365 Days Of Philosophy

Here’s all the major fallacies covered this year on the 365DaysOfPhilosophy: weasel words, slippery slope, appeal to authority, straw man, argument from ignorance, shifting the goalposts, post hoc ergo propter hoc, appeal to popularity, ad hominem, tu quoque, cum hoc ergo propter hoc, anecdotal fallacy, red herring, no true Scotsman fallacy, begging the question, hasty generalisation, false dilemma, and reductio ad absurdum.  See if you can identify nine of them in the examples below: The new car is the absolute best; after all, the President drives one and why would she drive a bad car?  I eat chocolate every day and I’m always dealing with hiccups, so the hiccups must be a result of all the chocolate.  Sure, my challenge scores are always at the bottom , but there’s bigger problems that we should be concerned about like why exams are being used to judge us.  I deserve more cake, because my job is more important, and I get more cake, because I have an important job.  The new car is the absolute best; after

Answers to the previous day’s examples can be found on Patreon, via this link. As before, additional examples are available for Patreon supporters, where for only $1, you can get access to additional content and exclusive material from the podcasts. Today’s fallacies for revision, with links to previous podcasts: Tu quoque, cum hoc ergo propter hoc, anecdotal fallacy, no true Scotsman fallacy, red herring and post hoc ergo propter hoc. You know, I go swimming in the sea every morning and I’ve never been attacked by a shark, so I don’t know what the problem is with sharks.  Maybe I drink a lot of coffee but we should be concerned about the quality of water and what that’s doing for public health.  Everyone who knows anything about soccer knows they should be on the side of the Joe team, as all the true soccer players are Joe’s soccer players You say that the rainfall is a problem but we all know there’s plenty of problems beyond rainfall that you’re not dealing with, like the increase of floodplains.  There

Answers to the previous day’s examples can be found on Patreon, via this link. As before, additional examples for today are available for Patreon supporters, where for only $1, you can get access to additional content and exclusive material from the podcasts. Today’s fallacies for revision, with links to previous podcasts: Begging The Question Hasty Generalisation False Dilemma Ad Hominem It’s well known that reality tv shows rot the brain, there’s no value to them and we should all refuse to watch those shows.  Radio shows are essentially giving away free music, I know this because every time I turn on the radio, I’m not giving a cent.  No one would vote for the Jones party, so you should only consider voting for the Smith party. No one would vote for the Jones party as they’re just a bunch of losers. Answers on the 365 Days Of Philosophy site tomorrow. Put your answers in the comments! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Early on in the year, I introduced a number of fallacies, and before investigating arguments further, here’s some revision and exercises for the first five: Weasel words, slippery slope, appeal to authority, argument from ignorance, shifting the goalposts/special pleading. After revising the definitions in those links, try identifying the fallacies in these statements — more exercises for Patreon supporters at https://www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess. There’s a tremendous concern about the number of drivers on the road and it’s understandable, considering that it’s going to lead to congestion, more fights in traffic and then war between drivers  We’re still unsure about the origins of the universe, so it’s fair to argue that it could have begun with a big sneeze.  You might think that I caught a mouse and it is cruel, but there’s plenty of people who eat hamburgers everyday and no one criticises them.  This solution adequately addresses all of your concerns, so you’ll be confident about the final results.  The

Answers to the previous day’s exercise can be found here. The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and a returning presenter is Richard Dawkins. Professor Richard Dawkins is the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Honorary Vice President of Humanists UK, and is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. He is an internationally recognised best-selling author, with titles including The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion and The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. This is the talk he gave in 2010, called Giving Thanks In A Vacuum. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the following exercise on logical fallacies, have a look at this article printed in The Australian by Greg Sheridan called “The God Question: Listen To Your Inner Voice”. There’s a number of claims that can be identified as fallacies in the article, some are quoted below — which fallacies are they? Some might be used more than once! There’s some hints at the end of this blogpost. Claim One:It is more rational to believe in God than to believe there is no God. In fact, belief in God is much more rational than atheism. The resting place of the mind, its natural equilibrium, as it were, is belief.This is, in truth, a statement of the obvious. Claim Two:In subscribing to atheism they are in radical opposition to the vast majority of people on the planet today, and the overwhelming majority of people who have ever lived in history. There’s our first clue. Claim Three:I have faith that I am the son of my parents. I have no real empirical evidence for it. It makes the most sense as an explanation of my life,

