PFRR POSTS
02/07/2021
The last instalment of this blog (June 2021) aired the continuing significance of using mathematical modelling to illuminate the way ahead. It stated the self-evident case for this reason-based way of pathfinding the future, and hence of adding to the commongood. But much of the latest news remains dismal, and […]
02/06/2021
The last instalment of this blog (May 2021) aired two brilliant new insights about the possibilities of modelling which have risen to the surface during the pandemic. To say these developments are “hopeful”, is a considerable understatement. (They are the Peircean Interpretation of Mathematics and Actimatics.) When taken in, and […]
30/04/2021
The pandemic seems to be receding, thankfully, in the UK and this means that we are now left to confront the challenge of re-thinking arrangements and assumptions across a huge range of contentious issues —the ones which have been mercilessly exposed as inadequate and dangerous by the pandemic. So we […]
31/03/2021
The solution to the problem of the ‘post truth’ society, as argued in No 17 is to adopt a genuine form of education —one which constantly reminds pupils that they must confront reality with their eyes wide open— combined with strict IT laws saying that everything posted on the internet […]
01/03/2021
Probably the unresolved philosophical issue which is most bothering to most ordinary reflective people today is the problem posed by the so-called ‘post truth society’ in which people no longer seem interested in whether a statement or pronouncement is true. Fake news was given apparent respectability by Donald Trump on […]
02/01/2021
The most basic feature of language is that it starts with someone speaking, writing or keying a message —which is then put into the public domain. So every statement has an author, which may sometimes be a group of people. The next question is what this act of “making a […]
30/11/2020
How do we start philosophy —which can look like a word-game played by ‘philosophers’ who are either narrowly trapped in scholastic tramlines, or else are roaming about in all kinds of woolly, portentious, idiosyncratic ways? In the previous instalment of this blog we looked at the massive progress in philosophy […]
02/11/2020
Having taken a nuts-and-bolts issue (the education needed for renewing reason) in Instalment 12 of this blog, we now turn back to philosophy proper, and the new emphases needed there, if reason is to make a comeback. Philosophy, from a very broad perspective, is the study of how we can […]
30/09/2020
The last blog (No. 11) pointed out that to embark on the Renewal of Reason Project will be to start a long hard, taxing journey, but one which is essential if civilisation is to survive. Without the help of reason, civilisation risks collapsing under the weight of its multiple contradictions, […]
02/09/2020
We need to renew our commitment to reason, which means, in effect, rigour, much stamina and open-mindedness in grappling with deep problem issues. Neglect of reason leads in the end to the pathology of personal hedonism, which is blind and inward-looking. The world which sleep-walked into Covid-19 in January 2020 […]
03/07/2024
The problems of philosophy of politics at the present time are multiple, difficult and diverse. They begin with an historic anomaly: the collapse of all previously credible world-views and universal codes of behaviour. This is a uniquely troubling situation. Such codes were the glue which used to hold society together. […]
03/06/2024
The inexplicable poverty of modern political reflection An unexpected consequence of modernity has been the consistently weak level of insight stemming from political philosophy during the last hundred years. There have been few political philosophers of any stature since Karl Marx: and his reputation, let’s remember, was partly built on […]
01/05/2024
In the last few blogs I have pointed out the astonishingly simplifying effect of anti-maths when applied to scientific modelling. Suddenly a thousand unsatisfactory, hopeless questions disappear. Jumping up and down is in order… This is not just great news —it is the kind of great news we have been […]
02/04/2024
Is philosophy as an academic subject still relevant to life in the third decade of the 21st century? This is a question which hangs in the air wherever the academic subject is being pursued today in colleges and universities. It appears that today a daunting level of intellectual confidence is […]