The Demons of Science: What They Can and Cannot Tell Us About Our World
This book is the first all-encompassing exploration of the role of demons in philosophical and scientific thought experiments. In Part I, the author explains the importance of thought experiments in science and philosophy. Part II considers Laplace’s Demon, whose claim is that the world is completely deterministic. Part III introduces Maxwell’s Demon.
@bookstodon "In a way, both sides of the debate were directly and indirectly responding to World War II. The absurdity of wartime led many to the view that all this talk of principles, ideals, and values was bullshit. At the same time, the horrors of Nazism stirred many toward an even stronger moral sense. Evil was real. And any attempt to turn it into mere personal preference couldn’t last a minute outside the walls of academia." https://www.letustalkbooks.com/p/where-our-values-come-from
This week I facilitated a session in a mechanical engineering course on values-sensitive stakeholder analysis. We talked about social and political challenges around renewable energy siting and how considering stakeholder values in design can improve outcomes for all.
This book introduces the reader to the ways in which happiness has been explored in philosophy and literature for thousands of years, in order to understand the newest theoretical approaches to happiness.
Re-evaluating various things lately, this was a job for Philosophy Path (哲学の道) along the eastern mountains of #Kyoto. Writers have asserted that Japan doesn't do #philosophy, mais non. To be sure, Mahayana #Buddhist#ontology eludes our grasp.
Thus, I was #walking along the #path and not #philosophizing per se, but just absorbed in the scenes like these captioned #photos, and that was quite refreshing.
I'd say that bodhicitta (菩提心), consciousness-only, and such metaphysical concepts are indeed Mahāyāna #Buddhist#philosophy, but not #ontology. I alluded to our not being able to grasp it intellectually.
Frankly, I dislike the #Japanese emphasis on 'emptiness' or non-being (無), since we'll have all eternity minus our lifetime for that. I've always been in the kill-the-Zen-master camp. I rebel against their regimentation and the haughty disrepect all gurus have for what naturally wells up in the independent person, who might be #liberated to an extent -- without their knowledge (in both senses), who sees for oneself.
Having said that, if I had to define Mahāyāna ontology, it is in the Heart Sūtra (心経, Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Sūtra) that #Buddhists here are always chanting, essentially that being and non-being are the same.
Philosophy of physics is concerned with the deepest theories of modern physics - notably quantum theory, our theories of space, time and symmetry, and thermal physics - and their strange, even bizarre conceptual implications.
Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age
The answer, at first thought, does not seem difficult; several obvious examples of it spring immediately to mind. There is Hitler's fantastic program of destruction, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Dadaist attack on art; there is the background from which these movements sprang, most notably represented by several "possessed" individuals of the late nineteenth century...
On Repentance and Repair
Making Amends in an Unapologetic World
A crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm—from personal transgressions to our culture’s most painful and unresolved issues.
In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. Drawing on Greek philosophy and Roman history, Cicero convinced himself that death and loss are part of life, and that if others have survived them, we can, too; resilience, endurance, and fortitude are the way forward.
#CfP for the Association for #Philosophy and #Literature#conference on "Borders/Freedom/Civility", which will take place in Gettysburg, PA on June 12-15, 2024.
Grace De Laguna is an incredibly interesting, and unduly neglected, figure in the history of 20th century philosophy. My symposium paper discussing her critique of analytic philosophy has just been published in the Asian Journal of Philosophy.
"We live in a world marked by the dead...
The #dead don’t walk among us, for there is no need for that.
We walk to them, bearing gifts of flowers.
We are haunted, haunting ourselves with our imaginations and our memories"