News
News
Should Robots Be Caregivers?
Laura Maguire
08
Jun 2018
I was delighted to learn that my native country, Ireland, now has a competition called the Irish Young Philosopher Awards. This year's inaugural competition awared the "Young Philosopher of the Year" prize to 16-year-old Luke Rickard, whose project was "Is it ethical for robots to be caregivers?” Irish President Michael D. Higgins, who awarded the prize to Luke, is a vocal advocate for introducing philosophy into schools in Ireland. He expressed hope the the annual Young Philosopher Awards will become as big as the Young Scientist competition. In this interview with Luke, he...
Read moreCaptivity
Ken Taylor
08
Apr 2017
This week, our topic is the ethics of captivity. Our plan is to discuss both human captivity and animal captivity. Now you may ask what is to be gained by lumping humans and animals together in this way. They are, after all, significant differences between them and us. But there are also similarities. For example, putting a person in a prison deprives him of freedom and autonomy. Putting an animal in a cage does the same thing. That’s a similarity. On the other hand, we typically put people in prison to punish them. We aren’t punishing animals when we put them in zoos or keep them as...
Read moreKierkegaard
John Perry
18
Nov 2011
Kierkegaard was a very important Danish philosopher of the early 19th century. He criticized Hegel severely. But apart from not liking Hegel, he just seems to exemplify most things I dislike in a philosopher. I like philosophers who tell you what they think in a clear and straightforward manner. Kierkegaard wrote under a bunch of pseudonyms, poetically I guess, but turgidly. I think reason is the method of philosophy. Kierkegaard thinks we should accept contradictions and make leaps of faith. Ken tells me I have it quite right. Kierkegaard...
Read moreAncient Wisdom for Modern Times
John Perry
14
Apr 2016
Sunday we consider whether ancient wisdom -- namely that of the Greeks -- can be applied to modern problems. Most Greeks thought the earth was flat, that slavery was OK, and that women were second-class people. Plato thought democracy sucked, that poetry and drama were bad things, and that freedom of speech is a sort of joke. He even thought that Philosophers, of all people, should be Kings. So, one might ask, where’s the wisdom in all that? But there’s also a lot the Greeks got right. We moderns would do well to appreciate and adopt some of their wisdom -- especially their profound...
Read moreHow Do We Get From Noise to Meaning?
John Perry
12
May 2015
How do we get from noise to meaning? Well, however we do it, the result is a sort of a miracle. I say, “Aristotle had a mole on his back.” I manage to refer to Aristotle, whom I never met, to put it mildly, --- he lived very long ago and very far away. And I manage to get everyone else to think about Aristotle. Damn amazing. Not only do I refer to Aristotle, I say something about him. My utterance – basically the noise I make ---has a property --- either being true or being false --- that is determined by the state of Aristotle’s back...
Read moreShould Belief Aim at Truth?
Laura Maguire
13
May 2017
Should your beliefs aim at the truth? Or should you just believe whatever makes your life better, whether it’s true or not?These are the questions we’re thinking about in this week’s show.You might think that the answer is obviously that our beliefs should always aim at the truth. But consider this—sometimes it’s actually to your advantage to have some false beliefs. Psychologists study a phenomenon called “positive Illusion,” happy beliefs that can have powerful effects, despite not being true. For example, imagine you’re competing in a race...
Read moreTheodor Adorno [VIDEO]
Mohit Mookim
11
Sep 2017
We are posting this thought-provoking, yet entertaining summary of Theodor Adorno's work on his 114th birthday, although he's not around to celebrate. Adorno was the influential founder of the Frankfurt School, a now prolific philosophical powerhouse. His writings on culture, capitalism, and fascism are as timely as when they were written. Enjoy the video! A link to it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YGnPgtWhsw
Reasons to Hate
18
Oct 2020
Why is there so much hate in the world? Is hatred ever morally justified? Or does hate just breed more hate? What exactly is hatred anyway? These are some of the big questions we’re tackling on this week’s show, Why We Hate. Tragically, this subject is very timely right now. Since 2016, the number of hate groups, which openly advocate violence, terrorism, and murder, increased dramatically. And in 2018, violent hate crimes reached a 16 year high in the US. This is a serious problem that we should not downplay. However, we can acknowledge this problem and, at the same time, question...
