rhetoric

March 7, 2025

The Political Rhetor and the Future. 6.2.b. Children

To help you navigate political rhetoric. This entry is a long read, but it’s quite interesting. (This post was originally published in 2020. I’ve done some light editing and ensured the links are active.) “Preparing for the future must begin, as always, with our children.” Children have little to no political voice. They can neither Continue reading

Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

abortion, child, children, Clinton, concepts, enfranchisement, Hobbes, person, persons, Philosophy, political, politics, Reagan, rhetoric, rights of children, rights of the child, Thunberg, Trump, youth
March 7, 2025

The Political Rhetor and the Future. 6.2.a. The Poor.

To help you navigate political rhetoric. *updated from June 2020 for readability and to ensure active links See 6.1 Intro here. I’ve broken The Political Rhetor and the Future into: 6.2.a. The Poor; 6.2.b. Children; and, Future Generations 6.2.c.i. , 6.2.c.ii, & 6.2.c.iii. Subsequent posts in this series are: 6.3. Attainability of Ends; 6.4. Warnings; Continue reading

Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

analyses, aristotle, class, Clinton, concepts, future, Malthus, Obama, oratory, perlocutionary, Philosophy, political, politics, poor, poverty, rhetoric, speeches, the poor, Trump, underclass
February 10, 2025

Thoughtlets. LXI.

This is why I think Hobbes is important: “And as in arithmetic, unpracticed men must, and professors themselves may often err and cast up false, so also in any other subject of reasoning, the ablest, most attentive, and most practised men may deceive themselves and infer false conclusions, not but that reason itself is always Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

certainty, controversy, doxa, doxastic, epistemology, facts, Hobbes, Leviathan, opinion, Philosophy, reason, rhetoric, right, righteous, science, uncertainty, warrant
February 10, 2025

Thoughtlets. LX.

Bit by bit, I’ll be publishing from the draft of my Masters thesis, an account of belief acquisition and maintenance concerning not what we believe, but how we believe. An excerpt follows: One problem with evaluating scholarly claims, such as the consensus on climate science, is that most — and by far the vast majority Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

authority, belief, decide, decision, doxa, doxastic, epistemology, evaluate, faith, Hobbes, Philosophy, rhetoric, sources, trust
January 16, 2025

Doing our doxastic labour together (vetting candidates for beliefs with our peeps), 4 of 4: What we stand to lose.

Recall my project here, Doing our doxastic labour together (vetting candidates for beliefs with our peeps), 1 of 4 In the final instalment of this series, I lay a few bones (see 3 of 4) on the table for your consideration. I hope you find them as interesting as I do. “If the human race Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

belief, beliefs, CNN, community, cooperation, doxa, doxastic, epistemology, Fox, groups, knowledge, lonely, medias, mental health, MSNBC, news, opinion, Philosophy, rhetoric, social, social media, technology, tribe
January 16, 2025

Doing our doxastic labour together (vetting candidates for beliefs with our peeps), 3 of 4: Building a model of the world is a community project.

Recall my project here, Doing our doxastic labour together (vetting candidates for beliefs with our peeps), 1 of 4 Here I lay out some “bones” for thinking about the way — the why and the how — the people we depend on for our survival, delectation, and companionship (our peeps) help us navigate the world. Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

acquistion, belief, einstein, epistemology, evolution, groups, knowledge, peeps, Philosophy, religion, rhetoric, science, social, social epistemology, tribes
January 8, 2025

Thoughtlets LVII. Thomas Hobbes & Antonio Damasio

Two barebones comparisons of quotes from Chapter II of Antonio Damasio’s Looking For Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain and Part I: Chapter 13 of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Note: On Damasio’s view emotion and feeling are separate entities, although emotion both underpins and is intricately related to feeling. Emotions are “collections of reflex responses, Continue reading

Philosophy, Social and Political Commentary, Thoughtlets

cognitive science, conservation, damasio, delectation, emotion, Hobbes, Law, morality, neuroscience, passions, Philosophy, rhetoric, war, well-being
August 23, 2024

The Right(eous)ness of the Wronged: A Powerful Tool of Persuasion.

Righteous anger motivates personal crusades just as it does a march of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. *Herein, I use rhetor, orator speaker and writer interchangeably. Likewise for the words hearer, audience, judger, and reader. An overview of what Aristotle means by rhetoric and some of its features is helpful here. Aristotle defines rhetoric as, Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

anger, aristotle, campaign, emotion, ethos, God, good, harris, Hobbes, injustice, justice, karma, oratory, pathos, persuasion, Philosophy, political, politics, revenge, rhetoric, right, righteous, speaker, Trump
June 29, 2024

Dissoi Logoi (cf Aristotle), the Devil’s Advocate (Mill), and comments.

Way, way back in the day — a couple millennia ago — students receiving a classical education would have learned the necessity of Dissoi Logoi to constructing their arguments. That is, they’d throw themselves full throttle into an opposing or contradictory position to their own. And while Aristotle invented neither the method nor the term, Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

argument, aristotle, belief, cancel culture, controversy, covid, deplatform, devil's advocate, dissoi logoi, Mill, opinion, pandemic, Philosophy, rhetoric
June 28, 2024

Whenever two people “desire the same thing[s]” … compare Aristotle and Hobbes.

I present the following two quotes (Aristotle and Hobbes, respectively) for comparison, without analysis. Aristotle Book II, Chapter IV Friendship and Enmity, 1381b 15 And [we also feel friendly] towards those who are like ourselves in character and occupation, providing they do not get in the way or gain their living from the same source Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

aristotle, co-operation, competition, desire, Hobbes, negotiation, Philosophy, policy, political, rhetoric, war