Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), in his book Daybreak (1881), wrote: “On Education. – I have gradually seen the light as to the most universal deficiency in our kind of cultivation and education: no one learns, no one strives after, no one… Read more ›
Friedrich Nietzsche What is the purpose of education? Some common answers come to mind: education is a means to gaining more income, finding one’s calling, cultivating an enriched inner life, being a productive citizen, or becoming a life-long learner. These… Read more ›
In May 1963, the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) retrospectively described his films Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence as a trilogy with a theme: “The theme of these three films is a ‘reduction’ – in… Read more ›
In May 1963, the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) retrospectively described his films Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence as a trilogy with a theme: “The theme of these three films is a ‘reduction’ – in… Read more ›
In May 1963, the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) retrospectively described his films Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence as a trilogy with a theme: “The theme of these three films is a ‘reduction’ – in… Read more ›
“Dogs bark at whomsoever they do not recognize” (translated by T. M. Robinson) This aphorism from Heraclitus (fl. c. 500 B.C.E.) suggests many humans are like dogs insofar as they “bark” at that which they think is different. They bark… Read more ›
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) opens his masterpiece Leviathan (1651) with some startling claims that reduce life to a series of motions and mechanisms: “Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as… Read more ›
I have been thinking a lot about what philosophical positions might be implied by the fact that we present and evaluate arguments. Consider this argument or set of premises from which a conclusion is derived: Premise 1: All humans are… Read more ›
It seems plausible to many people that we are more than physical bodies: we are also non-physical minds or souls. Our souls are currently embodied and yet have things bodies can’t have such as free will, reason, a conscience, intentional… Read more ›
Determinism is the view that, given the laws of nature, all events are the necessary effects of previous events. When applying this to systems, one can say that a system is deterministic if there is only one way the system… Read more ›
Truth, for so many thinkers throughout history, has been seen as existing independent of human minds. But it seems far more sensible to embrace an anthropological account of truth which Robert Adams nicely describes as the view “that the truths… Read more ›
Soren Kierkegaard Introduction It is popular these days to think about evil from a scientific perspective that sees evil as, for example, a function of an improperly working brain. Such approaches typically remove free will and the more traditional parameters… Read more ›
Many of our efforts at self-examination presuppose at least a sense of things we don’t know. We sense our life is inadequate and take steps to acquire more knowledge to remove our ignorance. We widen our scope, gain new perspectives, and… Read more ›
Jacques Derrida, in his book The Gift of Death (Chicago: 1995) presents what he calls the “aporia of responsibility”. An aporia is an impasse, a state of paralysis where we are lost for how to move through some place, set… Read more ›
Plato, in his dialogue Republic (see Book II, lines 368-374), has Socrates construct an ideal state in order to figure out what an ideal soul would look like. Socrates begins by describing a variety of people – shoemaker, weaver, builder, farmer,… Read more ›