Welcome to PHILOSOPHY UNLEASHED

Philosophy Unleashed is about breaking free from the limits of syllabi and exam boards and allowing students and teachers to cast a philosophical eye on issues that interest them beyond the topics of an exam paper. If you want to write for Philosophy Unleashed click HERE.

All views expressed on the blog are those of the author of each post, and are not a reflection of, or affiliated with, any institution to which they may belong. In some cases, being philosophical inquiries, they may not even be the views of the author, but rather a “devil’s advocate” position they are trying on for size and kicking about, ultimately to reject. Consider this place an intellectual gymnasium where we “work out” our thoughts. And enjoy!

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204. START THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE - Time to Name Trump For What He Is

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“humanity routinely ignores the evidence of their eyes to make the common, everyday, standard oppressions and violences that are going on to people other than themselves ‘inconceivable’“

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203. IN THE DARK - Medicine, Epistemology and Economics

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“I wonder if the economics of medicine are too-often overlooked, even in countries with a decent free public healthcare system. I wonder how many people have lived or died because of investigations presenting as questions of epistemology - how can we possibly know what is going on in this body? - which are actually questions of finance - can we justify the expenditure it would take to find out?“

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202. PROGRESSING EVER BACKWARDS - Why This World and Not Another?

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“Trump is a symptom, not the sickness itself. There are other possible worlds where his overt peddling of misinformation and self-evident unfitness for office were immediate disqualifiers for an informed voting public. Where his allusions to Nazism and explicit fascistic authoritarianism were repulsive to us instead of something which won him votes. Where the intention disrupting of democratic institutions and surrounding himself with an oligarchy of tech billionaires rang alarm bells instead of raised cheers of support. That we do not live in one of those worlds should be the thing we ask the most questions about.“

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201. THE FORBIDDEN BEAT - Should I Stop Listening to Marilyn Manson?

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“Manson always was a symptom and not a cause of the social sickness he personified. Watching the documentary this week simply reminded me that the world which created him continues to fail to confront the true causes of its sickness, and points the finger at individuals we can demonise instead of looking in the mirror and asking why such demons continue to exist.“

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200. WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OURSELVES? - Ethical Digital Hygiene

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“why do I get news headlines sent to my phone?“

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199. DOES SANTA EXIST? - A Christmas Inquiry

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“I pointed out that while their ‘evidence’ certainly seemed to point to the idea that none of them were being given gifts from Santa - at least not on the Christmases in question - it did not completely remove the possibility that Santa Claus might still exist…“

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198. NOT DEALING WITH TRAUMA - Why We Need to do Some Work Before Returning to Normal

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“And now normal is what happens when we live so long in denial about our generational wounds that they fester and metastasise into something ugly and, possibly, untreatable.”

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197. ASSISTED DYING - A Reasonable Adjustment to Make

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“one could even call it a ‘reasonable adjustment’ to ensure one’s universal ability to end one’s own life is not unfairly denied to people just because of a physical disability (a protected characteristic under UK law). Not allowing assisted suicide is discriminatory to those of us without the physical capability for killing ourselves.“

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195. RECKONING WITH THE ELECTION - Reflections on a Soul-Crushing Week

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“Either I’d got Trump wrong, or I’d got the morality of my fellow citizens wrong? And neither explanation was particularly comforting.“

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194. SHOULD THE STATE CARE ABOUT PRIVATE SCHOOLS? - On the Meaning of Independence

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“the conversation around VAT on independent schools being a conversation purely based around money, costs and affordability, instead of it being a serious public conversation around education and what a good education should look like is a conversation that fails to address what really ails the current state school system and what the advantages of going to, or working in, the independent sector actually are. “

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193. THE WRONG CHOICE - Why Voting for Trump is More Than Just A Choice I Disagree With

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“Sometimes, when given a completely free choice, to choose any other way but one can be so self-sabotaging that there really is no choice at all. The 2024 US election is one such case. Whoever wins, we lose, but if Trump wins, what we lose is so significant we may never be able to win again.“

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192. BAND PRAXIS - Punk and the Anarchist Squint

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Band Praxis - Punk and the Anarchist Squint by DaN McKee (taken from The Anarchism and Punk Book Project’s Book 2 - DIY or Die: Do it Yourself, Do it Together & Punk Anarchism)

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191. WRESTLING WITH DONALD TRUMP - Why We Ignore The Wrestling Connection at Our Peril

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"Trump is undoubtedly a monster.  Trump is a massive threat to the kind of democracy that all Americans should hold dear.  But he is using the playbook of professional wrestling to win the White House once again and is therefore a monster we are responsible for keeping alive so long as we continue to not take the influence of professional wrestling on politics seriously."

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