148. THINKING ABOUT WORLD BOOK DAY - How Reading Is More Than The The Fetishisation of Books

March 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Book, Censorship, Communication, Culture, Education, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Social Media

“Instead of asking what we are reading on World Book Day, we ought to raise the level of questioning: what are we reading and how is it changing us? What is it making us think? What questions are the book raising? Even if the answer is, to all these questions, not a lot (I am unchanged, not thinking about anything, and asking no questions), to ask them makes us perhaps realise that some books are like junk food while others are more nutritious.“

147. NOT ALL GOBSTOPPERS ARE EVERLASTING - Why I'm OK With Changing The Words of Roald Dahl

February 27, 2023 by DaN McKee in Censorship, Communication, Culture, Free Speech, Gender, Identity, History, LGBTQ, Meaning, Media, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Racism

“Don’t let the illusion of sole authorship fool you. Published writing has always been edited by many and influenced by audiences. If you want to read the unblemished, pure and unfiltered draft straight from the author’s mind and onto the page, read something self-published (like this blog…although I do tend to do a few drafts). Anything else you read, assume there have been drafts, edits, alterations, corrections, and the input of many. The author, often, is a group of authors. Dahl is no different.“

146. THEY/THEM - Why We Need To Be Gender-Neutral About God

February 13, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Gender, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Religion

“of course God - a being defined in terms of transcendence - would not be confined to one single point on a spectrum or one limited half of a binary. The very terms of transcendence that makes God God would necessitate God being beyond either a gender binary or the limits of a single gender. The omnipotent God responsible for creating both men and women in their own image, logic would suggest, must possess an image inclusive of both male and female (and everything in between).“

145. IT'S NICE TO HAVE OPTIONS - Existentialism and UCAS.

February 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Education, Existentialism, Epistemology, Ethics, Free, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School

“Deciding not to bore the student with Donald Rumsfeld’s treatise on known knowns and known unknowns, I instead decided to offer guidance from the existentialists. That is to say: no real guidance at all. What my student was facing, I suggested, was a living example of the sort of anxiety and despair existentialist philosophers suggested comes from our absolute freedom.“

144. CHALLENGING PERCEPTIONS - Why Top Tier Football Clubs Continue To Do Women's Football A Disservice

January 30, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Ethics, Gender, Identity, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Sport

“Why complain about this in a philosophy blog? Because a perpetual area of philosophical inquiry concerns perception versus reality, and sometimes this coming apart of perception from reality (or reality from perception) often leads to questions in ethics too. I believe this problem - of the women’s teams of football clubs not sharing the same home ground as their male counterparts - touches on both.“

143. ARTIFICIALLY PRODUCED - Is using ChatGPT To Do Your Work Cheating?

January 23, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Communication, Education, Ethics, Epistemology, Mind, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Student Writing, Technology, Artificial Intelligence

“The following essay for Philosophy Unleashed was produced by AI. ChatGPT to be precise. I asked it to attempt to write a Philosophy Unleashed post on the topic of the ethics of using ChatGPT to cheat in school work, and do it in the style of me as author. I will present the essay to you first, then show you how it came to be. As you read, ask yourself the question: if I hadn’t told you it was artificially generated, would you know that a human being didn’t write this? And if you know my work specifically, would you know that I hadn’t written it?“

142. THE INEVITABILITY OF FANTASY - Leaning Into Storytelling In Lieu of Truth

January 16, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Epistemology, Existentialism, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Truth

“The more depressed you are the more accurately you see the world.“

141. THE VALUE OF SOCIAL MEDIA - Does It Have Any?

January 09, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Ethics, Media, Mental Health, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Technology, Social Media

“I was struck by the idea that social media gives us a living example of what emotivism really would be like sufficient enough to demonstrate why Ayer is wrong about normal moral discourse. Places like Twitter or Facebook really are just expressing ‘boo’ or ‘hurrah’ about certain issues and moral discourse is rendered meaningless there.“

140. SABBATICAL - On The Importance of Taking a Break

December 12, 2022 by DaN McKee in Christmas, COVID19, Education, Free, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“It shouldn’t be surprising to realise that, for an animal which literally shuts completely down every night and knocks itself unconscious as a means of essential restoration, stopping is good for human beings.“

