Of all the Micah Tillmans in the world — and there are at least three — … I am this one.
Posted in Life, Philosophy on Aug 18th, 2010
Since the new school year is about to start, I’ve just prepared the revised version (v. 2.1) of my handout, “How to Survive a Philosophy Course without Going Insane.” You can access the PDF of the handout here, if you so wish.
Posted in Ethics (Philosophy), Religion on Jun 28th, 2010
I follow The Atheist Missionary on Twitter (http://twitter.com/atheistmission). He recently sent me an article by Dr. Scott F. Aikin, of Western Kentucky U/Vanderbilt U, entitled “The Problem of Worship” (pdf). It would appear that Dr. Aikin is a scholar of pragmatism, of which I heartily approve. I love, for instance, William James. But that’s another [...]
Posted in Ethics (Philosophy) on Jun 16th, 2010
A couple days ago, some of the people I follow on Twitter got into a discussion about free will and responsibility. “Do you need the former to have the latter?” was one question they were asking. One of the problems with the debate is figuring out exactly what it would mean to have free will, [...]
Posted in Ethics (Philosophy) on Jun 15th, 2010
(For a more “scholarly” treatment of the following topic, you can read a paper I threw together on it over Christmas Break, 2009: “Duty Derives from Telos: The Teleology behind Kant’s Categorical Imperative” [PDF]) ____ Random Introduction Yesterday, a few of the philosophers I follow on Twitter (my “Twitter Friends”? “Fritters”? ”Philosophy Tweeps”?) got into a [...]
Posted in Philosophy, Religion on Jun 10th, 2010
An atheist gentleman I follow on Twitter sent me an article by Dr. Stephen Law, entitled, “The Evil-God Challenge.” (PDF version here. HTML version here.) It’s a well-written, intriguing, and darkly-humorous (because of the subject-matter, not because the author is trying to be a comedian) challenge to the reasonableness of the hypothesis that there is a good [...]
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Politics on Jun 9th, 2010
Immediate Background In America, our most-beloved law is the First Amendment to our Constitution. It reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the [...]
Posted in Life, Philosophy, Politics on Jun 8th, 2010
I’ve learned the following four principles the hard way: ____ First: When you can’t come up with a good reason for why your opponent thinks or does what he or she thinks or does, that is usually evidence of an intellectual failing on your part, not a moral or intellectual failing on his or hers. [...]
Posted in Philosophy on Jun 7th, 2010
Every era in philosophy has its central division. First it was Platonists versus Aristotelians. Then, it was modernists vs. scholastics. Then it was empiricists vs. rationalists. Now its analytics vs. continentals. ____ Okay, ignore for the moment that that little history of philosophy I just gave you is so oversimplified it hurts. The point is that, as [...]
Posted in Culture, Philosophy on Jun 2nd, 2010
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 ] At last we come to the issue of mind, consciousness, thought, etc. and what it/they is/are. As I noted last time, robots can’t be plants or animals, since they’re not organic (outside Battlestar Galactica, anyway). But minds/consciousness/thoughts, etc. aren’t [...]
Posted in Culture, Philosophy on Jun 1st, 2010
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 ] I argued last time that two things stand in the way of our ever recognizing even a sophisticated robot as being a living being: First, we would have a tough time seeing a being as alive whose parts are [...]
