184. Some Common Grounds for Moral Duty and Beauty

Our experiences of beauty and duty appear to be very different. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), in his book Critique of Judgment, argued that judgments of the beautiful must be “disinterested.” This means that we make these judgments (1) without concern for the truth; (2) without Read more ›

217. Fighting the Gravity of Vice: An Essay on Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth

Fighting the Gravity of Vice: An Essay on Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth Dwight Goodyear Introduction (Spoiler Alert) The cult classic The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) is one of my favorite films. It was directed Read more ›

208. Art and Understanding

The instrumental approach to art emphasizes art’s functionality. Art can certainly have many functions. But many argue its ability to help us understand things is among its most important (perhaps the most important). Such people usually embrace aesthetic cognitivism or Read more ›

207. Reducing polarization, demonization, and the lack of civility in America, part 2

In the last post (go here) we saw what President Biden meant by unity in his inauguration speech, how his call for unity led to widespread criticism, and how there is evidence of Americans seeing each other as bad people Read more ›