The 13th floor and other superstitions
At a hotel recently I was zooming up in its sleek elevator to my room when I noticed something: no 13th floor.
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Roark and Keating: first meetings
I am a philosopher, and when I’m on the job I have been known to read literary works as “premises with feet.” Despite that occupational hazard I am also fascinated with how some great fiction writers can seamlessly integrate abstract philosophical themes with concrete literary portrayals. When I teach Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, my focus
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Envy
The essayist Joseph Epstein tells a story about going to his high school reunion. As the participants took their seats at the dinner tables, they each found a note left there anonymously. The note contained a poem: “It’s not the world. And what I have to say to those who don’t fit in is, don’t
Is capitalism bad for art?
My theme will be the relationship between art and liberal cultures, focusing on economically free cultures especially.
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Kaizen Issue 8 published
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published its eighth issue of Kaizen [pdf], focusing on the theme of Education and Entrepreneurship. It features my interview with Steve Mariotti, founder of the excellent Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an organization dedicated to providing entrepreneurship education to low-income youths. Also featured are guest speakers David Mayer,
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The Ethics of the Financial Crisis
I am organizing a session for on “The Ethics of the Financial Crisis” for the Association for Private Enterprise Education conference to be held April 11-13, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Hayek and Rand on reason
I am organizing a session for the Association for Private Enterprise Education conference to be held April 11-13, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The theme is “Reason in Hayek and Rand.” Here we have two giants of twentieth-century thought, but few comparative studies have been done. So as a start I have chosen Reason as
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In class: Semmelweis as epistemological hero
Prior to the discovery of germ theory and antiseptic, women frequently died of puerperal fever in the maternity ward at the University of Vienna Hospital. Enter Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian-born physician working at the Vienna hospital, one of the world’s leading medical establishments. Carl Hempel’s account of Semmelweis’s false starts, failed hypotheses, and eventual success
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