A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Philosophy

  • What kind of equality?

    Following up a bit on this post, in his book Morals, Reason, and Animals, philosopher S.F. Sapontzis has a helpfully clear discussion of just what animal liberationists are and are not claiming when they talk about “equal rights” for animals. First, animal liberationists do not claim that animals do, or should, have all the same Read more

  • Unnecessary roughness

    John Schwenkler, who blogs here, wrote, in a comment to this post: [It’s] hard to see [given what I characterized as the “traditional” view of our place in the cosmic scheme of things — ed.] why we, unlike other animals, should be under an absolute (or even less than absolute) obligation not to consume members Read more

  • The progress delusion

    It’s become commonplace to observe that atheism can display many of the same traits as the religions it criticzes, but British political thinker John Gray is a master of exploring the quasi-religious themes in the myth-making of secular modernity, something he’s done for everything from communism, to global capitalism, to human uniqueness, to the idea Read more

  • Spinoza on Christ

    This post from Brandon on Benedict (a.k.a. Baruch) Spinoza’s views on the person of Jesus is really interesting. I spent a lot of time as an undergrad reading Spinoza and even considered myself a “Spinozist” of sorts for a while. It served as a stepping stone from atheism to theism. Read more

  • “A refuge from insignificance”

    For those for whom life means action, the world is a stage on which to enact their dreams. Over the past few hundred years, at least in Europe, religion has waned, but we have not become less obsessed with imprinting a human meaning on things. A thin secular idealism has become the dominant attitude to Read more

  • John Gray contra humanism

    Over the weekend I started reading John Gray’s Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. Gray, a British political philosopher, has gone from being a free-market Thatcherite to a critic of global capitalism to a proponent of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. If there is a connecting thread here it’s Gray’s resolute opposition to utopianism Read more

  • Flew’s conversion – greatly exaggerated?

    I blogged last week about a new book published by British philosopher and atheist-turned-deist Antony Flew which supposedly details his newfound belief in God (or at least a god of some kind). Now, via Ross Douthat, I see there’s some legitimate reason to think that Flew, apparently in declining health and mental acuity, may have Read more

  • October reading notes

    A smattering of theology, philosophy, and even some fiction this month: The Environment and Christian Ethics by Michael Northcott. This is part of Cambridge University Press’s “New Studies in Christian Ethics” series. Northcott is (at least at the time of this book’s publication) a lecturer in theology at the University of Edinburgh. This text is Read more

  • The old new atheism

    Philosopher Antony Flew, a longtime atheist, made headlines a couple years ago when he admitted that he had become convinced of the existence of God. He’s now published a book setting out in detail his reasons for changing his mind in detail. Flew hasn’t to my knowledge become a Christian or any other kind of Read more

  • Subversive slowness

    Here’s a lovely essay by Rebecca Solnit on “slowness [as] an act of resistance” to the cult of efficiency, speed, innovation, and techno-mastery. (Via James Poulos @ the American Scene) Read more