The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and a returning presenters at the forthcoming convention is Jason Ball. Jason Ball is the 2017 Young Australian of the Year for Victoria, honouring his work as a passionate community advocate for LGBTI equality and mental health. Since coming out publicly in 2012, Jason has become a national figurehead on combating homophobia in sport and highlighting the damaging impact of homophobia on the mental health and wellbeing of the LGBTI community. This leadership has seen Jason take up ambassadorial roles at beyondblue and the Safe Schools Coalition, sharing his story of coming out with thousands of people in schools, workplaces and sporting clubs. In 2016 Jason stood as a candidate for the Greens in the Federal seat of Higgins, where he increased the Greens vote by almost 9%. His campaign focused on climate change, asylum seekers, science, mental health and marriage equality. Jason has come a long way since working as part of the Committee for the 2010 Global A

The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and two presenters at the forthcoming convention are Richard Dawkins and Robin Ince.  Robin Ince is a multiple award winning comedian best known for co-hosting the international smash hit, BBC Radio 4 and podcast series, The Infinite Monkey Cage, with Professor Brian Cox. He has been the curator and host of some of the most acclaimed live science shows and tours in the UK including Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, Uncaged Monkeys and currently hosts the acclaimed Book Shambles podcast with Josie Long.  Professor Richard Dawkins is the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Honorary Vice President of Humanists UK, and is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. He is an internationally recognised best-selling author, with titles including The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion and The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and one of the speakers who spoke at a previous convention is returning — this is the talk he gave called “How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists”. Dan Barker is a former evangelical preacher, now Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He became a teenage evangelist at age 15, and received a degree in Religion from Azusa Pacific University and was ordained to the ministry by the Standard Community Church, California, in 1975. He preached for 19 years and maintained an ongoing touring musical ministry, including eight years of full-time, cross-country evangelism.  Following five years of reading, Dan gradually outgrew his religious beliefs. He was elected Co-President of the Foundation with Annie Laurie Gaylor in 2004, with whom he is co-host of Freethought Radio, a national weekly talkshow on the Air America network.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and one of the speakers who spoke at a previous convention is returning. Jane Caro is an author, novelist, lecturer, mentor, social commentator, columnist, workshop facilitator, speaker, broadcaster and award winning advertising writer — with the common thread being a delight in words and a talent for using them to connect with other people . Jane’s books include For God’s Sake! An atheist, Christian, Jew and Muslim battle it out co-authored with Antony Lowenstein, Simon Smart and Rachel Woodlock. Other books include The Stupid Country: How Australia is Dismantling Public Education co-authored with Chris Bonnor, The F Word. How we learned to swear by feminism co-authored with Catherine Fox, Just a Girl, What Makes a Good School? co-authored with Chris Bonnor, Just a Queen and plain-speaking jane. This is the talk she gave at the 2010 convention, called The Evil On My Mind. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Global Atheist Convention is returning in 2018 and one of the speakers who spoke at a previous convention is returning — this is the talk she gave called “Atheism or Secularism? Picking our Fights and Watching our Backs”.  Dr Leslie Cannold is a bio-ethicist, researcher, writer, commentator and an Honorary Fellow at the School of Philosophy, Anthropology, & Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne, and lecturer at the Centre for Gender and Medicine at Monash University. She is author of the award-winning The Abortion Myth : Feminism, morality and the hard choices women make and the novel The Book of Rachael. This presentation was made at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Patreon subscribers, there’s further revision questions by heading to www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess.1.Does the claim that “god is dead and we have killed him” have implications for ethical behaviour? Why or why not?2. Does a postmodern perspective result in meaninglessness?3. What should be criteria for leading a meaningful life?4. Dreams and other introspections are irrelevant to our existence and should be dismissed. Discuss.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s episode is the revision on historical philosophers from the past week — you can support the 365DaysOfPhilosophy podcast by visiting www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess and review previous episodes at www.365daysofphilosophy.com. If you can help the show continue, head to: https://www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess Music from Jukedeck — create your own at http://jukedeck.