Best Blog
Best Blog
Why is this the best philosophy blog out there? For one thing, you get it for free; you don’t pay a penny for it (and I don’t make a penny). But that is a common property of blogs—why is this one the best? Because it has the best content: the best written, the best philosophical ideas, the greatest variety, the most digestible format, and me responding to comments. No junk, no filler. In addition, I situate the philosophy in the context of a life, which makes it more approachable (“relatable”). I think it makes the ideal way to learn philosophy, though by no means introductory. Any graduate student could learn a lot from it. I don’t set out to teach, but it can be mined for instruction. It is also non-repetitive and freshly minted. Never boring. But perhaps the best thing about it is that I don’t get bogged down in academic bullshit; I keep it pure. Not all that dreary crap about how to make it in the “profession”, but pure unadulterated philosophy. No tedious academic politics. Here you get the real thing. But is it the best by far? Of course it is (not that I read the others). If anyone wants to suggest an alternative choice, I am all ears.
Zero suggestions so far.
I thought of adding some capitals and exclamation marks in appropriate places to Trumpify it, but discretion prevailed.
It would have been quite good stylistically.
Your excellent philosophy blog is a firm favourite in this household. I agree with your statements. I am a net beneficiary. Admittedly I haven’t looked much farther for what might be out there, though I read a few posts from Brian Leiters’ blog after people had mentioned links to related articles on it here. I haven’t been back.
I would favourably mention Robert Lawrence Kuhns’ ‘Closer to Truth’ video series. Not a Blog, I know, but there’s a convergence with here for me.
I don’t think Brian Leiter’s blog is a philosophy blog; it’s a philosophy profession blog. Robert Kuhn’s work is definitely good stuff (and not just because of me).
Exactly. Who just got hired where; all the political BS; all the scandals (though in those I find positive reinforcement for my decision to get out of Dodge, as it were). Michael Huemer’s Fake Nous on Substack isn’t bad, though he only posts once a week on average. There may be a few others. I haven’t searched that much.
I think the quality is usually pretty low. Not easy to do well.
It’s the best I’ve seen. Clearly written, thought-provoking, “ludic”, humorous.Edward Feser’s is good in some of those ways too, but much less intellectually adventurous.
An apt description. You are right about the intellectual adventure. There’s really no contest. And yet you will not find an American philosopher willing to say as much publicly out of fear of being maligned and possibly cancelled by the so-called feminists in American academia. Pathetic and disgusting, but that’s the world that has been created by the self-promoting zealots and their craven compatriots.
You didn’t need to put “ludic” in scare quotes; it’s good as it is. You don’t need to distance yourself from using it, and it’s not a matter of “so-called”, because it’s not commonly being used. It is apt.
“Playful” would be ok.
Could one say women tend to be conformist, emotionally fragile, solipsistic and less likely to be highly intelligent and creative? And that they mould institutions in their own image, given the power to do so? No, that would be highly offensive and upsetting, therefore untrue, in the proper, emotionally literate sense.
Not sure what your point is here.
What I like is that I (we) get regular ideas from a world class philosopher, I can make any semi reasonable comment and get very good interaction and responses.
Which most of the time makes me re-evaluate or read up more – if I have the energy.
But do you find that reading me regularly has shaped your mind?
It challenges my way of thinking about some philosophical issues. But I’m not swayed eg towards mysterianism. I actually was an intuitive mysterian in my younger days, but more towards scientific rational thought now.
Now that is a strange comment. You must know that the people labelled “mysterians” are actually all scientists and eminently rational (Chomsky, Fodor, Pinker, McGinn, Stent, Gardiner, Witten, et al).
Because of the ever shrinking replies boxes, I’ve started a new one.
Fodor is a philosopher. Chomsky is a linguist & philosopher. Psychology has scientific elements to it, depending on which school. But is certainly a social science.
There is mysterianism in physics, but there’s also a rational or “scientism” to it.
I don’t see chemistry as mysterian, nor are any of the philosophers chemists as far as I know..
Fodor is a cognitive scientist mainly. Chomsky is a theoretical linguist and psychologist. Pinker is a scientific psychologist. So was I. Gardiner was a science journalist. These are not unscientific people, quite the contrary. They all have a scientific training. They are not mysterians because they are scientifically uneducated. Also, mysterianism is a scientific (biological) doctrine. So, I really don’t know what you are talking about.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nn0300_199
I just read this, it mentions Horgan as well as McGinn and Pinker.
Anyhow. Your question was whether you shape my mind.
To a certain extent – you challenge my assumptions
Thank you 🙏🏻
It sounds to me as if almost anybody would challenge your assumptions!
Ok stent and witten are scientists, I wasn’t aware of them. Apologies.
“rational” in the physical sciences has a different or more precise meaning than it does in philosophy.
For example, “rational drug design” is the discovery of disease active targets, and the design of molecules that attack those sites to treat or cure the disease.
My understanding – correct me if mistaken – of mysterianism , is eg we’ll never understand Alzheimer’s because how the brain and mind work is mystery.
It could be I’m imposing scientific concepts on philosophy and being out of context.
You are completely wrong. It says no such thing: we will understand Alzheimers. “Rational” means what it means everywhere.
So we will restore and preserve thought and memory without understanding why?
And all that is done in a rational way
Or perhaps you’re saying it as repairing a radio set with electronics but not understanding where the radio waves come from?
We will find the brain correlates and establish causal connections, like any disease of the brain. We can fix many physical mechanisms without understanding the quantum world etc.
If I understand you correctly, you are a dualist, and you accept that “brains cause minds” as opposed divine creation. But that our minds haven’t evolved far enough to understand the mind body problem (or rather, solve it) but still capable of eventually figuring out how the brain works and how to fix it.
That’s fair enough, but how do you accurately determine where the ceiling is?
Not really a dualist but not a reductive materialist. What ceiling?
The ceiling to our cognitive abilities.
You might want to have a look at my book Problems in Philosophy for an answer to that (clue: the CALM format).