Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
Sunday, July 12th, 2020
We are familiar, I suppose, with the general arguments for skepticism in the Western tradition – if only from our memories of the Cartesian argument. There are traces of something like that same skeptical procedure in the Zhuangzi, with the notable exception of the very first step in which we ...
Posted in Arguments, Philosophy | No Comments »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2020
The Dialectician Hui Shi (Huizi) (??, 370-310 BC) is mentioned in several ancient works, like the Hanfeizi and the Xunzi that have been mentioned before, but especially in the Zhuangzi. In that work he is presented as a friend of Zhuang Zhou and a foil for his jests. In c. ...
Posted in Arguments, Language, Philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, November 4th, 2019
This morning I listened to a Philosopher’s Zone podcast (our ABC) 'Philosophy in the Wake of Empire: The White Way to Think' featuring B W van Norden (a famous student of Chinese philosophy – I’m currently reading his ‘Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy’) talking about the failure of Western Philosophy ...
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Thursday, October 31st, 2019
Introduction
The Mencian claim that human nature is good eventually became the accepted position in Confucianism, but for over twelve hundred years the question was disputed with the followers of Xunzi (??) who argued the opposite: that human nature was essentially bad. Xunzi, whose name was actually Xún Kuàng (??,) is ...
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Monday, May 8th, 2017
I asked Sam Crane at Useless Tree:
Are there, in fact, any arguments against torture in Chinese philosophy that aren't basically utilitarian? If there aren't, then could there have been? In Western philosophy our arguments are usually from appeal to various notions of 'human rights', but that wouldn't be possible for ...
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Monday, May 8th, 2017
Posted in History, Philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, May 8th, 2017
Colin McGinn had a comment on the human tendency to irrationality, partly wondering why people are so irrational given that "human irrationality can seem the oddest and least adaptive trait of the species," and accepting that "we need to know what causes irrationality and what we can do to fix ...
Posted in Cognitive Science, Philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, May 8th, 2017
Christopher Hitchens has followed in the footsteps of Steve Harrigan and subjected himself to the process known as 'waterboarding' in order to be able to report more insightfully on just what it is that is the focus of so much controversy. He reports that it is clearly torture and that ...
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Monday, May 8th, 2017
A: Imagine this
B: Look at this
Something big wrapped in plastic
Christo Javacheff (2000) Wrapped Reichstag Project for Berlin
A pickled cow
Damien Hirst (1995) Mother and Child, Divided
Some bricks
William Anastasi (1964) En Route (Stack of Bricks) Originally untitled
A toilet
Marcel Duchamp (1917) Fountain
A bike seat with handlebars arranged like a bull
Pablo Picasso (1943) Head ...
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Sunday, May 7th, 2017
The following is from an email I sent on 22/03/2007. I thought I might as well keep it here as anywhere.
Some people have pointed out that wikipedia articles often say true things. That may very well be so. In fact it might even be the case that, in general, it ...
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