Philosophy Thoughts as and when

Nicolas Poussin: Landscape with Saint John on Patmos (1640) Public Domain  Happy World Philosophy Day 2022! 💭🎉🎊🎉🎊🎇🎆 This year, I'm celebrating by:  1) dropping a brand new, educational group website for you to join, which I'm dedicating to Professor Susan James, who is my inspiration as a Philosopher. Why? Because she has an open-ended, questioning style; allows you to disagree with her without getting offended; is naturally laid-back and is someone who, like me, is non-religious, loves to spend hours reading, thinking, writing, philosophising. We both come from very academic (scientifically orientated) home and educational backgrounds so we are both naturally inclined to be academics, just taking slightly different paths to get there. We are both wonderfully old-fashioned - neither of us understand partying, clubbing, pub crawling, smoking, vaping, and anything else that goes with that lifestyle. We are both deliciously boring and proud of it! All of this makes our age...

Following on from my chat (see previous post) about Susan James talking about herself in a recent podcast, I shall continue to play 'snap' ♥♥♠♠♦♦♣♣!  Since today is the Jewish New Year for domesticated animals I thought I'd discuss your point about you teaching Singer and animal ethics at the start of your career. This is also apt because Singer is a Jewish (atheist) philosopher who lost his Austrian Jewish grandparents in the Holocaust. His maternal grandfather was a psychologist who wrote an article together with Freud! Liking Singer's Animal-friendly Ethics for all Sentient Beings - Snap! Singer came up in my first year ethics/politics degree module and I was set an essay on him, which I wrote then submitted 2nd March 2010. In it, I support Singer's ethics and agree with his stance rather than Bernard Williams's criticisms of him. Here's some quick photos of it below: I had no idea until this podcast in 2022 that you have an interest in Singer's argum...

Last month (19th July) a podcast episode with Susan James came out where she talks about herself and her outlook as a person and as a philosopher in a little more depth. I listened to Susan James's excellent podcast episode about a week after it's release on the 27th July. I would have listened to it earlier if it hadn't been for some outrageous behaviour (that I'm heartily sick of by now😠) going on last month and I would have responded to her podcast episode sooner if the ridiculous nonsense hadn't caused so much unnecessary extra work to deal with it (see my LGBT+ blog where I talk about it there over several posts). But I'm kind of springing off from Susan's thought provoking answers rather than the questions she was asked. So let's play 'Snap' like the card game, and see how many times I see things the way she does! ♥♥ ♠♠ ♦♦ ♣♣ I discovered that we 'snapped' almost all the time here (and other times): I always knew instinctively we...

Happy World Humanism Day! 🎉🎊🎉🎊🥳🥂🍾🥧🍰🧁🍨☕☕ Sadly, there's no emoji for Humanism, although there is a logo: the happy human.  Humanism is a branch of philosophy. The types of Humanism commonly listed (not an exhaustive list) within the history of philosophy include: Secular Humanism :  non-religious approach prioritised, naturalistic, cosmic, consequentialist ethics Religious Humanism:  either refers to humanists who consider humanism to be a type of religion or it refers to freethinkers who have humanists principles, ethics and politics but hold some religious beliefs while rejecting institutional religion. Perhaps a good example is the freethinking deist Thomas Paine, but he deconstructed his religious beliefs and practices. Some try to stretch this category, and humanism in general, to include liberal denominational Christians (eg some Lutherans) but I think that's going too far because, unlike Judaism, Christianity is only a religion, it doesn't have a cul...

Although this is mainly an American-based celebration, I think it's a rather good one for everyone internationally. It was originally created to give non-religious Americans an alternative to the National Day of Prayer, which has the status of being a statutory observance despite the secular obligations of the American constitution. So National Day of Reason is the secular equivalent for humanists, secularists, freethinkers, agnostics and atheists! 🥳🎊🎉🎊🎉🍰🧁🥧🥂 It's definitely a day for me, personally as well as a philosopher! I am all of the above, except that I am more specifically an Humanistic Jew as well as a secularist, freethinker and agnostic. I've discussed my stance on atheism, agnosticism, and freethinking in previous posts on this blog, as well as my being an Humanistic Jewish philosopher.  As freethinkers, I think Spinoza, Shepherd (Mary) and Cavendish (Margaret) would be in on this celebratory day too! As well as Hume, J.S. Mill & Harriet Mill, Arend...

Happy Atheist Day! 🥳🎉🎊🎉🥂🍾🎇🎆 I would add some atheist emojis here but I can't find any specific ones, unlike the choice we have for the various religions 🙄 There's bias right there! This despite the fact that there could be up to 750 million atheists in the world which would make atheism the 4th largest 'religion'! Anyway, it seems that the emoji atheists have adopted on social media is one that scientists also use, which is a scientific symbol of an atom: ⚛️ For Atheist Day this year, I'd like to unpack the complexities and a few details about atheism, which, I think, are oversimplified and generalised. Just as with most belief systems or identities, atheism is on a spectrum and not a simple matter of 'either you are, or you are not'. Nevertheless, there is no set definition of Atheism or a required set of beliefs one must hold to count as an atheist. My aim in this post is two fold: one, to explore the various ways in which people can be atheists a...

As I've been mentioning on my blog about Spinoza, I think some people may conflate my personal and philosophical beliefs and thoughts with the philosophers I research, assuming it's somehow all the same system of thought/belief. One aspect of this is becoming confused about my personal religious beliefs and experience and, I suppose, consequently what my account of philosophy of religion would look like, if I were to expound one. In terms of religion, the philosophers I write about are superficially quite different, ranging from Spinoza who was Jewish, to Shepherd and Cavendish who were liberal-minded Christians to Hume and JS Mill who were on the agnostic/atheistic side. Well, the thing I and all these philosophers have in common is being rational, tolerant, freethinkers who keep philosophy clearly separate from religion, reject dogma, superstition and are critical of institutional religion, preferring religious beliefs or non-beliefs to be a personal, private matter.  Even Sh...