Monthly Archives: May 2012

Whenever I want to test my knowledge of a subject, I’ve started using the following thought experiment: I imagine myself to be designing the syllabus for a course on the topic. I imagine my audience to be high school students … Continue reading →

Highly recommended secondary source for understanding Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Elizabeth Anscombe was Wittgenstein’s favourite student and has translated a great deal of his works from German into English (although Wittgenstein lectured at Cambridge in English, his writings were all in German, his … Continue reading →

I almost ended up doing a paper on the problem of personal identity, but ended up getting distracted by the controversy surrounding Wittgenstein’s theory of objects instead. Until I’ve worked out my thoughts on the problem of personal identity, I … Continue reading →

I was thinking about this the other day: It seems that we see a teleology in nature. So, like, birds migrate for the sake of surviving seasonal change. What I mean here is that their natural behaviour (migration) ensures their … Continue reading →

The following explains the concept of time in Aristotle. It is a section from a larger work in progress on the subject of time.     Aristotle begins his inquiry into time by saying: To attack the subject of time … Continue reading →

In Being and Time, Heidegger inquires into the meaning of human existence. What is unique about his approach to the question is his method: phenomenology. Like Husserl, Heidegger is interested in finding the basic structures of human experience. Unlike Husserl, however, … Continue reading →

In dealing with the topic of technology, Heidegger is concerned with a certain danger we face in the modern age. This danger threatens to monopolize thebasis upon which we understand our world, ourselves, and thinking. Heidegger’s argument is tied to what … Continue reading →

In the following, we are reading alongside Aristotle in his Physics: Book IV, Chapter 10. Aristotle begins his approach to time by reviewing the things currently said on the subject. He then shows, through argument, why each of the things said prove to … Continue reading →

In the “modern” age, people seem to be saying a lot of things about time, and for the most part these are scientists who come across rather eristically and dogmatically. Although the assertions made today about time may very well … Continue reading →

From the newly founded city of Velia came Parmenides, who was probably born a generation after the founding of the city. His poem is probably the most philosophically significant presocratic text. Charles Kahn points out that it is “the earliest … Continue reading →