Author: Don Trubshaw

Don Trubshaw is a co-founder of the website Societal Values. He has a PhD in the philosophy and sociology of education and teaches in Higher Education.

Britain on the Brink? The Rights and Wrongs of Rebellion

Recently, I visited a friend and noted that his road and surrounding area was festooned with St George’s flags. Knowing him to be an avowed Marxist, I quipped that he had obviously been busy during the night. Of course, what passes for the left and the working class have gone their separate ways over the… Continue reading Britain on the Brink? The Rights and Wrongs of Rebellion

Putting AI in its Place: Experience, Empowerment and Creativity

Multiple concerns have been and are being raised about the threats posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are more extreme claims that AI represents an existential threat to humanity. While not dismissing any potential harms that AI might cause, I want to convince you that the problems arise when we are overawed by the myth… Continue reading Putting AI in its Place: Experience, Empowerment and Creativity

Contending with God: Philosophical Theism, Humanism and the Transcendent

There is a tradition stretching back to the Greek Presocratic philosopher Thales of supposed proofs of God’s existence expressed in philosophical and logical language independent of any doctrine or personal confession of faith, even though these, explicitly in some cases and in others presumably, motivated at some level the enterprise involved in setting forth such… Continue reading Contending with God: Philosophical Theism, Humanism and the Transcendent

Don’t be a victim! Beyond the culture of entitlement and anxiety

A paper that came out in 2014 by two sociologists, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, made the argument that with the rise of a more diverse and egalitarian culture, particularly in the academic world, combined with the rise of powerful administrative sectors therein, a new form of social morality has emerged that they referred to… Continue reading Don’t be a victim! Beyond the culture of entitlement and anxiety

‘The Re-Enchantment of the World’ as Theoretical Critique and Social Practice

Introduction ‘The re-enchantment of the world’ emerged as a concept in the 1980s in the work of Maurice Berman, in a work on the philosophy and psychology of science of that name and became adopted as a tellingly evocative motif among certain environmental writers and theologians. Ironically, until now it has not featured much within… Continue reading ‘The Re-Enchantment of the World’ as Theoretical Critique and Social Practice

Expertise versus Elitism

The life philosophy of an ancient fellow I once knew, who was in the habit of dispensing chunks of wisdom from his doorstep, could have been summarized in the following aphorism: “Everyone’s good at something, everyone has a weakness, and you’ve got to die of something”. In his case all three observations neatly converged on… Continue reading Expertise versus Elitism

From certainty to dialogue: furthering the project of modernity

One of the accusations thrown at postmodern theorists and activists, such as the purveyors of identity politics is that they are advocates of relativism and deniers of facts. I am going to argue that this is actually their greatest virtue. They go downhill from there on in, as they seek to impose their own brand… Continue reading From certainty to dialogue: furthering the project of modernity

The Evolution of Evolutionary Thinking

1859, the year of publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, was the year that the concept of evolution exploded into popular consciousness. It went on to foment a controversy that raged for a hundred years and still continues, in some quarters, to be considered problematic. That was because Darwin, and independently Alfred Wallace, had… Continue reading The Evolution of Evolutionary Thinking