this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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philosophy

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Other philosophy communities have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. [ x ]

"I thunk it so I dunk it." - Descartes


Short Attention Span Reading Group: summary, list of previous discussions, schedule

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He was controversial, but he was in my opinion one of the best all-around living philosophers. He was enormously influential on my own thinking, as well as kind and patient every time I met him. Enormously influential, and a big loss to the discipline.

There is no philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage was taken on board without examination.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Dennett was much less of a dipshit about that stuff than the others were/are, and did come to somewhat regret his involvement with that movement after it fed into the alt-right. Breaking the Spell is a significantly more thoughtful and nuanced work than The God Delusion or whatever dumbfuck title Harris and Hitchens came up with, as you would expect from an actual philosopher. It's worth a read, and (to my knowledge) he never went down the idiotic "anti-feminist" and "western chauvinist" pipeline that the others did. It's an unfortunate association for sure and a black mark on his record, but it's definitely not fair to put him in the same bucket as the other three in general.

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

That's good to know. I remember when the Four Horsemen came out, it's wild how different the political rhetoric around these individuals is a little bit flipped, comparing back then (the right hated them) and now (some of them got a little too cozy with Christian fundies).

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