156. USE YOUR ILLUSION - Magicians and Reality

“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.“

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144. CHALLENGING PERCEPTIONS - Why Top Tier Football Clubs Continue To Do Women's Football A Disservice

“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.“

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118. SHOWING OUR TRUE SELVES - What Does It Tell Us When We Tidy Our House?

“If we all are running around like headless chickens to make things look nice whenever someone visits then that must mean that none of us actually live our lives in the way that we present to others that we do.“

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116. NOTHING IS REAL AND YET EVERYTHING IS REAL - On Constructing A Better Reality

“Consider: it cannot both be true that advertising has no influence on our thinking and that people spend over £23bn a year on advertising. At worst, people are spending their twenty three billion pounds to influence us in a range of ways we are barely aware of. At best, the only advertising that has ever worked is the advertising for advertising itself which has convinced so many people to spend billions on a product which is utterly useless. Which means advertising does still work.“

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67. DISPATCHES FROM THE CAVE - Why Being "Realistic" Demands The Impossible

“The pandemic has shown just how flimsy “the way things are” actually are. From basic norms of social interaction to entire economic systems, COVID-19 has unwittingly acted as the liberating hand breaking the chains of Plato’s epistemological prisoner and dragging them out of the cave and into the light…This isn’t, however, a post about the coronavirus…“

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