I debated University of Queensland professor John Quiggin at a wonderfully full auditorium in Brisbane, Australia. Quiggin argued that postmodernism is a right-wing phenomenon, as evidenced by climate-change denialism and the presidency of Donald Trump. I argued the negative. An hour of debate, followed by audience questions. Also a brief comment from John Anderson, former […]
Debate: Is Postmodernism Right-Wing or Left-Wing? Read More »
Plato on Censorship and “the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry” Excerpt from Book 10 of The Republic. Written 360 B.C.E. [Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Speakers: Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Socrates:] Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better
Plato’s Myth of Gyges Excerpt from Book 2 of The Republic Written 360 B.C.E. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was
Plato, The Myth of Gyges, from *The Republic* Read More »
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave Excerpt from Book 7 of The Republic (360 BCE) Written 360 B.C.E. [Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Socrates:] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the
Plato, Allegory of the Cave, from *The Republic* Read More »
Imagine a college dormitory, students away from home, and available alcohol. In any student population, some will drink too much. But most will do fine. Now suppose a Dean of Students who installs a bar in the dorm and subsidizes the price of booze, especially for favored students. Not surprisingly, the amount of student drunkenness
Drunk college kids, Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve Read More »
WHAT FOUCAULT LIKED TO DO TO ARAB BOYS. Excerpt from Douglas Murray’s The War on the West (2022): It is always unpleasant—as well as unwise—for thinkers to lambaste each other because of the habits of their personal lives. The personal is not always political and is certainly not always philosophical. Yet in March 2021, a
What Foucault liked to do with Arab boys — excerpt from Murray’s book Read More »
Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard. His letter is to a board member of the AAAS, which publishes Science, in response to a fundraising letter. Excerpts: My own experience as a scientific communicator confirms that there is enormous distrust of the scientific and academic establishments, because people believe these establishments have been captured
Excellent letter from Steven Pinker on politicizing science and *Science* Read More »
Our generation’s gender gap on abortion: And recall that a generation ago, the 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision was by an all-male Supreme Court. So a request to the angry-adversarial-feminist types: Let’s leave the gender ad hominem arguments out of the discussion, please.
Is there a gender gap on abortion? Read More »