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The Doctor and the Donut Seller
Imagine you’re a doctor: all you want is to heal the patients in your care. Your place of work, your hospital, in a drive for profitability (forced by a withdrawal of government support) is taken over, first partially but then as a majority share, by a company that makes donuts and sugary soft drinks. At […]
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Rustic
I read other philosophers and they are like symphonies, or at least etudes. I read myself and it is like hill country blues: rough and slightly out of tune, rustic and not urbane, repetitive, unsophisticated, improvised and full of duff notes. It’s not clean but distorted. I play badly. To the refined ear these are bad sounds, but these days I have no interest in playing any other way.
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On Election Day
The proper purpose of democracy is not to find the right answer (for that we should appoint experts) but to allow each individual to participate in their own government. It is a way of preserving freedom or self-rule (autonomy) as a community. The will of the people will often choose badly, just as people will often make bad choices in how they govern their own lives. But since this was a free choice, and our purpose was to preserve freedom, this is not a failure. Democracy does not fail when it chooses badly: it fails when people do not choose.
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Antinomy
Science is offered in support of everything nowadays, true and false, good and bad. Without a capacity to distinguish the difference between good and bad science, ‘the science’ means nothing. How do you develop a capacity to distinguish between good and bad science?
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Esoteric Protreptics
1. Society will support whatever it values. Society does not support philosophy. Evidently, society does not value philosophy. Philosophers should put all their efforts into demonstrating the value of what they do. 2. The value of philosophy can only be seen by those who understand it. Few people understand philosophy. Consequently, few people can see […]
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Reflections on the Fate of Philosophy in the University
I wonder if it’s easier to see what might be on the other side of the wall once you’re on the other side of the wall? When I left the university I asked: ‘how can philosophy survive without the university?’ Now I wonder if philosophy can only survive without the university. The university, as it’s […]
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Trading
Philosophers trade arguments like traders trade commodities. But whereas a trader looks to make a profit, a philosopher looks to make a loss, because it is better to lose an argument and learn your error than win an argument and remain in it.
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Trash
Most philosophy online is trash. It’s either people trying to be academic but failing, or people not trying to be academic and therefore failing.
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Falsification
If you think you can be a philosopher without serious study, you falsify yourself.
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A Fact About Philosophy
You can know all the facts about philosophy and still not understand it.
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Refutation
If you think a degree in philosophy makes you a philosopher then you are your own refutation.
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Too Late, Too Soon
Whenever I think of introducing philosophy to people, it always seems that it’s too late for the old, because they don’t have time or inclination to change themselves, and too soon for the young, because they don’t understand why it could be needed. Only the young person who suffers knows why you need to defend yourself against life with an art of living.
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If You Want to Improve the World, Improve Yourself
Everything that is good in life can be made bad by being used badly or put to bad purposes. Many things that are bad in life can be made good by being used well or put to good purposes. The goal in life is not to get more good things, or avoid bad things, but to use all things well. The goal is not to have more of what is good but to be more of what is good. That is why we say: if you want to improve the world, improve yourself.
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Material Success
Material success can tend to make people worse people. It diminishes their empathy. They tend to look down more and say to themselves that everyone gets what they deserve. In amongst those who are ambitious and successful, I say this to myself: It is not my business. It is not my nature. It is not my choice. What is my business? To know what is right and be what is good.
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Against the Standards of Society
It’s not unusual for people to go against the norms and standards of society, only ordinarily they do it for the wrong reasons: they claim rewards that they don’t deserve; they assert knowledge that they don’t have; they lie. The difference between the ordinary person and the philosopher is that when the philosopher violates social norms, they do it for the right reasons. We refuse the reward when most people would claim it; we deny knowledge when most people would assert it; we tell the truth when most people would lie.
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Solitary and Poor
When society is so much junk, it leaves you longing for a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Or at least the first two…)
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Security
Financial security is an oxymoron, like open prison; like how a prisoner doesn’t feel more secure behind bars, but a prison warden feels more secure because of the bars.
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Moonshiner
A philosopher is a moonshiner for what matters. We live in an age of prohibition.
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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