Friday, September 19, 2014

Pray For Media Dradons: Why study paradoxes?

 
“A lot of the reason why societies don’t become fairer is that those who benefit from current injustice are spared the need to think too hard about what it would have been like to be born in different circumstances. They resist change from ingrained bias and prejudice, from a failure of the imagination.” – John Rawls’s life and ideas are briefly surveyed at The Philosopher’s Mail.

In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy, Volume 1, by Eugene Thacker, is, according to Radiolab, “an academic treatise about the horror humanity feels as we realize that we are nothing but a speck in the universe.” Who knows, but apparently it is kind of a big deal in some entertainment circles.

“In a new study, researchers used a smartphone app to track moral and immoral acts committed or witnessed by more than 1,200 people as they went about their days,” reports Wired and the New York Times.

Why study paradoxes? Roy Cook (Minnesota) answers.
 
Paul Bloomfield (Connecticut) lists 10 reasons why it is good to be good at the OUP Blog.