Stephen Hicks here contrasts Semmelweis and Abraham as cognitive and moral role models. This is from Part 3 of Professor Hicks’s Philosophy of Education course. 1 clip: Previous: Kierkegaard’s lesson: Abraham as a model of faith. Next: [Part 4: Human Nature] Five issues in human nature. Return to the Philosophy of Education page. Return to […]
Choose your hero–Semmelweis or Abraham? Read More »
Here Stephen Hicks discusses the early modern conflict between science and religion over cosmology. This is from Part 3 of Professor Hicks’s Philosophy of Education course, in which he introduces epistemology, its competing theories, and their role in education. Clips 1-3: Previous: The value of reason. Next: Phase Two: The rise of natural theology. Return
Phase One: Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo Read More »
[This is Section 16 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 16. Eugenics Nazi education and censorship attempted to control people’s minds. The Nazis also controlled the bodies of their citizens as much as possible. Milder controls involved new public-health measures such as an aggressive campaign against smoking: the Nazis banned smoking in certain public places, ran
Eugenics [Section 16 of Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
Following up on The Knife Man and John Hunter, the great 18th-century anatomist and surgeon. In Hunter’s era surgery was brutal, in large part due to surgeons’ ignorance of anatomy, and in that earlier post I wondered why there was still such ignorance given that the 1700s were two centuries after Andreas Vesalius and a
Anatomy and philosophy Read More »
When I teach Philosophy of Science, one of the books I use is Martin Gardner’s excellent Great Essays in Science, with selections from Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and other greats. The course has a unit on scientific fraud, including examples of the destructive effects of the politicization of science. Gardner’s anthology includes two
Scientific fraud and politics Read More »
The boy who harnessed the wind — a 14-year old who decides to design and build a windmill to bring electricity to his remote village in Malawi. A deeply human story of initiative, ingenuity, and independence. And here is the book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, at Amazon.
I just sent my first email from 36,000 feet, flying somewhere over Iowa or maybe Nebraska now. Which means we should all watch that excellent Louis CK video again: We live in a time of wonders.
High technology — very, very high Read More »
In raising the question of why philosophy begins with Thales, we first looked at Homer, the great shaper of the Greek mind before the philosophical and scientific revolution: Before philosophy: Homer’s world. In that post, I abstracted five statements from The Iliad: H1. Supernatural causation is part of the explanation for natural events. H2. Supernatural
Philosophy begins: Thales’ revolution Read More »