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Index for this page...
All The Following Items Were Posted On October 1, 2007 Dogmatism: Most people use the word "dogmatism" in its dyslogistic sense. They forget that the word "dogma" has a good meaning in dogmatic theology, referring to the articles of religious faith. In philosophy, however, dogmatism is totally inappropriate. Everything that is asserted or denied must be submitted to rational inquiry that seeks to establish it with certitude or probability. There are some philosophical positions the affirmation of which are beyond the power of reason to establish. An example is the main thesis of ontological materialism, that nothing really exists except bodies and their physical transformations. That thesis, being a denial, therefore is a negation, and as such it is indemonstrable. Most of the contemporary scientists and professors of philosophy who embrace materialism unquestioningly do so without a logical qualm. They mistakenly think that the evidence of their senses tells them that all observable phenomena are physical. Of course this is correct, but it does not prove that only observable phenomena are real. There is no evidence that reality does not and cannot include the immaterial and the nonphysical. To assert that is does not and cannot is sheer dogmatism, of a kind that should be avoided in philosophy. Source: Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon. Have you a copy of this book in your personal library? If not, consider getting one. Read Max Weismann's review of this book by Clicking Here.
Epicurus of Samos (c. 341 - 270 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher "Epicurus is remembered and eulogized (1) for establishing the third institution of education in Athens, known as 'The Garden'; (2) for dethroning reason and placing human feelings at the center of the philosophic life ('pleasure' is the alpha and omega of a blessed life,' he said); (3) for adapting Democritean physics to the pursuit of happiness; (4) for teaching that ataraxia is the ground-state of a happy life; (5) for his (unfashionable) conviction that human nature is good; (6) for discovering a correlation between pleasure and health, pain and sickness; (7) for his belief that there are but two ontological fears (of death and of the gods) that disturb our lives; (8) for making the epistemic distinction between knowing subject and object known." -- Professor James L. Christian. Read about Epicurus in The Radical Academy.
Source: Volume 1 of The Wisdom Seekers: Great Philosophers of the Western World, by James L. Christian. If you want an excellent and comprehensive history of philosophy, the two volumes in this set are among the best available. And I'm not just saying that because Professor Christian is a personal friend. I used his introductory textbook in philosophy -- Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering -- when I was teaching an introduction to philosophy course many years ago. It is an excellent introduction. J.D.
FOR THE RECORD 1. MEDIA: Mainstream Newspaper Stories Are Riddled With Errors Almost half of the news articles written and published by major daily newspapers in the U.S. contain one or more factual errors. Furthermore, less than two percent of these errors are corrected -- even when the errors are reported to the paper. Those are the shocking findings of a new study by Scott R. Maier, an associate professor at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. Maier created a database of several thousand locally-created news stories clipped from 10 major U.S. metropolitan newspapers. No sports stories, opinion pieces, columns, or reviews were included. He then contacted key sources for the story and asked for feedback on errors. The study found 2,615 factual errors in 1,220 stories. Slate magazine media critic Jack Shafer notes: "Most of the errors detected were relatively minor -- an incorrect title or a wrong age. But this is small consolation given the preponderance of errors documented by Maier and the alleged failure of some newspapers to run a correction, even after being asked." The study's focus on minor errors was deliberate, as such errors are easier to find than more subjective, and controversial, ones. But naturally, this study raises the question of what other, larger errors and fallacies are being passed off as the truth each day. Sources:
Courtesy Of: Advocates for Self-Government 2. PSYCHOLOGY: Report - Liberals And Conservatives Have Different Brains It's a given that liberals and conservatives think differently. Now research suggests that's literally true. According to a report in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers at New York University and UCLA found that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain deals with information. The results indicate that "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not involved in the research, told the Los Angeles Times. The researchers told college students -- whose political orientation ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative" -- to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer screen, and not to tap when a W appeared. The letter M appeared four times more frequently than W, so participants were conditioned to "press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter," the Times explained. Participants were wired to a device that recorded activity in