PU #253 - THE IMPACT OF JASON ARDAY - Re-Thinking Academia
Read More“Reading Jason Arday’s memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, this week has been tough…“
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.“
176. BURN IT DOWN - Why Elitist Institutions Can Never Be Inclusive
Read More“those who cling on to the old ways things were need more than an appeal to their personally liking the old standards to maintain them. They need to explain why keeping the bias, and the inequality and lack of inclusion those biased standards cause, is more important to them than making things better.“
145. IT'S NICE TO HAVE OPTIONS - Existentialism and UCAS.
Read More“Deciding not to bore the student with Donald Rumsfeld’s treatise on known knowns and known unknowns, I instead decided to offer guidance from the existentialists. That is to say: no real guidance at all. What my student was facing, I suggested, was a living example of the sort of anxiety and despair existentialist philosophers suggested comes from our absolute freedom.“