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The challenges of defining postmodernism include how many different disciplines have examples of this school of thought. Film, music, visual arts, literature, even architecture can be classed as having examples of what are a group of theories that rejects Enlightenment modernism, such as objective knowledge, certainty in beliefs such as the power of science and technology, and even that we can understand society and nature at all.  Jean-Francis Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition suggests that it’s a ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, and that while theories like Marxism have been tried and tested, there’s still not a given answer as to how one should view the world. The natural confusion and conflict that you can have about the world is better handled by recognising that there’s localised narratives that recognise different valid perspectives. Other philosophers that have investigated postmodernism include Deluze, Foucault and Baudrillard. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve previously written about Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex and the recently published book At The Existentialist Café- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, but not about Jean-Paul Satre. He was an author of not only philosophical texts but also novels and plays, which have continued to be popular as intellectual sources of debate and entertainment. He began writing in the mid-1930s and became a popular author, particularly with Being and Nothingness, an investigation of consciousness and existence, incorporating the phenomenological method of Husserl. Another work, Nausea, described the sense of distance and uncomfortableness that results from a potentially meaningless and chaotic world, and the aim of a productive existence that results. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Born in Germany, Martin Heidegger was a Continental philosopher who was influenced by the phenomenological theories of his colleague Husserl, and succeeded him as the chair of philosophy at Freiburg. His work Being and Time is considered to be an important philosophical work of the 20th century, looking at ideas about authenticity, temporality, anxiety and existence, particularly concepts of death. He observed that we respond to death differently to other creatures, and this ‘being-towards-death’ is both a challenge and a concern. With a meaningful and authentic life, Heidegger suggests that the acceptance of our mortality is a part of having a resolute existence.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Known for his work on logical investigations and phenomenology, Edmud Husserl originally trained as a mathematician before studying philosophy and becoming a teacher of the subject. You can see how this influences his work; similar to Descartes, he has a methodical approach to thinking and his theory of phenomenology involves careful introspective study of psychological behaviour (such as dreams, thoughts, concepts).  Husserl’s work focuses on how reality appears to us, rather than attempting to ascertain what reality involves. All thought is ‘intentional’, or directed towards some object, leading to the object of thought (or noema) being separate from the act of consciousness (the noesis). Numbers, ideas, all were investigated in order to ascertain the essential and necessary elements of these concepts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“God is dead” is one of the most memorable quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche i— and it’s one that might lead to misinterpretation of his overall philosophy. In The Gay Science, he proposes that there is no rational basis for belief in a deity, and that traditions, institutions and worship has been challenged by developments in science and society. However, he admits that the staying power of religion persists and that there are many that are not reflecting on the philosophical implication of a godless world, and that new values and meaning to life will have to be ascertained. As described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra, this future for humanity will create new opportunities and challenges, which should be embraced, rather than turning back to be a part of the ‘herd’ of superstitions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s episode is the revision on secularism and humanism from the past week — you can support the 365DaysOfPhilosophy podcast by visiting www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess and review previous episodes at www.365daysofphilosophy.com. If you can help the show continue, head to: https://www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess Music from Jukedeck — create your own at http://jukedeck.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a number of recommended podcasts out there on the topic of human rights, some individual episodes and some full programs that you can check out: Pod Rights — Podcasts by the Australian Human Rights Commission Salman Rushdie — Secular Values, Human Rights and Islamism— Point of Inquiry Raimond Gaita on Torture and Tom Sorell on Surveillance— Philosophy Bites The Philosophy of Human Rights — Podcast — Philosophy Now Radio Show The History and Practice of Human Rights BBC4 — Law In Action My Voice Counts 2012 — International Human Rights Day University of Oxford Podcasts on Human Rights Human Rights Watch Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.