Provokateur

Provokateur t1_j0vjozb wrote

It this is saying most people hold irrational beliefs, obviously yes. Everyone already knew that.

It's it's saying all political beliefs are irrational, that's clearly not true.

The articles references a few folks who actually say interesting things, but none of it makes it into the article.

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Provokateur t1_iz0pmkp wrote

Are you saying death should be eliminated?

That'd be nice, but there's no currently conceivable way that will ever happen. What you're suggesting is that people might live longer. But the difference between dying at 80 vs. dying at 200 is the same as the difference between dying at 40 vs. dying at 80. Death is still inevitable, and still needs to be coped with.

I feel like you either have a massive blindspot or you're just trying verbal gymnastics to trick yourself into an argument you know is wrong.

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Provokateur t1_iwfde7m wrote

Ah yes, Sam Harris, Stephen Pinker, and Michael Shermer--the leading voices at the forefront of moral philosophy!

I would summarize the article "Three people who never studied moral philosophy said that science can solve moral problems. So scientists should do that. How, you ask? Aristotle or something."

I would be shocked if whoever wrote this has even taken Phil 101. There are many folks studying experimental philosophy and a lot of cool work is coming out of that area. But it's clear this author has never even heard of it.

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Provokateur t1_iwfcd4q wrote

Haha, I was thinking "Come on, that's just a bad misreading of Aristotle and has been widely refuted for 2,000 years."

Then I saw it was from Ayn Rand (an Aristotelean who never seriously studied philosophy and is best known--in philosophy--for butchering Aristotle and pretty much everyone else she wrote about).

Ya, that checks out.

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Provokateur t1_iqsnkgd wrote

No one knows. No one has found a pronunciation guide from ancient Greece (and even if we did, it would be written in a language we didn't know how to pronounce, so it wouldn't help) and obviously we don't have audio recordings.

I've taken a few graduate classes in Classical philosophy, and in each the professor said that we don't have the correct pronunciation of terms, so we should just say it phonetically or however we prefer.

What matters is what Thomas More intended in the 16th century, which other comments speak to.

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Provokateur t1_iqsmdmt wrote

We don't know how classic Greek or Latin were pronounced. Because, you know, we don't have audio recordings from 400 BCE. All we have is what it's transitioned into through 2000 years of gradual changes.

Maybe church Latin is pronounced like that, or Italian, but that doesn't tell us much about classical Greek or Latin pronunciation.

What matters is what Thomas More had in mind, which--as the comment above you points out--was intentionally ambiguous.

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