Shifting Ideas

For a Shifting World

Blog

Essay Awarded 1st Prize in the Chinese National Selection Round of the International Philosophy Olympiad (written in person and in timed conditions)

Topic 4: “359. Could a machine think?—Could it be in pain?—Well, is the human body to be called such a machine? It surely comes as close...

Temporality and Education

The purpose of education must be more than just academic learning. It must be liberal and also cultivate individual character, towards...

Critical Response Essay to "Seeping Through the Pages" by Mark Trecka

In “Seeping through the Pages,” Mark Trecka argues for the main idea that identities cannot be understood through rigid and reductive...

About

Hello, my name is Benjamin Qin and I am a student in Hong Kong who is deeply passionate about philosophy. This blog aims to offer varied perspectives on a wide range of philosophical topics, in hopes of better understanding the postmodern 21st-century world—which is becoming increasingly complex and disordered.

The concept of "rhizomatic thinking" derives from the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, who define it as a way of thinking that is marked by nonlinearity, interconnectedness and heterogeneity. This is in contrast to the more conventional "arborescent thinking" which often oversimplifies the world by reducing everything to absolute principles, rigid structures, hierarchies and binaries. Evidently, arborescent thinking is no longer effective in the ever-changing and unstructured postmodern world. Instead, we should adapt to postmodernity by adopting an equally ever-changing and unstructured rhizomatic approach to thinking. In this blog, I will attempt to explain fresh and creative philosophical ideas, and thus promote a more rhizomatic way of thinking.

I hope you enjoy reading about my thoughts!