Philosophy

In a recent article on Nietzsche, Eva Cybulska (Philosophy Now, Sept-Oct) observes Nietzsche’s debt to Heraclitus’ concept of the coincidence of opposites, often dubbed “the unity of opposites”. Cybulska explains that it was Heraclitus’ belief that all things were characterised by pairs of contrary properties. So, for example, one and the same thing may be [...]

There is one important respect in which Aristotle is closer to biblical thought than Plato. For Aristotle this man or this horse are what primarily exist. In the Categories Aristotle produces a list of ‘categories’ in which he distinguishes between the various kinds of things which can be said of or be inherent in such [...]

The other day I listened to a Philosophy Bites podcast involving an interview with neuroscientist David Eagleman entitled Morality and the Brain. The opening scenario involves one man who shoots another and is then apprehended. It is normal for many to think that the form punishment will take will depend on how much the killer [...]

In Buddhist thought suffering in samsara is due to ignorance of three realities: dukkha (suffering, or better “unsatisfactoriness”), impermanence and especially non-self. There is no self, that is, as Siderits puts it, “we are empty persons, persons who are empty of selves.” To be more precise, a ‘person’ has no essence, the continued existence of [...]

In one interview Hiedegger remarked: I would say that men – for example in communism – have a religion, because they believe in science. They believe unconditionally in modern science. And this unconditional belief in science, that means the confidence in the certainty of the results of science is a belief, and in a certain [...]

I have enjoyed listening, via podcasts, to Frame’s stimulating tri-perspectival approach to epistemology and apologetics. Here is my attempt to summarise what Frame has to say on these critical issues: John Frame Apologetics and the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God

In his book Christianity Alongside Islam (Acorn Press, 2o10) John Wilson finds it necessary to deal with the outlandish view of some “new atheists” that Jesus never lived at all. This position is so absurd as to be not worthy of consideration were it not for the fact that others are repeating this view as [...]

There was a time when John Stuart Mill subscribed to associationism, believing that all our ideas come from outside our selves and assuming that it was external circumstances alone that shaped our characters. So Mill sought to improve the lives of people by seeking to change external circumstances through radical societal reforms. But “the black [...]

Atheist Malcolm Knox takes issue with fellow atheists who campaign against children be subjected to religious indoctrination. He argues that religion is fundamental to a child’s development. He himself is married to a Catholic and has children baptised in the Catholic Church. He gives the following reasons as to why, as an atheist, he supports [...]

Montaigne once said, “If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.” He asked: What good did their great erudition do for Varro and Aristotle? Did it free them from human ills? Did it relieve them of misfortunes such as befall a common porter? [...]