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Unofficial fan channel for Existential Comics official website existentialcomics.com I'm NOT the author of the webcomic, I just forward it on telegram
Yes, some bankers are quite clever in their own way, but being willing to collapse the economy so you can buy a summer house is in fact very stupid.
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Philosophers like Locke and Spinoza in the 17th century argued a lot about whether knowledge comes from rationalism (i.e. thinking about stuff) or empiricism (i.e. looking at stuff). Many took hard line stances that all knowledge comes essentially from only one of the two. It wasn't until philosophers like William James in the 19th century came along that people started to think of knowledge differently, in a more social way. James more or less held that knowledge is merely what works in the world, and progress comes from agreement among a community of thinkers as to what works.
This kind of thinking, along with the more scientific thinking which puts theories to direct testing, is somewhat similar to how sports like MMA changed martial arts by simply testing what actually worked in the real world (which happens to be conking people's heads together like coconuts).
Empiricism vs Rationalism: the Final Fight - Existential Comics
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Bertrand Russell Files for Divorce - Existential Comics
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Sometimes people talk about testing voters on their knowledge before allowing them to vote, but I think forcing them to read Rousseau last minute at gunpoint is just more in line with American Values.
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"Oh and one more thing, if you do happen to write anything down, make sure to get my opinions on how loverboys are still hot even if they grow a beard, people in the future need to know."
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The "Galileo Affair" was obviously a pretty funny situation in general. The Catholics were losing so much territory in Europe at that time to Protestantism (relax, it is only England) that they were extremely paranoid about even seemingly insignificant "heresies". Although it is a myth that Galileo was tortured for his views, or even excommunicated, he was condemned and imprisoned for teaching heliocentrism (although it was more like house arrest).
It's quite unclear why exactly it is heretical, of course, to say that the Earth orbits the Sun. The bible sort of suggests that the Sun goes around the Earth, but it isn't some kind of central point about the Earth being the center of the universe because God created Man as the center of all things, like some people seem to think. It's more like, the Bible mentions one time how the Sun stopped in the sky, and that sort of sounds like it means the Sun is moving around the Earth. Not only that, but the Bible probably only takes that view because the people who translated the Bible had that view from Ptolemy, so it isn't so much the Bible being overturned, but Ptolemy. When Copernicus himself presented his ideas to the Pope, a hundred or so years earlier, he was awarded with a gift! But like I said, the Church was very insecure at this time, so I guess they couldn't mess around.
This lead to some pretty funny situations, like some Catholic philosophers refusing to even look through Galileo's telescope, presumably because they were afraid they might themselves get convinced by the evidence, and then be holding heretical opinions. Not much of a philosopher, apparently.
The Pope had actually given Galileo direct permission to argue for heliocentrism, as long as he didn't take a position. Galileo, unfortunately, made the argument far too well, and it was obvious that he believed in heliocentrism. Like the comic suggests, it seems to me that anyone making this argument must have been convinced by Galileo, and therefore heretical themselves. Unfortunately Galileo didn’t take up this argument, and merely denied taking a side on the debate, and also that it wasn't heretical because the bible itself doesn't take sides on physics (two contradicting arguments at once Galileo, not great rhetoric!)
Probably my favorite fact though is that one of his punishments was having to recite seven psalms of penitence once per week, but his daughter Maria Celeste petitioned the Pope to have it count if she did the prayers for him. Presumably this freed up more of his time to...I don’t know, think up more heretical opinions, presumably?
An Alternate History of the Galileo Affair - Existential Comics
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Whether Hume actually awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumber or if it was just a coincidence, is truly one of the greatest mysteries of philosophy.
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Philosophers have been trying to define what a human is since the beginning, starting perhaps with Plato's hamfisted "featherless biped" which was mocked by Diogenes by presenting a plucked chicken and declaring it a man.
Aristotle thought man was the "rational animal" (remember this was before social media).
