• The Mind Body Problem
       Before I answer this question, I would like to applaud the author of The Mind Body Problem for writing the first full-length and comprehensive book devoted to the mind-body problem that has been published “in a long time.”  The author’s name is Jonathan Westphal and the publisher is The MIT Press. Not only does this book carefully define the problem but it carefully...
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  • IS IT ALWAYS WRONG TO TELL A LIE?
    Immanuel Kant vs John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Constant on the Morality of Telling a Lie Immanuel KantIn Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) Immanuel Kant argues that not only is it morally wrong to tell a lie but there are no circumstances in which a lie is justifiable, including situations in which telling a lie would be to your own benefit or to the benefit of others. The duty...
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  • NORMAN MALCOLM ON MIND AND THE HUMAN FORM
    Fifty-six years ago I wrote a brief article for MIND, a philosophy journal edited by Gilbert Ryle at Oxford University.  The article is a critical response to Norman Malcolm’s theory that “no amount of intelligible sounds coming from an oak tree or a kitchen table could create any probability that it has sensations or thoughts.” Norman Malcolm (1911-1990)Here is a summary of what I...
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  • JOHN RAWLS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF A JUST WAR
    Part I  Preface In 1995, one year before his death, the renowned American philosopher John Rawls wrote an article titled “50 Years After Hiroshima." (Dissent Magazine). Rawls invited his readers to reflect on the question, “Was the bombing of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki really a great wrong, as many thought then, or is it perhaps justified after all?” John Rawls...
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  • WHAT IS FREE WILL? JOHN SEARLE vs THOMAS HOBBES
    What is Free Will?  John Searle v Thomas HobbesSeveral years ago former University of California philosophy professor John Searle posted a video on YouTube about the difficulty of finding a solution to the problem of free will. In the video, staged as an interview of Searle by an interlocutor, he begins with a description of the centuries old stand-off between philosophers who say we have...
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  • SOCRATES, LEONTIUS AND THE ANTI-VAXXERS
     Subscribe to my monthly Philosophy Newsletter and get a Free copy of Understanding Philosophy: The Smart Student's Guide to Reading and Writing Philosophy SOCRATES, LEONTIUS AND THE ANTI-VAXXERSIn Plato’s Republic, Socrates tells his interlocutor Glaucon a story about Leontius, the son of Aglaeon: “[Leontius] was going up from the Piraeus along the outside of the North wall when he saw...
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  • Mesopotamia: Tales from a Delayed Exhibition
    Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins was installed at the Getty Villa in February and March 2020 but has not been open to visitors. Artworks in the exhibition include loans from Musée du Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Musée Auguste Grasset – Varzy. In July of 2019, a team of...
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  • A PHILOSOPHER READS THE SECOND AMENDMENT Part II Guest Post by Merrill Ring
    A PHILOSOPHER READS THE SECOND AMENDMENT  Merrill Ring Part II The Second Amendment and the Human Appendix  So, what does the Second Amendment, the first clause of it, have to say about militias?  Worries about whether its talk of militias is relevant to the understanding of the whole has led to a failure to consider carefully what is actually said about militias...
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  • A PHILOSOPHER READS THE SECOND AMENDMENT, Part I. Guest Post by Merrill Ring
    A Philosopher Reads the Second AmendmentMerrill Ring Part I Reply to ScaliaThe Second Amendment consists of two clauses.  Interpretations of the amendment hinge upon how the relationship between those clauses is regarded.  One type of interpretation, of which Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in District of Columbia v Heller is the paradigm, treats the first clause – “A...
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  • SHOULD DONALD TRUMP BE DISQUALIFIED FROM EVER RUNNING AGAIN FOR PRESIDENT?
     Free copies of Laurence Houlgate's Understanding Philosophy available at www.houlgatebooks.comUnderstanding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. ConstitutionDonald Trump Golfing at Bedminster in 2022Here is a question that should be asked by every philosophy professor in their classrooms this term: Should Donald J. Trump be permanently disqualified from holding any office,...
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