“Diogenes Sheltering in His Barrel,” by John William Waterhouse 1. Introductory. A few weeks ago, in early April 2018, I finally finished and self-published a five-part, four book series, The Rational Human Condition, aka RHC, that I’ve been working on more or less steadily since 2005 or 2006—so, for 12 or 13 years. RHC is … [continue reading]
Is Professional Philosophy a Bullshit Job? Yes. And What You Can Do About It.
Is professional academic philosophy a bullshit job? Yes. This means that, as a professional academic philosopher, even though you began by loving real philosophy for its own sake, you’ve unintentionally turned your working life into the very opposite of what you hoped it would be. And that’s genuinely tragic, even if depressingly widespread. Can you … [continue reading]
German Philosophy is in a Sorry State. Why?
APP Editors’ Note: Wolfram Eilenberger is a philosopher, journalist, and writer. His passion is the application of philosophical ideas to our life today, whether it be in politics, culture or sport. He is the editor of Philosophie Magazin, and in high demand as a German intellectual, often appearing on talk shows. He has published eight … [continue reading]
Philosophy Ripped From The Headlines! Issue #9, May 2018: Defending Lecturing, Citizens of the World, Hyper-Liberalism, Neo-Romanticism, & Physics-Without- Time?
Dear Philosopher or Philosophically-Minded Person, Do you ever think about the larger philosophical implications of contemporary events and issues, especially when reading newspapers, journals, or blogs? —Of course you do: but then what? What if you were able to convert your thinking DIRECTLY into something you were able to use for TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, for PHILOSOPHY … [continue reading]
The Philosophy of Kanye West.
APP Editors’ Note: Kanye West is an American rapper. Recently he started writing a philosophy book in real-time on social media. The following analytical commentary on West’s philosophical views is by H. Peter Steeves, who teaches philosophy at De Paul University. You can find out more about Steeves’s work HERE. Steeves’s remarks have been excerpted … [continue reading]
The Ecology of Mind.
“Evening Organicism,” by Kelly McConnell/MECA Portfolio 1. Aims In his The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel wants to see the world from Nowhere by way of presenting a model of knowledge and the mind that encompasses both the objective and subjective poles of human awareness. His goal is to harmonize the insights of scientific reductionism … [continue reading]
Forgetting the Lessons of History: The Fate of Philosophy in the 20th Century.
The fate of philosophy in the Anglo-American world in the twentieth century was to forget the lessons of history and to bind itself (largely thanks to the analytic school of thought) to a universalistic and objectivist project that was hopelessly flawed from the very start. The sad result of philosophy’s adherence to this project was … [continue reading]
On the Use of the Term “Continental Philosophy”.
Believe it or not, I first came across the term “Continental Philosophy” a couple of years ago on a philosophy portal on Wikipedia. To my astonishment I learnt that current philosophy is to be divided into two kinds, “Analytic” and “Continental.” Somehow, I had not noticed this before. Trying to find out what the term … [continue reading]
The Rump Parliament of Modern Academic Philosophy.
1. The Problem Delineated The way that philosophy is defined in the contemporary English-speaking academy shows the results of a lengthy process of the systematic shaving off of the discipline into narrower and narrower fields of study, largely under the tutelage of twentieth-century analytic philosophy.[1] Bertrand Russell actually gives an early account of this process … [continue reading]
Philosophy Ripped From The Headlines! Issue #8, April 2018: Consciousness-Denial, Minds-&-Smartphones, The Morality of Addiction, & Radical Gun Reform.
Dear Philosopher or Philosophically-Minded Person, Do you ever think about the larger philosophical implications of contemporary events and issues, especially when reading newspapers, journals, or blogs? —Of course you do: but then what? What if you were able to convert your thinking DIRECTLY into something you were able to use for TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, for PHILOSOPHY … [continue reading]