I did not know this: In Einstein’s study in Berlin in the 1920s, three portraits hung on the wall: Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Arthur Schopenhauer. I learned that from Don Howard’s fascinating “A Peek behind the Veil of Maya” (pdf). Schopenhauer’s pessimism was extreme. Reality, he wrote in The World as Will and […]
Einstein and Schopenhauer Read More »
Letter to Roger Weightman, on the planned celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence Monticello June 24. 26 Respected Sir The kind invitation I receive from you on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the 50th. anniversary of American
Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration’s 50th anniversary Read More »
Beware the compromisers — a lesson from this generation’s history. In 1998, President Bill Clinton announced: “We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say Government is the problem and those who say Government is the solution. My fellow Americans, we have found a Third Way.” Third Way politics became popular in the
Third-Way Politics and Its Bitter Fruits [Good Life series] Read More »
My short article “Bootleggers, Baptists, and The Jones Act” was published as part of the Political Ethics series at the Berens Foundation’s site. “Suppose that a freak Atlantic storm pummels the city of Boston, leaving it flooded for days and cut off from services by land and air — trucks cannot reach it and planes
“Bootleggers, Baptists, and The Jones Act” article published Read More »
I’m giving a lecture on July 1, 2017 at an invitation-only event organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Buenos Aires. Other speakers during the afternoon and evening event include Gabriel Zanotti, María Marty, and Alberto Benegas Lynch. Thanks to Marcelo Duclos for the invitation.
Talk at Naumann Foundation event, Buenos Aires Read More »
My article “Ayn Alissa Rand (1905-1982)” was first published in the IEP in 2001. The original article focused on Rand’s life and times and some issues in her ethics. This update expands that treatment slightly, mentions a broader range of criticisms, and adds to the bibliography some of the scholarship since then. The encyclopedia is
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — updated article on Rand Read More »
For more information, please see the poster: Thanks to Maria Marty for her poster design.
“The Crisis of Postmodernism” — Lecture in Buenos Aires Read More »
From the “Did he/she really say that?” file. Here is adversarial-feminist philosopher Sandra Harding on Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica: “why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as ‘Newton’s rape manual’ as it is to call them ‘Newton’s mechanics’?”[1] How did she get there? Well, Francis Bacon did say that
Is Newton’s *Principia* a rape manual? Read More »