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32Schools of thoughtThe Philosophers' Magazine 56 (56): 14-17. 2012.Kids can astonish with the philosophical ideas they spontaneously have, but are they really able to follow through their implications systematically and logically? And isn’t that what philosophy is essentially about, not just having interesting ideas?
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5Hume on ReligionRoutledge. 2010.This book collects together, for the first time in one volume, all of the major writings on religion by Britain's great 18th-century philosopher, David Hume.
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35The populist threat to pluralismPhilosophy and Social Criticism 41 (4-5): 403-412. 2015.Although political pluralism can have an ethical justification, it does not need one. Political pluralism can be justified on the basis of an epistemological argument about what we can claim to know, one which has a normative conclusion about how strongly we ought to believe. This is important because for pluralism to command wide assent, it needs something other than an ethical justification, since many simply will not accept that justification. Thus understood, we can see that current threats …Read more
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33We’re all postmoderns nowThe Philosophers' Magazine 56 (56): 121-126. 2012.“I suppose my feeling about the post-modernism exhibition is that it’s testing philosophical claims through research, rather than a kind of active philosophical investigation.”
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6The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational WorldYale University Press. 2016.Reason, long held as the highest human achievement, is under siege. According to Aristotle, the capacity for reason sets us apart from other animals, yet today it has ceased to be a universally admired faculty. Rationality and reason have become political, disputed concepts, subject to easy dismissal. Julian Baggini argues eloquently that we must recover our reason and reassess its proper place, neither too highly exalted nor completely maligned. Rationality does not require a sterile, scientist…Read more
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76Making sense: philosophy behind the headlinesOxford University Press. 2002.Making Sense examines the philosophical issues and disputes that lie behind the news headlines of the day. We read about what is happening in the world, but how do we know what the truth is, or whether there is one 'truth' at all? A president has his private sexual affairs discussed and analyzed by everyone, but is the private life of anyone the proper moral concern of others? A war against terrorism is declared, but what justifies the use of armed forces with its inevitable loss of life? Making…Read more
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6Floated on the ideas marketThe Philosophers' Magazine 49 75-76. 2010.“I would go into a lunch of stockbrokers who would be coming to listen to the business philosopher, and I felt so nervous because I thought I was supposed to tell them where they should be putting their clients’ money on the basis of my knowledge of the history of ideas. I felt such a failure because I didn’t know what they should do with their clients’ funds.”
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42The mind of KoreaThe Philosophers' Magazine 43 (43): 83-87. 2008.It was only after the liberation in 1945 that we started to reflect and revive again our traditional philosophy. But for a long time it was neglected. Many of our universities did not teach oriental philosophy or Korean philosophy at all. We learned Heiddegger, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant.
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46Morality as a rational requirementPhilosophy 77 (3): 447-453. 2002.John Searle has recently produced an argument for strong altruism which rests on the recognition that ‘I believe my need for help is a reason for you to help me’. The argument fails to recognize the difference between ‘a reason for me for you to help me’ and ‘a reason for you for you to help me.’ These are two logically distinct types of reason and the existence of one can never therefore be enough to establish the existence of the other. The existence of this logical gap is a major obstacle for…Read more
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Philosophy, Introductions and Anthologies |
Philosophy, General Works |