Descartes amazingly thought that not only were humans the only animal with souls, but that we were the only animal with any consciousness, and that other animals didn't even experience pain.
Schopenhauer thought the very structure of the human experience, given that we have wants and needs that can never properly be fulfilled, was suffering.
Nietzsche thought one thing that distinguished humans from animals (and perhaps even "lesser" humans, is our ability to extend our will through time by making and fulfilling promises to ourselves.
Sartre thought freedom was the essential trait to humans.
For Wittgenstein, our ability to use language was probably the most unique and defining trait.
For Postmodernists like Derrida, however, there is no human nature, as our nature is almost entirely created by the social context we find ourselves in. By coincidence though, pretty much all the postmodernists seem to be pretty similar (snobby Frenchmen for the most part).
A Brief History of Human Nature - Existential Comics
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The Greatest Happiness Possible - Existential Comics
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Zizek Gets a Business Loan - Existential Comics
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Pragmatists are well known for their ability to bully nerds, that's just a matter of historical record.
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But at least he wasn't wrong. It's better to be on fire than to be wrong, when you think about it.
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It could be worse though, imagine you were in a group of Theater Dorks and they were always trying to put on little skits and do improv to pass the time.
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It's a mistake to ground your marriage in pure logic, you have to ground it in empiricism (looking hot).
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For Rousseau, freedom wasn't just the ability to "do what you want" in a naive sense. Freedom meant obeying one's rationality, which ultimately involved adhering to the rules of a legitimate state, one in which the laws are created by the people themselves, i.e., a democracy. (Although most, if not all, democracies under capitalism might not qualify, given that laws don't necessarily apply equally to the rich and the poor, nor are they equally crafted by both groups.)
Rousseau believed participating in the creation of the laws governing the society in which you live was a crucial aspect of rationality and freedom. People who wish to live in society but do not want to participate in shaping its rules are, in essence, childishly rebelling by attempting to opt out of the social contract.
In other words, Pokémon Go to the Polls.
Wait a minute, this complaint comes from the Pope himself, who thought the argument was convincing, this goes deeper than we thought...
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Before reading Hume, Kant was writing more ordinary philosophy, mostly attempting to reconcile empiricism and rationalism. Once he read Hume's skepticism about causation and morality, he was spurred into action into finding a rational basis for morality and attempting to explain the structure of our conscious experience to account for things like space, time and causation. Basically he felt more or less forced to become the greatest philosopher of all time, because Hume's ideas annoyed him so much.
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Of course the real answer is that God, in His infinite wisdom, created humans to stare at computer screens for 8 hours a day.
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And yes, I am saying that to be a truly great philosopher, you MUST be a master of kung fu.
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Edmund Burke argued for something called "virtual representation", which meant that an elected official did NOT represent the people who elected him, but in fact represented the nation as a whole as best he understood. These means that when voting, he should use his own judgment, and not simply vote as the people who elected him would want. On the one hand, these seems absurd, because if a representative doesn’t represent the people who vote for him, what is the point of democracy in the first place? Burke sort of agreed with this, being a kind of elitist and conservative who didn’t really believe in direct democracy. On the other hand though, in many cases it is obviously true that an elector can’t represent the local interests only. In Burke’s own speech defending himself, he was defending his vote against putting tariffs on Irish good that would protect business in his home region. Since he thought he represented Ireland (part of Great Britain at that time) as well as Bristol, he couldn’t vote for it out of pure local interest (he lost the next election, they didn’t like this it turns out).
Ironically, while he was using it to support Irish interests, his concept of “virtual representation” was the main argument used by the English to say that actual representation wasn’t needed for the Irish or the American colonists. They could simply trust that the British representatives would have their best interest at heart. Burke did not agree with this application of it, since the British members of parliament didn’t share common interests with the colonists or Catholic Irish. The Irish and Americans didn’t like the idea of “virtual representation” either, it turns out, hence the revolutions.