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
My publisher (Possibly Correct Media, out of Toronto, Canada) and I have launched a new season of the Open College podcast. My question in this episode: What will be your comparative advantage in this new era of accelerating robotics and artificial intelligence? “Artificial Intelligence Means Entrepreneurial Education Now“ Episode Number: 56 Date: October 2024 About
The Peruvian guerrilla and terrorist group Shining Path was founded by a professor of philosophy: Abimael Guzmán, who died in 2021. Shining Path is a Maoist version of Marxism, believing in the inevitability of revolution and the bloody process necessary to see it through. Shining Path is estimated to have killed 11,000 civilians along the
Shining Path terrorism and Marxist Guzmán’s Kantian philosophy Read More »
This deep-truth-about-human-nature cartoon reminds me of two quotations from John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Locke on freedom of choice for students: “great care is to be taken, that [education] be never made as a business to him, nor he look on it as a task. We naturally, as I said, even from our cradles,
On not telling other people what to do Read More »
The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. This Enlightenment Vision flowchart is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led to
The Enlightenment Vision — updated flowchart Read More »
I contributed “The Critical Function of Fiercely Independent Journals” to the 50th anniversary issue of Reason Papers. My piece included anecdotes about the academic reception of independent thinkers such as Descartes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Rand. The issue also includes: *Several brief Retrospective pieces, by Fred Miller, Aeon Skoble, Nicholas Capaldi, Doug Rasmussen & Doug Den Uyl,