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Gods, Psychology, and Occam’s Razor
Neil Van Leeuwen
03
Jun 2014
What makes people believe in God? The relatively new research field cognitive science of religion is busy trying to answer this question. And it’s come up with some powerful answers so far. Importantly, its answers are psychological. They focus on the mental processes that cause religious belief—or religious credence, as I call it. But the existence of this research program raises an important philosophical question. What should understanding the psychology of belief in God do to that very belief? In other words, once we know where religious credence...
Read moreWisdom
Ken Taylor
23
Sep 2011
Our topic this week is wisdom. We hope to figure out both what it is and how we can cultivate it in ourselves and in others. And we’re also eager to think about where all the wise men and women have gone. After all, ours is an age of unparalleled scientific knowledge and technological expertise. But for all of our knowledge and expertise we don’t seem to have an excess of wisdom. Quite the contrary, in fact. Now once upon a time, especially in the ancient world, philosophers thought a lot about the nature of wisdom. In...
Read morePhilosophy for the Young: Corrupting or Empowering?
Ken Taylor
02
Sep 2010
Our topic this week: Philosophy for the young – corrupting… or empowering? We asked that question in front of an audience of high school at Palo Alto High School, in Palo Alto, California. We record this program there last May, at the invitation of a teacher, Lucy Filppu, an English teacher by training, who teaches a special humanities course. We had a blast and we’d very much like to thank the students and teachers at Paly, as it is affectionately called, for having us. We’d love to go back sometime. Now the charge that philosophy...
Read moreSaint Augustine
John Perry
25
Jan 2008
What an interesting philosopher he turned out to be! And an interesting man, too. Set aside his historical importance --- the fact that he above all others brought together the Greek and Hebrew aspects of Christianity, that his work against the heresies of Arianism, Pelagianism and Manicheanism was tireless and and that, as many think, he is responsible for many of the more unfortunate aspects of Christianity, such as the low status of women, the negative attitude towards sex and other enjoyable bodily appetites, and the harsh doctrine of original sin. Just read him as...
Read moreCompromise and Slavery
Ken Taylor
01
Nov 2017
I happen to be in the middle of teaching W.E.B. Dubois' amazing work The Souls of Black Folk to Stanford freshmen. It talks a lot about the failures of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow from an on-the-ground perspective. In addition, we’ve just done an episode entitled Race Matters, which got me reading Chris Lebron’s fine book, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea. If you haven’t read either book, it is worth reading both, but definitely don't miss Dubois since it is essential reading for every...
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 moreMemes and the Evolution of Culture
John Perry
20
Apr 2016
I bet that when most people hear the word ‘meme’ they think of the Internet and the viral spread of things like planking. Or maybe new expressions like LOL, or Gangnam style or the Harlem shake. This week's program may touch on that stuff, but that’s mostly not what we want to discuss. We want to discuss a serious scientific hypothesis about the evolution of human culture -- the idea that memes are to cultural evolution as genes are to biological evolution. Now genes, I get. They’re self-replicating packets of biological information. All that...
Read moreHow Fiction Shapes Us
Guest Contributor
24
Nov 2012
By guest blogger Joshua Landy What, if anything, do works of verbal art—poems, plays, novels, films—do for us? These days, most people will tell you one of two things: some will claim that works of verbal art make us better human beings (usually by teaching us Important Lessons about Life, or by rendering us more empathetic), and others will insist they have no effect on us whatsoever. I happen to think both of these hypotheses are wrong, and that fictions are capable of extremely important—but morally neutral—effects on our lives. On this week’s show, you’ll hear John...
Read moreAuthority and Resistance
Ken Taylor
22
Apr 2019
This week we take up the topic of authority and resistance. We live in an age in which many of the old, top-down authority structures are collapsing before our very eyes. In large measure, the collapse of top-down authority is due to the “democratizing” effect of technology, especially, but not only, the internet. The democratization of information is having an effect on our politics, on the media, on medicine, even on education. Does the collapse of top-down authority mean the rise of anarchy and chaos? Or can there be authority without hierarchy? Who...
