(Part 2) Best products from r/badphilosophy

Yes, and also a good writer. Erudite and entertaining. He's probably best known for a book he did several years ago called Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies, which is a response to some of the NuAtheists, particularly correcting their many historical errors.

He did another book called The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami, which is an expanded version of this article on the problem of evil.

And he recently published a book called The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, which I haven't finished reading yet, but is basically an attempt to give an account of what it is that monotheists (and some Hindus) are actually talking about when they talk about 'capital G' God. So far, it's really good.

We're not talking about theology here.

There's lots of highly accessible philosophy of religion. This book, for example, is great. Lots of genuinely interesting articles on the argument from design (which is clearly the best argument for the existence of God).

If you liked that, you're certain to love this.

In the first half of the twentieth century a great deal of energy was expended trying to provide a foundation for mathematics by mathematicians and philosophers. These efforts precipitated the development of both logic (mathematical and philosophical) and also played an important role in us developing our understanding computation (i.e.the Church-Turing thesis) because many philosophers and mathematicians believed that a mathematical proof should be able to be verified computationally.

Some major figures:

• Gottlob Frege
  
• Bertrand Russel
  
• David Hilbert
  
• Alonzo Church
  
• Kurt Godel
  
• Henri Poincare
  
• L. E. J. Brouwer
  
  Here is a section from the wonderful Princeton Companion to Mathematics that discusses this period but focuses more on the foundations of math than computation.
  
  

Far too many people want to cite the "Sokal Squared" affair as evidence that gender studies and related fields are nothing but ideologically motivated hackery.

That may be true (and there are certainly some cases where it is), but their success in publishing papers is stronger evidence that you can find a journal that will publish something, given enough time and effort.

Edit: I looked deeper into Lindsay's other work. This is one of his major books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Everybody-Wrong-About-James-Lindsay/dp/1634310365

From the Amazon blurb:

> With every argument for theism long since discredited, the result is that atheism has become little more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

What fucking planet are these guys on? I've read Boghossian's absolutely terrible Manual for Creating Atheists, and it's page after page of intellectual flatulence followed by assertion after assertion about theistic arguments and claims. Neither Lindsay nor Boghossian show the slightest signs of grasping basic philosophical issues.

Oh holy shit it's stainslemountaintops. He's the resident alt-right poster over at the german sub /r/de. I once posted a comment under a post about fascism explaining how, curiously enough, there doesn't appear to be any fascist philosophy, as opposed to conservative, liberal, marxist philosophy. What is fascism? What are its main textss? Fascists don't really want to tell as otherwise you'd be able to intellectually refute them. I linked to Umberto Ecos essay on the main attributes of fascism, including its antiintellectualism as an explanation.

This is where stains provided me with a few links to nouvelle droite literature, mostly by alain de benoist and Tomislav Sunic. Gems like Manifesto for a European Renaissance:

> It offers a strong argument in favor of the right to difference among cultures and civilizations, and the right of peoples to defend themselves from cultural homogenization. It also offers a vision of a regenerated Europe which will find its strength in a return to its authentic values and traditions, in opposition to the new imperialism of multiculturalism and the global marketplace. Alain

And Against Democracy and Equality:

>Dr. Sunic examines the principal themes which have concerned the thinkers of the New Right since its inception by Alain de Benoist in 1968, such as the problematic nature of the label 'New Right' for a school which sees itself as being beyond traditional concepts of both the left and the right; its revolutionary political philosophy; its conception of history in terms of cycles; its attitude toward democracy, capitalism and socialism; and its endorsement of 'pagan' spirituality

Not exactly the kind of proper, academic philosophy in the vein of Hobbes, Locke or Rawles I was looking for. I still maintain that fascism has no philosophy as it runs against its syncretic and antiintellecutal nature.

So anyway, that's how I came to know stains. He may be a new-righter, but he is a courteous poster.

Check out the reviews on Amazon. This is clearly a 5 star success. And those reviews are obviously not fake at all.

Omgomgomgomgomg ive been WAITING for JMK to pop up on here. This guy was a professor at my alma mater around when I was there. I never had a class with him but a few friends did and they had nothing but bizarre stories to tell. He got fired because of some scandal involving him and a few students. He’s also the son of the 66th president of Peru. I hear he’s the fuck-up of the family. Everyone else is some super rich diplomat or whatever.

He’s written an endless array of insane articles and books about anything he can possibly lasso into some kind of applied philosophy. I don’t even know where to begin. His amazon store is a goldmine. Here’s my favorite

la bonne cuisine

it's better than any philosophical work written in the 20th century. i wish i were kidding.

Yeah, I occasionally come here too. Did me much good, didn't it?

This thread's headline conflated two different topics in the linked thread. The first was the new Democrat anti-Israel and increasingly anti-Jewish stance that is without historical precedent (the Democrat party was historically the default Jewish political party, there are still older Jews today who vote Democrat because the memory of being barred from country clubs and the like still pervades).

The reasons for this shift are explained at length in the book Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel. The author sets out to prove - quite convincingly in my opinion - the reason for this change actually has little to nothing to do with Israeli or Palestinian policy, but instead has to do with a change of ethnic divisions (Palestinians are now viewed as an entirely separate ethnicity).

In the progressive mind, the group with power must obviously be maliciously oppressing the group without power. This particular conflict used to be Arabs vs. Jews, the Arabs holding the power. Several wars with Israel later, the Arab countries realized that Israel has a great defense military (Arab militaries actually just suck), so they switched their strategy: "Palestinian" became an ethnicity. Instead of Mighty Arabs vs. Little Israel, it became Mighty Israel vs. Little Palestinians.

So, what could account for this view among progressives? Perhaps it originates from a certain philosophical school?

I could very well be wrong about the connection between progressivism-post modernism-Foucault. But the disadvantage about a subbreddit such as this, is the ever-so-slight possibility that you'll make yourselves look like the idiot to outsiders instead (particularly on a touchy topic like the Israel conflict). Maybe something to think about.

Good idea, although I really doubt it's at BN . you can view a preview of a few pages on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Cube-Unlike-All-Others/dp/1453641297, from them it seems like he is claiming an actual mathematical proof so it's not some metaphorical use like Lacan.

Nows a great time to advertise the books I've been reading!

https://www.amazon.com/China-Model-Political-Meritocracy-Democracy/dp/0691173044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478668761&sr=8-1&keywords=china+model

https://www.amazon.com/Confucian-Constitutional-Order-Political-Princeton-China/dp/0691173575/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478668782&sr=8-1&keywords=confucian+constitutional

... I'm currently reading this and I'm pretty sure you're wrong.

<3

Sincerely

Another person.

Portrait's pretty easy. But fuck that, read Ulysses. The annotations are helpful.

It's probably best not to know what it means.

You know there was that straw book that not particularly bright Christians would use to argue that some of the things in the bible are well intentioned, but just, like, outdated man? Well, some lady felt left out of the stupid party and wrote her own.

Examples include sleeping on the "corner of a roof" because Proverbs. This thing was published. And now she's on CNN to inform us "what the Evangelicals think" and has an alarmingly popular blog and twatter.

> With respect I don't really think that Juan Cole is a great person to trot out here.

Nah.

> should Liberals treat oppressive practices differently and/or ignore them because of cultural differences?

http://www.amazon.com/Political-Liberalism-Expanded-Columbia-Philosophy/dp/0231130899