Alert philosophical reader Matthias Brinkman found this latest winner in the revived contest: What is the longest sentence ever written by a philosopher? It’s a 438-word behemoth from Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason—that’s in the original German, but it becomes 489 words in this rough English translation: “How mystical enthusiasms in the […]
Philosophy’s longest sentence: Kant over Kierkegaard Read More »
Kant died in 1804 — yet contemporary cultural warriors continue to cite him explicitly as grounding their ideologies — for example Dinesh D’Souza on behalf of the conservative right and Jean-François Lyotard on behalf of the postmodern left. Why is Kant’s influence so long-lasting? “Does Immanuel Kant Matter?” Episode Number: 57 Date: October 2024 About
“Does Immanuel Kant Still Matter?” [new Open College podcast] Read More »
How well do entrepreneurial success traits (creative rationality, initiative, courage, perseverance, and so on) map onto virtue ethics? An audio edition [mp3] of my 2009 essay “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [pdf], first published in Journal of Private Enterprise. Or at YouTube: Abstract: Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic
Audio edition: What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship Read More »
My five-dimensional contrast of modernism and postmodernism. From Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (2004/2011).
Defining Modernism and Postmodernism chart Read More »
Why were the Greeks the first to put medicine on a scientific footing?
Medical politics in ancient Greece Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Kant is famous for his ethic of strict duty—Categorical Imperatives—for his claim to be basing ethics upon Reason—and for also saying that “All human reason is wholly incompetent to explain this”. So: What is Kantian ethics? And why does Kant argue that it faces severe
In 2012, a medieval cookbook was discovered at the British Library. The book is ascribed to Geoffrey Fule of England and dated to the mid-14th century. The images are delicious (click to enlarge). But here’s the tricky part: How does one capture a unicorn in the first place? Fortunately, about a century after Fule’s cookbook,
How to cook and serve unicorn Read More »
Lecture Four: Have women and minorities made progress — or is that an illusion? Catharine MacKinnon argues that “Protecting pornography means protecting sexual abuse as speech” in order to maintain the subordination of women. Derrick Bell says “Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal” and so blacks need a new strategy. Themes: Feminism’s