Philosoffee

Life, as it turns out, can be a pretty bad deal. There are a great many things that remind us of the fact that our comfort and happiness is not at all the prerogative of the universe. Disease, sever disability, war, interpersonal loss, death, self-doubt, shame, guilt, failure. The list goes on. And, even if you're feeling pretty good about life right now, its really just a matter of time until something bad happens to you. For example, getting a new pet is always a setup for later tragedy, as we all know that (with the notable exception of tortoises) we will outlive them; we know up front that a day will come when we have them put to sleep, or when they die on their own. Human relationships, of course, bring their own misery. Assuming that you secure lifelong love and close friends, these relationships will terminate in death. Sad funerals are the price we pay for successful love and friendship. And lest you think you can duck out of pet ownership and human companionship, ...

Let me say, upfront, that I couldn't figure out how to embed the video link without it looking like I'm about to sneeze. Most of the online political interactions I see are horrifyingly bad. They're poorly argued, barely founded on reasonably claims (let alone reliable evidence), and typically resort to name calling. I was thinking about this the other day, and wanted to put up a short video to share some thoughts with you all. Thanks for listening!

Physical and Metaphysical Complications For our first full theme, we wanted to look at a topic which touches both upon explicitly philosophical issues as well as deeply personal aspects of our being. And what is more personal than the self? So, if we want to understand ourselves in a more philosophical light, then a natural place to start is to ask what the self is. This question, as we are used to hearing, is a difficult one. Those who would tell you otherwise are merely dull to the profound difficulty that comes with trying to precisely define what is true about the experience of billions of people. By the very nature of selfhood, the investigator who would pry into its being is limited to a test-case of only one; namely, themselves! Any given self cannot get beyond its own strictly limited being so as to take account of its perceptions "from outside itself". This has to do with the metaphysical nature of selfhood. To be a consciousness is to be conscious of somet...

Hello all, and thank you for joining us again at Philosoffee! Today's episode is a preliminary discussion between Commedore and myself regarding the relationship between comedy, comedians, and the concept of honesty. The follow up essay/recording will be coming out next weekend. You'll have to forgive the length; this recording went a bit longer than some others will. We hope you enjoy!

The following is a Content Contributor Essay, by my friend Andrew Eick. It is part of our theme of selfhood. I hope you enjoy! The problem of "Self" is a philosophical quandary which I find more a nuisance than anything else. It is an elusive game of shadows we play with our own psyche. Largely, the notion of self has to do with our conscious state, although as someone influenced by Jung, I have difficult ignoring the unconscious cultural gravity wells that constantly impress upon this notion of who am I ? I attribute most of my lack of interest in the notion of the self in what I view as my own lack of sense of self. I genuinely do not hold a strong sense of who I am as a person independent of my lived social experience. I'm too aware of all the various and ubiquitous cultural milieu which has influenced me that I've never seen or had a sense of "me" outside a mask I've selected to represent a state,or a fraction of some vague notion that gives me a d...

Hello all! Thanks for coming back to Philosoffee. I have some quick announcements I'd like to make about upcoming posts and themes. First of all, there is a new post on the more-or-less neglected "The Coffee Part" section. In truth, I was a little hesitant to even have a coffee review section, as I thought that some might find the attempt at doing coffee descriptions and coffee shop reviews to be snobby. However, I got to thinking about it, and concluded that I find it odd when people write off a desire to engage in things like that as "snobby" without labeling the entirety of the rest of attempts by human beings to like things as being equally snobby. While there are certainly more-or-less pretentious ways of communicating one's interests, I have come to think of dismissing some things as inherently "snobby" as being a rather incoherent objection. So, to hell with it, there's a coffee review over here . Next, I'd like to let ever...

I have been concerned for a very long time with questions regarding  epistemology , or the study of knowledge. How can we be certain of anything? What do we really know? Everything we think, from our most cherished beliefs to our most mundane assumptions, seems to be subject to at least  some  level of rational doubt. How can we know when we've thought enough? How can we know when we are certain, versus when we are merely ignorant or As of now, I still do now know the answer to any of those questions, which I suppose is fitting. But one uncomfortable conclusion which I  have  reached is that the very nature of inquiring, or trying to figure out what we know or don't know, is itself something that is necessarily stunted, and involves the need to ignore most blind-spots at any given moment. At least part of the reason for this consistent and overwhelming blind spot is time. All inquiries are made in time, and all answers are found in time. The nature of our ...