the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency -- pressing a key when they saw a W -- and the appropriate response, not pressing the key. The results: Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, while the left-wing and right-wing brains performed equally well in recognizing an M. Liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of participants for accuracy, according to Frank Sulloway, a researcher at the University of California-Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research, who analyzed the data but was not connected to the research. The Times reported: "Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry . . . as a flip-flopper for changing his mind about the conflict." Source: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-politics10sep10,1,3200056.story?ctrack=1&cset=true Courtesy Of: NewsMax Insider Report Bush - The Biggest Taxer and Spender In Human History: "It seems safe to conclude that George W. Bush will go down in history as the biggest taxer and the biggest spender ever," says David Boaz of the Cato Institute. Boaz, writing in Cato's blog, notes that federal revenues reached the incomprehensibly huge amount of $2.12 trillion ($2,120,000,000,0000) for the first ten months of fiscal year 2007. That is, quite simply, the largest amount any government in all of human history has ever seized from taxpayers. And yet, incredibly, Bush and Congress managed to spend even more than that. Spending was $2.27 trillion for the same ten months. The war in Iraq, while a contributor, is not the root problem. Government spending is simply running amok, Boaz notes, "on everything from earmarks to entitlements to war." Source: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/08/12/bush-the-biggest-taxer-in-world-history/ Ignorant Voters Decide Our Fate: "The political knowledge of the average voter has been tested repeatedly, and the scores are impressively low. ... In polls taken since 1945, a majority of Americans have been unable to name a single branch of government, define the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative,' and explain what the Bill of Rights is. ... More than two-thirds have reported that they do not know the substance of Roe v. Wade and what the Food and Drug Administration does. .. Nearly half do not know that states have two senators and three-quarters do not know the length of a Senate term. ... More than fifty per cent of Americans cannot name their congressman; forty per cent cannot name either of their senators." Source: "Fractured Franchise" by Louis Menand, New Yorker magazine Film Schools Teach Wrong Copyright Lesson: The University of Hawaii's Academy of Creative Media claims that it is "more than just a film school" because it seeks to "empower students to tell their own stories of Hawaii" through film and digital media. Too bad that empowerment stops once the student has completed his or her project. Taking a page from the University of Southern California, UH is requiring film students to sign a lengthy agreement assigning copyright in their student works to the university. If students won't sign, they are kicked out of their film production classes. If they do sign, UH gets exclusive rights to their work -- they can't sell it, rent it, show or display it, copy it or make "derivative" works from it. What is worse, UH won't even promise to identify the student as the author of the work. As Professor Larry Lessig points out, this theory makes students into little more than artistic sharecroppers. Why the draconian requirement? Find out in EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry's complete post: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005451.php. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Article: "On Teaching Artists' Rights," by Lawrence Lessig. "The neo-cons claim surrender should not be an option. In the same breath they claim we were attacked because of our freedoms. Why then, are they so anxious to surrender our freedoms with legislation like the Patriot Act, a repeal of our Fourth Amendment rights, executive orders, and presidential signing statements? With politicians like these, who needs terrorists? Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us? This seems the epitome of cowardice coming from those who claim a monopoly on patriotic courage." -- libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, "Surrender Should Not Be An Option." Source: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst090207.htm Please Note: Items in the "For The Record" section do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Radical Academy. Nor is the Academy responsible for any misrepresentation of the facts included. It is your job to be a critical reader. We simply provide this information as a service to our visitors because we think it is interesting and/or relevant.
COUNSELING CORNER: A Valuable Lesson - God Works In Mysterious Ways... Come with me to a third grade classroom..... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat." He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful.But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!" Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too." The Lesson For Us: May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good. Remember.....Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car. The wise person will say: "I hope in the coming years there will be many people with fish bowls around me!"
