INFORMATION
This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.
For further information, see our Privacy Policy.
Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.
We are not accepting any new registrations.
This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.
For further information, see our Privacy Policy.
Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.
We are not accepting any new registrations.
Search found 223 matches
- January 18th, 2008, 12:46 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
Nice quote, Lifelinking. Swift was, of course, himself an avid copycat, as was Laurence Sterne; and Shakespeare has already been mentioned. The literary mode is called ‘creative imitation’. There’s a passage in Plutarch, for example, of Cleopatra on her barge which has passed down through literary h...
- January 16th, 2008, 8:58 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
Well Whitecraw, I think that is a rather silly response. Why should Lifelinking's view be derived from the bible, rather than the bible being derived from general human experience? Does your view not imply that we cannot disapprove of murder without being accused of being closet christians? Because...
- January 16th, 2008, 12:41 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
I have no great names to back me up when I say that we can only ever really know somebody, from what they do. That seems to be one of those bits of Bible philosophy that’s passed into popular currency. Be-waur o fauss prophets at come tae ye in sheep’s cleadin, but aneth is ravenish woufs. Ye will ...
- January 15th, 2008, 1:34 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Humanism as the Theme of Chinese Modernity
- Replies: 8
- Views: 1976
Re: Humanism as the Theme of Chinese Modernity
For all you Eurocentrics out there, here’s an article about him: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/13/news/left.phpI have never heard of the author (Wang Hui) before - do you know anything about him?
- January 15th, 2008, 12:29 am
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Atheistic Fundamentalism
- Replies: 59
- Views: 8736
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
Thing is, Chris: what an agnostic, as a fallibilist, must never say is that it is certain that absolutely nothing is certain. For then s/he’d sound even more absurd than Socrates, who notoriously laid claim to the knowledge that knew nothing. But, of course, as Dan reminded me this doesn't apply to ...
- January 15th, 2008, 12:20 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
A sort of 'rules don't apply to me, after all I can quote Kierkegaard Et Al (just don't expect me always to acknowledge it)..' Hi Lifelinking. I've already apologised to Maria for pissing her off and acknowledged that I did break a rule of the Board and, on the principle of 'when in Rome', ought no...
- January 14th, 2008, 11:21 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Atheistic Fundamentalism
- Replies: 59
- Views: 8736
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
I see what you mean, Dan. You're referring to folk who are agnostic in their theology but not in their epistemology, and so may consequently claim certainty in relation only to their beliefs concerning their ability to have knowledge of such theological matters as the existence or non-existence of G...
- January 14th, 2008, 1:34 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Atheistic Fundamentalism
- Replies: 59
- Views: 8736
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
It’s difficult to see how an agnostic could meaningfully be said to be dogmatic, when agnosticism is a particular instance of fallibilism (a recognition of the deep fallibility of human beings and the unattainability of absolute certainty). Unless, of course, the agnostic was dogmatic in his or her ...
- January 14th, 2008, 11:38 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
It doesn't occur to your reader that what you've written may not be your original work, because that's not how people think. Yes, that’s unfortunate. But I can’t be held responsible for how other people think. I’m sure many people think that when they look at a work of renaissance art, they’re look...
- January 14th, 2008, 12:09 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Plagiarism
While I'm sure it's illuminating to learn of the cavalier attitude to intellectual theft by certain great authors, your post above smacks of an appeal to authority. Personally, if I put time and effort into writing something and then see someone ripping my work off and presenting it as their own wh...
- January 13th, 2008, 10:00 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Making Offenses
- Replies: 8
- Views: 1827
Re: Making Offenses
I've discovered that there is no language which can be used, no vocal inflection employed or obsequious gesture which can be formed to prevent the faithful from taking offense at the notion that their cherished god isn't home. Instantly they accuse me of being confrontational and pissing on their s...
- January 13th, 2008, 9:38 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Moral imperative
- Replies: 14
- Views: 3374
Re: Moral imperative
How can this be neutral? By restricting the competence of moral judgement to private life. The Machiavellian doctrine became notable in the 20th century as realpolitik : politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives. If you restrict the competence...
- January 13th, 2008, 9:21 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Plagiarism
- Replies: 23
- Views: 5225
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
Yes, Maria: I’ve had this argument elsewhere in relation to other literary work. Plagiarism (or appropriative writing) is a fascinating phenomenon. It didn’t appear as a ‘problem’ until the 18th century, when lawyers set us on the path of copyright confusion and arguments over moral rights by seekin...
- January 12th, 2008, 9:15 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Views on living life without religion
- Replies: 27
- Views: 4212
Re: Views on living life without religion
I 'm basiaclly trying to find out if, in the eyes of a humanist, it would be helpful to have something - a product,service or resource- that you could turn to in a moment of crisis or if you were feeling a bit lost in life… In all the big and little crises in my life, I’ve always found a fag does th...
- January 12th, 2008, 8:27 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Atheistic Fundamentalism
- Replies: 59
- Views: 8736
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
The ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ names didn’t come into common usage until the early 1990s, but the concepts they represent have been in use for some time. In earlier philosophical publications, the terms ‘negative atheism’ and ‘positive atheism’ were more common; these terms were used by Antony Flew in 1972...
- January 11th, 2008, 10:53 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Moral imperative
- Replies: 14
- Views: 3374
Re: Moral imperative
Whether you donate or not to any chosen cause is entirely up to you and not a matter of morality IMO. Again, this depends on your ethics; i.e. your theory of morality. Morality pertains to right conduct; and there is a view that it is immaterial whether that conduct takes place in the private spher...
- January 11th, 2008, 12:10 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Moral imperative
- Replies: 14
- Views: 3374
Re: Moral imperative
Tuba I think you might be confusing moral obligation with legal obligation. The thing about moral obligation is that it's supposed to be universal, whereas the sort of obligation you're talking about extends only to those who are subject to the law that imposes that obligation. A society somewhere m...
- January 10th, 2008, 4:36 pm
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Atheistic Fundamentalism
- Replies: 59
- Views: 8736
Re: Atheistic Fundamentalism
The most recent review of the literature I’ve seen is Kai Nielsen’s Atheism & Philosophy (2005). He finds taxonomies in: • Alexander, Samuel, 1927, Space, Time and Deity, London: Macmillan.Ayer, • A.J., 1936, 2nd ed. 1946: Language, Truth and Logic, London: Gollancz. • Bradley, M.C., 2001, ‘The Fine...
- January 10th, 2008, 1:07 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Moral imperative
- Replies: 14
- Views: 3374
Re: Moral imperative
I have a problem with the whole notion of moral obligation anyway, as I explained in an article I reproduced in the other place. Derek Parfit ( Reasons and Persons , Oxford 1984) has high hopes for a non-religious ethics. With the development of such an ethics, he suggests, "both human history, and ...
- January 10th, 2008, 11:37 am
- Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
- Topic: Views on living life without religion
- Replies: 27
- Views: 4212
Re: Views on living life without religion
Life and death - Why re we born and why do we die? No reason. Life ain’t rational. Only our various understandings of it can be properly called ‘rational’ or ‘irrational’ according to the rules of racionation (logic). Things don’t happen in nature for any ‘reason’. It’s just one damned thing after ...