Then & Now: Philosophy, History & Politics

Descartes’ Error is a 1994 book by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio which outlines the somatic marker hypothesis, a theory about how the mind and body not only interact, but are indissociable. Damasio argues that those feelings provide what he calls ‘somatic markers’ for the mind that aid decision making. They point us in the right (or wrong) direction.The rationalist or Cartesian view – what Damasio calls the ‘high-reason’ view – suggests that our mind is like a computer. We’re running through all of this incomplete knowledge about the job – the commute, the career prospects, the people, the location, while weighing up the advantages and disadvantages as if its a ledger. But Damasio writes ‘you will lose track. Attention and working memory have a limited capacity.’This is where somatic markers come in. He writes:‘before you apply any kind of cost/benefit analysis to the premises, and before you reason toward the solution of the problem, something quite important happens: When the bad outcome connected with a given response option comes into mind, however fleetingly, you experience an unpleasant gut feeling. Because the feeling is about the body, I gave the phenomenon the technical term somatic state.’He continues:The somatic marker ‘forces attention on the negative outcome to which a given action may lead, and functions as an automated alarm signal which says: Beware the danger ahead if you choose the option which leads to this outcome. The signal may reject, immediately, the negative course of action and thus make you choose among other alternatives.’Somatic markers – the collection of feelings we get from bodily and mental impulses – highlight certain options for us to deliberate while eliminating others. They’re a kind of screening process.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an introduction to Rene Descartes' Meditations. Descartes - born in 1596 - is often considered the father of modern philosophy. He was a radical innovator, completely sweeping away the old and inaugurating a new method – simple, pure, clear, individual thought. He claimed he read very little, and most of his work was in the sciences. When a man asked to see his library he pointed to a half dissected calf. He was primarily a mathematician. He invented the Cartesian coordinates, but today he's mostly remembered for his philosophy.There are two key philosophical works – the Discourse on Method and the Meditations – the latter is a more complete statement of his philosophy.It’s short, it’s reasonably simple, its’ groundbreaking, it’s entertaining. Descartes wants to doubt everything he knows so as to put thought and philosophy on a firm footing; he wants to discover what is certain, indubitable. He is, then focusing exclusively on reason, he’s a rationalist.So, how do we go about discovering what we know to be certain?Cogito Ergo Sum. I think, therefore I am.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the revolutionary thoughts of Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism, who challenged the rigid philosophies of his time. Discover how he proposed a practical approach to knowledge through observation and the scientific method, advocating for starting from specific details to derive broader truths. Learn about his intriguing concept of 'idols' that distort our understanding of truth, as well as his efforts to reform the legal system in 16th-century Britain. Bacon's legacy continues to shape modern scientific thought.

What did Bacon give us? Induction, the scientific method, experimentation, his was a theory of epistemology – a theory about knowledge.He said that knowledge about the world comes from the senses and should be carefully and systematically collected to make use of instrumentally.Ok, so there are two lines of criticism I’d like to discuss today. First, the idols – the idea that knowledge is distorted by human cognition. Second, the idea of discovery, specifically the difference between discovery and creation. My main argument will be that Bacon neglected the subjective element in epistemology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modernity is many things. Urbanization, industrialization, technologization. At its simplest, it’s a project of supposed improvement, science, and progress. As a project, then, modernity seeks to expand itself. If improvements can be made, they should be made.Exploration was at the heart of the modern expansionist drive that began in earnest in the 17th century. But why then? Why not before? What shifts in psychology led to this new attitude in Europe about an unexplored world?We can sometimes see shifts in the most unexpected places.In the early modern period, philosophers like Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith, began to reinterpret morality as the pursuit of pleasure, power, and profit. In 1747 Jean-Jacques Burlham wrote that ‘Now let man reflect but ever so little on himself, he will soon perceive that everything he does is with a view of happiness’. By 1776, Adam Smith could write that “It is not from the benevolence (kindness) of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."Since, the scientific revolution it was beginning to be assumed that human nature was calculable, scientific, had simple principles, that people act in rational and predictable ways.Happiness, pleasure, utility, whatever it was, was pursued, stored up, or, to use a word that the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham invented in 1817, maximized. How did this have an effect on world history? On the mentalities and psychology of people in the West.We explore the links between modern philosophy and British Imperial, particularly through William Dalrymple’s book on the rise of the East India Company and the decline of the Mughal Empire – the Anarchy.The history looks at the life of the megalomaniacal Robert Clive, the idea of Gentlemanly Capitalism, theories of Imperialism, and, most horrifyingly, the Great Indian Bengal Famine of 1770, where a third of the population of Bengal died.