From Paleolithic to now — life expectancy at birth
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Philosophy
How Randy Newman Solved Stanley Fish’s Credibility Problem
Stanley Fish, postmodern provocateur, gave a talk at Indiana University when I was a graduate student there in the late 1980s. He was then working on what would become There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech, And It’s a Good Thing, Too. Fish’s theme was social construction and oppression: We all are products of our
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Kant versus human perfectibility — strange interpretations
Immanuel Kant famously said this: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”[1] And this: “The history of *nature*, therefore, begins with good, for it is God’s work; the history of *freedom* begins with *badness*, for it is *man’s* work.”[2] And he regularly makes other slights against human nature. So
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Texts in Philosophy — very early 2017 additions
For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. All files are PDFs. William Bennett and Milton Friedman, Open Letters on the War on Drugs, from The Wall Street Journal (1989). Nathaniel Branden, “Self-Esteem in the Information Age” (1997). Max Forrester Eastman (1883-1969), excerpt from Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955).
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*The Will to Power* — new translation by Hill and Scarpitti
Penguin has published a new translation by R. Kevin Hill and Michael Scarpitti of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Will to Power. In the mid-1880s Nietzsche was extraordinarily productive making and reworking notes for an intended magnum opus. But he did not complete it and turned to publishing the final few short books of his career before
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Who succeeds in business — Garmong on *conceptual* thinking
In a recent post, philosopher-turned-businessman Robert Garmong made this observation: I’m now convinced that 99% of business success comes down to skill at defining and applying concepts. Those who are mere cogs in the machine, generally speaking, are those who don’t really understand the concepts. They may grasp the rules, but not the reasons. They
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Muslims, Christians, and family — not so different?
One-minute video clip: “If my sister rejected Islam, I would reject her. She MUST believe in God.” The #ExMuslim reality, with a sparkling smile. pic.twitter.com/HpxeFzMfva — ExMuslim TV (@ExMuslim_TV) January 29, 2017 As hinted in the clip, honor killings are not far from this. But on the family values issues, Ms. Azariya reminds me of
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Marshawn Lynch (NFL) versus Abraham (Genesis) on morality
Football player Marshawn Lynch in an interview, on his independence of judgment: “If you tell me to do something and I want to know why and you don’t want to tell me why — No.” Take that, hero-of-the-Old-Testament Abraham, whose blind faith made him willing to kill his son Isaac when commanded. Sources: American Way,
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