I ran out of money in my final semester of graduate school. My first teaching job awaited me in the fall semester, but I had no income for the three summer months before then. So I gave up my apartment and moved into a shared house with seven other guys. It was a huge old […]
Blamestorming and Environmental Problems (Part II) [Good Life series] Read More »
[The text of William Paley’s famous analogy is below (and here is a PDF version). Here is my video-lecture discussion of the traditional Argument from Design. And my article-length discussion of the argument is posted here.] William Paley The Watch and the Watchmaker [From Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the
The Watch and Watchmaker analogy for the existence of a god Read More »
For some years outside my office door, I’ve had posted this excerpt from the American Association of University Professors Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure (1915): “The university teacher, in giving instruction upon controversial matters, while he is under no obligation to hide his own opinion under a mountain of equivocal verbiage,
Professors who deserve their positions Read More »
[This column is a part of the Theist vs. Atheist debate series between Stephen Hicks and John C. Wright. Here Hicks responds to Wright’s article. And here are the links to other columns in the series.] The quest for a meaningful life comes naturally to us. As infants we delight in exploring the world and developing
Making Life Meaningful without Religion [Theist vs. Atheist series] Read More »
Some parts of the world really are environmental Hells. They are dirty and depleted, making them unhealthy and economically unsustainable. We can argue about the severity of various places’ problems, but I want to focus on another aspect of the debate: determining accurately the causes of the degradation so we can focus productively on finding
Blamestorming and Environmental Problems (Part I) [Good Life series] Read More »
Patterson in Pursuit is Steve Patterson’s series of podcast discussions with intellectuals. Recently Patterson and I discussed the themes and background developments that led to postmodernism — the premodern worldview, modernism’s revolutionary break, the Enlightenment project, the counter-Enlightenment, an assortment of key people including Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Rorty, and whether we are actually living
Postmodernism — podcast discussion with Steve Patterson Read More »
Recommended. Thanks to Joshua Zader for his recommendation. Here’s the trailer:
Movie: “A Most Violent Year” — business and grit Read More »
[This column is a part of the Theist vs. Atheist debate series between Stephen Hicks and John C. Wright. Here Hicks responds to Wright’s column about whether religion is essential to ethics.] In my judgment, issues of morality are the most difficult in philosophy. They are intellectually challenging, as everything about the human condition is
On Natural Morality and Religious Amoralism [Theist vs. Atheist series] Read More »