Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"In the interest of civility and electoral prudence, neither Obama nor Romney can initiate a conversation about what it means to be Mormon. The rest of us should, because the story is complicated, fascinating, and utterly American"
"Libertarians might be wrong about what helps and what hurts. Maybe we’re mistaken in our policy prescriptions. But those mistakes, if they exist, aren’t because we 'care' less than liberals"
![the fact factory [website link] by the|G|â„¢](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2530/4448091128_3d45426934_s.jpg "the fact factory [website link] by the|G|â„¢")
Thought-provoking consideration of nature of facts. What do we mean by a "fact"? Does a fact refer to something that actually exists? Is Occam’s razor a sharp or blunt tool to use, when arguing that facts do not exist?
Evangelicals are making common cause with Romney because to do otherwise is to hand the election to Obama. In so doing, Mormonism comes closer to American mainstream. It's what Mormons want, but there may be unintended consequences
These days it seems fashionable to claim that our selves are an illusion. Here's a neat counter-argument, that our inner zombie is where we deputize tasks we have mastered so our conscious selves can focus on the really tough stuff
Addiction assessed via philosophy. "For Socrates, ‘yielding to temptation’ is not being unwillingly overpowered, but is the experience of being a willing participant choosing what is at that moment wrongly thought to be best"
On the ethical problems of climate change. Should the well-being of future generations take precedence over our own? Are we responsible for the excesses of past generations? All over the world, or just our own compatriots?
Heavyweight essay on art theory. "A recourse to theory liberates artists from cultural identities—from the danger that their art would be perceived only as a local curiosity. Theory opens a perspective for art to become universal"
Conversation with philosopher Michael Lynch. "I think that giving up on objective truth is giving in to those who would like to convince us that there is no difference between what is right and what they say is right"
Seems like a silly question, but Yale philosopher Kagan wrote a whole book on it. In this excerpt he deploys trusted philosophical tool of thought experiments to analyze our intuitions about the dreadful final stop we will all reach
Oxford University professor on nature of logic. "If the idea of information as ruling out possibilities can’t handle the informativeness of logic, that is a problem for that idea of information, not for the informativeness of logic"
You can't fault the Chronicle for not asking the big questions. The answer? Prospect of dying is unpleasant for most people. Process of dying is rarely much fun. Beyond that, it's just the opportunity cost of not being alive
"Behaving morally in the moment has little to do with sympathy and a lot to do with one's immoral options simply not coming to mind"
