By Chris Dick|2022-01-27T13:09:48-05:00January 27th, 2022|Categories: Ourselves|Tags: argument, beliefs, critical thinking, debate, philosophy|
In our journey upriver to wisdom, we are confronted with the shoals and shallows of bias, authority, emotion, fallacy and conventional wisdom. To navigate these potential perils and credibly argue our positions, it is important to understand four pillars upon which our beliefs are built -- authority, intuition, results, reason.
By Chris Dick|2022-01-25T15:50:41-05:00February 23rd, 2021|Categories: Ourselves|Tags: happiness, meaning, philosophy|
A Meditation on Happiness Vital Powers. Excellence. Scope. I have always believed that happiness will elude you if you seek it too directly, too face-on. It seems to me that ‘happiness’ is a by-product of meaningful activity, acquired the way the British acquired their Empire - in a fit of absence of mind. Let’s go through the side door and define ‘meaningful activity,’ a somewhat less slippery concept than happiness. My favorite words on this subject come from those ancient Greeks, and they loosely translate as follows, “The Good Life requires the [...]
By Chris Dick|2020-10-26T12:02:31-04:00October 26th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: consensus, debate, logic, opinions, philosophy, post-truth|
Consensus in a Post-Truth World What Happens When We Don't Examine Our Opinions? Imagine you’re in the Louvre with your crew. The six of you have fought your way through the politely manic Japanese photographers, and you are all staring at the Mona Lisa. Do you all see the same thing? This question has perplexed philosophers for a very long time. I used to think it didn’t matter much. The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose prose style made many graduate students weep bitter tears, tells us that all we have of [...]
By Chris Dick|2020-10-06T18:01:56-04:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: books, employment, future, philosophy, UBI, work|
The Coming Employment Shift What Happens When Work is Not Needed? I like to think I have a philosophical temperament. What does that mean? Well, among other things, it implies a capacity for detachment, for viewing the daily hustle and the short-term bustle from a distance, the birds-eye view. The Latin term for this is ‘sub specie aeternitatis,’ which means ‘from the aspect of eternity.’ Now I am not a philosopher. If I were, I would be spending most of my time wrestling with the Big Questions. You know, the questions we [...]
By Chris Dick|2020-05-07T07:53:18-04:00May 7th, 2020|Categories: Ourselves|Tags: beauty, observations, philosophy|
A Tale of Two Lawns Aristotle Made Me Not Do It On my morning walk today I found myself stopping and staring at two lawns, and it made me think of Aristotle. (Please stifle your barbed witticisms, I already know I’m odd.) The two lawns were side-by-side -- one was your conventional, vigorously clipped piece of grass, its neighbour had been allowed to go completely wild, and was a tangle of dandelions, grasses gone to seed, various healthy weeds and the occasional wild flower and leftover random tulip. The wild lawn was rather off [...]
