Philosophy

We’re posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the tenth: OC10: Bhopal’s Chemical Disaster–Who Really Cares About the Environment. “Bhopal is a classic case of a mixed-economy, business-government partnership in the context of an overall socialist industrial policy. In such a corrupted business-politics environment, disasters are inevitable.” Audio versions of […]

From high theory to political activism can be a long road. But the path is clear from the philosophy-of-math skeptics in the mid-1900s to the postmodernists in the late 1900s to the math-denying activists in the early 2000s. Here for example is philosopher A. J. Ayer puncturing the objectivist balloon: “the principles of logic and

In Nineteen Eighty Four, the hapless protagonist Winston finds the powers-that-be’s demands for intellectual obedience increasingly oppressive, to the point that his cognitive grip on reality becomes tenuous. Does two plus two even equal four anymore? O’Brien, the power-lusting antagonist, explains patiently: “Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are

We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the ninth: OC9: Envy’s Moral-Psychological Challenge. “American writer Gore Vidal confessed in a kind of secret-diary moment: ‘Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.’” Audio versions of the podcast are available free at my website, YouTube, Bitchute, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud.

Two philosophers discuss current culture through a historically informed lens. My CEE did this extended video interview with Capaldi about his life and work. I reviewed his Liberty and Equality in Political Economy: From Locke versus Rousseau to the Present.

Questions for August 2020 Q&A at thinkspot:SLAVERY1. What do you know about the abolition of slavery in Brazil? How did it happen?2. I doubt that your last presentation is anything like what has been taught in the American educational system. How can we stop the ideologically possessed from indoctrinating a dangerous one-sided narrative In our