Postmodern Perspective

A Philosophy Blog

Feb 13, 2016

Natural Born Fundamentalists

RECENT advances in evolutionary biology applied to the field of morality have given us invaluable insight into why we might be naturally wired to form strong cooperative bonds with those that we identify as fellows. There is a growing body of evidence pointing towards morality…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Nov 15, 2015

Beliefs Matter

ONE of the most disheartening elements of the barbaric attacks in Paris this weekend is that we all knew something like this could happen. We all knew very well that there is a frightening number of people living in the world today whose beliefs would lead them to act in precisely this murderous…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Oct 27, 2015

The Deprivatization of Belief and its Consequences

THE MOST consequential aspect of the hyperconnected world that has emerged over the last two decades is the growing interlacing of formerly private beliefs into new public global networks. The dissolution of informational friction brought…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Mar 8, 2015

The Paradox of Liberalism and the Rise of Fundamentalism

THE RISE of fundamentalism is causing a paradoxical situation for us Westerners: The very concepts that once helped us overcome the bitter fundamentalism of the wars of religion — pluralism and moral autonomy — seem to prevent us…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jan 11, 2015

Philosophy and the Battle against Fundamentalism

LET ME start with a bold statement: I believe philosophy holds the key to defeat fundamentalism and to truly dismantle the logic of religiously motivated terrorism that afflicts our late-modern societies. I am fully aware that in an era where…

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Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jun 15, 2014

Liberalism and Moral Conflict (Part 2)

IN THE PREVIOUS POST I explained why liberalism is by design ineffective to cope with rising moral conflict. In short, liberalism was crafted to avoid moral conflict, not to resolve it. The whole point of liberalism is to stop moral conflict in its tracks by…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Feb 15, 2014

Liberalism and Moral Conflict (Part 1)

IMPOTENCE towards growing intractable moral conflict has to be one of the most characteristic intellectual feelings of our era. What is so particular about the new millennia that has turned us all into unyielding defenders of our own moral views? Why all of the…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Sep 8, 2013

Secularists and Fundamentalists are Both Wrong

THE events unfolding in North Africa and particularly in Egypt and Tunisia highlight the contested nature of what remains the key question of modern political philosophy: How to establish a stable and just society of individuals profoundly divided…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

May 6, 2013

The Autonomous Fundamentalists

THE fact that fundamentalism is blooming precisely in an era of complete global interconnection and widespread access to information seems counterintuitive. It would seem reasonable to expect that growing interlinkages between different cultures would foster an acute sense…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jan 26, 2013

A Pragmatic Defense of Critical Rationalism

CRITICAL rationalism can be characterized as the position that one should treat all of one’s beliefs as potentially revisable. In essence, critical rationalism is what philosophers would call an “epistemological attitude”, i.e., an attitude towards our…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Dec 18, 2012

Faith and Pragmatism

AS a pragmatist, I live by the following rule: when the nature of a belief is such that it cannot be corroborated or falsified by observable facts, such belief should be evaluated by the practical consequences it carries if one was to hold it as true. This is the simplest account I can offer…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Sep 5, 2012

Beyond Secularism

THERE used to be a time when secularism was a brilliant idea. Back then, the prospect that a single dogmatic vision could gather enough political strength to crush individual autonomy was a real possibility. Christians were afraid that their freedom to believe would be crushed if Protestants…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jul 29, 2012

Ending Fundamentalism (One Tweet at a Time)

FUNDAMENTALISM in its most basic form can be characterized as the practice of holding a belief (any belief) as infallible. Understanding this simple fact about fundamentalism, i.e., that its root is epistemological, is the first step for mounting a…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

May 20, 2012

Internet Killed the Liberal Star

THE key thesis I want to advance in this post is quite simple yet profoundly disrupting: In a hyper-connected society as the one that is rapidly emerging, the liberal idea of freedom as moral autonomy and its political upshot (Political Liberalism) have become…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

May 6, 2012

Take Morality Out of the Closet

MORALITY has been living in the closet for over three centuries. Back in the fierce days after the Reformation, a stringent “don’t ask don’t tell” system was ushered in to get us out of the ideological bloodbath. The deal was brilliant and simple: if you want to live in a…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Apr 14, 2012

Morality, Faith and Atheism

MANY people of faith believe that atheism is inconsistent with morality. As I will argue in what follows, this apprehension is justified — but only from within an impractical view of what morality is supposed to accomplish.

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Mar 10, 2012

Fundamentalism and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

THE current rise of fundamentalism can be explained using the classic Game Theory scenario known as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. For those not familiar with Game Theory, let me start by giving you a very simplified example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma applying a…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Feb 26, 2012

Fundamentalism, Pragmatism and Public Deliberation

SEVERAL posts in this blog have explored the argument that growing fundamentalism is the inevitable byproduct of an increasingly interconnected plural society that still lashes on to the classic liberal idea that our individual worldviews…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Dec 18, 2011

What Is Pragmatism Good For?

BEFORE one can truly understand what pragmatism is, one needs to be aware of what pragmatism is good for and more importantly perhaps, what pragmatism is not good for. As I will insist here, pragmatism is actually a rather narrow and specifically defined method. Understanding…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Dec 1, 2011

Freedom in a Plural and Interconnected World

WHEN discussing the concept of freedom,the classic distinction between “negative” and “positive”freedom is usually a good place to start. For those not familiar with this distinction, “negative” freedom deals with the absence of external obstacles or…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Nov 13, 2011

Part 2: Let’s Take Morality Out of the Closet

THE intellectual struggle against fundamentalism is the main motivation behind the effort of dragging morality out of the closet of our autonomous consciousnesses and into the social sphere. The liberal notion of the autonomous moral individual who…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Oct 19, 2011

Let’s Take Morality Out of the Closet

MORALITY has been living in the closet for over three centuries. Back in the fierce days after theReformation, a stringent “don’t ask don’t tell” system was ushered in to get us out of the ideological bloodbath. The deal was brilliant and simple: if you want to…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Sep 22, 2011

Pragmatic Moral Relativism

THERE is no denying that moral relativism has a bad reputation. As I will try to show in this post, this ominous notoriety is, for the most part, the product of a broad misunderstanding about what the word “relative” means. Moreover, I will explain that when viewed from a pragmatic…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jul 26, 2011

Unlocking Empathy

THE rise of the internet and the recent exponential growth of social networks have got a lot of commentators excited about the impact that this process of “global wiring” could have over human empathy. The basic premise is quite simple: greater interconnectivity means greater opportunities to put…

Francisco Mejia Uribe

Jun 2, 2011

Beyond Toleration

THERE is no doubt that Political Liberalism is responsible for steering the Western world away from the path of bitter sectarian conflicts, tyranny and civil war and into the path of sustainable political stability and democracy. Orchestrated by Locke and Montesquieu, crystallized politically by…