Philosophy Now Forum

The Unforeseen Death of Predictability I guess there was a time when we thought the future was predictable, that if we did certain things in the present we could expect certain results in the future. That was the reasoning behind the making of the European Union , the organization that was meant to...

I don't think that Britain will leave the EU. It's too dangerous and costly for everybody.

Reflex wrote:That's all you guys got from that article?

Wow. Just wow.

Reflex,

It seems all you got from the article is wow, wow.

Nevertheless, the article does evoke a sense of awe, a chaotic awe.

The future is not what it used to be.

The future used to include Britain in the EU.

I remember once standing in a very disorderly line waiting for transportation to the airport. I said to someone standing beside me, this situation is chaos and terribly organized. He agreed but then added that he was Italian and therefore was used to it. I laughed. But that chaos did not stop me fro...

"Chaos is the anti-calculus revolution.” When calculus was discovered it was believed everything could be measured by it, including human governance. Marx was one who believed a society could be constructed on mathematical principles, thus removing all the chaotic differentials and uncertaintie...

Saltzstein doesn't give history much credit for understanding or dealing with chaos. He also seems to think that history is the incarnate of chaos itself. Therefore it's impossible to discern the future, let alone the present, from it. I'm recalling the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union bac...

Slavoj Žižek thinks that capitalism is at its end. And he is not the only one to think that. But non of them give good reasons as to why capitalism is at its end or what might replace it. Its similar to what people might have believed years ago when the aeroplane was invented, that gravity is at its...

Chaos Theory yields unexpected philosophical results. One of the unexpected philosophical results seems to be 'what if''. Another, which Saltzstein didn't mention, is conspiracy explanations. However, conspiracy theories tend to mitigate or deny chaotic events, like accidents don't happen; everythi...

If Slavoj Žižek is thought of as a possible Elvis of Philosophy could he be an impersonator? I ask because here is nothing very original about his thinking.

This article on chaos and unpredictability makes me think of the Middle East and how chaotic the situation is there. But I do think one thing that is predictable is that it will take a long time to resolve the chaos that exists there, due to the region's history and backwardness. This article also c...

I don't think philosophy is meant to be progressive in its own right. But when presented with progressive ideas philosophy doesn't shy away. It does what it does best: Help facilitate their advancement.

The New Realism includes LGBTs. Now that's pragmatic.

I am happy to know that at the core of New Realism is pragmatism.

I am thinking New Realism could have been called Neorealism. But anything with neo in it seems to have a negative connotation. Take the term Neoliberalism. It is perceived as a negative term, like in this article, "Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems" (I thought ca...