Read moreProust and Social Distance
22
Apr 2020
Marcel Proust once wrote about a hypothetical sufferer of “spiritual depression.” Here’s a passage from it that resonates, in these days of forced interiority: He has no real incapacity that prevents him from working, walking, eating, being out in the cold, but he finds it impossible to will the various acts he is otherwise perfectly able to perform… If you, like me, have walled yourself up at home for a few weeks—and are lucky enough not to suffer from anything more serious than the spiritual depression described above—then you might recognize yourself in this...
Read moreWhat's to be Done?
John Perry
20
Nov 2005
The journal Topoi has asked a number of philosophers to write essays on the current state and future prospects of philosophy, under the title "What's to be Done?". I thought Philosophy Talk bloggers and bloggees might be interested in my essay, so here it is.Topoi provides an excellent expression of a view of philosophy that I share: Topoi's main assumption is that philosophy is a lively, provocative, delightful activity, which constantly challenges our received views, relentlessly questions our inherited habits, painstakingly elaborates on how things could be different,...
Read more#FrancisOnFilm: The Highs and Lows of 2016
Leslie Francis
10
Jan 2017
The end of a year is a time when film critics reflect on the best and the worst films of the year. Here are my top and bottom five picks for philosophers in 2016, listed alphabetically. Even the worst weren’t awful; they just weren’t my favorites. And I must admit what film critics often don’t: there are a lot of films I didn’t see, and I expect many of them were very good and some were worth missing. I’m the type who likes suspense, so I’ve tried to write these reviews on the assumption that it would be bad to give the endings away. Sometimes that’s meant I’ve had to say less about he...
Read moreWhen Do False Beliefs Exculpate? (Pt. I)
03
Dec 2020
Another month of pandemic. . . and another puzzle from me to distract you from it. For those of you who missed it so far, I’ve been doing philosophical pandemic puzzles since March, all of which are still available in the Philosophy Talk blog archive. As much as I enjoy doing these, I hope it will only be a few more months before I can bring the series to a close! My first puzzle was about beliefs (are they under voluntary control?), and this one is too. The present puzzle question is this: when do false beliefs exculpate someone of a moral wrongdoing? My focus is specifically on...
Read moreAncient Renaissance Woman
21
Jul 2023
In her time—the 4th century CE—Hypatia was one of the most famous philosophers in Alexandria, and indeed in the ancient world. She studied and taught mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy; under her leadership, the Alexandrian School was highly prestigious, right up there with the Academy of Athens. Students came from far and wide, and from a variety of faith traditions: some were Christians, some Jews, and some Pagans like Hypatia herself. Hypatia was a Neo-Platonist. Drawing on Plotinus and others, Hypatia taught her students about a purely intellectual divine force at the heart of the...
Read moreTake the Mirror Test
John Perry
24
Mar 2017
Dear Philosophy Talkers, Chick D'Arpino is an old friend of the Bay Area Philosophy community, who has been supporting essay contests, lectures and other activities at least since I came here in the 70's. His style is to ask simple questions that require a surprising amount of thought once you start to think about them. I've asked his permission to make his latest survey available to philosophy talk fans. In this case, answer the question, and then read the wikipedia article on the mirror test, and see the implications of your answer. JP
Read moreIs Philosophy Just Harder Than Science?
Mohit Mookim
21
Jul 2017
Check out this article by philosopher David Papineau in the Times Literary Supplement: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/philosophy-simply-harder-science/ The article challenges the criticism of philosophy that it doesn't seem to make progress, especially when compared to scientific enterprises. Philosophy hasn't produced conclusive answers to questions posed thousands of years ago. Science has accumulated an enormous wealth of knowledge about the world. A philosopher's advocate may defend philosophy's status by pointing to how the methods of philosophy are less...
Read moreThe Sex Trade
John Perry
25
Dec 2014
The sex trade includes pornography, erotic dance, phone sex, and probably some things I’ve never heard of. But our focus today is prostitution in many but not all of its varieties. Prostitution mainly involves men paying women for sex. There are a lot of male and transsexual prostitutes too. And there are some female customers, too. But in the overwhelming majority of cases prostitutes, male or female, service the sexual desires of men. I think it's a mistake to suppose that all customers of prostitutes are pathetic or...
Read moreWhat is philosophy?
