The Department of Philosophy at Rockford College announces a new minor track in Ethics [pdf]. Our department’s faculty members have strength in a wide range of philosophical areas, but all of us have special expertise in ethics, so we have put together an option for students wishing to concentrate in that area. Introduction to Ethics,
Our new minor in Ethics Read More »
At The Economist web log, Will Wilkinson has a good piece on Rawlsian egalitarian arguments against free speech. The firing of Juan Williams makes perfect sense in that framework, as does the left’s outrage over the Citizens United decision. Wilkinson rightly notes the principled outcome of that framework: “it seems to me that this conception
Wilkinson on free speech versus equality Read More »
The Kindle version of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault is now available. The book had a gratifying two hardcover printings and eight softcover printings from 2004-2009, and I am finalizing an expanded edition to be published in hardcover in the spring of 2011. Here’s the book description: “Tracing postmodernism from
Kindle version of Explaining Postmodernism published Read More »
A stimulating, 11:40-minute animated talk by Ken Robinson. I have qualms about some of Robinson’s intellectual-history-of-education claims, but his portrait of mainstream contemporary education (especially the repulsive cop-out that is the ADHD “epidemic”) and his prescriptions for reform are bang-on accurate. [Which reminds me of my extended series on the philosophy and history of education.]
Sir Ken Robinson on factory schools Read More »
The Students for Liberty organization hosts conferences at colleges around the country. This year they’re having regional conferences at Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia, Arizona State, and other campuses. I’ll be giving a talk at the University of Chicago conference on October 16 on the theme “What Is Liberty Good For? Political Activism and the Meaning of
My upcoming SFL talk at University of Chicago Read More »
This week we are starting Descartes’s Meditations in my Introduction to Philosophy course. One of the wonderful things about the Internet is its enabling us easily to see things like Descartes’s original handwriting. Here is a letter he wrote, dated 27 May 1641: The letter is in French and was written to Marin Mersenne about
A stolen Descartes manuscript Read More »
Check it out (pdf). It’s a trifold design, with panels featuring my colleagues Matt Flamm, Shawn Klein, and me, the courses we teach, a list of famous philosophy majors in college, and more. Designed by Christopher Vaughan. (I want to live that library. Right now.)
Philosophy department brochure Read More »
Philippa Foot’s career at Oxford spanned much of the sprawling twentieth-century. Foot came to be a champion of neo-Aristotelian ethics, in contrast to the schools of deontology and utilitarian consequentialism that held sway in much of the Anglo-American philosophical world. Her Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) was her last contribution to the discussion. Here
Philippa Foot (1920-2010) Read More »