I'm interested in this debate as a strictly philosophical observer, not as a theologian, humanist, scientist, or neo-Darwinist. And I entertain the possibility that the outcome of this dilemma may be that we have to abandon an unjustifiable confidence in the human intellect for neo-Darwinism. The secular philosopher-sociologist Steven Fuller performs here the role of Continue Reading …
How Did We Get Here?: Fukuyama on The Origins of Political Order
In his new book The Origins of Political Order,Francis Fukuyama tackles the history of the idea and its reality "from prehuman times to the French Revolution." Fukuyama works under the contemporary name of political science, but he is really one of the few people we have today intellectually able to go beyond the narrow confines of academic specialization and to give us the Continue Reading …
Being Old in a Democracy: Peter Lawler on Plato and Us
Why is oldness found so repulsive in our culture today? Why do old people feel so compelled to make themselves look like worse versions of young people through plastic surgery? The easy answer is 'it's natural', i.e., youth gives a competitive Darwinian advantage, so if we have the bio-technology available to keep ourselves younger we gotta go for it! However, one of the most Continue Reading …
Hannah Arendt on Scientism
The question of the "pernicious influence" of scientism on modern life and philosophy gets raised fairly often here at PEL. I get the sense that Wes and Seth think the influence 'quite pernicious' while Mark thinks 'not so pernicious'. (Correct me if I'm wrong guys). So I thought it would be helpful to clarify what is implied by the term, so that we might open the way for some Continue Reading …
Can We Be Philosophical Realists?
The analytic philosophy of logical positivism or logical empiricism, which dominated 20th-century Anglo-American scientific thinking, leaves philosophy with a complex and problematic legacy that must be addressed and overcome if we are to have any hope of a renewed, meaningful, philosophically rational realism. On the one hand, the positivist view of philosophy is Continue Reading …
More Analytic vs. Continental: What is the “Situation of Reason”?
The disciplinary identity of philosophy is in question. So says John McCumber in “Reshaping Reason”, where he makes a serious argument with evidence of trends pointing toward a sort of Hegelian synthesis in American philosophy to overcome the “Fantasy Island” of analytic thought and the “Subversive Struggle” of continental thought. "Fantasy Island" and "Subversive Struggle" Continue Reading …
From Technologist to Humanist: Google’s “In-House” Philosopher
I had been thinking about the PEL debate on the value of higher education, and came across this compelling story by Damon Horowitz. Did you know that Google has an "in-house philosopher"? Horowitz shares his personal story of self-transformation in this article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. With a background in software engineering, he had developed a career in the Continue Reading …
Naturalism & Philosophical Thinking
[editor's note: Here's our guest blogger Tom McDonald with a bit of original philosophizing. You can read more like this on his blog zuhanden.com. -ML] I want to pose some general questions to all readers, but especially to those scientifically inclined and favorable to a naturalistic worldview. The questions are about the naturalistic worldview that is presently normative Continue Reading …
Naturalism & Philosophical Thinking
[editor's note: Here's our guest blogger Tom McDonald with a bit of original philosophizing. You can read more like this on his blog zuhanden.com. -ML] I want to pose some general questions to all readers, but especially to those scientifically inclined and favorable to a naturalistic worldview. The questions are about the naturalistic worldview that is presently normative but Continue Reading …
Atheists Against Atheism
Not all atheists are on board with 'the four horsemen' of the New Atheism: Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens. Julian Baggini, podcaster and author of Atheism: A Very Short Introductionpoints out their generally unsophisticated grasp of religion. I met Baggini in New York last December when he came to speak to a small group of us on the subject of politics. He's British, Continue Reading …
Greeks vs. Germans
And now for something completely different: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8 SPOILER ALERT: The Germans are disputing it! Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-analytic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming that it was offside. But Continue Reading …
Hattiangadi on Meaning in Language
Oughts and Thoughts: Scepticism and the Normativity of Meaningis a 2007 book by Oxford philosophy professor Anandi Hattiangadi that develops a response to Saul Kripke's skepticism about whether there is a fact of meaning in a person's use of language. In Kripke's 1984 book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language,he argued, via a controversial interpretation of Wittgenstein, Continue Reading …
Hegel vs. Eliminative Materialism in Neuroscience
Paul and Patricia Churchland are researchers and advocates of eliminative materialism in neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Eliminative materialism claims that everyday concepts such as the beliefs, feelings, and desires we attribute to each other are illusions of what we should refer to as "folk psychology." They believe not only that these concepts are destined to be Continue Reading …
Lawrence Cahoone on Rorty: Bridging Analytic and Continental Philosophy
Richard Rorty: A friend of Dan Dennett (and his dreaded scientism : ). A neo-pragmatist. An analytic philosopher who began teaching around the mid-20th-century, he eventually turned against its scientism. Rorty felt that 20th-century analytic thought was going down the wrong track by taking up the same sort of epistemological foundationalist project as Descartes. Rorty saw the Continue Reading …
Kojève on Hegel: “The Concept” is Time itself
Having read many commentaries on and interpretations of Hegel's Phenomenology, I've found Alexandre Kojève's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spiritto be the best written and most helpful. The language is terse, direct, powerful, fresh, and compelling. It's always struck me as an example of how philosophy ought to be articulated, and I Continue Reading …
Hegel and the Negativity of the Modern Spirit
[Editor's Note: Tom McDonald, guest podcaster on our Hegel episodes, has eagerly agreed to join us on the blog to share more of what he's picked up about Hegel. You can read more by Tom at zuhanden.com -ML] It's hard to overestimate how important for Hegel is Kant's critical philosophy following the Enlightenment. Kant's elaboration of 'the critical turn' in modern Continue Reading …