"I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones."
posted by scrim on Dec 1, 2004 - 31 comments

I've seen it happen where these types of managers have the nerve to hold this type of book up in front of a group of people and imply the problem is the workforce for not choosing to be happy about poor leadership. From an Amazon review of Fish!. I've been motivated with that twice. A friend of mine was encouraged to take The Flight of the Buffalo and another is going to a sponsored Dale Carnegie class. So, who's moved your cheese?
posted by pieoverdone on Jul 26, 2004 - 55 comments

"Jesus?" he murmured, "Jesus -- of Nazareth?..." Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea, is the only historical figure named in the Nicene Creed -- Coptic saint or eternally damned, his role in the greatest story ever told has been debated by many of history's greatest minds: St Augustine, Dante Alighieri, Tintoretto, John Ruskin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Monty Python. Unfortunately, there is very little historical evidence about him. His role in the death of a certain charismatic Galilean healer and apocalyptic preacher is still being debated today by theologians and historians alike. He is also, of course, the main character of The Procurator of Judea, the classic short story (complete text in main link) by Anatole France. (France's magnificent story has lately been tragically neglected by publishers, even if the author was one of his era's most acclaimed writers in the world -- he won the Nobel Prize in 1921 over Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Proust, and when he died in 1924, hundreds of thousands of people followed his funeral procession through Paris). These last 2,000 years of fascination with Pilatus can be explained, some argue... (more inside, for those unwilling to wash their hands of this post)
posted by matteo on Jun 24, 2004 - 37 comments

Many members of the Bush administration have strong ties to philosopher Leo Strauss. Can this representation of his views be accurate? ... Strauss believed that he alone had recovered the true, hidden message contained in the "Great Tradition" of philosophy ... that there are no gods, that morality is ungrounded prejudice, and that society is not grounded in nature. (This Times profile doesn't make him sound as creepy, but is vague about his actual ideas.)
posted by lbergstr on May 7, 2003 - 18 comments

Guide for Becoming a Modern Day Philosopher 12 essential techniques.
posted by Voyageman on Jan 4, 2003 - 13 comments

Putting The Wit Back Into Wittgenstein: Here's an impeccable satire, involving fog-like sensations, apparently written by the ever-witty Michael Frayn and featured in David Chalmers's magnificent collection of philosophical humour. Although it was clearly written and compiled by and for academic philosophers, most pieces will cause chuckling in anyone with even a very basic knowledge of philosophy. Among its many delights, the Jerry Springer parody and the Philosofighter game give some idea of the range and downright funniness of this richly uneducational resource, so deserving of a wider audience.
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jul 6, 2002 - 8 comments

My favorite living philosopher of late has been Daniel Dennett. His Consciousness Explained offers an ambitiously complete theory of consciousness, and miraculously manages to synthesize philosophy with neuropsychology without sacrificing the benefits of phenomenological inquiry -- a feat which manifests itself in his Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, the website of which offers a dizzying array of online articles. (An especially interesting sample: "Did HAL Commit Murder?") Finally, he was the founding author of The Philosophical Lexicon, a compendium of in-jokes obscure enough to please the nerdiest philosophy major.
posted by tweebiscuit on Jan 18, 2002 - 33 comments

Deconstructing Deconstructionism: "It is based on the proposition that the apparently real world is in fact a vast social construct and that the way to knowledge lies in taking apart in one’s mind this thing society has built." (via Reductio ad Absurdum)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 29, 2001 - 46 comments

Are there limits to Freedom? Liberty means responsibility, said Betty Knowles Hunt in 1951. "The answer, and the only answer, is for all of us to educate ourselves to the responsibilities as well as to the benefits of freedom. Perhaps as a people, we are not morally strong enough to be free. If that is the case, then we shall certainly lose our freedom, and it will not matter much what "ism" supplants Americanism. But this will not prove that our free way of life was not the best way. It will only prove that we were not worthy of it. " What a spoil sport. Best sell the SUV, eh?
posted by RichLyon on Aug 25, 2001 - 6 comments

There is something further to be said on the issue of disagreement. If two people find that there are arguments on both sides that are both very compelling, maybe that renders the answer to the question what is right and wrong indeterminate. Maybe there isn’t a clear answer. [via SciTech Daily]
posted by rushmc on Aug 3, 2001 - 10 comments

Frank Butcher's Philosophical Car Lot (via NTK; too good not to share). Features the Eminem/Butcher 'My Name Is...' on MP3.
posted by Mocata on Sep 26, 2000 - 0 comments

Philosophy in Cyberspace and Politics.com are wealths of information. Visit them if you want a complete bio of either Hatch or Hegel, Bradley or Baudrillard.
posted by tdecius on Nov 2, 1999 - 0 comments