Read moreParfit and the Selves That Matter
10
Apr 2023
Derek Parfit was a really interesting thinker when it came to identity and the self. He had a particularly cool thought experiment involving tele-transportation. Suppose you’re on your daily commute to Mars. You’re about to get beamed up, but something goes wrong—the transporter makes a copy of you on Mars, like it’s supposed to, but it forgets to vaporize you back home. So now there are two of you. And if there are two of you, the question is which one is the real you—the you on Earth, or the you on Mars? To some the answer seems obvious: it’s the original you on Earth. After all, imagine...
Read moreMohan's Question
John Fischer
30
Mar 2005
During the call-in component of the show, Mohan asked a question about the relationship between political freedom and metaphysical freedom. Although it was a bit off the central topics, it does raise a question that has troubled me. That is, I believe that genuinely available metaphysical alternatives or possibilities are not required for moral agency--the forward-looking aspect (practical reasoning) or the backward-looking aspect (moral responsibility). But then why would I prefer to live in a nation with political liberties, such as freedom of speech, freedom of...
Read moreWhat are Crony Beliefs?
Mohit Mookim
14
Mar 2017
According to Kevin Simler's essay called "Crony Beliefs," crony beliefs are beliefs that you have partly because you want to believe them. This article talks at length about how beliefs form and when things go wrong. Why does it seem like so many people end up believing things that end up serving their self-interest? In a political context, I'm sure it would be easy to find boatloads of evidence for this on both sides of the aisle. However, taking a step back, some philosophers doubt that such a thing as "crony beliefs" could even exist. They argue as follows: if the...
Read moreDoes Reputation Matter?
15
Nov 2018
How much should we care about our reputation? I think that’s a really difficult question. One can easily imagine a Stoic telling us not to care at all: it’s not something that is under our control, and so our job is simply to learn not to worry about it. We should just strive to live a good life, and leave others to decide what they think of us. In the immortal words of Stoic philosopher Taylor Swift, haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Still, it’s not clear to me that reputation is something that is entirely out of our control. Yes, our enemies can make up all kinds of unpleasant...
Read moreA Puzzle About Sacred Values Part II
08
Nov 2019
I wrote in a recent blog about sacred values, which seem to have puzzling features. As noted, Scott Atran’s 2010 book Talking to the Enemy chronicles his anthropological work among Muslim terrorists in Indonesia. In one study he discusses, he gave his informants this problem, for which each informant would have to choose between two of the three options: Complete a successful, effective suicide bombing attack. Complete a successful, effective non-suicide bombing attack. Complete a holy, once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca. The puzzle arose from the fact that...
Read moreThe Post-Modern Family Values: Open Blog Entry
Ken Taylor
12
Sep 2009
It's pledge week on KALW, our host station. And we're doing a live pledge show that will only be heard on that station and not on our affiliates around the country. But if you'd like to tune it, you can do so at 10am PST time, on KALW's Website where the show is streamed live. Join the conversation. Of course, even if you can't hear a broadcast version of the show, we will eventually put the streaming version up on our own website, from which you can also purchase an downloadable version. A couple of weeks ago, I started an open...
Read moreWhat the Imagination is For
Ken Taylor
29
May 2006
Today's show features Alison Gopnik on the Imagination. This is Alison's second visit to Philosophy Talk. Check out the show she did with us on Nature vs. Nurture. Since it's been awhile since I've done a pre-show blog, I thought I'd jot down a few initial thoughts before we take to the air. First, thought. The imagination is a pretty cool thing, but also in some ways puzzling. On the one hand, it seems sometimes to give us cognitive acquaintance with real possibilities. A kid from Hope Arkansas imagines growing up to be president of the United States. And lo and behold that kid...
Read moreWhy Race Matters
Ken Taylor
30
Oct 2017
Do black lives really matter in America? Indeed, have they ever mattered, in our sordid racial history? And what, if anything, can we do to make sure that black lives matter today? These are just some of the questions we address on this week’s episode that we are calling “Race Matters.” Now as a black man, I have to say I find it depressing that here we are, pretty deep into the 21st century, and there’s still a question about whether black lives really matter. I admit that it’s not all bad news. We've eliminated formal discrimination in housing. We’ve removed many of the old barriers...
