Recent developments in the realm of Artificial Intelligence tend to make me a bit apprehensive, but this hardly means that I simply avoid such innovations. Of late, this has led me to play around a little with the ChatGPT Open AI system. The program often provides decent overviews of nearly any topic and can provideContinue reading “On Being For & Against the Idealization of the Past”
Tag Archives: Morality
Social Statistics & Moral Inferences
Last week, I wrote about the problem of understanding what the social sciences provide. My intention was to theorize the thinking involved in social science research and reflect on what this means for its outputs. While somewhat critical, my overall position is not that the social sciences are vapid but merely misunderstood – people misinterpretContinue reading “Social Statistics & Moral Inferences”
Morality & Joking: Considerations with C. S. Lewis
A topic which I believe has become progressively more difficult to navigate during my short lifetime has been that of humour. As certain topics or issues emerge in the cultural “dialogue” (though this may be a generous term here) of mass media, social media, and daily social interaction, there is often a debate around howContinue reading “Morality & Joking: Considerations with C. S. Lewis”
A Late Review of Life After God
Writing a book review for a rather obscure little book that was published thirty years ago may seem an odd pursuit, but such might be justified when circumstances give rise to fresh relevance in a given work. In the case of Douglas Coupland’s Life After God, published in 1994, I think this is a bookContinue reading “A Late Review of Life After God“
R. G. Collingwood on ‘Duty’
A peculiar detail about me, that is of an unknown origin to myself, is that I have a seemingly innate disposition to act out of a sense of duty. In some ways, this may come from my family; my parents and extended relatives tend toward a fierce (almost tribal) sense of familial loyalty – evenContinue reading “R. G. Collingwood on ‘Duty’”
Love or Euthanasia
My wife and I were recently sat in our living room enjoying some tea, and our conversation turned to her asking me a few questions about my return to Faith. She, having grown up in the Church, has had quite different experiences than I, and our conversation occasionally turns to these matters. It is alwaysContinue reading “Love or Euthanasia”
Natural Confusion
Though it is never the purview of philosophical reflection to impose the correction of errors it perceives in daily life, such theorizing can render clearer aspects of our habits that may make us reconsider our actions – whether this induces a change in behaviour or merely changes our perceptions of what we do. Herein, IContinue reading “Natural Confusion”
Dialectics and History
Plato is well known to have composed his philosophical texts in a dialogue form. Most frequently, he places the historical person of Socrates in the center of his dialogues; the great philosopher who wrote nothing down then engages with various other historical characters, more or less antagonistically, depending on the dialogue, and questions them aboutContinue reading “Dialectics and History”
A Twisted Mirror
Though I am not much of one for “trigger warnings,” I think a cautionary note to begin this post is in order. This is a reflection on the work (specifically one text) of Bret Easton Ellis, an author who is well known for including rather despicable content in his writing. This post will reference someContinue reading “A Twisted Mirror”
Hoping for Clarity 