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do we deal with coronavirus? I look at the 'Great Barrington Declaration' - a group of scientists against lockdowns - and the history of how science is always political.The Declaration has been signed by over 20,000 medical practitioners and scientists, including Professor Sunetra Gupta from Oxford.There are some problems, though. First, anyone can sign the form – a look through the signatures reveals signatures from Johnny Bananas and the notorious serial killer, Dr. Harold Shipman.But the so-called Great Barrington Declaration event was also hosted by a libertarian think-tank funded by multi-billionaires including the Koch Brothers. But this doesn’t immediately delegitimize their position.Another letter signed by Professor Gupta said:‘Any objective should be framed more broadly than COVID itself. To place all weight on reducing deaths from COVID fails to consider the complex trade-offs that occur: (i) with in any healthcare system; and (ii) between healthcare, society and the economy.’How do we make sense of this? I take a tour through history from the Scientific Revolution and Isaac Newton through to today's COVID-19 lockdown science to find out.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I look at the thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, his anarchism, his mutualism, and his theory of politics. Proudhon was the first self-declared anarchist. He wrote What is Property in 1840. He was not a wide-ranging and difficult writer, he wasn’t a system builder, he was critical of utopianisms, and was fascinated with contradictions.For Proudhon, The ideal society was a contractual one – where individuals are free to arrange their relationships under conditions of justice. But for justice to flourish, its laws had to be known to all.The tension between liberty and order is always at the heart of Proudhon’s politics.He intended his mutualist philosophy to be an approach to political life that could be a ‘synthesis of the notions of private property and collective ownership,’ a synthesis of liberty and order.Both private property and collective ownership had major flaws; so what could the solution be?As we saw in What is Property? Justice is at the heart of the solution.fairness, right, morality, should be the premise of economic, social and political arrangements.But at the same time, Proudhon argued that the only law people should follow is the law they choose for themselves. Why would people voluntarily follow any law? And where would it come from?I look at his views on anarchism, communism, the labor theory of value, and contracts to find out.I find some answers in his work 'General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century' and 'What is Property?'Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's 1840 book, What is Property?Pierre Joseph Proudhon was the first self-declared anarchist. He wrote What is Property in 1840. He was not a wide-ranging and difficult writer, he wasn’t a system builder, he was critical of utopianisms, and was fascinated with contradictions.For Proudhon, The ideal society was a contractual one – where individuals are free to arrange their relationships under conditions of justice. But for justice to flourish, its laws had to be known to all.Proudhon looks at the justifications for property - occupation and labor - and argues that they both really only justify possession.Proudhon ultimately argues that all possession has a dual nature. A part that is ours by virtue of needing it for the flourishing of our own liberty, and a part that is society’s who have contributed to its value, and still has a right to it based on need. Another way of saying this might be that everything is only borrowed.His theory of property can be summed up by his phrase:‘‘The right to product is exclusive – jus in re ; ¬the right to means is common – jus ad rem’Proudhon is one of the most important figures in the history of socialist and radical thought.As George Woodcock writes he argues that ‘property is incompatible with justice, because in practice in represents the exclusion of the worker from his equal rights to enjoy the fruits of society.'Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An introduction and overview of the British/Latvian philosopher, Isaiah Berlin's 1958 classic lecture on Two Concepts of Liberty.Berlin thought that where philosophers, politicians, and commentators had talked about the idea of freedom as one definable concept, throughout the history of modern thought you could identify two different ideas about what freedom or liberty meant.He called them negative and positive liberty. And in short, they’re the freedom from, and the freedom to. Negative freedom is the freedom from coercion, interference, authority.But positive liberty, he writes, 'derives from the desire on the part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and my decisions to depend on myself and not on external forces of whatever kind.’It’s the desire to Self-directed, self-determined, independent, competent; it's the the will to self-mastery, to autonomy. I want to be the master of my own life, to choose for myself.I also look briefly at critiques, including Gerald MacCallum's triadic formulation of liberty.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his 1977 essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, Michel Foucault criticizes the traditional historical method and makes an argument for why a ‘genealogical’ approach is important. But what is genealogy?It’s a history of us. Of the attitudes and dispositions we embody today. The way we approach and do things. These things often seem like they don’t have a history, that they’re human nature. That they’re normal, eternal, unchangeable. Genealogy attempts to uncover how they’ve changed over time – how there are different ways of approaching them. It uncovers how they’re not the way they are because they’ve gradually improved; they’re not part of an inevitable linear progression through history. They’re contingent.Genealogy often examines attitudes, beliefs, presuppositions. – Morality, discipline, sexuality. It addresses a traditional history that assumes simple movement forward over time. It draws out, uncovers, and critically examines the origins of a specific conception of what’s morally good, or the source of a particular way of disciplining societal criminality, or the genesis of attitudes about what it means to be a feminine woman.Foucault is influenced by Nietzsche, the first person to show that morality – our ideas of what’s good and bad - has a history, has changed over time.He is searching for the 'origins' of the genealogical method in Nietzsche.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.