Read moreA Case for Conservative Universities
Eliane Mitchell
12
Apr 2018
Some argue that American universities mainly cater to liberal academics and liberal thought. Is there a case to be made, then, for support of "conservative schools" in higher education? Journalist Rachel Lu holds this view in the affirmative, writing that conservatives develop undergraduate curriculums differently from their liberal counterparts. Conservative-focused academic programs might even "save" the United States, she writes, by producing more conservative intellectuals and pundits. These intellectuals help "bring out the best in conservatism" and, in conservative academies, are...
Read moreHumble Disagreement
Ken Taylor
15
Mar 2018
Should you cling to your beliefs even when others disagree? Or should you reconsider your beliefs whenever they’re challenged? Is it possible to disagree without being disagreeable? You might think that the answer to this last question is a resounding “no!” That’s because, these days, people too often try to shut up and shout down those who disagree with them. Now I don’t mean to deny that, to some extent, it’s always been that way. Why did Cain kill Abel? Because they disagreed over some silly sacrifice! And that was just a family squabble. Still, that shows how it...
Read moreRichard Fletcher, Historian
27
Jun 2013
Richard Fletcher was a rarity among historians. A medievalist, Fletcher published books on Anglo-Saxon England and Moorish and Christian Spain prior to the actual beginnings of the Reconquista in the 11th century (which is usually dated to the 8th century). Another of his impressive scholarly accomplishments was The Barbarian Conversion (1999), which looked at Christian missions into the dark heart of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Reformation, with an eye to happenings in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Middle East, and North Africa. It is not...
Read moreToo Much Information?
Ken Taylor
05
Feb 2011
Our topic this week is information – specifically, too much Information. Now I can hear someone wondering, “Too much information for what?” To answer that question, we need to go back in time. Some of you will be too young to remember, but once upon a time, if you wanted to find a book, for example, you went to this place called a library. And you searched in this ancient artifact -- a thing called a card catalog. The card catalog gave you a number that was assigned to the book. And the books were all shelved in order in dusty old...
Read moreWhy Rubio Is Wrong about Philosophy in 150 Words
10
Nov 2015
"Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers." -- Marco Rubio in the November 10 Republican Debate1. No. Philosophy majors make considerably more over the course of their careers than welders. (Source: http://nyti.ms/1HwzyH1 ) 2. It should be “fewer philosophers,” not “less philosophers.” Rubio would know that if he had majored in philosophy. 3. Carly Fiorina had a double major in philosophy...
Read moreSpace, Time, and Space-time
John Perry
01
Apr 2017
Common sense sees a clear division of labor between space and time. I am about 11 years older than Ken. I was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, while he was born in Sandusky, Ohio. Lincoln is roughly 800 miles west of Sandusky, and about 500 feet higher. So the events of my birth and his are distant in time and in space. These facts are not causally independent; some event might have led to our being closer in both space and time. But they seem logically independent. This spatial relation between two events is one thing, their temporal relation is another. For one thing, we can travel in space...
Read moreMental Health and Assisted Suicide
Eliane Mitchell
11
Aug 2017
Should people with a mental illness be helped to die if that is what they wish? Following Canada's legalization of assisted suicide for terminally ill people in 2016, Adam Maier-Clayton led a campaign for his own right to death. Suffering from Somatic Symptom Disorder, a mental illness which expresses itself as physical symptoms without an apparent bodily cause, Adam insisted that Canada include mental health problems in its legislation for assisted suicide—but to no avail. Adam committed suicide this April, without his family beside him and after four years of suffering from crippling and...
Read moreWhy Is Math So Useful?
15
Oct 2021
Is math a realm of timeless, universal truths? Or are mathematicians just making it up as they go? If equations are made up, why are they so useful? We’ll be discussing these questions, and more on this week’s episode, “The Mysterious Timelessness of Math.” Math is obviously good for many things: we use it for everything from building bridges to designing lasers to predicting the motions of planets to explaining why snowflakes have that odd six-pointed shape. But why is it good for so many things? Maybe it describes the fundamental structure of the universe. But that makes its methodology...
Read moreLooking, Listening, Liberating
21
Oct 2024
Simone Weil was an early 20th-century French philosopher who was born into a Jewish family but later adopted a mystical form of Christianity. One of her central ideas is that it's vital to listen really hard to other people, striving as hard as you can to hear what they're saying, how they're living, how they're suffering, who they are. You have to set aside all your own desires and projects and likes and dislikes, and let your entire inner world be taken over by the life of someone else. Weil even put this idea into practice, by leaving her cushy teaching job and working in a...
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