Disservice
Read More“Why complain about this in a philosophy blog? Because a perpetual area of philosophical inquiry concerns perception versus reality, and sometimes this coming apart of perception from reality (or reality from perception) often leads to questions in ethics too. I believe this problem - of the women’s teams of football clubs not sharing the same home ground as their male counterparts - touches on both.“
142. THE INEVITABILITY OF FANTASY - Leaning Into Storytelling In Lieu of Truth
Read More“The more depressed you are the more accurately you see the world.“
140. SABBATICAL - On The Importance of Taking a Break
Read More“It shouldn’t be surprising to realise that, for an animal which literally shuts completely down every night and knocks itself unconscious as a means of essential restoration, stopping is good for human beings.“