Tomorrow morning I’ll be on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “The Current” radio program, which according to its website is “Canada’s Most Listened-to Radio Program.” Our topic is whether power corrupts. The journalistic context is the recent FIFA scandal, scandals in the Canadian Senate, and the ongoing scandals in politics, business, and so on around the […]
CBC discussion of corruption and power Read More »
To reason is to integrate perceptual evidence into concepts, propositions, and theories. By contrast, what is faith? Below are seven definitions of faith. The definitions are in my words, but they are taken from my readings of seven philosophers of religion: William James, Søren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, George H. Smith, Basil Mitchell, R. M.
What Is Faith? Seven definitions Read More »
Three men who died recently are brought before the throne of God and told that they may each have one wish. The Briton asks for an end to war. The American asks for an end to hunger. The Russian smiles slyly and says, “In my village, I have a neighbor who has a cow. I
A Russian joke about petty envy Read More »
An example of using social fear to intimidate students who might ask the “wrong questions.” From a review of Rebecca Goldstein’s Betraying Spinoza: Goldstein tells of “the particularly Jewish way in which Spinoza entered her life. It initially happened, she tells us, in a yeshiva high school for girls. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Schoenfeld, told
Spinoza as cautionary tale about asking the wrong questions Read More »
School is out and another season of family vacations begins. Some philosophical insight for the road ahead.
The philosophy of family vacation Read More »
The gall of some people. Apparently Malcolm Gladwell has gone after John Paulson for giving $400 million to Harvard University. It takes a special kind of immorality to feel comfortable doing any of the following: (a) bossily telling other people how to spend their own money, (b) telling them how to spend their philanthropic dollars,
On Gladwell’s chastising Paulson Read More »
The opening of my latest column at EveryJoe: “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
Blamestorming and Environmental Problems (Part II) [new The Good Life column] Read More »
For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. All files are PDFs. “Arachne and Athena.” James Buchanan, “Public Choice: Politics without Romance,” Policy Magazine (2003). Martin Heidegger, “Reunion Speech” (1934). HTML version here. Heinrich Himmler, “Speech at Posen” (1943). John Maynard Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926). HTML version here. John
Texts in Philosophy — early 2015 additions Read More »