🧐 A thought: History aims to understand our past. Philosophy aims to understand our understanding.
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What makes a good book good? What do we mean when we judge a book good or bad? In a recent post on humanfactor.blog I quoted one publisher's and bookstore owner's response: "Does the book make you think? If it does, it is a good book." I explore this topic in greater detail in the post. And what are your thoughts? What is a good book?
#humanfactorblog #humanfactorblogger #books #goodbooks #philosophicalquestions #readingbooks #philosophicalthoughts #книги #чтение #философскиеразмышления

This is a post I've shared on my blog's Facebook page. It's a short video exploring an interesting concept of a burnout society. #humanfactorblogger #humanfactorblog #philosophicalthoughts #philosophyvideos #burnout #society #философскиеразмышления

"Any criticism of being implies an answer, provided one can offer an answer to one’s fellow man, i.e., to a free agent." Frantz Fanon in his book 'Black Skin, White Masks'. How can this be understood?
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Why are we often ashamed of our accents? How the way we sound influences the way we are perceived? Have a look at the new post on humanfactor.blog to find out more: https://humanfactor.blog/2023/04/15/ashamed-of-your-accent/
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The 'chicken and egg' problem - which came first? How to respond? Before we get stuck in the either/or debate, we can think of it in broader terms. The difficulty represented by the 'chicken and egg' question is that we don't know where to begin. Why? Referring to language and the related problem of which came first, system of rules or speech, Derrida suggested that we struggle with knowing where to begin because we began by splitting things up in this sharp way. Introducing Derrida's thought, Simon Glendinning writes: "If we are to overcome the 'chicken and egg' oscillation, what is needed, therefore, is a way of 'thinking at once both the rule and the event'."
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"Should I adjust my experience to align with measurement because that's reality? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around – aren’t our tools meant to be helpful instead of regulative? Or do we grow so accustomed to the simple, standardised measurements performed by the various devices we use that our individual, lived experiences come to be perceived as somewhat bizarre deviations from the straight line?" A quote from my recent article on humanfactor.blog at https://humanfactor.blog/2023/04/17/measuring-and-living-an-experience/
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"I know of no other definition of the bad, it is bad to predestine one's reading, it is always bad to foretell. It is bad, reader, no longer to like retracing one's steps." Derrida
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In a time when simplification is the goal to strive for and when complexity is out of fashion, I find these words refreshingly encouraging: "Your brain is made to think about difficult things. To help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn't understand at first. And that becomes the cream of your life. The rest is boring and worthless. " Murakami in his story "Cream"
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Quote from the podcast on Lived Experience shared today on humanfactor.blog
"The fact of a certain interior life gives you access to social critique".
One's personal way of experiencing something enables one to notice and critically engage with social and cultural structures informing that experience. Others might not even notice these structures (due to other ways of experiencing), although also inhabiting them.
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Quote from today's post on humanfactor.blog:
"How can we reduce the risk of misunderstanding caused by oversimplification? Complexify our thought. How? By being open to reconsider and ready for new, different interpretations."
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What does it mean to read philosophically? Not just philosophy books but reading as such, as a reading style - philosophical reading. Some will propose that it means critical reading. Analysis of the text, the arguments, the statements, all the time challenging the author with the "so what" type of question in one's mind. I think this is just one part of the story and it's not the most important one by far. For me, philosophical reading begins with the most sincere effort of the reader to understand the book, to engage with the text on its terms and to appreciate its context. Historical, social, cultural. Books, texts, words do not fall out of nowhere, preformed, readymade, unaffected by anything. This becomes evident when we learn about the broader context of a book we have read and suddenly new, broader perspectives of interpretation and understanding it are revealed to us.
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John Stuart Mill said, "I believe in spectacles, but I think eyes are necessary too". It was his response to a question concerning a topic still relevant today. Can we gain wisdom by focusing only on facts and how things work? Conversely, can we ground our ideas about meaning and purpose purely on speculation removed from direct engagement with the facts? Both are two essential parts of one whole. None is sufficient on its own. If you are curious to find out more, head to humanfactor.blog and check out my latest post on John Stuart Mill.
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In his introduction to Continental philosophy, Simon Critchley writes, "it is the business of philosophy to engage in what I have called the production of crisis. That is, philosophy is a critique of existing social praxis, as a variety of unfree or unjust praxis, that aspires towards some goal of individual or collective emancipation."
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