Following up on an earlier post contrasting modernism with pre-modernism, I here contrast post-modernism to both. Postmodernism as a philosophical system is defined by means of its characteristic claims in the five major branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, ethics, and politics. Postmodernism as a historical movement is defined by the time of its […]
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Intellectual systems and movements are defined philosophically by means of their characteristic claims in the five major branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, ethics, and politics. As historical movements, they are defined by the time of their formulation and most vigorous activity. So in the following table I offer a definitions of pre-modernism and
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[This is Appendix 4 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 4: Quotations on German militarism Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): “War itself, if it is carried on with order and with a sacred respect for the rights of citizens, has something sublime in it, and makes
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[This is Section 8 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 8. Economic socialism, not capitalism The second theme of the Program is a stress upon socialism and a strong rejection of capitalism. Numerically, socialism is the most emphasized theme in the Nazi Program, for over half of the Program’s twenty-five points—fourteen out of the twenty-five, to
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[This excerpt is from Chapter 5 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Marcuse and the Frankfurt School: Marx plus Freud, or oppression plus repression Marcuse had long labored in the trenches of academic philosophy and social theory before coming to fame in America in the 1960s. He studied philosophy at Freiburg
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When I teach Philosophy of Science, one of the books I use is Martin Gardner’s excellent Great Essays in Science, with selections from Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and other greats. The course has a unit on scientific fraud, including examples of the destructive effects of the politicization of science. Gardner’s anthology includes two
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A follow up to my post on Why life is 255 times better now than in 1800. Some warm-up indicators: By 1900 the U.S. had recently become the wealthiest economy in the world, slightly surpassing Australia and Great Britain, and it had become twice as wealthy as France and Germany and four times as wealthy
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Professor Jerry Kirkpatrick gave a talk at Rockford College on October 28 on “Montessori and Dewey as Educational Philosophers.” Dr. Kirkpatrick is Professor of International Business at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. In the following eleven-minute interview after his talk, I speak with Dr. Kirkpatrick about the two great educational philosophers of the twentieth century,
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