Suggested readings, #123

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Talking to science deniers and sceptics is not hopeless. Fears of backfire effects are overblown, and advice to listen and interact still stands. (Nature)

Ancient (bizarre) arguments for vegetarianism. (The Philosophers’ Magazine)

The Man Behind the Myth: Should We Question the Hero’s Journey? A well deserved criticism of Joseph Campbell, which then slides into a lot of questionable wokeness accompanied by a good portion of cherry pickiness. (LA Review of Books)

Is there such a thing as collective virtue? These authors make the case, which I find unconvincing. (Journal of Value Inquiry)

Stoicism and the Eleusinian mysteries. How Marcus Aurelius was Initiated into the Cult of Demeter. (Medium)

Suggested readings, #122

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Can comedy change the world? Despots aren’t defeated by laughter, but the fundamental message of the comedian – “it doesn’t have to be this way” – threatens authority and disturbs the prevailing order. (New Statesman)

Poseidon’s wrath. Vanished beneath the waves in 373 BCE, Helike is a byword for thinking about disaster, for ancients and moderns alike. (Aeon)

Exploring Postcolonialism in “Star Trek.” (The Great Courses Daily)

Why relativism is the worst idea ever. (APA Blog)

Why Stoicism now? One fool’s answer to a sage question in nine propositions. (Medium)

Suggested readings, #121

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

The philosophy of porn. Ubiquitous pornography doesn’t persuade, it trains. Star philosopher Amia Srinivasan says it’s time to reconnect desire with creativity. (Prospect Magazine)

Reason & Emotion. How do we bridge the (alleged) gap? (Philosophy Now)

Pursuing happiness is a mistake. The limits of utilitarianism in a pandemic. Though the author missed out entirely on the third option, other than utilitarianism and deontology: virtue ethics. (IAI News)

Forget morality. Moral philosophy is bogus, a mere substitute for God that licenses ugly emotions. Here are five reasons to reject it. Or not. The author is more than a bit confused about what counts for morality… (Aeon)

Stoic approaches to weight loss. Insight, self-control, and a sense of duty. No, not another “diet & exercise” article. (Medium)

Suggested readings, #120

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Want to know, even if it hurts? You must be a truth masochist. Good points, some bad examples. (Psyche)

The idea that trees talk to cooperate is misleading. It’s a romantic notion, but pretending they’re like humans could actually harm the cause of conservation. (Scientific American)

Ignorance by design. On Jason Stanley’s “How Propaganda Works.” (Philosophical Salon)

The divine Dante. At 700, Dante’s Divine Comedy is as modern as ever – a lesson in spiritual intelligence that makes us better at being alive. (Aeon)

Stoicism vs Self-Help. How self-help and Stoicism remain incompatible. (Medium)

Suggested readings, #119

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

10 Latin phrases people pretend to understand. Knowing some Latin has its advantages. (Mental Floss)

Why the free will debate never ends. Julian Baggini looks beyond traditional approaches to the free will debate. And, as usual, he has something very much insightful to say. (The Philosophers’ Magazine)

Why did evolution create conscious states of mind? Finally a good question to ask about consciousness. (OUP Blog)

The end of reductionism could be nigh. Or not. By Sabine Hossenfelder, provocative as usual. (Nautilus)

Mistakes about the meaning of life. (The Philosophers’ Magazine)

Is Eric Weinstein a crackpot? The grand unified theories of the man who brought us the Intellectual Dark Web. A bit too charutable to Weinstein, for my taste. (Nonzero)

Illusory attitudes and the playful stoic. Why Stoics may have the best attitude toward competitive games. (Philosophical Studies)

Suggested readings, #118

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

A non-Standard model. Most cosmologists say dark matter must exist. So far, it’s nowhere to be found. A widely scorned rival theory explains why. (Aeon)

Zebras, bacteria and asteroids. On what’s real and whether whatever it is can be part of a unified science. A very good summary of some fundamental debates in philosophy of science. (The Philosopher’s Magazine)

Tragedy as self-deception. We do it to ourselves. (IAI News)

The paradox of individualism. Individualism has been blamed for the break up of communities, personal alienation and rampant western consumerism. At the same time, with its focus on liberty and human rights, it is lauded as the crowning glory of western culture. (3 Quarks Daily)

Was Marcus Aurelius a persecutor of Christians? The scholarly take. (Harvard Theological Review)

Suggested readings, #117

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and its connection with the present. (Greek Reporter)

Ideas that work. Truth, knowledge, justice – to understand how our loftiest abstractions earn their keep, trace them to their practical origins. (Aeon)

How we discovered a new tool to help combat vaccine hesitancy. Our social experiment showed the first step is empathy with the skeptical. (Prospect Magazine)

The whitewashing of Rome. White supremacists fetishise ancient Rome – but antiquity was more diverse and polychromatic than racists will admit. (Aeon)

Do Stoic ethics depend on the Stoic worldview? (Modern Stoicism)

Suggested readings, #116

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Sometimes, paying attention means we see the world less clearly. (Psyche)

Patriotic Obscenity: Aaron Poochigian and the Comedy of Aristophanes. (LA Review of Books)

Is improving your personality a moral duty or a category confusion? Well, you know what I think of this one… (Psyche)

The role of the arts and humanities in thinking about artificial intelligence. Reclaiming a broad and foundational understanding of ethics in the AI domain, with radical implications for the re-ordering of social power. (Ada Lovelace Institute)

How to think about pleasure. Weirdly hard to define, much less to feel OK about it, pleasure is a tricky creature. Can philosophy help us lighten up? (Psyche)

Suggested readings, #115

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

As science advances, does Ockham’s Razor still apply? The notion that the simpler explanation is usually right has been useful for centuries. New science may change that. (Salon)

14 common Sophistical tricks Aristotle already “called”, still with us today. (Medium)

Wilfrid Sellars and twentieth-Century philosophy. (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews) [For background, see here.]

The inheritance of nations. To what extent does a work of art belong to the people of the world? (The American Scholar)

Archaeology, architecture, and “Romanizing” Athens. (OUP Blog)

Suggested readings, #114

Here it is, a rundown of interesting articles I’ve come across recently, to consider for your weekend readings:

Why our “wandering brains” are wired to love art and nature. Humans have a built-in “fractal fluency,” probably because of our prehistoric ancestors’ upbringing. (Salon)

Our little life is rounded with possibility. Science expressed only in terms of what happens is getting in the way of progress. (Nautilus)

I created ‘The X-Files.’ Here’s why I’m skeptical of the new U.F.O. report. (New York Times)

Greed and the philosophy of wealth. When does a healthy desire for wealth morph into greed? And how can we stop it? (Big Think)

Brandolini’s law: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. (Ordre Spontané)