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Boris Johnson’s Death By A Thousand Qualifications: Anthony Flew’s Falsification and Johnson’s Resignation
Trigger Warning and Content Warning – mentions of sex scandals and sexual assault. If you have been affected by these issues, you can access Rape Crisis at 0808 802 9999 who help those who have been raped or sexually assaulted. Introduction On Thursday 7th June, Boris Johnson finally decided to resign as Prime Minister. For…
What Do Frogs And Steam Trains Have To Do With The Human Mind? Huxley’s Epiphenomenalism And Mental Causation
Introduction The 19th century was an exciting time to be alive. Incredible inventions were being discovered (such as the steam engine) new scientific theories were being developed (such as Darwin’s theory of evolution) and new philosophical positions were being created (such as utilitarianism). The Victorians were also fascinated with carrying out lobotomies and decapitations on…
Christmas Spirit In The Brain: Neural Imaging Finds Brain Network. The End of God’s Existence?
In 2015, a team of scientists in Copenhagen decided to see if they could find the parts of the brain responsible for the Christmas Spirit. They gathered ten individuals who had Christmas traditions and ten individuals who did not. Pictures related and unrelated to Christmas were shown while they underwent BOLD imaging (Blood Oxygen Level…
A priori, A posteriori, A fortiori: What do they all mean? Philosophy Basics
A priori and a posteriori are common words within philosophy that are introduced to students on the A-Level specification. However, it wasn’t until I started my masters degree that I came across the term a fortiori. But what is the difference between them? And why are a priori and a posteriori paired together without a…
Descartes Was Murdered… Or Was He? The Death Of Rene Descartes: Odd Histories
Rene Descartes is one of the most famous philosophers within the Western philosophical canon, contributing to many areas of philosophy such as metaphysics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception. However, his fame does not arise from his philosophical works alone. He also provides one of the most controversial deaths within the philosophy world. Not…
Book Club: ‘At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, And Apricot Cocktails’ By Sarah Bakewell Chapter Three *Spoilers*
If you would like to read, At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being And Apricot Cocktails along with us, you can buy a copy here. The next chapter of the book is focused on Martin Heidegger. Born in Messkirch, Heidegger took a similar path to Husserl. He didn’t initially intend to study philosophy. However, while at…
The Importance of Bodily Autonomy: Nurse Gives Patients Saline Instead of Vaccine
On Thursday 12th August, BBC News reported that a nurse in Germany had been giving patients an injection of saline (a harmless mixture of water and salt) instead of the Covid vaccination. She defended herself by arguing that she only did it to six patients due to dropping a number of vials needed to give…
#FREEBRITNEY and the Philosophy of Psychiatry: What questions does it raise?
In 2008, after a series of public mental breakdowns, Britney Spears was placed into a conservatorship. This conservatorship prevented Spears from making any of her own decisions, from whether she could get married to how often she could see her children. Over a decade later, it has come to the public’s attention through the #FREEBRITNEY…
Book Club: The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails Chapter Two *Spoilers*
If you would like to read along with us, you can purchase a copy of The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails from here. The second chapter of the book takes us to the university town of Freiburg in Germany, which Emmanuel Levinas (a student of Husserl) dubbed the ‘City of Phenomenology.’ It focuses…
Book Club: At The Existentialist Café By Sarah Bakewell Chapter One *Spoilers*
On the first day out with a few friends to Winchester after the lockdown, it rained. Excellent. With all of us loving books, we decided to hide within a Waterstones until the weather had passed. We were approached by the book keeper, who was clearly deeply passionate about his job and began a discussion with…
Dr John Frame: The Parable of the Invisible Gardener Part 3
Things to know: – Falsification (in Flew’s case) is the idea that a proposition or statement is meaningful only if there is a method that could falsify the statement. The statement doesn’t need to be false, but there must be a hypothetical situation in which the statement could be proved false. For instance, ‘the cat…
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Philosopher Ad Absurdum 