person
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On Being a Person
A Philosophical Happy Hour on persons and personalism. If someone came up to you—someone you know, perhaps not very well, but with whom you have had association for enough time to reasonably say, “Yes, I know him [or her]”—and said any of the following to you, how would you react? Most of us, I suspect,…
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Walls of Glass
Metaphors of Personal Identity in Derek Parfit and Teresa of Ávila Personal identity over time is an idea derided by analytic philosophy. Hume began the process of debunking the person, or self, as “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions.”[1] The demolition job concluded in 1984, with the publication of Derek Parfit’s Reasons…
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[2022 Winter] Introduction to Philosophical Thinking
What is philosophy? Is it something we study—as subject, like biology or literature? Is it something each of us has, individually—as in, “my personal philosophy”? Is it a relic of history? An intellectual curiosity? A means to impress at cocktail parties and on social media? Or perhaps—as this seminar will attempt to demonstrate—philosophy is a…
