THE USES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SOCRATES by CHRISTOPHER ROWE / August 27, 2015 by mirena

Abstract: Socrates was and is one of the most influential figures in the history of Western philosophy. Yet it remains an open question just what the real, historical Socrates stood for: he wrote nothing, and none even of our most ancient sources can probably be relied upon to give us anything like an accurate picture of his ideas and methods. As if to fill the gap, successive individual philosophers and philosophical traditions—from Plato to Nietzsche and beyond—construct a range of different Socrateses, to serve either as a model for emulation or as a target of attack. Nevertheless, the single most vivid picture of Socrates is that provided by Plato, who was his immediate philosophical successor, and who gave the character ‘Socrates’ the leading role in the majority of his fictional dialogues. What is this Socrates like, and does he have any use for us? http://research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/documents/1998.09RoweUsesandDisadvantagesofSocrates216229.pdf

Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche. A BBC Documentary / August 6, 2015 by mirena

…“His philosophy is not a guide that you should think like him, it’s a guide that you should think for yourself.”

Camus In Ten Minutes / July 11, 2015 by mirena

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus / May 28, 2015 by mirena

The gist of The Myth of Sisyphus on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

The entire essay:

http://sharepoint.mvla.net/teachers/HectorP/SoPol/Documents/The%20Stranger/Camus%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus%20and%20other%20readings.pdf

IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? / May 26, 2015 by mirena

O CT OB ER, 1 8 9 5. IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? Read more here.

WHEN Mr. Mallock's book with this title appeared some fifteen years ago, the jocose answer that " it depends on the liver" had great currency in the newspapers. The answer that I propose to give today cannot be jocose. In the words of one of Shakespeare's prologues, " I come no more to make you laugh; things now that bear a weighty and a serious brow, sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,"

Bertrand Russell discusses mankind's future & philosophy. / May 22, 2015 by mirena

At the 9:15 mark, the interviewer asks about the “practical use of your sort of philosophy to a man who wants to know how to conduct himself”. Also, a simple answer form Bertrand Russell on what philosophy is: Science is what we know, Philosophy is what we don't know..

A Philosopher and KUNG FU PANDA / May 7, 2015 by mirena

Slavoj Zizek on how Belief Functions Today. https://youtu.be/xCD3hg6OEQw

It all jiggles - Richard Feynman on Fire / April 8, 2015 by mirena

BBC animations on the History of Ideas / February 5, 2015 by mirena

A History of Ideas is a BBC Radio 4 program of the same name. BBC created animated shorts illustrating different ideas from the history of thought and narrated by Gillian Anderson. Wondering about questions like "Why are things beautiful?" - philosophers and thinkers have already been wondering the same thing, for couple of millennia. Here are some of my favorite animations from their collection. I have transcribed the first one but when i get a chance i will do the others as well.

Diotima’s Ladder

"In Plato’s dialog the Symposium Socrates recalls Diotama’s teaching that a desire for one beautiful man’s body is just the first rung in a ladder that leads up to the appreciation of the form of Beauty. And so is merely a means to the higher end of appreciating the Abstract Idea.

This is Diotama’s teaching. To learn about beauty first recognize the physical beauty of your desired lover. Then, if you are rational, you’ll appreciate not just the individual loved one’s beauty, but also the physical beauty of others too. It would be absurd to only see beauty in one individual since bodies are so similar. From this the next step up the ladder is to see the beauty that lies beyond appearances. The beauty in wisdom and knowledge, the beauty of beautiful minds even if they happen to dwell in bodies which aren’t particularly beautiful. The last step is to come to recognize the form of beauty itself, the Abstract Pure general notion of Beauty. This form of beauty also carries with it moral qualities of Goodness. So if you take the first step of falling for the body of a beautiful youth, Diotima thinks you can progress from this to a more cerebral appreciation of Universal Beauty. Lust is on the bottom rung of the ladder and morality at the top. If you are prepared to make the ascent."