Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to sean samis. Hi Sean, The connection between libertarianism and impersonal prosociality is supposed to be, briefly, that libertarians believe society should be structured by voluntary relations, including especially markets, and since these …

boydstun; I wrote above that philosophy is not a “branch of knowledge”. At best it’s similar to science: an activity; a discipline. Neither are compendiums of knowledge, nor branches thereof. The big difference between science and philosophy is that sc…

Irfan; Regarding modern medicine and end of life care; is the failure one of medicine or the culture in which it is embedded region-by-region? It’s important to not confuse the current, lamentable state of American Healthcare with the state of modern …

In reply to boydstun. boydstun; I’ll respond to this later, when I have more time for it. But as a lead in, I suggest you watch his video by Adam Savage: Especially pay attention to the parts from about 3:20 to 4:30. Then remember what I said: p…

In reply to boydstun. boydstun, the summary of Smithies book represents a viewpoint; it shows nothing more than some people think philosophy is valuable. That was a given; it’s a viewpoint you and David Potts share. i know many who share that vi…

In reply to David Potts. David; thanks for sharing your scans of the pages in Henrich that Stephen boydstun referred to. boydstun; “Individuals from more market-integrated communities” are not the same as “libertarians”, not at all. The first group ove…

[…] acknowledgement for Barbara’s passing. As a bonus, they’ve acknowledged the passing of Carol Manigault and Jeff Shelly as well. Better late than […] LikeLike

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. I never restricted the idea of cancel culture to academia. It is of course a wider phenomenon, supported by a relentless string of stories. Here’s one about a choral music composer who was recently unpersoned in Nashvil…