Happy New Year! Nathan Hanks brings us up to date on January’s Not School offerings for PEL Citizens. And if you’re not a Citizen yet, what better way to start the year than by making a commitment to your intellectual health?
Technology and Individuality
There is a classic anxiety about technology: that it can lead to a lack of individuality and spiritual emptiness. Why might this be? The place to start is with the lack of control technology can bring about in our lives. This may seem counter-intuitive since it is normally thought that technology is what helps us attain more control in our lives. Of course it does. 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” are McCumber’s well-reasoned nicknames for Continue Reading …
Peter Singer on Hegel & Marx
In this series of videos of Bryan Magee interviewing a young Peter Singer, Singer provides an explication of Hegel’s overall philosophical enterprise. We’ve linked to Magee’s show in other places (like here, here and here) and in this interview we get to see Peter Singer actually doing traditional philosopher-type stuff. He has an outstanding ‘stach and nice square coke-bottle specs. Continue Reading …