Watching the Penn&Teller masterclass on magic, here are their philosophical views on the practice.
Though the word has supernatural P&T overtones, they are thorough naturalists. "No-one leaves the theater believing something that we ourselves do not think is true on purpose." 1/
Penn: "illusion" = visual effect to accomplish a trick, e.g., mirror to make something appear different. Smart thing = the tricks.--tricks "involve intellectual engagements on the part of the audience" and involves "exploring epistemology" (how do we know what is true?" 2/
"[magic] is the heaviest philosophical ideas you can possibly have, dealt with in the silliest way"--it is playground for serious epistemological topics such as what to believe and what not (so Teller), you can play because there are no (dire) consequences. 3/
Also (Penn): "magic is so far from solipsistic".
You can play music for yourself, even write poetry for yourself, but magic is a performance art that you cannot do for yourself.
"You are questioning the bounds of trust, but you must reach out to someone else" 4/
"you must understand what another person is thinking, get out of yourself to do this" - all performance arts require empathy and learning to see thing from someone else's point of view, but magic requires you to do it. 5/
"it brings out a huge amount of wonder... which is an end in itself" (say Penn).
I'll talk about this and related issues here!
phil.uga.edu/events/content… /end

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More from @Helenreflects

17 Apr
Some recent Uber drives and conversations (so long ago I was in an Uber!) about the vaccines make me think about misinformation and how important epistemic rights are. Many of these drivers had deeply mistaken, distorted beliefs about the vaccines and were hesitant to get them 1/
In this paper Lani Watson characterizes epistemic rights as a subset of human rights, more specifically "right to information, the right to know, the right to true and justified beliefs, the right to understand, and the right to truth" 2/

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
The Uber drivers I spoke to had distorted, mistaken beliefs about vaccines namely: that they would not be efficacious, that they weren't tested rigorously, that it was some scheme by Bill Gates, that they were unnecessary for them etc. All these beliefs are circulating 3/
Read 10 tweets
11 Apr
@CT_Bergstrom Pfff the philosophical community has discussed this amply. If only he read some philosophy then at least he would be read up on it. This is an excellent paper on the topic
bostonreview.net/race-philosoph…
@CT_Bergstrom Since I think few people will click through, let me just highlight a few important passages of this piece. The authors,
@RDembroff
and Dee Payton, argue that there is an asymmetry between being transgender and being transracial 1/
@CT_Bergstrom @RDembroff They write "... it is a mistake to base this asymmetry on notions about who “really is” a woman or who “really is” Black. The social world is a dynamic and ever-changing place...."2/
Read 10 tweets
11 Apr
Reading Heidi (Spyri) to my son. I loved the book as a kid and the descriptions of the mountains are still magical. But now... I'm just not sure if I love the book quite so much. There are two problems. First, there is Alm-uncle (grandfather). Basically a bunch of bigots 1/
Who rejected him and cast him out because he came as a single father with a small child back from Naples to the small village in Switzerland. Oooh he's a single dad. He must've done something wrong. And he was shunned. And now he's supposed to make amends with the community 2/
Second major problem: there are strong disabled characters (the grandma of Peter and the girl Clara) - this is good. But their disability is portrayed as something that voids their life almost from all meaning, super-negative. We see this through Heidi's eyes in parts, still 3/
Read 4 tweets
11 Apr
OMG I am having an absolute blast listening to Chris Voss, former hostage negotiator, talk about how to negotiate. I have no idea if these techniques work but my God it is so entertaining. My next negotiation (and we negotiate so frequently), I am going all in!
For posterity, I'm going to put some tips by this hostage negotiator in a thread.
Tip #1: Negotiation is about building trust and establishing a relationship. It is counterproductive to go in with a bottom line. Much better to establish relationship & see what can be achieved 2/
(side note: I find it so interesting to have a hostage negotiator of all people advocate for non-zero sum negotiation tactics. This makes me think that zero-sum or not really is an attitude, not so much driven by circumstance as we think) 3/
Read 24 tweets
10 Apr
Tomorrow I will be part of a panel on prestige and inclusion in Anglo-American philosophy (with @Etienne_Brown @RebeccaBamford and Thierry Ngosso.
Here are some late night thoughts on the following puzzle:
Why don't we have an international philosophical community? 1/
@Etienne_Brown @RebeccaBamford It is remarkable to see how fractured the philosophical community is. I have worked and lived in 4 countries: Belgium, The Netherlands, the UK, and the US. And in those 4 (wealthy, western) countries, there are distinct philosophical communities, but overall ... 2/
Little in the way of collaborations. If you look beyond western countries, things look even bleaker. As a little test, try to think of names of philosophers working in two African countries with a lively philosophical tradition: Ghana and South Africa. How many can you name? 3/
Read 26 tweets
9 Apr
Going (virtually) to the #PacificAPA21 session for John Martin Fischer session on death, immortality & meaning of life. My motivation was: difficult to concentrate on Zoom, let's do a lighter session.
Only in academic philosophy would death, meaning of life be seen as "lighter"!
He's now arguing against the "immortality curmudgeons", who think that immortality would be bad (e.g., terribly boring)
Fischer "I call them immortality curmudgeons because that makes their view less plausible from the outset."
Now response by @augustggorman on John Martin Fischer's book. Their summary of the book really make me want to read it!
Read 7 tweets

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