Reason and Rationality
-
I was saddend to learn Melvin Bragg retired from In Our Time. Whilst I understand some listener’s complaints, especially in recent years, of Bragg’s performance, I considered him essential to making the programme as legendary as it is. A show spanning decades with the same host will naturally have its ebb and flows. As with
-
Outside of science, one of my favourite things to study as a hobby is history. I also deeply enjoy and appreciate philosophy. One thing I’ve learned in my time studying history and philosophy is that, when judged alongside the human character (insofar that we may establish such a generalisation), democracy is a system that perhaps
-
I recently read an interesting essay by Egil Asprem entitled Dialectics of Darkness. Its original purpose was to serve as a review of The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences by Jason Josephson-Storm. I have yet to read Josephson-Storm’s book, so I shall have to reserve comment for another
-
Some time ago I wrote a post on human evolution and civilisation. It was one of my first contributions to my general reading blog. But I feel it is worth thinking about this morning, as, generally, this is what I tend remind myself of at Christmas: our immaturity as a species. Instead of fanciful tales
-
I find philosophy to be an incredibly controversial subject, one that is difficult to get a handle on. There is a value to philosophy, though I often struggle to understand it or place it. Perhaps this is because I lack a satisfactory definition of philosophy – a term which can represent so many different bases
-
R.C. Smith If we take as a stated assumption, based off the growing body of science, that prejudice is pervasive – that human irrationality is, to put it philosophically, a central theme in the human struggle toward a rational society – I think one of the lessons is epistemological in form. Its basic reduction is
-
[An earlier unedited draft of this article was written with contributions by Arnold De Graaff. It has since become single authored and has been revised, updated and shortened.] “The Enlightenment”, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer famously wrote, “understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings” (Adorno
-
Introduction In spite of the fact that one of the primary aims of Dialectic of Enlightenment (1964/2002) is not to do away with the liberating force of the Enlightenment,[1] it nevertheless remains important that we address concerns about the totalizing propensity of Horkheimer and Adorno’s “domination of nature” (Naturbeherrschung) thesis,[2] which threatens to undermine whatever
-
My first book, Consciousness and Revolt, which is long extinct now, fated to reside on but a few dusty shelves, was written almost like an existential treatise. It sought to analyse patterns and trends in relation to human behaviour throughout history, focusing in particular on the reoccurrence of popular forms of orthodoxy and the epistemology
Dialogues at still points 