In my Philosophy of Art course, we are discussing Plato’s philosophy of art, by means of selections from Statesman and Books 3 and 10 of The Republic, along with snippets from Ion, Phaedrus, and Symposium. In The Republic, Plato makes a systematic case for censoring all arts. The task of the Platonic philosopher is to […]
Plato on censoring artists — a summary Read More »
In this extended interview, philosopher Douglas B. Rasmussen responds to a series of questions (listed below) about his life and work. Dr. Rasmussen is a professor of philosophy at St. John’s University in New York. In addition to the books discussed in the interview, he is the author of articles in American Philosophical Quarterly, The
Profiles in Liberty: Douglas B. Rasmussen Read More »
Rights in Mises, Hayek, and Rand I am chairing a session and presenting a paper on the theme of “Rights in Mises, Hayek, and Rand” for the annual conference of the Association for Private Enterprise Education, to be held April 1-3, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The rationale for the session: Three giants of twentieth-century
Rights in Mises, Hayek, and Rand — APEE panelists Read More »
Share of US labor force working in agriculture: 1840: 64% 1880: 43% 1920: 27% 1960: 10% 2000: 1.5% What an amazing transformation over 160 years. Interesting to compare the USA’s numbers with these statistics from the CIA’s World Factbook on percentages of people employed in agriculture around the world, e.g., Afghanistan 78%, Kyrgyzstan 48%, Malaysia
Employment in agriculture: statistics Read More »
Check out Rocket Singh, Salesman of the Year, an engaging movie with a healthy business ethics kick. The main character is a young college graduate with mediocre grades who lands a job at a computer sales company. He is soon confronted with corrupt-but-usual practices in the company, and his naïveté puts him on the fast
Rocket Singh, Salesman of the Year Read More »
Links to my posts over the last three years on the causes of the crisis. This is an ongoing project, and I’ll add new items to the Financial Crisis page as they are posted. Ten posts: 1. What is the US economy? Introduction. Before blaming the economic crisis on either government regulation or free enterprise,
Collected posts on the financial crisis Read More »
Ending the year on a lighter note — my humor posts collected below and into one page: What I Have Learned about the History of Philosophy from My Students. Existentialism meets high-tech . From the Office of the Reproducer-General. Professor Walsh gives an “A” to a Jain monk. Computing’s environmental impact. The best footnote ever.
Philosophicalish Humor 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 »