2. Philosophical questions

Let me roughly indicate the programme of this blog. What philosophical issues will I discuss? Central issues in philosophy have been God, the true, the good and the beautiful. I will consider all of these except beauty (because I have studied that less).

Is there a soul apart from the body? Is there a hereafter? Does God exist, and what or who is God? What concepts of God are there? Why do we seek God? Can we do without religion? Does religion require a God, or can it be directed at something else that is somehow ‘higher’ or ‘greater’ than the self? What is humanism? Can there be a humanist religion?

Can we have certain knowledge? Do we know the world as it is? Can we be objective? Does knowledge come from inside, within the mind, or from outside, from perception, or perhaps from both, somehow? What is truth? Do general concepts, such as ‘humanity’, ‘horses’ refer to something that exists, somehow, apart from individual humans and horses? What is the relation between the general and the specific?

What is the good life? What drives the human being? Is the good life a matter of pleasure, self-sufficiency and autonomy, self-manifestation, survival, being virtuous, following moral rules? Can altruism exist, next to egoism? Do we have free will? What is justice? What is the relation between self and other, individual and collective? Is the individual autonomous? What is love? 

Perhaps the most fundamental ongoing issue is the opposition between on the one hand the drive towards absolute, universal and immutable concepts and truths, above and beyond earthly life, which goes back to Plato, and on the other hand acceptance and appreciation of imperfection, complexity, confusion, vagaries and variability of earthly life, which goes back to Aristotle? Loss of belief in old absolutes of God, truth and morality, under the influence, especially, of Nietzsche, is called ‘nihilism’. Can we live beyond nihilism, even see it as liberation, and accept that the human being will never achieve perfection while nevertheless trying to improve on it? I will argue for ‘imperfection on the move’.  That is one reason for calling this blog ‘Philosophy on the move’

As currents in philosophy I will discuss the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Existentialism and some more recent thought. I aim to show how fascinating and intellectually adventurous the history of ideas is, with themes that appear, shift and re-appear in new forms. That is another reason for calling this blog ‘Philosophy on the move’.