15
Apr 2013
I have a few moments. So I want to ask the basic question: What is philosophy? Instead of answering the question, though, it might be useful to reflect on how the question might be answered. It seems to me we have two basic options, whether due to the limitations of language, or cognitive capabilities, or both. We can say philosophy is what it is (that is, philosophy, which doesn't get us very far at all), or we can define it in terms of something else (e.g. the love of wisdom, critical thinking about X, Y, and Z, etc.). These two possibilities represent relations of identity and relations of...
Read moreDoes Postmodernism Mean Moral Relativism?
Guest Contributor
12
Sep 2009
posted by Gary AylesworthToward the end of last Sunday’s broadcast of Philosophy Talk, a caller asked whether the “moral relativism” supposedly rampant in our time was part of postmodernism. While I would certainly agree that the current hysteria over moral relativism is a postmodern phenomenon, I don’t agree that postmodern thought takes an “anything goes” view of politics or ethics, or that it prevents us from saying that the terrorists of 9/11 committed mass murder. Instead, I see postmodern thought as a kind of moral humility, a humility that prevents us from assuming that the world...
Read morePhilosophy Talk Moves to Sunday
Philosophy Talk
25
Jul 2006
We're back in the studio after our trip to DC. DC was great fun and we had a great time doing our show in the Capitol Building. There wasn't exactly a huge turn-out. Unfortunately, invitations to the event didn't go out until pretty late in the game, and of those who RSVP'ed that they were coming, there were a fair number of no-shows. But still, the audience was quite engaged and engaging. Kathleen Sullivan was a truly dynamite guest. The program will probably air in November, the Sunday before election day. It was...
Read moreIs There a Case for Bullshit?
Serena Wong
13
Feb 2018
Harry Frankfurt first published "On Bullshit" in 1986, putting forth a theory that claims bullshit is "indifference to the truth." Because bullshit undermines our ability to tell truth from falsity, according to Frankfurt, silence is better than bullshit. Stefano Zorzi challenges this view, arguing that bullshit can help us reach the truth. Zorzi argues that we cannot always know what is truth before we say or discover it—if Galileo had adhered to Frankfurt's principle of silence over "bullshit", he would have never found the factual ground to support Copernicus. Do you think...
Read moreWhy America is not a Nation
Ken Taylor
19
Jun 2018
America is not a nation. It is only a place. Or so I will argue in this blog entry. And this fact, I claim, has great significance for understanding the potential demise of the republic we once dreamt of. Why do I say that? Well, there's a short answer and a slightly longer answer. The short answer is that too many Americans hate, or at least really dislike other Americans for us to count as a nation. The longer answer is similar in spirit, but will take some work to spell out in detail. Spelling out the longer answer requires me to say a bit more about...
Read moreThe Culture Wars: Phase 2?
Ken Taylor
11
Nov 2015
Here is a conjecure. We are by now deep into a new phase of the so-called "culture wars." The current battles in the culture wars are ased partly on competing and apparently irreconcilable perceptions over the extent of what some see as genuine oppression and others see as merely so-called "oppression." I was prompted to this conjecture partly by recent events on various university campuses and partly by some advice I ran across on a Unitarian-Universalist website about how to be effective allies to those with marginalized identities. They offered 20 or 21 recommendations -- some of them...
Read moreWhy Be Moral?
Ken Taylor
11
Jan 2015
This week we're asking the question: Why Be Moral? But what kind of question is that? Morality is a good thing. Immorality is a bad thing. A person should always do good things and never do bad things. Doesn't everybody agree? Well, judging by people's behavior, not necessarily. But we also have to be careful not confuse 'ought' and 'is'. People do behave immorally. But they shouldn't. Everybody knows that - at least in their heart of hearts. That implies that immoral behavior is irrational or insincere or hypocritical or...
Read moreAnti-Semitism 101
07
Nov 2018
Last week a middle-aged man named Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered eleven people. Just days afterwards, a Jewish cemetery in Rochester, New York, was vandalized and the words “Kill Jews” were found scrawled on the walls of a Brooklyn synagogue. Since then, the news cycle has been awash with discussions of anti-Semitism, but there’s something peculiar about the way that it often gets described by our politicians and pundits. The problem is exemplified by Kellyanne Conway’s comment, on the Fox News channel’s Fox and Friends program, that...
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