Student Essays and Chat GTP
The advent of Chat GTP creates new problems in the classroom. What will educators to about it? Irina Dumitrescu explores the question.
Student Essays and Chat GTP Read More »
The advent of Chat GTP creates new problems in the classroom. What will educators to about it? Irina Dumitrescu explores the question.
Student Essays and Chat GTP Read More »
Now that all the celebrations are over and we’ve cleaned up after the party, everyone at firstphilosophy.ca is counting down the days until PI
Catherine Hundleby, a friend of firstphilosophy.ca and one of our earliest contributors, has died. Catherine was a fine philosopher and better person. Her TEDx
Argument and Civility Read More »
Six unlikely friends, romance, snappy, funny dialogue, and… loads of philosophy. The Good Place has an unusual combination of elements for network television, but
Philosophy on Television: The Good Place Read More »
Long before the advent of modern computers, even before electricity was harnessed to power the kind of circuitry that makes large-scale computational processing possible,
Mediaeval and Modern Roots of Computers Read More »
The range of respectable lives for Seventeenth Century women in Europe was sharply restricted. As a young woman Gabrielle Suchon had two options available
Gabrielle Suchon, Seventeenth Century Feminist Read More »
Reitter, Paul & Chad Wellmon, Permanent Crisis: This work argues that the narrative that the humanities are in crisis is not new. This complaint
What provokes us to laugh? Aristotle dropped some hints about laughter and comedy in what remains of his Poetics, but the account of Comic
Laughing Matters: But how? Read More »
One way to combat mis-information and dis-information is to reinforce good information with patiently explained evidence. But according to Ilana Redstone, the deeper problem
What makes misinformation stick? Certainty Read More »
Detectable traces of philosophical influence are evident in the maneuvers of both Vladimir Putin and NATO. Santiago Zabala and Claudio Gallo help make sense
Philosophers informing sides in the Ukraine Read More »
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism: Plato defined philosophy as the love of wisdom. Philosophers ever since have quested for the Truth. Sextus Empiricus suggests
Outlines of Pyrrhonism Read More »
Economists often venerate Adam Smith’s monumental Wealth of Nations (1776) as the Newtonian origin of their discipline. Smith’s memorable image of an invisible hand
Economics & Human Sympathetic Faculties Read More »
Unlike Archimedes — who made one of his defining discoveries in a single flash, a Eureka moment — Darwin’s hypothesis about natural selection emerged
The evolution of evolutionary theory Read More »
“BS!”, like “bull!”, “crap!”, “humbug!”, “buncome!” and similar expressions, can seriously damn a rival’s claim or their personal authority. It can also serve as
Remarkably, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch graduated from Oxford within a few years of each other in the 1930s. Each
Four Formidable Women Philosophers Read More »
Saving Private Ryan (1998, directed by Steven Spielberg): In addition to being an action movie set in World War II, this film is a
Saving Private Ryan Read More »
Plato, Symposium: This is one of Plato’s literary masterpieces, along with the Republic. It contains several speeches on the nature of love given by
Theodor Lessing–controversialist, satirist, and spur to Nazi flanks–fled Germany in early 1933 to Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. He foresaw danger on the horizon in his native
Theodor Lessing – prophet, outcast, & anti-Nazi Read More »
Since ancient times, readers have recognized that the dogs, foxes, lions, ants, grasshoppers, and other creatures in Aesop’s fables represent features or types of
Nature and Human Nature in Aesop’s Fables Read More »
To combat the corrosive affects of contemporary cynicism implicit in the ineffectual carping that has so many people feeling defeated these days, Arthur C.
