HOW TO AVOID GETTING KILLED BY A STATUE: SOME LESSONS ON TEACHING AND LYING FROM NIETZSCHE'S THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche explores the nature of teaching and learning and concludes that a teacher can do more harm than good in a student's life if she allows her students to become her ‘disciples’. A disciple assigns too much authority to a teacher and thus loses the ability to think independently; this is what Zarathustra means when he warns his students, ‘Beware that you are not killed by a statue!’ In this article I argue that Zarathustra's solution to this problem is to undermine his own authority by performing several different variations of the Liar's Paradox in parts 2 and 3 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

WHY STUDYING THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY MATTERS

The debate over whether and how philosophers of today may usefully engage with philosophers of the past is nearly as old as the history of philosophy itself. Does the study of the history of philosophy train or corrupt the budding philosopher's mind? Why study the history of philosophy? And, how to study the history of philosophy? I discuss some mainstream approaches to the study of the history of philosophy (with special focus on ancient philosophy), before explicating the one I adopt and commend.

ON RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Hsiao has recently developed what he considers a ‘simple and straightforward’ argument for the moral permissibility of corporal punishment. In this article we argue that Hsiao's argument is seriously flawed for at least two reasons. Specifically, we argue that (i) a key premise of Hsiao's argument is question-begging, and (ii) Hsiao's argument depends upon a pair of false underlying assumptions, namely, the assumption that children are moral agents, and the assumption that all forms of wrongdoing demand retribution.

PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

The author sets out to respond to the student complaint that ‘Philosophy did not answer “the big questions”’, in particular the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ The response first outlines and evaluates the most common religious answer, that human life is given a meaning by God who created us and informs us that this life is just the pilgrim way to the next eternal life in heaven. He then discusses the response that, from the point of view of post-Darwinian science and the evolution of the universe and all that is in it, human life on Earth must be afforded no more meaning than the meaning we would give to a microscopic planaria or to some creature on another planet in a distant universe. All things including human creatures on Planet Earth just exist for a time and that is that. There is no plan or purpose. In the last sections the author outlines the view that it is we humans ourselves who give meaning to our lives by our choices of values or things that are worth pursuing and through our resulting sense of achievement or the opposite. Nevertheless the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ can mean quite different things in different contexts, and so merit different if related answers. From one point of view one answer may lie in terms of the love of one human for another.

HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD LIFE

The question I raise is whether happiness constitutes a good life. I argue that it does not and contend that the good life is based on three essentials: worthwhile activities, worthwhile character, and worthwhile relationships. I provide examples of possibly happy lives that are not good and good lives that are not happy.

THE SALUTOGENIC EFFECTS OF AWE TOLD EXISTENTIALLY

Feelings of awe can generate well-being. The typical explanation of this is that an otherwise self-absorbed individual now experiences something so vast that it forges a humble new perspective of self. Self-absorption is replaced by altruistic characteristics that result in a sense of well-being. However, the observations of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Carl Rogers provide an existential framework for understanding the human being in relation to the world and well-being within that framework. And such a framework offers a different perspective on how the experience of awe produces well-being. Existentially understood, incongruence is the anti-thesis of well-being. Incongruence is developed by a hyper-focus on external conditions of worth. Rather than a remedy to self-absorption, the experience of awe offers the remedy of self-absorption, towards congruence. This article will explore key observations by each existentially principled thinker to display this framework in order to comprehend how awe produces well-being within it.

BETTER TO HAVE CHILDREN: A RESPONSE TO HARRISON AND TANNER

In Harrison and Tanner's (2011) ‘Better Not to Have Children’, it's argued that having children is immoral as well as detrimental to one's well-being. In this article, I argue against those claims and defend the position that, for most people, having children is morally permissible and greatly enhances their well-being.

A SHORT ARGUMENT FOR BELIEF IN PROGRESS

The notion of social progress is not much in favour in these sophisticated times of scepticism, cynicism, relativism and political correctness; at least in the West. Most people might admit that some indubitable advances have occurred, primarily in terms of this or that useful technological innovation. But any wider claim about ‘social progress’ is often met by overwhelming doubt and suspicion, if not outright derision. I provide a short argument for belief in progress.