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Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Stephen Colbert - America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

Posted on 07:58 by Unknown
Sorry for the sparse presence recently folks, but I've been buried under a mountain of work with the end of the semester. Last night, for instance, I got a chance to have some breakfast only after midnight, and as I poured myself a bowl of cereal, I started watching a recent interview with Stephen Colbert at Google that just had to be posted here.

Why? Because in trying to explain the title of his latest book, Stephen Colbert starts the whole interview by explaining how St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of god works, and he actually does a phenomenal job for someone explaining it off the cuff.

Later on there's talk about the unexamined life, so you automatically start thinking of Socrates, and even though the whole thing is humorous, there are bits and pieces of philosophy, and ideas worth thinking about, all over the place, so enjoy:




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Posted in corruption, hilarious, philosophy, religion, Stephen Colbert | No comments

Thursday, 13 December 2012

Michael Sandel - The Moral Limits of Markets

Posted on 06:05 by Unknown
There are some things that money can't buy... for everything else... oh crap, there's no anything else! Over the past couple of decades, and without almost anyone noticing, we have turned from a market economy—one in which we use capital as a tool to achieve certain ends—to a market society: one in which market values replace all other values, and in which profit becomes its own end and the standard against which everything else is measured.

Philosopher Michael Sandel is worried about this growing trend. You might think that if people were paid for their services, their abilities, their bodies, and that if this is done with the consent of all involved, everyone benefits and it's all good. But if that's how you think, you've been bitten by the market society bug already... When we think that it's okay for corporations (or presidential candidates) to pay people to tattoo their bodies with company logos, for instance, or when we think that it's a good idea to privatize prisons and strip people of their civil rights so a bunch of corporate shareholders can maximize their profit, we have ceased to think of people as persons with dignity and worthy of respect, and we have started to think of them as commodities that can be bought and sold, used, abused and discarded like garbage.

There are some things money can't buy... and in the end, those are the things that really matter. Don't let the market society cheapen them by turning them into commodities to be sold to the highest bidder...




This could present problems for my endorsement of the legalization of prostitution... crap...
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Posted in corruption, economics, ethics, Michael Sandel, philosophy | No comments

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Bill O'Reilly - Christianity Is a Philosophy, Not a Religion

Posted on 06:59 by Unknown
Unfortunately, the word philosophy is used, misused and abused by all kinds of people. For some, like the local drunk at your nearest bar, for instance, it means the semi-coherent and misogynistic ramblings about the "deep truths" he has "discovered" through dozens of failed relationships, and that he can't help but share with you. For others, it means some sort of "deep" motto, like "believe in yourself." A slightly more respectable version still is that of a worldview: a set of ideas by which you lead your life, and which, with any luck, are not incompatible with each other.

But for philosophers, philosophy is not a thing... it's an activity: it is the pursuit of wisdom (the good and the true) by means of rational conceptual analysis, by rigorous and systematic observation, by synthesizing the very best knowledge that we acquire from the sciences, by subjecting claims to rational scrutiny, by questioning what others take for granted, and by developing the existential courage to confront the harshness of reality head-on without having to delude ourselves with comforting beliefs and illusions. Philosophy is something we do, not something we "have."

Whatever its merits, however, religion is not that. In philosophy, we investigate to find answers, and we go where the evidence takes us. In religion, you start with your preconceived belief first, and then look for ways to back it up later. Philosophy is inquiry; religion is rationalization.

So, when I heard that Bill O'Reilly recently claimed that Christianity is a philosophy, and NOT a religion, my first reaction was, predictably, WTF? Ah, but when Papa Bear wants to play logic and semantic games, you know that Jon Stewart is ready to call him on his bullshit :)


The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

And hey, have you noticed that there are a lot of similarities between the Jesus and Socrates stories? Well, this is no mere coincidence. As Nietzsche once put it, Christianity is Platonism for the herd. It's the same basic story, without the actual philosophy part...


The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Sometimes I wonder if Jon Stewart is proof of God's existence...

The problem, though, is that Mr. Deity is now upset:




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Posted in atheism, hilarious, Jon Stewart, religion, Socrates | No comments

Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Stephen Fry - Classical Music Is NOT Irrelevant to Youth

Posted on 06:48 by Unknown
Apparently there was some sort of debate in Cambridge recently in which the motion was that "classical music is irrelevant to today's youth." The first question a philosopher might ask at the outset is to explain what we mean by the word "irrelevant." Are we saying that young people don't care about classical music? That it's irrelevant to their aesthetic preferences? Are we saying that, whether young people enjoy classical music or not, it has no direct influence or benefit on their lives?

Well, primarily taking the last definition above, one of the people who opposed the motion, and fabulously at that, was Stephen Fry. As you may or may not know, the man is a great rhetorician, and he's got a fascinating, ironic and irreverent way of looking down at people who look down on others (like that time he delivered this fascinating essay on the importance, use and abuse, and beauty of language). I won't get started on whether his argument constitutes a paradox like that of the barber of Seville, so just enjoy this rhetorical tour-de-force:




And apropos of this topic, the New York Times Philosophy Column just posted this interesting article on the intersection between philosophy, science, art and language.
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Posted in art, free speech, music, Stephen Fry | No comments
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