What are your thoughts on machines that can predict what you're going to do in the next five minutes? Do you think that everything that happens now in the universe was causally determined by some event(s) that happened before it? When professional philosophers check people's intuitions it looks as though sometimes people generally agree that we have free will even if the Continue Reading …
Discuss Free Will (John Searle, Sam Harris) with Not School
In light of the most recent PEL episode, we folks in PEL's Not School will be holding a discussion on free will this month through next month. Some of the conversation will be continuous with and complementary to the PEL guys' discussion as well as perhaps raise other issues. For the remainder of this month, we'll be reading John Searle's essay "Freedom as a Problem in Continue Reading …
Win $20k from Sam Harris
Think back a few years. If you frequented The Partially Examined Life during that time, you’ll remember the heated debate inspired by Sam Harris’s The Moral Landscape (TML). The arguments in posts and comment sections across the blogosphere eventually took on a particularly impressive rancor. The ambient controversy helped land Harris on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Continue Reading …
Contemporary Neuroscience and Free Will
Contemporary neuroscience is not a challenge to free will, according to Eddy Nahmias: Most scientists who discuss free will say the story has an unhappy ending—that neuroscience shows free will to be an illusion. I call these scientists “willusionists.” ... Willusionists say that neuroscience demonstrates that we are not the authors of our own stories but more like puppets Continue Reading …
New Atheist Episode Thoughts: Skepoet, Harris on Faith, Politics and Religion
A "University Lecturer living in South Korea" calling himself Skepoet responded here to our episode. He gives a nice quote from Julian Baggini and makes some salient points about our discussion. One of his comments was that we didn't seem to find an argument in Harris to critique. Here's the argument as I remember it that we were focusing on: If you suspend your critical Continue Reading …
Episode 44: New Atheist Critiques of Religion (Citizens Only)
Discussing selections from Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel C. Dennett. Should we be religious, or is religion just a bunch of superstitious nonsense that it's past time for us to outgrow? Does faith lead to ceding to authority and potential violence? Can a reasonable person be religious? We say lots of rude things about these authors, and at Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 44: New Atheist Critiques of Religion
This is a 32-minute preview a vintage 1 hr, 50-minute episode. Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and Continue Reading …
Topic for #44: “New Atheism”
We have long promised to more systematically cover these guys who generate so much fun sniping on our blog here, and as of last Sunday, the full as-of-now-regular podcaster lineup (myself, Seth, Wes, and Dylan; we will still have some guests on, though) recorded a discussion of: -The first two chapters of Sam Harris's The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Continue Reading …
What is a Philosophical Explanation?
On some comments to a recent post by Mark on Sam Harris and the ought/is distinction, I noted that Harris assumes that "happiness" (or "flourishing") is an un-problematic concept -- a well-established ruler against which one can easily measure the success or failure of behaviors. Hence when he claims that science can tell us what is right and wrong -- by telling us what makes Continue Reading …
Sam Harris on the Is/Ought Distinction
Sam Harris got a lot of grief on our Churchland episode. Whatever the difficulties that Churchland (and allegedly Hume) may have with the is/ought distinction, Harris provides a much easier target for this kind of criticism. Here's Harris specifically responding (starting around 1:40) to the is/ought distinction: "a firewall between facts and values in our Continue Reading …
Defending Religion from the Left (Jackson Lears on Sam Harris)
Historian Jackson Lears has an interesting attack on Sam Harris in The Nation. I'm not endorsing everything in this everything-but-the-kitchen sink assault (on both Harris' religious and moral theories), but it's interesting and worth a read. -- Wes Continue Reading …
The Pernicious Influence of Scientism
Alright, Mark has successfully baited me into a response on the issue of scientism. I should begin by saying that Mark has an interesting reading of Dennet that makes him out not to be a reductionist (as I and many others interpret him). I won't address that here; I'm more interested in the general question of the influence of scientism on well-educated, intellectually curious Continue Reading …
Science Cannot Ground Morality. But Robots Can
Youtube. Via Massimo Pigliucci, this gives us a nice overview of the fundamental objection to Sam Harris' notion that moral questions can be decided by the empirical sciences. Wes Alwan Continue Reading …
Simon Blackburn vs Sam Harris: Can Science Tell us Right from Wrong?
In a debate with Patricia Churchland, Peter Singer, Sam Harris, and Lawrence Krauss, Simon Blackburn explains why Harris simply has it wrong on whether science can provide substantive guidance on morality: https://youtu.be/qtH3Q54T-M8 There is no doubt, he notes, that "science can inform our values" (and I would add that this goes trivially for many other types of Continue Reading …
Sam Harris on the Daily Show
Wes has posted about this previously, but I wanted to give this more thought after seeing Sam Harris (introduced at the top of the show not as a philosopher but as a "professional atheist") on the Daily Show a couple of days back. You can see the interview here. As is typical for a short interview like this, not enough gets conveyed about Harris's point for the viewer to Continue Reading …
Armstrong on Dawkins and Harris
This is a follow up to my last post, which you should look at the comments on for some good comments by Wes. I've now read the part in Armstrong where she addresses Dawkins directly (from p. 304 of "The Case for God"): For Dawkins, religious faith rests on the idea that "there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence, who deliberately designed and created the universe Continue Reading …
Julian Baggini’s Philosophy Monthly – the PEL review
So Mark stole my thunder with his post about AC Grayling, as I was preparing my thoughts about Julian Baggini's regular podcast, Baggini's Philosophy Monthly. Nonetheless, even though Mark hates and wants to upstage me, I will proceed with my ramblings. I found and started listening to Baggini's podcast towards the end of last year and was able to reel off a series of Continue Reading …