Can Computers Have Knowledge?

Friday, November 7th, 2008

I just handed in my final essay for philosophy looking at something close to my geek heart. I decided to approach the topic of artificial intelligence (a deprecated term now but still has meaning in the public mind at least) from an epistemological angle. Epistemology? That is ...

She blinded me with science

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Scientists think they're so smart with their white coats and clip-boards but what do they really know? Here are my notes from reading Macquarrie: "Cognition" [from: In Search of Humanity] as part of my Philosophy course. Empiricism is too narrow, that's the idea that everything we know can be neatly packaged as ...

Monty Python’s Philosophy Song

Monday, September 15th, 2008

Some thinking music while I write some philosophy assessment.

Love and Other Catastrophes

Monday, September 15th, 2008

This week's "Philosopher's Zone":http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2008/2359132.htm was a bit different: they featured a recording from the Melbourne Writers Festival of Jeanette Kennett discussing the topic of Love in Philosophy. Her opening anecdote was quite funny and the whole talk is worth your time: bq. ...I discovered [the following] a few months ago ...

The Philosophy of Sexuality

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Some rather shallow notes on our set philosophy reading from week 6: Gatens, Moira. "Sexual Difference or Sexual Equality". Gender has been ignored in philosophy until very recently. Gatens discusses how some influential philosophy can be reapplied with gender in mind to show that women's femininity is socially constructed. In philosophy ...

The Philosopher’s Zone

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Since I'm enjoying studying philosophy so much, I've tuned into the podcast of Radio National's "Philosopher's Zone":http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/. I've been surprised by philosophy because I thought it would be highly abstract (which it can be) but didn't realise how much it has to do with just being a person and ...

Blogging Issues

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

I had intended to blog more about the philosophy I'm studying which has been very thought provoking and all that but I have the problem that part of the assessment for this course is that I must hand in 500 word reflections on some of the set readings which is ...

The Philosophy of Philosophy

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

If Philosophy is the art of asking "Why?" then the first natural question to ask when starting to study the field is "Why?" Why study Philosophy? Our first weeks readings in my course have offered some reasons for studying philosophy. Both of the authors felt the need to defend ...

“Why?” and Other Intractable Questions

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

Last night was my first lecture in a Philosophy subject I'm studying this semester. I usually enjoy first lectures in a subject because it seems to be when the lecturer is fresh and keen to inspire the students to be interested in the topic so I get to invibe ...