Freedom Good faith, bad faith and no faith in reasoning 7 Oct 201823 Nov 2018 We are hearing a lot of calls for there to be public debates with climate deniers, the alt-right (that is, modern fascists), creationists and antivaxxers, and this has led to people marking the so-called “paradox of tolerance” named by Karl Popper in his epochal 1945 Open Society and its Enemies: Continue Reading
Freedom Phobosophy 14 Aug 201714 Aug 2017 As everyone knows, philosophy comes from the two Greek words philo and sophos, and means, roughly, the love of wisdom, although as everyone also knows, Socrates declared his wisdom was his knowledge that he knew nothing. In recent years (by which I mean increasingly since the 1970s), there has been… Continue Reading
Freedom Look over here – “terrorism” 13 Jun 2017 The notion of terrorism is not well-defined.There are over 150 legal definitions in the US and more in international law. Here is the UN’s definition: Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance… Continue Reading
Freedom The Abstract and the Concrete, or, the Road to Fascism 9 Apr 20179 Apr 2017 I was thinking about the way in which the anti-abortionists justify their views. I have always said that “Pro-Life” is a misnomer. Instead of being pro-life, they are pro-potential life. In order to protect potential lives, they ignore the needs and rights of those who have actual life – the women who cannot… Continue Reading
Australian stuff Secular Calvinism 5 Mar 2016 Australia is one of the most secular of developed nations. At the last census, 22% of people marked “No religion” as their affiliation, and the attendance at religious services weekly dropped to 16%, from a high in 1950 of 44%. So why is it that a sizeable minority (around 30%)… Continue Reading
Freedom The place of religion in democratic secular countries 19 Feb 201519 Feb 2015 There is a religion which oppresses women, which is enthusiastically adopted by marginalised groups, which hates democracy and which has declared the modern world to be a heresy they call “Americanism”. This religion, which is run entirely by men, demands of its adherents loyalty to a small group of clerics… Continue Reading
Australian stuff On tribalism 25 Sep 201424 Nov 2022 Humans evolved in tribes, our species’ equivalent of the general primate troop structure. This meant that members of the tribe benefited from shared resources, the protection of the group and the inherited knowledge of the tribe. It also meant that we will natively and naively defend our group against others,… Continue Reading
Australian stuff Are political parties the problem not the solution? 27 Mar 2014 I am slightly active in the political party that I am a member of, but it worries me that maybe it is the very existence of political parties as formal structures that is the problem in modern politics in democracies. Here is a brief argument why: If you have a… Continue Reading
Freedom The problem with logic 19 Jan 201420 Jan 2014 When teaching students critical reasoning it is an article of faith that we should teach them logic. Of course, we ameliorate any benefit this might have by teaching it incomprehensibly and in artificial cases. But still, we believe logic is what is most important in philosophy and in culture generally…. Continue Reading
Australian stuff Why anti science? 23 Nov 2013 Over the past few decades there has been an increasingly negative attitude by governments, pundits, religiosi and faux philosophers against science. We have seen an increase in denialism about climate change (one of the most well supported scientific models of the day), vaccination, evolution, medical research in general, and the… Continue Reading