In Western nations, there is a clear connection between philosophy and totalitarian politics. Hegel’s philosophy, for example, took a “left” turn in Marx’s thinking — which Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin drew upon — and it took a “right” turn in Treitschke’s and Nietzsche’s thinking — which Goebbels, Hitler, and the National Socialists drew upon, as […]
German philosophy in pre-World-War-II Japan Read More »
A watershed event in American business history was the Homestead Riot of 1892. At the Homestead Steel Works near Pittsburgh, union leaders and workers rejected wage cuts proposed by owner Andrew Carnegie and plant manager Henry Frick. Negotiations failed, a strike began, the plant was closed, workers armed themselves, the Pinkertons were called in, and
Two nineteenth-century riots Read More »
Franz Schubert, the great lyrical composer of the early 1800s, died at age 31. While his music is usually too melancholy for my taste, what a sadness. Franz was lucky to get that many years. Biographer Christoper Gibbs reports that Schubert’s parents had fourteen children and “nine of their fourteen children died in infancy.” (The
Thanksgiving reflection upon Schubert’s early death Read More »
My review essay on Donald Frey’s America’s Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics (SUNY Press, 2009). My conclusion: “America’s Economic Moralists is a good historical survey of mostly religious commentaries on economics. Frey’s work is in part a historical survey and in part a polemic against the autonomy individualists. In my judgment,
Frey’s *America’s Economic Moralists* — review Read More »
Platonic philosophers, that is. Related: “Should I marry you?” Answers from the philosophers.
When philosophers date Read More »
Lecture Four: Why has moral philosophy become skeptical and sterile? In contrast, Ayn Rand rejects the is-ought dichotomy and argues that ethics is “an objective necessity” for volitional, rational beings. Philippa Foot, also updating Aristotle, states that “the grounding of a moral argument is ultimately in facts about human life.” Themes: Naturalism. Bio-centrism. Value and
Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was named most influential work of modern art, according to a vote by 500 critics. Duchamp called it Fountain. It was initially rejected for display at the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917, whereupon Duchamp’s allies argued that it was a worthy work of art along four lines: “First, Fountain represented
Marcel Duchamp and Lillian Rearden Read More »
Some readers of Explaining Postmodernism object that I over-interpret Kant’s skepticism. Some prefer a gentler, more objectivity-friendly Kant. So while I quote Kant a lot in making the argument that Kant’s philosophy is radically subjectivist and the critical step down the road to postmodernism—not everyone is convinced. So I am grateful to Quee Nelson for
Was Kant really that skeptical? Read More »