John Adams the mini-series came out last year, but I just began watching it yesterday. The first two episodes are excellent. What a great way to spend part of July 4. Paul Giamatti’s performance hooked me: I have a renewed appreciation for John Adams’s brilliance, determination, and integrity. I also have an enlarged appreciation for […]
Late to the show, but excellent timing Read More »
“Read the news today? It’s like ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is happening in real life,” as this Facebook group points out. Many intelligent observers have noted the connection, which has led to sharply increased sales of Atlas and prominent coverage of Atlas‘s themes in Business Week, Forbes, the New York Times, the Economist, The Wall Street Journal,
The increasing(ly clear) relevance of Ayn Rand Read More »
My third contribution to the contest to find the longest sentences ever published by a philosopher, my first and second contributions being a 161-word contender from John Stuart Mill and a 163-word heavyweight from Immanuel Kant. We turn now to Book 1 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: “Now if the function of man is an activity
Philosophy’s longest sentences, Part 3 Read More »
Here is my second contribution to the contest. Edging out John Stuart Mill’s 161-word effort is the following from Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: “And then nothing can protect us against a complete falling away from our Ideas of duty, or can preserve in the soul a grounded reverence for its law,
Philosophy’s longest sentences, Part 2 Read More »
I hereby announce a contest: What is the longest sentence ever written by a philosopher? The kind of sentence that, as you are reading it through — trying to hold the context and decipher the meaning — flows majestically onwards, or meanders along deceptively, with occasional side streams (and parenthetical remarks), until your cerebrum is
Philosophy’s longest sentences Read More »
Congratulations to Virginia Murr (Rockford College class of 2006) for her First-Prize-winning essay in the FreedomWorks entrepreneur essay contest. Virginia was in the college’s rigorous honors program and a philosophy major, and since graduating she is developing her own writing career. Even better, especially for me, is the theme of her winning essay: Dr. Stephen
FreedomWorks, Virginia Murr, and me Read More »
I am a supporter of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the nation’s leading institution devoted to fighting for intellectual freedom on college campuses. My friend and intellectual colleague, David Ross, has written an excellent statement [pdf] explaining why he supports FIRE. Dr. Ross is a mathematics professor and so is very sharp as
FIRE, David Ross, and Emily Brooker Read More »
I vote for Francis Bacon. The standard answer gives the honor to René Descartes.
Who is the real father of modern philosophy? Read More »