Philosophy
When it comes to the question of the importance and relevance of philosophy, I'm not sure whether Lawrence Krauss just loves the attention of being polemic, doesn't get just how narrow-minded and simplistic his beliefs are, doesn't realize he's committing some major category mistakes and some basic logical fallacies that a first-year philosophy student would easily identify, or is just too stubborn to admit that he spoke out of his ass without knowing what the hell he is talking about, especially about a subject about which he seems to know very little. For a scientist, you'd think he'd be persuaded by the ample evidence presented to justify philosophy, so whatever the merits of the arguments, his attitude in this case seems entirely unscientific.
It would be easy to create a straw man and dismiss philosophers as illiterate when it comes to science, and depending on the branch of philosophical inquiry, that charge could stick in some cases, but what happens when someone like Massimo Pigliucci, who's both a philosopher and a scientist, enters the discussion? Some major ass kicking!
But if you're not persuaded by the evidence or the logic of the arguments, perhaps a little art will persuade you that philosophy and science are best thought of as cooperative friends, not competitive foes, so in that spirit I present this awesome tattoo I came across recently, which celebrates all of these disciplines as different approaches to enrich our mental life:
I'm wondering whether I ought to brand that ink on my body... thoughts?
- Philosophy Versus Science
Julian Baggini interviewed physicist Lawrence Krauss in the Guardian on ?Philosophy v. Science: Which Can Answer the Big Questions of Life?. Baggini suggested that "We have no reason to think that one day science will make it unnecessary for us to ask...
- Penn Jillette's Bullshit Detector
Belief is our default setting. We are wired to believe, and we'd rather believe a completely nonsensical answer than to have to face to the possibility that we don't know. Belief is easy. Questioning and investigating require work, and we are...
- William Lane Craig Vs Peter Millican - Does God Exist?
While there is a venerable history of philosophical inquiry into the question of God's existence, debates geared for lay audiences out there tend to display a painful and embarrassing lack of philosophical sophistication. To begin with, the distinction...
- Whereof One Cannot Speak... Fight Fire With Fire
You gotta give it to religious believers, no one in the history of humanity has managed to twist arguments and evidence to suit their beliefs quite like them. When you ask for evidence, there's always some bullshit story about the virtue of faith...
- Logical Fallacies
If you've paid attention to the kind of discourse that's become increasingly popular over the past few years, you may have noticed that it seems we have made the unfortunate choice to collectively sacrifice evidence and reason in favor of ideology...
Philosophy
Science vs. Philosophy? Nigga Please...
When it comes to the question of the importance and relevance of philosophy, I'm not sure whether Lawrence Krauss just loves the attention of being polemic, doesn't get just how narrow-minded and simplistic his beliefs are, doesn't realize he's committing some major category mistakes and some basic logical fallacies that a first-year philosophy student would easily identify, or is just too stubborn to admit that he spoke out of his ass without knowing what the hell he is talking about, especially about a subject about which he seems to know very little. For a scientist, you'd think he'd be persuaded by the ample evidence presented to justify philosophy, so whatever the merits of the arguments, his attitude in this case seems entirely unscientific.
It would be easy to create a straw man and dismiss philosophers as illiterate when it comes to science, and depending on the branch of philosophical inquiry, that charge could stick in some cases, but what happens when someone like Massimo Pigliucci, who's both a philosopher and a scientist, enters the discussion? Some major ass kicking!
But if you're not persuaded by the evidence or the logic of the arguments, perhaps a little art will persuade you that philosophy and science are best thought of as cooperative friends, not competitive foes, so in that spirit I present this awesome tattoo I came across recently, which celebrates all of these disciplines as different approaches to enrich our mental life:
I'm wondering whether I ought to brand that ink on my body... thoughts?
- Philosophy Versus Science
Julian Baggini interviewed physicist Lawrence Krauss in the Guardian on ?Philosophy v. Science: Which Can Answer the Big Questions of Life?. Baggini suggested that "We have no reason to think that one day science will make it unnecessary for us to ask...
- Penn Jillette's Bullshit Detector
Belief is our default setting. We are wired to believe, and we'd rather believe a completely nonsensical answer than to have to face to the possibility that we don't know. Belief is easy. Questioning and investigating require work, and we are...
- William Lane Craig Vs Peter Millican - Does God Exist?
While there is a venerable history of philosophical inquiry into the question of God's existence, debates geared for lay audiences out there tend to display a painful and embarrassing lack of philosophical sophistication. To begin with, the distinction...
- Whereof One Cannot Speak... Fight Fire With Fire
You gotta give it to religious believers, no one in the history of humanity has managed to twist arguments and evidence to suit their beliefs quite like them. When you ask for evidence, there's always some bullshit story about the virtue of faith...
- Logical Fallacies
If you've paid attention to the kind of discourse that's become increasingly popular over the past few years, you may have noticed that it seems we have made the unfortunate choice to collectively sacrifice evidence and reason in favor of ideology...