In his book, Cognitive Mechanisms of Belief Change, Aaron CT Smith, a cognitive scientist from Melbourne, Australia, gives a brilliant account of what beliefs do for us. Flock Theory, “In my estimation…beliefs follow the same kinds of rules governing flocks… Read More ›
Ponderings
Of Flocks and Wings
Lurking somewhere in the back of our adult brains is every mother’s admonition If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Don’t blindly follow your friends. Sometimes this warning is made explicit. When I went to university in my 40s,… Read More ›
A meditation on the character of a political speaker and, by extension, a voter (Oct. 31/20 with Nov. 15/20 addendum)
Loosely put, rhetoric is the art of persuasion. More specifically, on Aristotle’s definition, rhetoric is “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” We all use rhetoric to convince others of some thing or other,… Read More ›
It’s no sin
Rhetoric is, broadly put, the art of persuasion. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re all persuaded by rhetorical tactics and use them ourselves to persuade others. Some people find this notion unconscionable, as if there is some cognitive… Read More ›
Ancient texts, modern perspectives.
Who said the following: “I wanted to dispel the fictions of hearsay, and to ask people into whose hands my book may come not to prefer widely circulated and eagerly accepted fantasies over truth uncorrupted by sensationalism.” *Did you guess… Read More ›
The doctor is in
Philosophy is a knee-jerk reaction clinic. In this high-charged social and political climate, remember to slooooow down.
Bread and Circuses
Somewhere around the second century CE, the Roman satirist Juvenal coined the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ which has come to mean placating one’s populace with cheap bribes to distract them from their political grievances. Here’s the logic. Thomas Hobbes observed… Read More ›
On Interrupting and Myopia
Some people who think it rude when interrupted don’t think it rude to exclude the interrupter from a conversation. Sometimes interrupting is the only way to get a word in edgewise. I am NOT talking about the 2020 US presidential… Read More ›
Why do social patterns perdure?
“Perhaps there is a sort of cycle in all things, with changes of morality coming around again like seasonal changes.” Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Oxford World’s Classics. Translated by J.C. Yardley. Introduction and notes by… Read More ›
What spins helicopter parents’ rotors?
The so-called helicopter parent phenomenon is in no small part due to the helicopter institutions and helicopter social phenomena. Parental anxiety is often amplified, if not created, by studies and expert advice. True, some advice is reassuring and it’s nice… Read More ›