Ancient Cynicism, ancient philosophy for contemporary life Read More »
Edith Hall and Ansgar Allen are interviewed by Tom Sutcliffe on BBC’s “Start of the Week”. Edith Hall talks about the value of reading
Ancient Philosophy, Classical Education, & Class Read More »
In 1996, Richard Rorty delivered a series of lectures at the University of Girona in Catalonia, Spain. By then, Rorty had long turned away
Pragmatism or Philosophy? Countering authoritarianism Read More »
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus is an ambitious reconsideration of what philosophy is and what it can accomplish. A previous item on First Philosophy celebrates
The Centenary of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Read More »
Bhagavad Gita: The Bhagavad Gita begins with a moral dilemma: should Arjuna the great warrior, fight a fratricidal war and kill members of his extended
David Haig, From Darwin to Derrida: From Darwin to Derrida (2020) is a roller-coaster ride for intrepid thinkers. Dawkins (1976) introduced the endlessly productive
From Darwin to Derrida Read More »
It’s a tantalizing idea that dates back to the parable of the cave in Plato’s Republic VII: a special perspective unclouded by the illusions
“Take the Red Pill” Read More »
Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a bold experiment in literary form and expression, in addition to being a monumental work of 20th Century philosophy.
Philosophy as Poetry – Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus Read More »
Two different ancient schools called themselves “skeptical”, the Academic Skeptics and the Pyrrhonian Skeptics. Both expressed fundamental doubts about the possibility of human knowledge.
Pyrrhonian Skepticism, an ancient school for contemporary life Read More »
What is knowledge? How much can we know? And how do we know anything? One major field of philosophy is the study of knowledge,
Contemporary theories of knowledge Read More »
Being a rational agent is difficult. But why? We often think of it as psychological challenge, which it is. But that’s not the only
Why is it so difficult to be rational? Read More »
Meat eating, like almost anything else we do, raises its own moral questions. Traditionally, objections to meat eating concentrated on the ethics of killing
Should we eat meat? Read More »
Epicurus, Letters and Maxims: The ancient world’s self-proclaimed autodidact, Epicurus was revered by his followers and reviled by his critics. He founded a community
Letters and Maxims of Epicurus Read More »
When George Yancy, a philosopher, interviews historian Robin D. G. Kelley, what happened on the streets of Tulsa in 1921 is only a point
Yancy & Kelley: on the Tulsa Massacre Read More »
Philosophers pride themselves on thinking clearly by seeing what follows from what, exposing sophisms, spotting fallacies, and generally policing our reasoning. Many have spent
The Philosophy Toolkit Read More »
Søren Kierkegaard’s reflections on worry are useful reading for those in lockdown. As John Lippitt explains, two of Kierkegaard’s books can help us think
Dread, Time, and the Pandemic Read More »
If embarking on a second year of shutdowns, social restrictions, constant health risks, and existential dread has eroded your sense of life’s ultimate meaning
Good News for Nihilists Read More »
The science you can come across today can often appear to be full of contradictory claims. One study tells you red wine is good
Making sense of contradictory science Read More »
On the occasion of World Philosophy Day 2020, UNESCO is offering a range of content for the Late Night with Philosophers event on 20
World Philosophy Day Read More »
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: In this landmark of third-wave feminism, Judith Butler advances a novel conception of gender identity. Against the prevailing tradition that
These squiggles have a meaning. So do spoken words, road signs, mathematical equations and signal flags. Meaning is something with which we’re intimately familiar –
My words have meaning, your parrot’s do not. Wittgenstein explains Read More »
Vertigo (1958; directed by Alfred Hitchcock): Vertigo is Hitchcock’s best film, ranking #1 in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the ‘best movies
Tree of Life (2011; directed by Terrence Malick): Malick’s film is the only one I know in which the origin of the universe, and
Memento (2000; directed by Christopher Nolan): Ostensibly Memento is a film about a man with a brain injury that renders him unable to form
L’Année dernière à Marienbad[Last Year at Mariebad] (1961; directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet & Alain Resnais, French with English subtitles.): Philosophers like Descartes took solipsism
L’Année dernière à Marienbad [Last Year at Marienbad] Read More »
Breaker Morant (1980; directed by Bruce Beresford): In 1902, several Australian soldiers in the British army’s struggle in the second Anglo-Boer War were court-martialed
Blade Runner 2049 (2017; directed by Denis Villeneuve): Blade Runner 2049 is the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s (1982) Blade Runner. Set 30 years
Blade Runner (1982; directed by Ridley Scott): On the surface Blade Runner, appears to be just another dystopian sci-fi film loosely modeled on the
Alien3 (1992: directed by David Fincher): Alien3 is Fincher’s first film, and its famously troubled production and mixed reception have contributed to its being