Tag Archives: physicalism

My Mind Is Not My Brain

My Mind Is Not My Brain How much hangs on that denial – or on its contradictory, that my mind is my brain!  If our minds are our brains, as I once thought, and as our educated contemporaries mostly still … Continue reading

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Putting Puzzle Pieces Together

 Putting Puzzle Pieces Together Suppose you thought that you had a past life in which you perished, by one of the methods in the Nazi repertoire, during the run-up years that culminated in the Holocaust.  I mean, suppose you entertained … Continue reading

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Death Be Not Proud

Death Be Not Proud We think of our life stories as headed toward a concluding sentence, after which, if they were novels, we would see written: “The End.” Not that everyone conceives this “end” the same way.  Take Heidegger, the … Continue reading

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Proceedings and Addresses

Proceedings and Addresses Proceedings is the shared forum, like the Athenian agora, where American philosophers who have managed to command the attention of their colleagues publish their invited addresses. Since 2000, I’ve stepped down from active faculty status (though not … Continue reading

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So Long As You’re Healthy

  So Long As You’re Healthy Of course I’m not referring to the pandemic.  We’re all suffering from that.  I’m looking at the larger question of health — starting with my own, since I know its story best. How did … Continue reading

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Getting to Objectivity

Getting to Objectivity Lately I’ve been reading a book titled What is Fiction For? The British philosopher Bernard Harrison wrote it to defend novels – defend writing them and reading them – from the accusation that they don’t tell the … Continue reading

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Chivalry, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Films, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Immortality, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, scientism, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“The Big Picture”

“The Big Picture” Why do we need philosophy? There are entire philosophic orientations, Wittgenstein’s is one, holding that philosophy as traditionally practiced is something to be cured of, and that the only thing philosophy can usefully do is to cure … Continue reading

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“Theism, Philosophy and Me”

“Theism, Philosophy and Me” All weekend, recovering from a cold and feeling more dead than alive, I’ve been giving myself a crash course in philosophical theism. Theism is the belief in a personal God, who cares about you and me, … Continue reading

Posted in Academe, Action, Alienation, Contemplation, Contradictions, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Ethics, Evil, Faith, Fashion, Guilt and Innocence, History, history of ideas, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Institutional Power, life and death struggle, Ontology, Philosophy, Political, Power, Psychology, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, Social Conventions, Spirituality, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, Theism, twentieth century, Violence, War, Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments