Adding philosophical depth to anything and everything
Philosophy in the real world.
For several decades, French philosopher Henri Bergson (1856–1941) was probably the most famous philosopher in the world. He is now tragically largely forgotten because his work is incorrectly dismissed as mere speculation because it is not reducible to the methods […]
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I was eager to hear Mr. Starkey’s YouTube talk on on academic freedom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEsG2iA6Nzo) because I know he was wrongfully censored, but I must say, his talk was disappointing. As a philosophy professor, I am compelled to offer […]
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Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard (The proper Danish pronunciation of his name is “sorn KEER-ke-go.”) rebelled against the dominant view that people are nothing more than a part of a historical process. Kierkegaard chose to reject much of what his society […]
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Capitalism is an economic system that has both passionate defenders and fierce critics. But both sides in the debates over capitalism’s beneficial and harmful affects tend to conflate capitalism with free enterprise. Much of the defense of capitalism takes the […]
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German idealism was a philosophical movement in the early 1800s. It was a direct reaction to Immanuel Kant’s philosophical system. We call the movement “ German” because it was discussed by a circle of German philosophers and artists, and we […]
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Moving the center of epistemology to the active mind Immanuel Kant (1724–1804, rhymes with “want”) is the single most influential philosopher in history, even though you have probably never heard of him. How we think of ourselves and how we think […]
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David Hume’s (1711-1776) philosophy was the culmination of the trajectory of British empiricism (see Chapters 8 and 11). Hume’s shocking conclusion was that the long quest for understanding had reached no true understanding at all. Descartes was not a true […]
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Philosophy’s weirdest argument, but irrefutable As you are reading this, are you sitting down? On what are you sitting? A chair, probably. Of what is the chair made? Wood? Plastic? Metal? A combination? And what does science, and common sense, […]
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Some people, despite all proof to the contrary, believe the moon landings were faked. Some people, despite all proof to the contrary, believe the last election was stolen. And those are just two of the many conspiracy theories that […]
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Largely underestimated is the significant influence that John Calvin has had on culture in the United States. Perhaps only John Locke has had more philosophical influence on the American Zeitgeist than has Calvin. To understand America and its uniqueness, you […]
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