[At the beginning of the new academic year, a re-visiting of the beginnings of modern philosophy.] I vote for Francis Bacon. . . The standard answer gives the honor to René Descartes. Descartes’s claim to the title is based primarily on his epistemology — specifically his method of doubt. The method of doubt is both […]
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[At the beginning of the new academic year, a re-visiting of the beginnings of philosophy.] The standard claim is that philosophy begins with Thales. When I teach this to my students, it’s a hard sell, for here are the founding texts in philosophy — ascribed to Thales by Aristotle: “The first principle and basic nature
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Professor Piotr Kostyło of Casimir the Great University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, published a review of Nietzsche and the Nazis. The text of the review follows: Do We Know What We Advocate? Stephen Hicks’s Defence of Individualism The forty-five years of communism in Poland (1944-1989) were marked by the government reminding society of the atrocities committed during
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1924 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and American philosopher John Dewey was writing a series of essays reflecting on philosophy and current events. The series was published in book form in 1929 as Characters and Events: Popular Essays in Social and Political Philosophy. Here are a few striking
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Some quotations and brief glosses on Augustine’s views on the use of persecution and torture in order to save souls. “No salvation outside the church.” (418 CE) “[M]any must first be recalled to their Lord by the stripes of temporal scourging, like evil slaves, and in some degree like good-for-nothing fugitives.” Augustine had defended toleration
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The standard claim is that philosophy begins with Thales. When I teach this to my students, it’s a hard sell, for here are the founding texts in philosophy — ascribed to Thales by Aristotle: “The first principle and basic nature of all things is water.” and “All things are full of gods.” You can imagine
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A fascinating article by a Polish philosopher, Professor Piotr Kostyło of the University of Casimir the Great. (Courtesy of the publisher, here is a PDF of Kostyło’s article.) Kostyło notes that this generation of postmodern thinkers seems to have turned against state-provided welfare programs. The usual left-right debate over welfare is between those who argue
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The Polish translation of Nietzsche and the Nazis was published by the Fundacji Fuhrmanna (Fuhrmann Foundation, 2014) as Nietzsche i naziści, moje spojrzenia. Here, in English, is the Preface to the Polish edition. Preface to the Polish translation Friedrich Nietzsche — has any other thinker exerted so much influence after his death? One measure of
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