Category Archives: Philosophy

A Hierarchy of Human Needs

Posted on Saturday 6 March 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Like the hierarchy of morality (discussed here), this one is not mine. It’s an idea first proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. Wikipedia has this entry about it. It runs like this, from the most basic:

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Link and Comments: Dawkins, via Coyne, on Science and Truth

Posted on Saturday 19 December 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Today Jerry Coyne’s site (even though it’s a blog, with chronological posts every day, sometimes several a day, he’s obstinate about not calling it a blog, but a site) links an article by Richard Dawkins at the UK magazine The … Continue reading →

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Principles and Moral Guidelines, Update

Posted on Saturday 7 November 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

I polished my Principles page today, tightening a bit, and adding a section at the end listing my favorite alternatives to the Biblical Ten Commandments.

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Notes for the Book: Simplex, Complex, Multiplex

Posted on Thursday 21 May 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Several themes are starting to gel, so perhaps I’ll record some of my current thoughts as they now stand. Just the act of writing a blog post helps me organize and clarify them. I still find myself learning: almost every … Continue reading →

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Bertrand Russell: Why I Am Not a Christian: Summary and Comments

Posted on Thursday 14 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a famous essay/lecture by one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers. I first read the book containing this essay in 1979, when I was 23; I was thrilled to find someone so eminent unapologetically spell out the … Continue reading →

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More on the Enlightenment and Its Critics

Posted on Saturday 4 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

An essay by Damon Linker at The Week. (I’ve seen Linker’s work on various website for years; he’s an interesting commentator, though one perhaps without any consistent philosophy; he seems to enjoy playing the contrarian role.) The Enlightenment’s legacy is … Continue reading →

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Thought Leaders

Posted on Saturday 28 January 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple days ago I was dipping into Peter Singer’s latest book, Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter, and saw him mention something about his being a “thought leader” according to some German outfit … Continue reading →

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Sean Carroll, THE BIG PICTURE

Posted on Friday 3 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Sean Carroll’s THE BIG PICTURE: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, just published May 10th, is an ambitious, wide-ranging book not so much about cosmology (Carroll’s specialty at CalTech), as about the perspective we gain through … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Evolution, Heinlein, Human Progress, Meaning, Morality, Philosophy, Physics, Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Ten Commandments | Comments Off on Sean Carroll, THE BIG PICTURE

Oliver Sacks, GRATITUDE

Posted on Wednesday 6 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

An even shorter book than Rovelli’s, this is a collection of four short essays written by the neurologist and author after learning he had only a few months left to live, all of which originally appeared in the New York … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Susan Jacoby; Erasure; Boars and the Sixth Extinction; Jerry Brown and Jean-Pierre Dupuy

Posted on Tuesday 9 February 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

From last Sunday’s papers, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. » NYT: Susan Jacoby: Sick and Tired of ‘God Bless America’ Well, of course; this is someone daring to point out the obvious, mostly unmentioned privilege that … Continue reading →

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