I will be giving a talk next week to a graduate philosophy class at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. The theme of my talk is: What Philosophers Need to Know about Economics. Over the past generation BGSU has developed one of the country’s strongest programs in applied ethics and political philosophy, so it will […]
Popular Science‘s “Looking Back at the 100 Best Innovations of 2009.”
Bridge over the Colorado River Read More »
Heard on a call-in talk show about this year’s most popular songs. A young woman phoned in to give her opinion about the rankings and along the way made this comment: “A lot of radio stations have ‘The Drive at 5’ shows, when they play a lot of cool songs without commercials. I think it’s
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[This excerpt is from Chapter 4 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Fichte on education as socialization Johann Fichte was a disciple of Kant. Born in 1762, he studied theology and philosophy at Jena, Wittenberg, and Leipzig. In 1788 he read Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, and that reading changed Fichte’s
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Business education is often good at teaching useful business theories and skills, but it is less often good at teaching ethics. Ethics is often seen as irrelevant or as an obstacle, so business ethics is either not included in the core business curriculum or offered as an elective ornament. Claim: Ethics is organically central to
Character and entrepreneurship Read More »
[This is Section 16 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 16. Eugenics Nazi education and censorship attempted to control people’s minds. The Nazis also controlled the bodies of their citizens as much as possible. Milder controls involved new public-health measures such as an aggressive campaign against smoking: the Nazis banned smoking in certain public places, ran
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[This is Section 17 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 17. Economic controls Through education and censorship, the Nazis attempted to socialize the German mind. Through public health measures and eugenics, they attempted to socialize the German body. A natural extension of both policies was to socialize German economic production. As would be expected by the
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[This is Section 18 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 18. Militarization The most important part of the new Germany was the military. On a historically unprecedented scale, the German economy became a war economy. Conscription had been reintroduced in 1935, and in 1936 Hermann Göring took over as Germany’s economic minister. Under Göring’s direction, Germany
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