139. A CHRISTMAS CAROL ONE YEAR ON - A Philosophy

December 05, 2022 by DaN McKee in Christmas, Data, Epistemology, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

It's a Christmas Carol one year later, and Ebeneezer Scrooge is doing a bit of philosophy which might undo his transformation…

138. BANNED BANDS - On the Cowardice of the England Football Team

November 28, 2022 by DaN McKee in Censorship, Communication, Ethics, Free Speech, LGBTQ, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture, Sport

“Last week it seemed clear to me that the England men’s football team showed a deficiency when it came to courage, and failed to act with virtue when told by Fifa not to wear their OneLove armbands in Qatar.“

137. NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS - On Our Obligation to Stay Informed

November 21, 2022 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, Communication, Culture, Elections, Meaning, Media, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Television, Technology

“If I told a colleague or friend that I have never watched Breaking Bad or watched The Godfather, they might be surprised, even incredulous, but they could not call me irresponsible. If I told them I didn’t watch the news, however, it would be a different order of outrage.“

136. NO GODS NO MASTER-DONS - Decolonising Twitter Migration

November 14, 2022 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, Communication, Culture, Education, Ethics, Immigration, Identity, Obligation, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, Technology

“The site of struggle here being the realm of social media might seem trivial to some, and online colonisation lacks the bloodshed and brutality of historical imperialisms, but as a living model it has been instructive of the sorts of behaviours we see offline too.“

135. UNLOCKING CAGES - Language, Asylum, Immigration and Abolition

November 07, 2022 by DaN McKee in Communication, Immigration, Identity, Justice, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment, Racism

“When one takes a step back and realises that amidst all the language of ‘asylum seekers’, ‘detainees’, and ‘illegal immigrants’ what we are really talking about is human beings, it is hard not to hang your head in shame at the way our country routinely treats certain human beings.“

134. LIVING WITH GHOSTS - Haunted by Football

October 31, 2022 by DaN McKee in Culture, History, Identity, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Sport

‘I don’t believe in ghosts, yet I am living with one…‘

133. THE HARD PROBLEM OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS - On The Difficulty and Need For Waking From Dogmatic Slumbers

October 17, 2022 by DaN McKee in Black Lives Matter, Communication, Culture, EDI, Education, Existentialism, Identity, Mind, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Racism

“I’ve been thinking a lot about consciousness this week. Not the traditional philosophical questions about mind and body, but political consciousness. Specifically Black Consciousness.“

132. BLACK HISTORY WITHOUT TEETH - On The Potential Epistemic Deficit of Black History Month

October 10, 2022 by DaN McKee in Academic Freedom, Black Lives Matter, EDI, Education, History, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Racism, School

“we need to first address with students core concepts like structural racism, white supremacy and white supremacist thinking, historical constructivism, critical race theory, colonialism, ideology, education policy and curriculum design. Without that, it will be very hard for the students we teach to place any of what they learn during Black History Month into a meaningful, long-term schema of knowledge.“

131. UNWELCOME VISITORS - When Jordan Peterson Came to Michaela

October 03, 2022 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Communication, Culture, Education, Ethics, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Q&A, School, Academic Freedom

“We should have more unwelcome visitors to our schools, not fewer. More opportunities for students to ask questions and poke holes. More academic freedom to develop an enduring culture of critique and scrutiny so that ideas are never accepted without a fight. If we are worried about the young and impressionable minds of our students, it’s time that we stopped them being so impressionable.“

130. THE TRIAL & EXECUTION OF SOCRATES - A guest writer reflects on Socrates and asks: 'is democracy a tyranny'?

September 25, 2022 by DaN McKee in Ethics, History, Justice, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment

“The same law which produces justice can be unjust and immoral if interpreted by a tyrant. Tyranny in democracy is almost undetectable because the whole system is depicted to be busy in the service and security of people. But what if the people become a tyranny? Sometimes the fanaticism of the majority, or the sophistry and rhetoric of the minority, can take the shield of law and trample moral codes.“

129. STRANGER THINGS - Leave the Battles to the Children

September 19, 2022 by DaN McKee in Culture, Meaning, Movies, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Television

“I love the Netflix series Stranger Things. I’m supposed to. It is literally targeted directly to me: a weirdo child of the 80s…“