Philosophy

Heidegger and World War One — Altman’s good book

The “Heidegger Wars” are an academic battle about the significance of Martin Heidegger’s commitment to Natonal Socialism as an ideology and to the Nazi Party in particular. William H. F. Altman’s important book, Martin Heidegger and the First World War: Being and Time as Funeral Oration, opens with this question: “Was Martin Heidegger an apolitical […]

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UNCERTAIN PROSPECTS: BERTRAND RUSSELL and JOHN DEWEY. Lecture 1 of Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

At the beginning of the 20th century, both religion and philosophy seem to have reached a dead end: Russell: philosophy’s answers “are none of them demonstrably true.” Dewey: religions merely “steep and dye intellectual fabrics in the seething vat of emotions.” Lecture One: Uncertain Prospects. Bertrand Russell and John Dewey Themes: Disquieting inheritance: Entropy, Karl

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Heine versus Nietzsche on obscurantism in philosophy

To what extent is bad writing style, particularly bad academic style, a result of (a) poor skill, (b) affectation, (c) imitation, or (d) a tool to conceal the meaning and implications of one’s ideas? Heinrich Heine here lambasts many of his fellow intellectuals: “Distinguished German philosophers who may accidentally cast a glance over these pages

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POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY: COURSE SYLLABUS [Peterson Academy]

In this eight lecture (nine-hour) course, Professor Hicks takes us on an exploration of the evolution of 20th-century philosophy, from the disappointed skepticism of Russell and the pragmatism of Dewey to the science-and-rigor philosophies of Popper and Rand to postmodern ideas of Foucault and Derrida. We examine how philosophers responded to major events and challenges

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