Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Europe

  • The Philosophers Behind the Texts

    by Bharath Vallabha ____ For sixteen years I studied and taught philosophy. As a professor I taught Plato, Descartes, Kant, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. I thought I knew Western philosophy. Boy, was I wrong. Though I taught the great texts, in an important sense I didn’t understand them or the thinkers who wrote them. For —…

  • Nationalism

    by Mark English ____ Gottlob Frege’s organicism and his (surprisingly strong) patriotic commitments were mentioned in a previous episode of Culture and Value. In this episode, Mark English offers a culture-based perspective on the topics of nationalism and political myth, highlighting the tensions between political and more organic cultural elements, and recommending a pragmatic and…

  • Death and the Icon

    E. John Winner ___ Let us begin with a technical clarification, by way of a discussion of the semiotic status of icons. An icon is a powerful representation, not only of an object or a person, but of the concept of that object or person; a reminder of what it is the perceiver of the…

  • on authority [and rousseau’s fork]

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Hannah Arendt maintained that one has authority, when one commands obedience from others, not by exercising power over them, but because they recognize and respect one’s right to do so. [1] To accept authority, then, is to accept hierarchy, which, in turn, is to accept a substantial if not formal…