The double look on complex dimension
Abstract: A theory of causality, a root concept, must strive to converge its ontological and teleological directions. The counterfactuals used by Paul Noordhof unfortunately failed in this attempt. They form a good description of cognition, highlighting its biases. Going further requires looking at the complex dimension. Part 1: Two-way causal representation Causality is one of … Read more
Thinking about evil is not just about burning yourself in it With ‘Evil in modern thought‘, essayist Susan Neiman revisits Nietzsche and Arendt to condemn a resignation from contemporary philosophy about evil. She sees the Holocaust as such an exorbitant evil that it requires a complete overhaul of ethics, not just deconstructing world history. An … Read more
The nature of mental objects Before answering this question, let us judge its relevance. Are lucidity and happiness comparable, opposable, associable? Certainly lucidity seems a brake on happiness, pointing to all the reasons to lack it. But are these concepts of the same nature? What is a mental “nature”? We admit that an emotion and … Read more
Warning The very idea of “ontological” classification is suspect. What is the being of a thing by reference to the thing alone? By definition it is the only one to experience it. A hook for knowledge: being results from a constitution. But if we think we know the constitution per se —the being of the … Read more
This article is an application of the double look to the meaning of life. Read the dedicated article to introduce yourself to the roles of the downward and upward looks, duplication to resolve many contradictions by putting contradiction at the heart of the essence of things. Is pessimism perverse? Does life have any meaning? An … Read more
Messianic collectivism Utilitarianism is a flawed philosophy, we have seen, since it can lead to the deliberate killing of innocent people, in defiance of a deontology more fundamental to the human being. But how is this possible, since it claims to represent the D of soliDarity, that is to say the interest of the greatest … Read more
Tumor passion Am I personally responsible for a morality that society would find inappropriate? This question, which attacks that of free will head-on, has no simple answer. Let’s look at the case of an American who, in 2000, suddenly became a sexual aggressor. Married and without history until then, he is unexpectedly passionate about prostitution, … Read more
Scoop: an obese man killed by a philosophy teacher! The previous article drowned you in trolleyology. Philosophers study the moral value of our choices. Utilitarianism appears fundamentally flawed in terms of ethics. It calculates the formula of the maximum number of lives by mocking the destroyed units. It represents the pure D of the human … Read more
One foot in the dilemma In the trolley problem, I explicitly take the utilitarian morality that prevails in the majority of responses on the wrong foot. I stage the companion of the man sacrificed to save 5 others. Whoever killed him must explain his action in front of her. The man was not destined to … Read more
Let’s get on board the trolleyology with David Edmonds, author of Would you kill the Fat Man? He details variants of the trolley problem, its philosophical interpretations, and its connections with the neurosciences of morality. Appear choices made personally by the philosophers summoned but no normative theory. Is it a preserve that must continue to … Read more