Do not be fooled by Andrew Yang! I’ve seen otherwise well-meaning Liberals and Progressives falling for Yang’s “Freedom Dividend”-centered presidential candidacy. Yang’s plan seems simple and obviously beneficial to the very constituencies Liberals and Progressives tend to fight for. Nevertheless, Yang either does not understand very basic macroeconomics or he is a right-wing wolf in … [continue reading]
The Economic Philosopher.
APP Editors’ Note: Jeremy Tauzer is a PhD student in philosophy at Saint Louis University. The power of suggestion which is exerted through things and persons and which, instead of telling the child what he must do, tells him what he is, and thus leads him to become durably what he has to be, is … [continue reading]
Thoughts on Postmodernity 1: An Impossible Presentation.
Imagine being introduced to someone at a party. A friend of yours wants you to meet someone she knows and facilitates an encounter. Even before you have shaken hands with your new conversation partner, he exclaims: “I am not an alcoholic!”, before proceeding to tell you his name. Chances are that you will think your … [continue reading]
Statism, Capitalism, and Beyond.
THINKING FOR A LIVING: A PHILOSOPHER’S NOTEBOOK (SECOND SERIES, INSTALLMENT 14) PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS IN THE SECOND SERIES #13: Identity ad absurdum: a critique of the cultural appropriation argument. #12: Neo-Kantianism and anti-Kantianism: a primer for contemporary philosophers. #11: From Bertrand Russell to Brazilian carnaval: how to make the world as it could be made. #10: … [continue reading]
Captions #4–The Philosophical Transfiguration Of The Commonplace.
Previous Installments: #3: Philosophical Reflections On Love And Picture-Perfect Experiences. #2: The Cartesian Corollary. #1: Captions (To The Cartoons We Live)–In Defense of Captions & A Curriculum Vitae. Arthur Danto wrote a very interesting book, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace–whose title he’d most respectfully borrowed from a Muriel Spark novel, The Prime of Miss Jean … [continue reading]
Meditations & Mediations, #1—Introduction and Section I: On Sources.
Introduction If one practices philosophy in some form or the other, how should one do it? What should one do? This question is as old as philosophy itself. Apart from dealing with problems like the nature of free will, the nature of mind, causation, the acquisition of knowledge, the existence of a supreme being, Being … [continue reading]
The Fantasyland of Contemporary Absolute Idealism.
MA: I had some follow-up thoughts on your recent critical study, “On Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, Or, The Refutation of Absolute Idealism,” that I wanted to run by you. But first, a prefatory remark. I consider absolute idealism, and the various resultant constellations of self-consciousness, objectivity, knowledge and judgment, to be neither unintelligible nor … [continue reading]
Surrealism Is Not Fascism.
In a recent essay,[i] Andrew D. Chapman throws both Postmodernism and Surrealism into the “Fascism” pot. I won’t say anything here about whether Postmodernism belongs there or not, although I think this should be examined on a case-by-case basis.[ii] I doubt that such a blanket classification would stand up to scrutiny for all works and … [continue reading]
Captions #3–Philosophical Reflections On First Love And Picture-Perfect Experiences.
Previous Installments of Captions: #2: The Cartesian Corollary. #1: Captions (To The Cartoons We Live)–In Defense of Captions & A Curriculum Vitae. I met Annette when I was sixteen in a summer house on the Danish coast. She was 20. The summer I finished high school I went to Denmark to work on a farm. … [continue reading]
Why The Leiter Report’s Professional Academic Philosophy Rankings Are Misguided, Misleading, And Mistaken.
Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy, and they die if these roots decay (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations) Philosophy itself never begins anything. This beginning has already happened elsewhere. That is why the theme of the beginning, seen purely and simply from within the realm of philosophy, provides us with … [continue reading]