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Year-End Top 10s: Philosophical Musings (nos. 10 – 6)

Posted in Friendly Philosophy

It’s time to count down the top 10 posts from this past year! We, however, are going to do two different top 10s. First, we’ll do the top 10 “Pure Philosophy” posts from 2014. Then, we’ll do the top 10 “Top 40 Philosophy” posts.

Today, then, we have the bottom half of the top 10 Pure Philosophy posts. Tomorrow, we’ll do the top 5.

10. Learning from Games

I played baseball and football as a kid, as well as video games and card games. I never imagined at the time, of course, that games would be something philosophically-interesting. In this post, I discuss some of the reasons philosophers should and do care about games.

9. Experimental Philosophy: An Old Name for an Even Older Method

Since the various sciences split off from philosophy, philosophers have acquired a kind of inferiority complex. One response to the need to live up to the standards of science has been a new movement called “experimental philosophy.” In this post, I argue that it’s actually nothing new (and that this fact is actually cool).

8. Generosity Is Not Justice

A great deal of the political debate in our country can be summarized as a disagreement over the claim that generosity should not be forced. However, a great deal of the philosophical debate over ethics would seem to not recognize generosity as a virtue at all. In this post, I argue that generosity should not be confused with justice.

7. Perception as Synthesis?

I’ve become mildly obsessed with the question of whether groups are wholes, whether parts are prior to the wholes they form, and/or whether wholes are prior to the parts they contain. You would not believe how consequential your answer(s) to these questions are (because you are a skeptic, and have a hard time believing anything). When it comes to sensory perception, I think many (perhaps most) scientists and philosophers have things backwards.

6. Do We Experience Reality?

Oh snap! Two posts on perception in a row! Given your skeptical bent, you also wouldn’t believe how many philosophers think we don’t experience things as they really are. Perhaps, however, you will forgive me for disagreeing with them.

(Drop by tomorrow for the top 5!)

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