Imperfect Parfit
https://philosophersmag.com/imperfect-parfit/
EXCERPTS: Even in academic philosophy, however, individual eccentricity sometimes becomes too overwhelming to escape remark. In the case of
Derek Parfit, one of the first things either a critic or admirer will acknowledge is just how odd a man he was. That his admirers apparently feel little misgiving in making this admission might be because, by the time he died in 2017, Parfit had safely established himself as among the most influential moral philosophers of his generation. [...] Parfit’s influence indeed extends outside of academia:
Reasons and Persons is a revered text in the effective altruist movement.
He was also notoriously perfectionistic, obsessive, and a philosophical autodidact. Never satisfied for long with his own work, following
Reasons and Persons, Parfit became increasingly preoccupied by more general questions concerning the nature of moral truth... [...] David Edmonds’s new biography,
Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality, is written on the assumption that its subject met with success in the mission alluded to in the subtitle – or, at any rate, that there was nothing fundamentally misguided about the way Parfit pursued its success...
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Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/11/nietzsches-eternal-return-in-america/
EXCERPTS: If Nietzsche had stayed sane enough to know of his burgeoning fan base across the pond, he may have delighted in this cultural exchange. After all, before Nietzsche’s work came to America, America came to him, in the form of the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. As a teen, Nietzsche had discovered Emerson’s works and read them as thoroughly as Ahmari read Nietzsche. Nietzsche and Emerson had similar life trajectories...
[...] Many early American interpreters of Nietzsche immediately saw similarities between Nietzsche’s ideas and American pragmatism. The pragmatic American mind allowed for Nietzsche’s work to be utilized in whatever way the readers saw fit, and sure enough, American thinkers produced a dizzying array of interpretations...
[...] Nietzsche also achieved a unique resonance in America because he was known for being a critic of Christianity in a country that has retained Christian belief for much longer than other Western countries...
[...] The Nietzschean post-structuralists became popular in the academy at around the same time that many American Protestants were losing their faith in God, and Nietzsche’s attacks on Christianity provided the perfect philosophy for a secularizing generation. Nietzsche’s brief aphorism written in a private notebook, “There are no facts, only interpretations,” became the cornerstone on which they built their critical theory. Christianity was hegemonic for much of Western society, but there are other grand narratives, so the argument goes, that are just as valid, and because truth is relative, one cannot just accept Christian truth as objective truth. Postmodern was the term used to describe this loss of grand narratives... (
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"Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know", by Mark Lilla – the enduring power of stupidity (book review)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...-lilla-review-the-enduring-power-of-stupidity
INTRO: This is at once a wise and wonderfully enjoyable book. Mark Lilla treats weighty matters with a light touch, in an elegant prose style that crackles with dry wit. Almost every one of the short sections into which the narrative is divided – and there is a narrative, cunningly sustained within what seems a relaxed discursiveness – takes careful aim and at the end hits the bullseye with a sure and satisfying aphoristic thwock.
The central premise of the book is simply stated: “How is it that we are creatures who want to know and not to know?” Lilla, professor of humanities at Columbia University, New York, and the author of a handful of masterly studies of the terrain where political and intellectual sensibilities collide, is an acute observer of the vagaries of human behaviour and thought in general, and of our tendency to self-delusion in particular... (
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Awkwardness can hit in any social situation – here are a philosopher’s 5 strategies to navigate it with grace
https://theconversation.com/awkward...5-strategies-to-navigate-it-with-grace-244107
EXCERPT: As a philosopher
who studies moral psychology, I’m interested in awkwardness because I wanted to understand the ways social discomfort stops people from engaging with difficult topics and challenging conversations. Awkwardness seems to inhibit people, even when their moral values suggest they should speak up. But it has a positive role to play, too – it
can alert people to areas where their social norms are lacking or outdated.
People often blame themselves when things take a turn toward the awkward. But awkwardness is really a collective failure – people aren’t awkward, situations are. And they become awkward because you don’t have the resources to navigate your way through tricky social situations... (
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