Tag Archives: Philosophy

Why is philosophy important? The very question itself indicates that many assume that philosophy is not important. But this begs the question, what is philosophy. There are many answers and the assumptions involved in answering it will influence the outcome. A reason for this is that there are many approaches to philosophy, so that "philosophy" has come to mean many things depending on how the terms is interpreted and used. First, there is a controversial issue now raging in the...

Caitlin Johnston summarizes the foundational issue of Eastern and Western philosophy quite nicely. The history of thought begins with reflections on this. Indeed, one view of philosophy is that it is reflection on experience.Well-stated. A+Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue JournalistTruth Caitlin Johnstone

Short. These excerpts summarize the answer I would have given, too. Q. Which books can tell me, from a philosophical standpoint, what makes life worthwhile or worth living? A. Philosopher and author Julian Baggini writes:  Surprisingly, few of the world’s great philosophers have directly addressed this question. Instead, they have focused on a subtly different question: what does it mean to live well? In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle emphasised the need to cultivate good...

Philosophy matters. Just ask Bill Miller. Bill started his professional journey as a philosophy graduate student at Johns Hopkins. He became a Wall Street legend. Based on my conversations with students and parents over many years, this is not the typical narrative associated with a humanities major. But Bill tells this story well. Known for his analytical acumen and iconoclastic approach to markets, Bill attributes much of his success to the habits of mind he developed studying the works...

Noah Smith over at Noahpinion does a rundown on why Firefly doesn’t really resonate with him. I agree with his take: But in Firefly, why do we – meaning the crew of Serenity – go to space? It’s not for a higher purpose. There’s no science being done, no galaxy being saved. The show’s theme song may be about freedom, but unlike many of the people around them, Mal and his crew aren’t colonists. They aren’t going to found a new, more liberal republic on the virgin soil of a distant world....

One of the defining cultural events of the 2016 election season so far has been the overwhelming rejection of the notion of political correctness expressed in the Republican selection of Donald Trump as presidential nominee. Here is Trump expounding his view on political correctness: What is the political correctness that the Trump supporters are rejecting? Trump-supporting website Infowars.com gives the following definition: In his novel 1984, George Orwell imagined a future world where...