Philosophy 101

Links from Fall 2005

(10/13/05) For an interesting Washington Post article on the phenomenon of the “Nocebo Effect”—the “evil twin” of the Placebo Effect—click here.

(10/10/05) For an interesting review of a book about memory loss, which discusses issues of personal identity, click here.

(09/16/05) We watched the film last night My Flesh and Blood about the family of Susan Tom. There is now a trust fund set up to help pay for college for the Tom kids. For info, click here. The website also has links to other sites related to the film. Also, the November 6^th broadcast of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (from 7-9pm, I believe) will feature Susan Tom and her family. UPDATE: Here is an article from Susan Tom’s local newspaper with an update on the family.

(9/27/05) Apropos of our discussion on 9/25 regarding the possible benefits and/or harms of religion to society, you might find this article from the Journal of Religion and Society, which uses statistical data to tackle that very question. For a different perspective, click here.

(11/11/05) Regarding our discussion of Martha Nussbaum’s article on female genital mutilation: the woman whom Nussbaum portrays in her article (the one who sought asylum in the U.S. on the grounds that she would FGM forced on were she to return to her home country Togo) has written a book about her experience; click here. For a list of books on FGM, click here. For another firsthand account, this time from a victim of FGM who fled Somalia and became a supermodel in Britain, click here. For an account by an anthropologist, click here. Finally, for the original article by Yael Tamir (“Hands Off Clitoridectomy!”) to which Nussbaum’s article is a response, click here. For other critical responses to this article in addition to Nussbaum’s, as well as replies by Tamir, click here and scroll down to “Judging Other Cultures."

Note 8/23/05: The following links are from last fall but they remain relevant to the issues we will discuss this term, so I have left them up. I will add more when and if I discover more.

(09/07/04) If you liked the article on cosmology by Marcus Chown, you might be interested in his book, The Universe Next Door. Another highly-regarded book on string theory and cosmology is Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos.

(9/23/04) James Randi was a prominent figure in the video we watched ("The Power of Belief"). Click here for his website. A group that does similar work is the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal (CSICOP); they publish the magazine Skeptical Inquirer. Also concerned with defending "reason," but less specifically concerned with debunking claims of the paranormal, is the Council for Secular Humanism; their flagship publication is Free Inquiry. For a website with criticisms of James Randi and his $1 million challenge, click here; for a rival $1 million dollar challenge from supporters of the supernatural, click here. For a skeptics’ response to this anti-skeptical $1 million challenge, click here. (In my judgment Randi does good and important work, even if he isn’t very appealing personality-wise. But read both him and his critics and decide for yourself.) On other matters: for an article on the “Nocebo Effect,” click here.

(11/11/04) For some more information on the Hitler Youth phenomenon, which came up in our discussion of the JoJo example from Susan Wolf’s article, click here. A little-known fact is that some youths in Cologne, Germany formed an alternative, anti-Nazi youth group called the Edelweiss Pirates. Some of them engaged in acts of resistance during WWII, leading to their death by hanging at the hands of Nazi authorities. For more information, click here.