Philosophy

Cover for Pakistani edition of *Explaining Postmodernism*

My publisher in Pakistan, Muhammad Fahad, sent me this interior cover design for the forthcoming edition: Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault will be published in Pakistan in both Urdu and English editions. Dr. Nazir Azad’s translation of EP was also published in India in 2023. Urdu is the first or second

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Poet Omar Khayyâm (1048–1131) on the Islamists of his era

Khayyâm was a Persian astronomer-poet and free-thinker. From his Rubáiyát: And do you think that unto such as youA maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crewGod gave a secret, and denied it me?Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too! More on Khayyâm here. Related: My article No Reformation for Islam, Please, on why Islam needs reforming but not

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The Department of Great Putdowns: Heine on de Musset and Kant

The satirist, poet, and radical Heinrich Heine described poet Alfred de Musset as “a young man with a great future behind him.” Ouch. Musset never forgave him. Heine is known to have fought in at least ten duels in his life. One wonders why. Heine also said this of Kant, describing his clockwork walks along

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Karl Popper | Science v. Pseudo-science | Philosophers, Explained | Stephen Hicks.

“Science: Conjectures and Refutations,” from Popper’s ​Conjectures and Refutations (1962)​. Key questions: Are Marxism and Freudianism pseudo-sciences like astrology and alchemy? What makes a theory genuinely scientific? Who are the great philosophers and what are their key ideas? From the beginning of philosophy in Greek myths to the influential thinkers of our own time, in

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“Is God Anti-Scientific?” My answer: It depends. [Krauss/Hicks discussion]

Physicist Lawrence Krauss and I appeared jointly in Boulder, CO, to the discuss “The Anti-Science of God?” We ranged over several sub-issues: What is religion? What is science? Is God meaningless? Are all religions equally unscientific or do some try, even if weakly, not to be? Has the is/ought dichotomy made the problem worse? Related:

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