An example of using social fear to intimidate students who might ask the “wrong questions.” From a review of Rebecca Goldstein’s Betraying Spinoza: Goldstein tells of “the particularly Jewish way in which Spinoza entered her life. It initially happened, she tells us, in a yeshiva high school for girls. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Schoenfeld, told […]
Spinoza as cautionary tale about asking the wrong questions Read More »
I will be participating in an online debate about religion, hosted by publisher Alexander Macris and editor Kori Ellis at EveryJoe.com. My civil and friendly debate partner will be John C. Wright, who has written widely on religion and related matters. A series of back-and-forth articles on key issues to begin on Friday, June 5,
New debate series on Religion, True or False? Read More »
Larry Hickman is a leading authority on the philosophy of John Dewey. Professor Hickman is a professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, has written and edited multiple books on Dewey, and is the director for the Dewey Center at SIUC. At Rockford University, he is giving a campus-wide talk entitled “Teaching About Religion in
Professor Larry Hickman to speak at Rockford University Read More »
Should Christians be socialists? Some data points: * Pope Francis delivered a strongly leftist apostolic exhortation, condemning free markets and endorsing some sort of paternalistic egalitarianism.[1] * C. S. Lewis argued in Mere Christianity that “a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist” — its economics would be socialist, no luxuries would be
Pope Francis, C. S. Lewis, and Christian economics Read More »
I spotted this in a storefront window yesterday. Gottfried Leibniz’s argument is still packing a punch, three centuries later.
Leibnizians in Harvard, Illinois Read More »
The image is Raphael’s version of Hypatia, the astronomer, mathematician, and neoplatonic philosopher who was murdered by a religious mob in 415. Hypatia lived and died in Alexandria, Egypt, then a clashing hotbed of philosophical schools and rising radical religion. The rising radical religion of the time was Christianity. Hypatia’s nemesis was Cyril, Bishop of
Egypt then and now Read More »
In this third Socratic seminar on the Best Arguments against Free-market Capitalism, we take up three arguments: a) the paternalist argument that human beings are incapable of living freely, b) the collectivist argument that wealth is a social creation (at 11 minutes), and c) the religious argument that value is not of this world (at
Three more anti-free-market arguments (UFM seminar) Read More »
For my Introduction to Philosophy course, a question on the final exam [pdf] was: “Religion was a theme for all of our authors this semester: * Socrates was put on trial and found guilty of impiety; * Galileo was silenced despite arguing for a compromise between science and religion; * Descartes tried to prove with
What is the best philosophical approach to religion? (Spring 2011 edition) Read More »