On failures of freedom & the fear of science
| Abstract | Allen Funt was one of the great psychologists of the twentieth century. His informal demonstrations on Candid Camera showed us as much about human psychology and its surprising limitations as the work of any academic psychologist. Here is one of the best (as I recall it many years later): he placed an umbrella stand in a prominent place in a department store and filled it with shiny new golf-cart handles. These were pieces of strong, gleaming stainless steel tubing, about two feet long, with a gentle bend in the middle, threaded at one end (to screw into a threaded socket on your golf cart) and with a handsome spherical plastic knob on the other end. In other words, about as useless a piece of stainless steel tubing as you could imagine, unless you happened to own a golf cart missing its handle. He put up a sign. It didn't identify the contents but simply said: "50% off. Today only! $5.95." Some people purchased them, and, when asked why, they were quite ready to volunteer one confabulated answer or another. They had no idea what the thing was, but it was a handsome thing, and such a bargain! These people were not brain-damaged or drunk; they were normal adults, our neighbors, ourselves. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,875 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesPeter J. Taylor (1994). Shifting Frames: From Divided to Distributed Psychologies of Scientific Agents. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994:304 - 310.
H. E. Baber (1987). How Bad Is Rape? Hypatia 2 (2):125 - 138.
Jonathan Wolff (1997). Freedom, Liberty, and Property. Critical Review 11 (3):345-357.
J. L. Schellenberg (2005). The Hiddenness Argument Revisited (II). Religious Studies 41 (3):287 - 303.
Dale Hample, Bing Han & David Payne (2010). The Aggressiveness of Playful Arguments. Argumentation 24 (4):405-421.
P. X. Monaghan (2010). A Novel Interpretation of Plato's Theory of Forms. Metaphysica 11 (1):63-78.
B. H. Slater (1974). Logic and Grammar. Philosophical Quarterly 24 (95):122-131.
Tang Yijie & Yan Xin (2008). The Contemporary Significance of Confucianism. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 3 (4):477 - 501.
Robert Batterman (1992). Quantum Chaos and Semiclassical Mechanics. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:50 - 65.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-12-22Total downloads11 ( #100,810 of 556,837 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #64,847 of 556,837 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
