Philosophy
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The Art of Rhetoric: Working through the challenges and disagreements that arise from our shared lives. Series 4.3.
In my previous post, I suggest Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion are complementary reads. Why? Because a study of Haidt’s moral theory alongside Kahneman’s work on our cognitive/perceptual errors and biases might well make the barriers to both offering and receiving criticism… Continue reading
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Thinking, Fast and Slow. (And 2 worries.)Series 4.2.
Some of my books have well-worn pages, others are falling apart from use. The books I use heavily are usually those I think worth giving others. And so I do. I peruse used-book shops and thrift stores to stock my library with multiple copies. This way, I often have a book on hand to share. If… Continue reading
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The Righteous Mind. Series 4.1.
My husband, Paul, and I host a weekly reading group. We read one book in the fall, another in the spring. This past spring we read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind which, week after week, generated the best discussions we’ve had to date. (Note that I’m not doing a comprehensive book review here.) Haidt notes that… Continue reading
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Thoreau Quote with Photo, On Evil
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. —… Continue reading
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Introducing Theodicy. What on earth is a Theodicy?!
Loosely speaking, a theodicy is an attempt to explain why God allows evil in the world. More particularly, it’s an attempt to answer The Problem of Evil; that is, to give an account of how the existence of God and of evil are not incompatible. So the problem is just this: 1) God is omnipotent… Continue reading
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Social Epistemology, 5 Short Examples (suitable for a class)
You can’t fact check every little thing and still have friends. Can you imagine what a jerk I’d be if I insisted on fact checking everything everyone says to me? Tammy: I went to the mall this morning. Pam: Did you now. Which mall? Tammy: THE mall. The only mall in town. Pam: How do… Continue reading
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Five Human Commonalities. Intro by Thomas Hobbes.
Intro. We are equally vulnerable. Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that, thought there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man [and woman*] is not so considerable… Continue reading
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