A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. Amid the turmoil of life, riddled with wickedness and pain, he would insist that our world is good.  And all our success is built on this belief. Note: Before we start, let’s get one thing out of the way: Thomas Aquinas is clearly a Christian thinker, a Saint even. Yet he was also a brilliant philosopher. So even if you consider yourself agnostic or an atheist, stay with me, you will still enjoy his ideas. What is good? Thomas’ argument is rooted in Aristotle’s concept of goodness: Something is good if it fulfills its function. Aristotle had illustrated this idea with a knife. A knife is good to the extent that it cuts well. He made a distinction between an actual knife and its ideal function. That actual thing in your drawer is the existence of a knife. And its ideal function is its essence—what it means to be a knife: to cut well.  So everything is separated into its existence and its ideal essence. And this is also true for humans: We have an ideal conception of what the essence of a human […] The post Thomas Aquinas — The world is divine! appeared first on Ralph Ammer.

About 2300 years ago, the great Chinese thinker Xunzi 荀⼦ wrote: “Human nature is bad“. But he wasn’t just having a bad day. The question—Are humans fundamentally good or bad?—is a major fork in the road. How you answer this question profoundly impacts your morals and how you live your life. Previous to Xunzi, another famous scholar had claimed that human nature was inherently good. Mengzi 孟子: Human nature is good The Ox Hill Mengzi had illustrated his idea with a story about a wooded hill. After the trees get chopped down and the sprouts are grazed by animals, the hill appears barren and unfruitful. He compares this hill to someone who can’t bring forth his good character under bad circumstances. For him, goodness is an integral part of every person’s nature. It merely requires the right circumstances to emerge. Goodness will grow forth naturally from every person if no one interferes. Willows and Bowls Someone suggested to Mengzi that a good character had to be forged from a man’s nature like bowls were made from a tree.  Mengzi objected that a tree must be violated in order to be turned into useful bowls. He can’t accept the comparison between […] The post Xunzi vs. Mengzi – Are People (No) Good? appeared first on Ralph Ammer.

To “animate” means to breathe life into things. In these 5 exercises we make stones come alive. Preparation To get started I suggest this simple setup for you to try at home:  Ready? Let’s go! Thinking in time Stop-motion is simple: Take a picture, move the object, take the next picture, move the object, etc. Once you are done, you can play back all those images as a little movie. Tip: You can do the following exercises exactly as shown here or play around with them. Just make sure to have fun! Exercise 1: Timing Turn a stone into a bouncing ball.  Start with a stone above the middle of the page and hit the record button. Then move it down a little, take the next frame, move it again, and so on. Once it has reached the bottom, gradually move it up again until it is back to its starting position. Tip: At first you will notice that our steps are too big. As a result the animation plays way too fast! Just start over and make the steps smaller. Another tip: You can make the movement more natural by varying the distances. And you can make the “ball” […] The post A quick beginner’s guide to animation appeared first on Ralph Ammer.

You are awake. You think and you feel. But what is it that is doing all this thinking and feeling? We call it “consciousness” and over 100 years ago the philosopher Edmund Husserl made a bold attempt to uncover its secrets. Subjective experience is private The thing is: Consciousness is not “out there”, it is “in here“. It is personal and subjective. When I say that I like squirrels or that my foot hurts, then you will have to take my word for it. You can’t know what it is like to be me, and I cannot know what it is like to be you. Consciousness can only be observed from the inside, not from the outside. Since we can’t see the world through other peoples’ eyes, their experience remains deeply mysterious to us. Thus we all see the world differently. And this can lead to bitter conflict. Science is based on objective insight One way to overcome such conflict is to take an objective position. We take a neutral view from outside and focus on the things that we can all agree upon. We have learned to see ourselves “from the outside”. In fact, we can build a whole […] The post Edmund Husserl — Consciousness appeared first on Ralph Ammer.