Philosophy

“Only a God Can Save Us” documentary

The line is from Martin Heidegger’s resigned and despairing Der Speigel interview, shortly before his death in 1976. At Rockford University we hosted a showing of Jeffrey Van Davis’s film on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and his disturbing relationship with National Socialism. After the showing, we had a panel discussion featuring director Van Davis, professors David […]

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Ideological capture of universities in China, Russia, America — the same illiberal pattern

Via mandatory DEI statements, many universities in the West have been imposing ideological conformity oaths upon their faculty. That urge to control is paralleled in China and in Russia: Russia: It’s the 21st century, and the battle for liberal education is still uphill. (Thanks for Larry Liu for the China excerpt and Alexey Zhavoronkov for

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Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropology, and postmodernism

When the expanded edition of Explaining Postmodernism: From Rousseau to Foucault was being published, I re-read several transition figures, i.e., those twentieth-century intellectuals who were important in preparing the groundwork for postmodernism. One is anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), whom I first read as an undergraduate. Lévi-Strauss formally studied philosophy and law, but because the bulk

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The Kant Wars: Putin and the new/old Russia

A fascinating article at Reservatio’s substack on the battles over Kant. While Putin has called Immanuel Kant one of his two favorite philosophers, in this new era of Russian nationalism and the Kaliningrad governor’s recent accusation, the deep question now is whether Immanuel is actually a subversive agent of Western imperialism. Fortunately, “government-loyal Russian philosophers“

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Arachne vs. Athena | Greek Mythology | *Philosophers, Explained* by Professor Stephen Hicks

Philosophers, Explained covers the great philosophical classics. In this episode, Dr. Hicks discusses the philosophical issues—the source of creativity, truth, power, morality and justice—involved in this classic myth about the origin of spiders. Other episodes: The full playlist. Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting

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“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” | Francis Bacon |Philosophers, Explained

At the beginning of a new era, Bacon asks: * What can make science and philosophy productive and generative, not stagnant and sterile as it currently is? * Should we really give tradition much credence? * Learning begins with the senses, but how do we overcome our senses’ and intellects’ native weaknesses? * What is

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