The Useful & The Useless

A stock criticism of philosophy is that it is useless. This, of course, has a certain appeal. After all, philosophy does not seem to do anything obviously useful like baking bread, killing people, selling beer, or curing cancer.
One stock reply to this charge is that while philosophy might not be useful, it is still valuable. [...]

NYC Mosque & Collective Responsibility

The plan to construct a mosque in New York City has generated considerable controversy. The main cause of the concern is that the proposed mosque will be located near ground zero. Not surprisingly, many people consider this to be an insult to those who died on 9/11.
One argument used against allowing the mosque in the [...]

Tea & Satire

Folks outside of the States are probably wondering, as usual, what the hell we Americans are up to with our Tea Parties and whatnot. The Brits will be glad to know that we are not messing with their tea this time around. Instead, we are busy spilling our own tea.
While our latest Tea Party is [...]

The Racism Monster

Once upon a time, in a place nearby, there were two monsters. One was the monster of racism. He was the metaphor of the evils of racism. Like Frankenstein’s creation, he was stitched together of various parts. These parts included specific things such as antisemitism and general things like bigotry. While this beast was sometimes well loved [...]

Useful?

Image via Wikipedia

As a philosopher I am often asked about the usefulness of philosophy. At this point, I have a set template for my reply. I begin by presenting the historical contributions of philosophers in areas such as logic, ethics, political theory and the sciences. I then note some of the trees that have grown [...]

Tragically Defining Horror

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Put roughly, Aristotle’s account of tragedy sets forth three main requirements for tragedy. The first is that the work is supposed to produce the emotions of pity and fear in the audience. Second, the main character must be not exceptionally good but is also not morally bad. The third involves the means by which [...]

Arguing Genre

When it comes to hunger, people often desire particular types of food. For example, suppose a person finds she has a craving for something sweet. Conveniently, the aisles of her local grocery store are organized so that she can find her sweets. It is, of course, easy to imagine her disappointment if she buys a [...]

God & Time Travel

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Like most philosophers, I like science fiction and stories about time travel. Recently I watched the episode Time of the SyFy  seriesStargate Universe. This episode got me thinking about time travel and God, oddly enough.
Imagine, if you will, the following science fiction situation. Sally is working on a time travel project and during one experiment, [...]

Saving Dogmeat

Image by Jamiecat * via Flickr

For those who are not familiar with video games, Dogmeat is an animal character in Fallout III. He is, of course, based on the character of the same name from the earlier game. This character is, of course, based on Mad Max’s dog. If none of this makes sense to you, suffice it to [...]

The State & Discrimination

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One rather important subject is the role that the state should play in regards to discrimination. Put roughly, this is a question about the extent of the scope of the state’s power to regulate citizens.
I will be begin with the obvious: the state certainly seems to have an obligation to prevent discrimination in agencies [...]