I haven’t read it yet, but this is a great idea for a book: Arguments for Liberty, edited by Aaron Ross Powell and Grant Babcock. Published by Cato in 2016, the volume collects nine essays by nine scholars, each arguing for liberty from a different philosophical perspective. I expect that this volume is meant to […]
*Arguments for Liberty* by Powell and Babcock Read More »
At TRI, my short article “Trump’s Corruption Mandate” begins this way: “Donald Trump’s astonishing election victory was in part a backlash against increasingly corrupt American politics. “Transparency International publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking all nations from most to least clean in their political conduct. The United States entered the twenty-first century by falling
Trump’s Corruption Mandate Read More »
Recently, I met a young man in Miami. Instead of taking a taxi I decided to try Uber for the first time. Rafael (not his real name) showed up a few minutes later. Traffic was bad in rush-hour Miami, and along the way we started chatting. He was a Cuban, I learned, and until recently
Uber, Cuba, and Freedoms Small and Large [Good Life series] Read More »
At TRI, my commentary on the University of Washington shooting, Milo Yiannopoulos, postmodernism, and the alt right begins this way: “A protester was shot at the University of Washington during a clash between rival factions — one faction physically blocking an audience from hearing a speech, the other faction seeking to hear a rabble-rousing orator.
Political protest in a “post-fact era” [Commentary at TRI] Read More »
Art critic Eric Gibson pronounces: “Objectivity is a cardinal rule in the discipline of art history. Mr. [Paul] Johnson’s book, by contrast, abounds in strong opinions.” (“Bold Strokes, Strong Opinions,” WSJ) But literary critic Tracy Kidder sneers: “As every graduate student knows, only a fool would try to think or bear witness to events objectively
Competing epistemological imperatives in the arts Read More »
Four quotations from Canadian philosopher Lorraine Code’s What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge. 1. On how perceptual knowledge is gendered: “Proposing that the sex of the knower is significant casts doubt both on the autonomy of reason and on the (residual) exemplary status of simple observational knowledge claims. The suggestion
Code on gender feminist epistemology Read More »
Two quotations from Bert Hamminga’s “Epistemology from the African Point of View”: “In the traditional African view, knowledge is not acquired by labor but ‘given’ by the ancestors. Second, it is immediately social: not ‘I’ know, but ‘we’ know. Thirdly, knowledge is not universal but local tribal: other tribes have different knowledge.” (p. 57) And:
Hamminga on African epistemology Read More »
The syllabi for Ethics and Business and Economic Ethics this semester are now online at my Courses page.
Spring 2017 course syllabi Read More »