Nathan Hawkins
I am a philosophy graduate of Cambridge University where I teach and lecture. My thesis was on the nature of truth (soon to be a book with an academic publisher), and I specialise in metaphysics, logic, and the history of analytic philosophy. I believe philosophy should be made accessible to the curious and philosophers have a duty to reenter the public debate on the questions of importance to our age. This channel is my attempt to do that!
Join me (free or paid) on Patreon for updates, a philosophy community, exclusive videos, and special live events! I'd love to see you there: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins
Nathan Hawkins
LIVE EVENT! This Saturday, the 7th of February, from 4-5.30pm GMT, I will be explaining and discussing Thomas Nagel's famous paper on consciousness: 'What is it like to be a bat?'. There will be opportunities to ask question and discuss with all attendees.
This live event can be accessed by Beautiful members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins.
I hope to see some of you there!
4 days ago | [YT] | 31
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Nathan Hawkins
LIVE EVENT! Tomorrow, the 24th of January, from 4-5.30pm GMT, I will be having a live discussion with Dr Farbod Akhlaghi, focusing on his research into truth in ethics. In it, Farbod puts forward novel ways of trying to make sense of the relation between moral truths and the world. And our discussion will be followed by a time of Q&A with attendees.
Farbod Akhlaghi is Assistant Professor in Moral Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. His primary research concerns moral philosophy, metaphysics, and their intersections and histories. He has published in, amongst other places, Analysis, Ethics, Mind, and Synthese, and is currently writing a book for Cambridge University Press entitled Truth in Ethics. Further info about Farbod and his work is available here: farbodakhlaghi-g.weebly.com
This live event with Q&A can be accessed by Good members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins. An edited version of our conversation will be posted to YouTube a month later.
2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 14
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Nathan Hawkins
LIVE EVENT! This Saturday, the 10th of January, from 4-5.30pm GMT, I will be explaining and discussing F.H. Bradley's views on Faith (both religious faith and more broadly). There will be opportunities to ask question and discuss with all attendees.
This live event can be accessed by Beautiful members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins.
I hope to see some of you there!
1 month ago | [YT] | 15
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Nathan Hawkins
Happy New Year everybody! I got a nice surprise today of finding my book is now on sale in Waterstones, Amazon, and from Springer, with a release date of the 3rd of February. So for any Frege scholars out there, you can visit the links below. I warn that it is very specialised! But I plan to work on a more general audience book this year. So more details about that to come. And may you all have a prosperous and blessed 2026!
Waterstones: www.waterstones.com/book/freges-views-on-truth/nat…
Springer: link.springer.com/book/9783032097750
Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Freges-Views-Truth-Investigations…
1 month ago | [YT] | 50
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Nathan Hawkins
On the 20th of December at 5pm GMT I will have a discussion with Professor Michael Potter centred around Frege's discovery of the sense-reference distinction and the ideas that followed from that regarding meaning, thought, and truth. But we will also discuss Russell, Bradley, truth and idealism too.
Michael Potter is Professor of Logic and a life fellow in the Philosophy Faculty at Cambridge University. His research interests lie mainly in the history of analytic philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics, philosophical logic, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of religion. He is a giant in his field, with countless publications and books.
This live event with Q&A can be accessed by Good members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins. An edited version of our conversation will be posted to YouTube a month later.
1 month ago | [YT] | 23
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Nathan Hawkins
This Saturday, the 6th of December, from 5-7pm GMT, I will be explaining and discussing R.G. Collingwood's famous paper 'On the so-called idea of causation' along with theories of causation more generally. My presentation will then be followed by a discussion of the topic.
This live event can be accessed by Beautiful members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins.
I hope to see some of you there!
2 months ago | [YT] | 15
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Nathan Hawkins
WILL THE REAL BERNARDO KASTRUP PLEASE STAND UP?
I recently received a free copy of Kastrup's latest book: The Daimon and the Soul of the West. The front cover carries a subtitle: "Finding identity, meaning, and purpose in a sacrificial life". The back cover says the following: "This book is... about re-encountering our natural selves and guiding Daimon, re-tuning into the archetypal dispositions we embody, and re-learning how to navigate the choppy waters of life in a spontaneous and fulfilling manner."
That is one Kastrup. The Jungian idealist, pointing to the depth of meaning in existence and the world as reflected in our own internal psychology. In our YouTube discussion he even drew on this Jungian conception of the world via mind at large to explain the basis of our rational truths such as those found in mathematics. (I thought this was a problem given his non-metacognitive view of mind at large). There are 'mental facts' out there, he said, that ground the truth of our own reasoning via correspondence, since they exist in seed form in the archetypes present in the world via Mind at large. This, we could say, is the 'idealism' in his analytic idealism.
But another Kastrup emerges when emphasis is placed on the scientific basis of his idealism. At such moments Kastrup is at pains to point out that he, like all no-nonsense scientists, is committed to the same principles they are. For example we read the following in Analytic Idealism in a nutshell (p 56): "More than once have I debated scholars who came into the debate expecting--no, knowing--that Idealism means that the world is supposed to be inside your head. But when it dawns upon them, at some point in the first 20 minutes of the debate or so, that I'm defending a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and reductionist position... as opposed to a 'spiritual' one, one can palpably see the bewilderment in their eyes." He said the same in his recent conversation with Alex O'Connor too. This, we could say, is the 'analytic' in his analytic idealism.
But can Kastrup hold both of these positions at the same time? Or is this a case of him wanting to both have his cake and eat it? I suspect it is the latter.
Read the rest of the post (for free) on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/143931230
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 44
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Nathan Hawkins
On the 23rd of November at 5pm GMT, I will be having a live discussion with Chris Oldfield about his philosophical work understanding and distinguishing the ideas of Materialism, Physicalism, Naturalism, Atheism, and Scientism.
Chris is a research associate at the Faraday Institute based at Cambridge University, and focuses on scientific metaphysics, with special interests in the history and interpretations of “physicalism”.
This live event with Q&A can be accessed by Good members and above from my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/drnathanhawkins. An edited version of our conversation will be posted to YouTube a month later.
2 months ago | [YT] | 15
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