Category: Philosophy
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Sarcastaball and the Fear of Pain
Would you watch or play a sport with no tension? No risk of injury? No way to attain excellence? Well, the South Park episode of Sarcastaball explores this idea. There, the children of South Park have to play a sport that cannot potentially harm them. No injury in Sarcastaball, no pain. Byung-Chul Han would see…
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Bullshit Jobs & Alienation
Why don’t we like our jobs? Let me begin with a provocative claim: most people don’t really enjoy their jobs. Another claim, equally unsettling, is that many jobs are not only disliked but also pointless. At the same time, we live in a culture terrified of job loss—politicians like Barack Obama frequently warned of the…
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What Makes an Expert
The trust in experts has diminished. But what makes an expert? Here, I will outline that an expert has a certain authority and why this authority is being doubted.
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Trump in Washington and the Banality of Evil
Terms like fascism and totalitarianism frequently surface in discussions about Donald Trump. At first glance, this seems understandable: many traits associated with these concepts resonate with Trump’s political style and rhetoric. Yet in doing so, we may overlook a crucial opportunity to gain deeper insight into the Trump phenomenon—and the broader societal dynamics that enabled…
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Is it Okay to Lie?
We’ve all done it. Perhaps you didn’t want to attend an event, felt too lazy to do the dishes, or simply didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Lying is undeniably human; animals, after all, don’t lie; a dog never tries to deceive you. In one of his later essays, On the Supposed Right to Lie…
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Yes Man and Nietzschean Affirmation
The movie Yes Man tells the story of Carl Allen, played by Jim Carrey. At the beginning, Carl is stuck in a rut because he says no to everything. His life is miserable: his wife has left him, his friendships are falling apart, and his boss doesn’t take him seriously. One day, Carl runs into…
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Intolerance: Where do we draw the line?
There has been a lot to write about since Donald Trump became President again. More and more, certain aspects of fascism seem to rise and it is unclear where we should draw the line as a democratic instituion of what is allowed. Even in other countries, such as Belgium where I live, much fascist rethoric…
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Life as an Artwork
Friedrich Nietzsche declared in The Birth of Tragedy that art is “the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity of life.” According to Nietzsche, art goes beyond the creation of individual works. It must be applied to life itself. Life should be viewed as an artwork, as “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and…
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The Fundamental Question of Philosophy
“Why is there something rather than nothing?” With this question, Heidegger declares the fundamental question of metaphysics, or philosophy in general. For Heidegger, it is “the first of all questions”. But not one that is asked often. In his lectures on metaphysics, Heidegger starts with this question because he sees it as the prime, original…
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An Introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life
When we ask what philosophy is, we will get a wide range of answers. The Cambridge Dictionary gives a couple of definitions of philosophy. One is: “the use of reason in understanding such things as the nature of the real world and existence, the use and limits of knowledge, and the principles of moral judgment.”[1]…
Elenchus Philosophy 