Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
Sunday, May 31st, 2026
It is often asked why we should read; more specifically, why we should read the classics or ‘fine literature,’ by which is meant generally poetry, plays, and prose narratives of various kinds – these days especially, ‘serious’ novels. The question is motivated by the fact that reading this literature is ...
Posted in Art, Cognitive Science, Philosophy | No Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2026
1. Are there any truths that are just inaccessible to the human mind – that just could not be thought by the human mind?
I’m not wondering about truths that are incomprehensible because of some gross physical limit, like the names of every person on Earth (or choose your own ...
Posted in Cognitive Science, Philosophy | No Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2026
You might think that such a widely cited and referenced work had something significant to say about the nature and significance of reproduction, but I find that what is said is mostly trivial or just wrong-headed. In particular, I note that Benjamin is aware that mechanical production is not the ...
Posted in Art, Philosophy | No Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2026
There was recent kerfuffle online when a blogger posted an image of a real Monet and said that he had generated it using AI.
Could his readers tell him, he asked, why it was inferior to this other image that was of a real Monet?
Of course, his replies were filled with ...
Posted in Art, Cognitive Science, Philosophy | No Comments »
Saturday, May 23rd, 2026
In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes presents a theory of love fitting a comic poet. Ignoring the details included to explain/excuse homosexuality, the story is roughly that humans were originally spherical beings with no distinction of sexes, then the gods divided us, forming a male and a female out of each divided ...
Posted in History, Philosophy, Religion | No Comments »
Saturday, April 11th, 2026
We do not have Aristotle’s work on Comedy promised to us in the Poetics, but we might be able to get a rough idea of what he would have said from clues in his surviving writings and commentaries from later ancient authors.
The principal evidence directly from Aristotle is the passage ...
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Thursday, March 19th, 2026
Plato’s allegory in Republic 514a-517a can be summarised as follows
Location
Outside the Cave
Inside the Cave
Light
Sun
Fire
Reveals
Real things
Shadows and Images of things
Models of real things
Shadows of models of things
Symbolizes
The Good
The Sun
Reveals
Forms
Real things as instances of the Forms
Real things as perceptible particulars
Perceptions of perceptible things
Population
Free men
Escapees
Revolutionaries
Prisoners
Cognitions
Philosophy
Hypothetical thinking
Expert opinion
Common opinion
Status
Knowledge (επιστημη)
Opinion (δοξα)
Realm
Intelligibilia
Sensibilia (The Visible World)
FM ...
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Sunday, March 15th, 2026
Reading Nikhil Mahant, Why alien languages could be far stranger than we imagine I was pleased to note that he canvassed the possibility of communication systems that were, as he says, non-linear – but by which he really meant not language-like in the way that language is defined for philosophical ...
Posted in Language, Philosophy, Space | No Comments »
Sunday, March 1st, 2026
The dispute over the criteria used for the categorization of celestial bodies as planets reveals either a confusion concerning the reason for a definition, or an unhappy compromise between independent reasons. The criteria adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) are that the body
is in orbit around the Sun,
has sufficient mass ...
Posted in Philosophy, Space | No Comments »
Saturday, February 28th, 2026
Plato’s simile in Republic 508-9 can be summarised as follows:
The Form of the Good
The Sun
Intelligible world
Visible world
Source of Truth or Reality(508e)
Yields (508e)
1. Truth or reality to intelligibilia
2. Power of knowing to mind
Thus (508e)
1. Not knowing but cause of knowing
2. Known by the knowing it causes
Source of light (508a)
Yields
1. Visibility ...
Posted in Philosophy | No Comments »