The poet William Wordsworth said: “Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things; –We murder to dissect.” For more on the meaning and implications of Wordsworth’s claim, see p. 68 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated page.
William Wordsworth in Explaining Postmodernism Read More »
Marxism as “scientific socialism” and what happens when the scientific data fail to cooperate. For more, here is the full 2018 lecture at the University of British Columbia.
How Failed Marxist Predictions Led to the Postmodern Left — lecture excerpt Read More »
I’ll be giving a talk in Gdańsk, Poland, on Thursday May 24 at 5.30 p.m. My title is “The Philosophers and the Rise of National Socialism.” Thanks to Dr. Marek Szymaniak of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk for the invitation to speak. My thoughts on one philosopher’s relationship to the Nazis
Gdańsk talk: “The Philosophers and the Rise of National Socialism” Read More »
Ludwig Wittgenstein said: “All propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing.” For more on the implications of Wittgenstein’s claim, see p. 83 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated page.
Ludwig Wittgenstein in Explaining Postmodernism Read More »
Thank you amusing Internet memologist sources!
I approve this message Read More »
The following 15-minute video excerpts my five-point philosophical contrast between modernism and postmodernism, with illustrating quotations from leading pomo intellectuals Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and others. For more, here is the full 2018 lecture at the University of British Columbia.
Pillars of Modernist and Post-Modernist Philosophy — lecture excerpt Read More »
For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850). Charles Darwin, “On Evolution” (1859). Darwin summarizes the evidence for evolution by natural selection. Carl Hempel, “Semmelweis and Childbed Fever” (1966). How Dr. Semmelweis discovered the cause of childbed fever. Murdoch Pencil, “Salt Passage Research: The State of
Texts in Philosophy — mid-2018 additions Read More »
“Why is it that skeptical and relativistic arguments have the cultural power that they now do? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why have themes of exhaustion, nihilism, and cynicism come to have the cultural dominance they do? And how can those intellectual themes coexist with a
The puzzling prominence of postmodernism [Explaining Postmodernism] Read More »