This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are the beginnings of each of them: A spoonful of sugar? — Should one take sugar in one’s tea? Feedback is mindful of two things about this question. For one, nearly everyone, in the UK especially, considers (or pretends to consider) the […]
Butchers, bakers and donutmakers probably won’t forsee all that much trouble in cutting something in half. If you’re a philosopher on the other hand . . . Problems arise when trying (to imagine) the process of cutting something exactly in half. Given that most objects could be said to have a centre point of some […]
If you want a reliable method of raising a laugh, you can always resort to references of flatulence – a comedic ploy that goes back (at least) 2000 years. But the question as to why it’s considered funny, remains, to this day, a hotly debated subject. In 2013, Professor James Spiegel of the Philosophy Department at […]
When it comes to food, if someone says that “X is yummy” it can usually be taken to mean that they very much like what they’re eating. But what if they say “X is yummy” in an ironic way rather than in a sincere way? The philosophical implications are pondered by Professor Nick Zangwill, Ferens […]
The next time you sprinkle a few grains of salt into your soup, then, if you have the time for it, you could consider the theological implications of doing so. To assist with your considerations, don’t miss the work of Professor Lisanne D’Andrea Winslow of the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, MN, US, who has […]
Six paradoxes, each presented in one minute, animated by philosophers and their friends at The Open University: (Thanks to investigator Vern Illy for bringing this to our attention.)
Back in 2000, Jonathan Schaffer, who is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, US, published the first paper to examine the concept of ‘Trumping Preemption’ in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 97, No. 4, Special Issue: Causation. (Apr., 2000), pp. 165-181. “Imagine that it is a law of magic […]
“For some, the notion of a journal devoted to the work of a theorist very much alive and intellectually kicking is discombobulating.” – explain the editors of the International Journal of Žižek Studies “As its title unambiguously proclaims, it is devoted to the work of Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher/cultural theorist.” And yes, Improbable is […]
The clip shows F1 chief exec. Bernie Ecclestone in an albeit brief encounter with ‘purgatory’. Purgatory that is, if you follow the work of Professor Siyaves Azeri, from the Department of Philosophy, Mardin Artuklu University, Turkey, who, in a forthcoming paper for the journal Space and Culture, explains how revolving doors might differ from standard […]
Nobel prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein was of course deeply interested in (and concerned with) the implications of splitting the atom, viz. nuclear fission. Philosophers on the other hand, not only consider such things, but can also go on to wonder : What about splitting Albert himself? Such a scenario is examined by Dr. Wolfgang Schwarz […]