Philosophy

The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [EP audiobook]

Leave a Comment / History of Philosophy, Literature, Philosophy of History /

This is the third chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [mp3] [YouTube] [50 minutes] Heidegger’s synthesis of the Continental tradition [mp3] [YouTube] Setting aside reason and logic [mp3] [YouTube] Emotions as revelatory [mp3] [YouTube] Heidegger and postmodernism [mp3] [YouTube] […]

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The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [EP audiobook]

12 Comments / Architecture, Economics, Epistemology, Film, History of Philosophy, Literature, Philosophy, Philosophy of History /

This is the second chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Two: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [mp3] [YouTube] [72 minutes] Enlightenment reason, liberalism, and science [mp3] [YouTube] The beginnings of the Counter-Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube] Kant’s skeptical conclusion [mp3] [YouTube] Kant’s problematic from empiricism and rationalism

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Audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism

3 Comments / Economics, Literature, Philosophy /

I’m happy to announce the audiobook version of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. We’re releasing one chapter a week here and at YouTube. Thanks to Christopher Vaughan for his editing and production work. To begin, here is the first chapter. Chapter One: What Postmodernism Is [mp3] [YouTube] [38 minutes] The

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Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?”

4 Comments / History of Philosophy, Metaphysics /

This week in Contemporary European Philosophy we are reading Martin Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” In this recent survey (dominated by philosophers from the English-speaking world), Heidegger ranks as the 18th most-identified-with non-living philosopher. “What Is Metaphysics?” was first delivered in 1929 as Heidegger’s inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg. Here is my summary of

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What Postmodernism Is [EP audiobook]

Leave a Comment / Philosophy /

The first chapter of the audiobook version of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter One: What Postmodernism Is [mp3] [YouTube] [38 minutes] The postmodern vanguard: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, Rorty [mp3] [YouTube] Modern and postmodern [mp3] [YouTube] Modernism and the Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube] Postmodernism versus the Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube] Postmodern academic

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The two Americas: 13 countries’ GDP

2 Comments / Economics, Philosophy, Politics /

I’ve started reading Guillermo M. Yeatts’s 2010 Plunder in Latin America. Yeatts lists thirteen American countries’ per capita GDP in 2008 US dollars, first alphabetically by country: Argentina 8,281 Bolivia 1,948 Brazil 8,379 Canada 46,826 Chile 10,933 Colombia 5,478 Cuba 4,840 Ecuador 3,770 Mexico 10,278 Peru 4,454 Uruguay 8,942 USA 46,647 Venezuela 4,315 I re-arranged

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Ideological wars in anthropology

5 Comments / Human Nature, Science /

Is peace or war the natural state of man? Do men fight primarily over material possessions or over women? For decades anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon studied the Yanomamö, a remote tribe in South America, learning about their almost-constant warfare — and his findings put him in open conflict with academic anthropologists and the American Anthropological Association.

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You should be forced to buy this book

24 Comments / Ethics, Politics /

Aspiring philosopher-queen Sarah O. Conly is an assistant professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College. A description of her Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012: “Against Autonomy is a defense of paternalistic laws; that is, laws that make you do things, or prevent you from doing things, for your own

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