A LITTLE OF THIS & A LITTLE OF THAT A Little Wisdom: "Please all, and you will please none." -- Aesop (620-560 BC), Greek storyteller. A Little Advice: People are illogical, inconsiderate and self-centred. Love them anyway. A Little Question: Why is it there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses? A Little Put-Down: The first sign of a nervous breakdown is when you start thinking your work is terribly important. A Little Proverb: "Choose a job you like and you will never have to work a day of your life." -- Confucius. A Little Reflection: Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are that good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. A Little Definition: BEAUTY PARLOR - A place where women curl up and dye. A Little Quote: "I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.'" -- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady of the United States (1933-1945). A Little Observation: If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. A Little Quip: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites: The sorry state of science reporting, by Alan Caruba: New technology drives out old technology. As often as not, its impact is not known until many years after its introduction. Meanwhile, we live our lives day to day. This is what is happening to the business of publishing newspapers and magazines, places where, traditionally, writers have earned a living. Reflections on Argumentation Ethics, by Michael S. Rozeff: It is necessary by the nature of the subject matter for me to make some preliminary disclaimers. If I were to argue either for or against argumentation ethics in this article, I would perhaps implicitly be endorsing them merely by engaging in argument. I say "perhaps" because this depends on what meaning we attach to "argumentation" and what ethics we suppose is presupposed when we engage in argumentation. An Electronic Concentration Camp - Big Brother in the Sky, by John Whitehead: Short of hiding out in a cave, far removed from any trace of modern technology, it would seem that there is no longer any escaping the electronic concentration camp in which we live. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - Mark Vernon questions Richard Dawkins' state of self-delusion: There is, I think, one good thing about The God Delusion. Read as a catalogue of religious excess and abuse and pulling no punches, it serves a purpose. [Purchase The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins through The Radical Academy.] The sacred and the human, by Roger Scruton: Today's atheist polemics ignore the main insight of the anthropology of religion -- that religion is not primarily about God, but about the human need for the sacred. As René Girard argues, religion is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it. Philosophical Objections - Not Science - Guide Origin of Life Research, by Casey Luskin: Michael Egnor recently wrote about the great difficulties faced by origin of life researchers and the great speculation they are willing to undertake to retain natural chemical explanations for origin of life. Philosophy as a Way of Life, by Jules Evans: As we were discussing last time, there is a movement in philosophy at the moment to go beyond postmodernism's emphasis on semiotics and ethical relativism, to return to an idea of philosophy as the practice of the 'Good Life'. Do science and rationality support atheism?: No, says a nuclear physicist. To understand why, you must be prepared to face the Fundamental Question of Philosophy: Why is there anything rather than nothing? Articles of Faith - Conflict between religion, science seems everlasting, by Anthony B. Robinson: Who would have thought that on a summer Saturday night in Seattle a professor of philosophy could pack the house? Center For Ethics Explores Wilderness And Environmental Ethics: What does it mean to be 'natural'? How did 19th century painters and writers shape American fascination with rugged wilderness? Secularists, what happened to the open mind?, by Tom Krattenmaker: Many of the leading voices among atheists and the 'unreligious' reveal a disdain for religion that can only damage today's dialogue. Speaking with people of faith, instead of about them, would enrich both sides of this philosophical divide. Plato and the playful poets, by Jennie Erdal: It is said that during Plato's long life no one ever saw him smile. I can readily believe it. As preparation for chairing an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival I have been reacquainting myself with Plato's Republic, the cornerstone of western philosophy and a sober work. The Politics And Philosophy Of Harry Potter, by Prof. Barry Rubin: Since the Harry Potter series is so wildly and universally popular it is surprising that there has not been more examination of its sociology and cultural politics. The right to ridicule a religion, by Lars Ströman: Artist Lars Vilks has made three drawings ridiculing the prophet Mohammed. The prophet is portrayed as a "roundabout dog". So far three art exhibitions have declined to publish his pictures. If Not Religion, What?, by Alan Contreras: In a variety of arenas, from politics to high schools, from colleges to the military, Americans argue as though the proper face-to-face discussion in our society ought to be between religion and science. Like any half-decent atheist, I'm fond of a bit of religion, by Magnus Linklater: Thank God I'm an atheist. It's a big step to take, but it was becoming difficult to cling to the agnostic fig-leaf any longer.
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