Brezhnev syndrome and why we’re bad at understanding others
People unlike us Understanding others is hard. It’s so hard that we default to very simple heuristics when doing so. The easiest one is empathy. We have pretty good access
Tag: philosophy
Knowledge without aboutness
Nearest I can figure, we live in a world that unfolds according to locality. Take the strongest results in physics. The only nonlocal effect is quantum entanglement. Even then, it’s
Perspective: the only illusion
To understand the world as usefully as possible, we need to go beyond the first-person perspective — not to achieve the third-person perspective or “view from nowhere,” but to achieve a
#57 On the key (and lock) to knowledge
Dear Mat, This is a long letter but I feel we’ve alighted on a fundamental, multifaceted philosophical difference and it’s what I’ve been researching full time for several years so I’ve
Deduction, subjectivity & culture are all real enough
People and philosophers tend to get bogged down in binary oppositions like objective vs subjective, nature vs culture and inductive vs deductive knowledge. Continental philosophers tend to complicate such binaries, trying
The philosophy of mathematics: interesting
In fact it’s a fascinating topic and one that I’m weirdly obsessed with, so much so that when some friends decided to form a quarterly essay club I decided to
Left, Right and Centre
Over the summer of 2012-13 Jamie produced a concept show for 2XX FM in Canberra. Each week a pair of guests from the same political orientation discussed a big political-philosophical idea. We tried to
Faking It With Freestone: Political Philosophy
Here’s the scenario: you’re at a party and some pol-sci nerd, or B.Econ wonk busts out a libertarian screed that demolishes one of the many institutions you hold dear in