This book is no ordinary work of apologetic exceptionalism, or fatalistic religious outrage. Dr. Feser attempts to go much, much further than to simply “debunk” the New Atheists. In fact, he only spends a minority of the pages of this book on the “New Atheists” themselves, because they turn out to be only the worst exemplars of a much bigger problem, according to Dr. Feser. In short, this book is a blanket indictment of the entirety of modern materialist naturalism and a significant portion of the science upon which it is based.
I am entering the final year of a BA Philosophy at the University of London, this year. To kick things off, I thought I’d do a book review for the blog. The focus this year is the philosophy of religion, and it’s been a while since I’ve done a book review for an “internet” philosopher. So, I’ve decided to dig my claws into Stefan Molyneux’s “Against The Gods?”. It’s a relatively short book — the subtitle does say it is a “concise” guide. So, I was expecting my review to be quite short as well. Instead, what I found in the pages of this book has taken me the better part of a 12 hour day to unravel and analyze. For a moment, I considered not doing this at all. As you read this review, you’ll see why — and if you manage to get through it, you’ll see why I did it anyway. This book is illustrative of the dire situation our culture is in, today. When even western culture’s most staunch defenders cannot competently articulate even the most basic of its core tenets (e.g., a philosophical belief in God), let alone marshal a reasonable opposition to them, is it really any wonder why we’re losing our identity? Anyway, have a read, and let me know what you think.
Last night, I re-viewed George Lucas’ “THX-1138” (for the 20th time), and paired it with Phillip Noyce’s 2014 film treatment of “The Giver”.
Both films portray differing versions of what I like to call the “escape trope” in science fiction dystopias: the main character’s whole motivation is to leave his society. In the first, THX is rejected by the dead society within which he is trapped in an unremarkable role, as soon as he is discovered to be non-compliant. The whole film becomes about him literally just trying to leave. In the second, Jonas is at first exalted by his conformist utopia as a “chosen one”, only later to be rejected when the leadership finds it cannot control him. Through the knowledge Jonas gains in his training, he becomes aware of a hidden truth about his society, which he can only share with the rest by escaping it. The whole film becomes about Jonas revealing that truth, through escape.
This is only the second movie review I’ve ever done. The first was for my old video channel, which you can find on my new video channel,
here
. I don’t do “standard” movie reviews, because I know nothing of film production, the arcane science of camera angles and lighting, or the fine art of “pacing”, and “tone”, let alone the intricacies of acting. But once in a while, the allegorical meaning of a film jumps out at me, and I can’t help but write about it. That is what a “movie review” is, for me, and Planet of the Apes is one such film.
I hope to show how Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant respond to, develop, reform, and contradict the ideas of their predecessors and peers, such as Hobbes, Leibniz, Hutcheson, Voltaire, and Diderot, and in doing so, to convey the extraordinary courage and innovativeness of the Enlightenment as a whole… (Pg. 9)
This weekend I had a little extra time on my hands, because of the bank holiday. It’s been quite a while since I’ve looked at any work by the growing cadre of freelance internet philosophers. So, I decided to have a look at the latest offering by Stefan Molyneux. Not a man to shy away from dramatic overstatement, the book is titled, The Art of The Argument: Civilization’s Last Stand.
Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules For Life” is an admixture of continental philosophy, eastern mysticism, Jungian psychology, Christian theology, clinical psychotherapy insights, personal biography, and folk wisdom. At 368 pages, it’s just large enough to keep a thoughtful layman engaged without the more intimidating academic burden of his first book, “Maps of Meaning”. Dr. Peterson is obviously well read and quite thoughtful. In addition to some of his own occasional profundities, the book is absolutely littered with references to Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and many others. If you’re a curious reader, following these up will take you weeks.
Is it better to be truly just, or merely to seem so? This is the question put to Socrates by Glaucon in The Republic. Jonathan Haidt, in his book, “The Righteous Mind”, counts Glaucon among the cynics for putting this challenge to Socrates. But Haidt is missing a subtle and very powerful nuance in Plato’s story. Socrates had just finished embarrassing Thrasymachus for his weak defense of cynical egoism. Glaucon and Adeimantus were certainly entertained, but they were not satisfied with Socrates. They sought much stronger reasons for accepting the conclusion that true justice is preferable to appearance, because they did not want to merely seem to agree with Socrates. They really wanted to believe that genuine justice was better, and giving Socrates the strongest possible objection that could be mustered is the only way an honest man (if he is honest with himself) can do this.
The film “2001: A Space Odyssey” is one of the best-known science fiction classics of all time. Over the decades since its initial release, this close collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke has become a focus of study for film students, philosophers, and futurists.
Attention tends to center on Kubrick’s depictions of space travel and its impact on human life, or on Clarke’s exploration of questions like the nature of consciousness and the ontological conundrums raised in the film’s unique climax and conclusion.
I discovered Steve Patterson by way of my YouTube recommendations some time in the late summer or fall of 2016. I’ve not yet listened to all of his back catalogue, but I have listened to a number of his great interviews and interview “breakdowns”. He recently self-published a short book called “Square One: The Foundations of Knowledge”, via Amazon’s CreateSpace. I love epistemology and logic, and I’m keenly interested in the growing phenomenon of “internet philosophers” (many of whom proudly proclaim themselves emancipated from academia). So, this was a book I had to read.
