by Bharath Vallabha Context is a funny thing. In an academic context – of philosophy courses and institutional structures – for a long time, my gut reaction to the great Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Hume and Kant used to be: “Oh, not just more of this again. Their views, marred by racism, exhibit a false sense of universalism, and we […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ To my fellow professional academics (and especially philosophers): Just stop it, ok? Stop it! What am I talking about? Our current penchant for attacking our colleagues personally and professionally, when they disagree with us on moral and political subjects that we care strongly about; our pursuing such attacks so as to silence these colleagues, rather […]
by Mark English In his autobiography, Bertrand Russell wrote of the “devastating effect” certain criticisms which D.H. Lawrence once made of his social and political views had on him. These events occurred in 1915. “I was inclined to believe that he had some insight denied to me,” Russell wrote, “and when he said that my pacifism was rooted in blood-lust […]
by C.J. Uberroth ___ In teaching high school mathematics for the last seven years, I’ve begun to realize that there are some issues in our field that seem ubiquitous. The first is the death of estimation. Students faced with a simple arithmetic problem will sooner jump to their phone for the answer than think about what answer they should obtain. […]
by Mark English Daniel Kaufman has written on a number of occasions of certain unfortunate trends in contemporary culture, some involving a disconnect between self-perceptions and social reality. In the past he has highlighted the moral vacuousness and hypocrisy associated with ‘the cult of the self’ as well as the distortions and dangers of identity politics. He recently wrote an […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Civilization has…no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. —Mustapha Mond (1) 1. Hedonism is the view that […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman A terrific takedown of the current, narcissistic “self-improvement” madness. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/why-are-modern-men-obsessed-with-self-improvement/ High quality video of Supertramp playing live in 1979. My dialogue with Justin Weinberg of the Daily Nous on the current state of Philosophy. http://meaningoflife.tv/videos/40774 A deliciously vicious dustup between Patricia Churchland and Colin McGinn. Plus more from Marcia Cavell and McGinn. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/06/19/brains-and-minds-exchange/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/07/10/blind-to-mind/ The best […]
by Mark English I recently wrote a piece in which I looked at the views of some 20th-century thinkers on language, metaphysics, science and philosophy. My main focus was on the logical empiricists and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his youth, Wittgenstein worked with Bertrand Russell and then subsequently with the Vienna Circle before taking a rather different direction from the late […]
Daniel Tippens How will you look for it … when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know? Plato, Meno ___ As readers know, I […]
E. John Winner I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn’t have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you’re guilty you’ll get it in the neck and if you’re innocent you can’t possibly […]
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