Philosophy bites

Scientific method Diagram illustrating steps in the scientific method. The scientific method is an ongoing process, which usually begins with observations about the natural world. Human beings are naturally inquisitive, so they often come up with questions about things they see or hear and often develop ideas (hypotheses) about why things are the way they are. The best hypotheses lead to predictions that can be tested in various ways, including making further observations about nature. In general, the strongest tests of hypotheses come from carefully controlled and replicated experiments that gather empirical data. Depending on how well the tests match the predictions, the original hypothesis may require refinement, alteration, expansion or even rejection.

Philosophy for ALevel Additional Resources Click the tabs to view the following content. Useful Links General What is Philosophy? An Omnibus of Definitions from Prominent Philosophers by Maria Popova “Philosophy is 99 per cent about critical reflection on anything you care to be interested in.” Last week, we explored how some of history’s greatest minds, including Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Isaac Asimov, defined science. Kant famously considered philosophy the “queen of the sciences” — whether or not that is true, philosophy seems even more elusive than science to define. From Philosophy Bites, the book based on the wonderful podcast of the same name, comes an omnibus of definitions, bound by a most fascinating disclaimer — for, as Nigel Warburton keenly observes in the book’s introduction, “philosophy is an unusual subject in that its practitioners don’t agree what it’s about.”

THE STONE - Opinionator This is the second in a series of interviews about religion that I am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is Louise Antony, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the editor of the essay collection “Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life.” Gary Gutting: You’ve taken a strong stand as an atheist, so you obviously don’t think there are any good reasons to believe in God. But I imagine there are philosophers whose rational abilities you respect who are theists. How do you explain their disagreement with you?

Philosophy around the Web The main purpose of this site is to act as a guide and a gateway to philosophy resources on the Internet. If you're interested only in the other things on offer (which have now expanded to take up more than half the space), you should skip to Everything Else. There's also a simplified index of the main sections. The heart of the site is a set of links organised into fourteen main categories. Saint, Peace Seeker, Hero by Turns HODAL, India — Barreling down a sizzling-hot road, in a cloud of diesel fumes and dust, Ludkan Baba is on a serious roll. He lies flat on the ground, turning himself over and over like a runaway log, limbs flailing as he bumps across potholes, splashes through mud puddles and falls deeper into a spiritual trance. Like any sadhu, or Hindu ascetic, he undertakes severe penance to liberate his soul from reincarnation's endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Stretched out in the middle of the road, rolling hour after hour, mile after mile through crowds and heavy traffic, he is making his trip to eternal bliss. But this is no ordinary holy roller.

The Music of the Spheres, or the Metaphysics of Music by Robert Kelly “[In] sound itself, there is a readiness to be ordered by the spirit and this is seen at its most sublime in music.” —Max Picard Despite the popular Romantic conception of creative artists as inspired madmen, composers are not idiots savants, distilling their musical inspiration from the ether. The Largest-Ever Survey of Philosophers: What Do They Believe? Last year, David Bourget and David Chalmers conducted an exercise in the sociology of philosophy, the largest survey of philosophers ever (3000+ respondents): the PhilPapers Surveys. Now that new results have been released, let’s look back at the findings. First, it’s worth noting, as the editors do, that (1) the survey focuses mostly on Anglophone analytic philosophers, and (2) answer choices were often too brief for respondents to know how to answer, and that (3) though the response rate of 47% was pretty good, there is inevitably some selection bias, probably toward younger analytic philosophers.

100 Diagrams That Changed the World Since the dawn of recorded history, we’ve been using visual depictions to map the Earth, order the heavens, make sense of time, dissect the human body, organize the natural world, perform music, and even concretize abstract concepts like consciousness and love. 100 Diagrams That Changed the World (public library) by investigative journalist and documentarian Scott Christianson chronicles the history of our evolving understanding of the world through humanity’s most groundbreaking sketches, illustrations, and drawings, ranging from cave paintings to The Rosetta Stone to Moses Harris’s color wheel to Tim Berners-Lee’s flowchart for a “mesh” information management system, the original blueprint for the world wide web. It appears that no great diagram is solely authored by its creator. Most of those described here were the culmination of centuries of accumulated knowledge. Most arose from collaboration (and oftentimes in competition) with others. Christianson offers a definition:

The Breakthrough Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the human rights movement achieved unprecedented global prominence. Amnesty International attained striking visibility with its Campaign Against Torture; Soviet dissidents attracted a worldwide audience for their heroism in facing down a totalitarian state; the Helsinki Accords were signed, incorporating a "third basket" of human rights principles; and the Carter administration formally gave the United States a human rights policy. The Breakthrough is the first collection to examine this decisive era as a whole, tracing key developments in both Western and non-Western engagement with human rights and placing new emphasis on the role of human rights in the international history of the past century. Contributors: Carl J. Bon Tempo, Gunter Dehnert, Celia Donert, Lasse Heerten, Patrick William Kelly, Benjamin Nathans, Ned Richardson-Little, Daniel Sargent, Brad Simpson, Lynsay Skiba, Simon Stevens. show less

A Visual Dictionary of Philosophy: Major Schools of Thought in Minimalist Geometric Graphics by Maria Popova A charming exercise in metaphorical thinking and symbolic representation. Rodin believed that his art was about removing the stone not part of the sculpture to reveal the essence of his artistic vision. Perhaps this is what Catalan-born, London-based graphic designer Genis Carreras implicitly intended in chiseling away the proverbial philosopher’s stone to sculpt its minimalist essence. Many moons ago, I discovered with great delight Carreras’s series of geometric graphics explaining major movements in philosophy and now, with the help of Kickstarter, the project has come to new life in book form.

Affiliated Columbia University Faculty Affiliated Professor (2013–2016) Areas of teaching and researchHistory and theory of human rightsHistory of legal thoughtEducationHarvard University, J.D., 2001University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 2000University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1995Washington University, B.A., 1994Biography Samuel Moyn, James Bryce Professor of European Legal History in the Columbia University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, works on the history and theory of human rights, as well as on modern European intellectual history–with special interests in France and Germany, political and legal thought, historical and critical theory, and Jewish studies. He is the author of several books, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, and co-editor of The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s. He has been honored for his work with a variety of awards.