My parents taught me that everything in life is a struggle. An odd song from the 1990s is teaching me to overcome it. In my childhood family, under the thin veneer of suburban tranquility, was my parents’ constant tension from […]
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Latest Articles
Hannah Arendt on Acts of Violence as Impotence
“Generally speaking, violence always rises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power to find a substitute for it and this hope, I think, is in vain. Violence can destroy power, but it can never […]
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Aristotle’s Theory of Change
(Video and text below.) How Objects Change One of the biggest problems that ancient Greek philosophers dealt with was the problem of change. Why and how do objects change? Plato had agreed with a number of Greek philosophers before him […]
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Descartes’ Circular Reasoning? There Is No “Cartesian Circle”
Ever since Descartes published his book Meditations, he has been accused of committing a fallacy of circular reasoning with his argument that God is the guarantor of the truth of our belief in an external world. Descartes’ argument has ever […]
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The Authority to Claim Recognition
Social recognition among individuals and groups is what keeps together communities. Without it, struggles for justice and freedom are impossible. All struggles for justice include the struggle for the authority and power to claim recognition. Excerpt from the book, Rethinking […]
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Why Philosophy Is Best Taught Chronologically
How to best teaching philosophy so students can understand and appreciate its importance. One of the biggest challenges for philosophy professors is reaching students who have little to no background or interest in philosophy. In the US, philosophy is seldom […]
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Did Hitler Know He Was a Bad/Evil Person?
This is a very interesting and profound question that speaks to morality and human nature. As with all good philosophical questions, answering it requires challenging our preconceptions. Did Hitler know that he was bad? Well, do we know he was […]
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The Question Behind Taylor Swift’s Battle
Today, I watched with interest a BBC news story. It was about the ownership of Taylor Swift’s song recordings being sold by some guy named Scooter to some investment firm. Swift is upset that she wasn’t offered the chance to […]
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Rabbi Sacks on Making Space for Difference
Space for difference “The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image, whose language, faith, ideals, are different from mine? If I cannot, then […]
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Why is The Curse of Oak Island Lying To Us?
Text Transcript: The Curse of Oak Island is an interesting and entertaining show. But as I mentioned in an earlier video, the show isn’t always entirely upfront with us. This past week, the show turned from shading the truth to […]
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