by Daniel A. Kaufman When speaking of morals, the overwhelming view among philosophers is that they are criterial. Something – some action or a state of affairs – is right or wrong, obligatory or prohibited, because it satisfies certain criteria; criteria that typically come from a larger moral theory. Thus, for a Utilitarian, actions are right or wrong, obligatory or […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman The second of three discussions with Robert Wright on his lecture series at Union Theological Seminary. This time we address questions regarding tribalism, empathy, and mindfulness. The dialogue originally aired on June 24, on MeaningofLife.TV, part of the BloggingHeads.TV network.
by E. John Winner Astro Boy is a conscious robot, nuclear-powered, with synthetic skin giving him the appearance of a twelve-year-old boy, and plastic hair that sticks out like horns from the top and the left of his head. He has lasers in his fingertips, rockets in his limbs, blasters in his arms, a super-computer for a brain, “100,000 horsepower” […]
by Paul So After having been resurrected from the dead by Athena and brought up to speed on thousands of years worth of philosophy, science, and culture, Socrates has been touring the globe, confronting philosophical fools, fakes, and frauds. Today, he finds himself with science popularizer, Bill Nye, live on Big Think’s YouTube channel. The topic is Nye’s recent comments, regarding […]
By Daniel Kaufman A fantasy… ABC News, Special Report, with Pris Pruitt. Pris Pruitt: We are preempting our scheduled broadcast of Transgender Celebrity Housewives of Color in order to bring you the President of the United States, who momentarily will be giving a speech on the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, which claimed some forty nine lives and left […]
By Daniel A. Kaufman Well, we’ve arrived at the last set of Course Notes for the Knowledge and Reality course I taught this past Spring. I look forward to picking the series up again, with the upper-division Aesthetics course I will be teaching in the Fall. In our last installment, we talked about Quine’s account of conceptual and ontological relativity, […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman The first of three discussions with Robert Wright on his Lecture Series at Union Theological Seminary. Topics include spirituality, purpose, and consciousness. First aired on The Wright Show, on MeaningofLife.TV, part of the BloggingHeads.TV network. June 11, 2016.
by David Ottlinger **For those who have not seen the recent Jungle Book film, this essay includes Spoilers. When I was in school, I attended a lecture by a well-respected historian. The subject of the lecture was gardens in eighteenth and nineteenth century France and England. [1] It wasn’t as dull as it might sound, and the implications were surprisingly […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman Righteous Business Ideological do-goodism has infected American business – or at least some of American business – to the point that I find myself pining for rapacious capitalists. Just this past April, my parents were visiting us, for Pesach, as well as for my daughter’s fourteenth birthday. (This year, the birthday and first-night Seder were just […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman Massimo Pigliucci has just finished publishing his book, The Nature of Philosophy: How Philosophy Makes Progress and Why It Matters, in serial form over at his blog, Plato’s Footnote. (1) Just the other day, the first of three video-dialogues on the book aired on the Sophia program, over at MeaningofLife.TV. (2) Needless to say, I’ve been […]
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