-
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 […]
-
On the Failure of Public Philosophy
What we see today, in philosophy’s public lack of stature, is the end result of a downward slide that started 40 years ago when the balance was tipped against a certain idea of what a university is and ought to be.
-
What is Good Philosophy?
At any given time, philosophy is what philosophers do. Look at what philosophers do; look at the picture of success for philosophical activity as it is in this time. You might be disappointed by what you find.
-
What is a Pseudo-Intellectual?
What is a pseudo-intellectual? This is a bad question, full of shit, but, like shit, mostly better out than in.
-
Believed by the Wise: Socrates, Pragmatic Arguments, and Pascal’s Wager
I’ve been wrestling with an aphorism that I can’t pin down. I want to say this: ‘The wise believe what is good and true, the clever only what is proven.’ But I can’t. The tone may be right, but the content is wrong: or rather, not wrong but factually inaccurate.
-
Product and Purpose
Some people fail to see a distinction between the product of an activity and its purpose. This isn’t always and everywhere a failure to see things as they really are, since sometimes there is no distinction to be drawn. But when it is a failure it can lead to serious consequences. Because what follows from it: to come to define something’s purpose by its most visible product and then measure its value in those terms.
-
The Allegory of Martial Arts, Bad Fortune, and the Sceptic
Philosophy is routinely dismissed as good-for-nothing: an old and out-dated discipline that serves no useful purpose. It is not alone.
-
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 […]
-
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 […]
-
Palinode to the Rion
I recently wrote a satirical piece about popular philosophy. I was happy enough with it to put it online, because I think what it shows is interesting, but beyond that the net effect was to leave me thinking I probably won’t do this kind of thing anymore. As I recently seem to have discovered, I am currently writing to discover why I write, and what I seem to have discovered here is that, whilst I’m happy enough to write things that show something important about philosophy, I have no interest in writing anything combative, critical, or ‘snotty’. […]
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
tobybetenson.com 