Category Archives: Philosophy

New Atheism and old religions or the other way around?

On The Media: Transcript of “God No!” (December 15, 2006) In response to the global challenge posted by religious extremism, a small group of impassioned atheists has taken a new approach. They target the tolerant with both reason and ridicule. … Continue reading

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Posted in Analogies, Cognition, Literature and narrative, News and media, Philosophy, Science, Social Science | Leave a comment

Marriage and the impact of scholarship on society

BBC – Radio 4 Woman’s Hour -Has Love Conquered Marriage? For the first time ever, married-couple households are in the minority both in the UK and the US, outnumbered by single-person households and cohabiting couples. Whilst many blame the stresses … Continue reading

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Is mathematics an empirical science?

Maths has the reputation of a a ‘pure’ discipline which sets both the practice and essence of mathematics apart from all other fields of inquiry. Mathematicians often use this ‘axiom’ to remind other academics of their superiority. Many people mention … Continue reading

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Individuality and culturality of psychotherapeutic needs

BBC – Radio 4 – All in the Mind It’s just under a year since the Tsunami devastated coastal communities around the Indian Ocean . Raj reports from his recent visit to the Tamil Nadu region of India with the … Continue reading

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Determinism and evidentiary value of belief based on personal experience

BBC – Five Live – Mark Kermode film reviews included this and last week an interesting exchange. First, the reviewer claimed that watching the film The March of the Penguin makes it possible to assume some level of intelligent design … Continue reading

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My Week In Thought and Hermeneutic Suspicion

My Week In Thought This PBS essay neatly summarizes almost all the arguments I would ever make – or in some cases have made – in defense of video gaming. OK, there may be a fine line between vanity and … Continue reading

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Salient cases and social causality

The great ‘On the Media’ had an interview with ‘the devil’ – Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard. But he did bring up an interesting point regarding the actual influence of the magazine in particular and the media in general. … Continue reading

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Identity and modularity

news @ nature.com – Mind trick ‘whittles the waist’ – Illusion helps scientists to spot brain regions that shape our body image. Scientists have harnessed a perceptual trick known as the ‘Pinocchio illusion’ to help pinpoint the brain regions that … Continue reading

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Digitizing literature and styles of reading

Digitizing literature – The Boston Globe But the act of reading a great book requires something of the reader: time. A book must be ”read,” it can’t be background noise nor can it be understood from a page. If books … Continue reading

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Posted in Education, Philosophy | 2 Comments

Fiction as a resource for academic inquiry

John Grishamm, The Broker Sure, this is a great book that fulfills all the prerequisite of its genre in a way that allows the reader to probe some of the possibilities of depth. The writing is taut (although I’ve only … Continue reading

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Posted in Education, Linguistics, Philosophy | Leave a comment