Disrupting Silences in the Philosophy Canon
Teaching ‘modern’ philosophy
Philosophy is suffering gender-wise (and here I bracket for the moment class, race, and sexuality) -- see Sally Haslanger’s “Women in Philosophy? Do the Math” in The Stone. But the gender trouble is not simply a matter of representation in the field. The problem also entails a regretfully ...
Open Letter of Support for Academics under Attack in Turkey
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in an Early Modern Science Course?
Reflections on continuous contingent foundations for liberal education and liberal democracies
In my final post of the old year , I promised that my next post would defend my claim that “however much I believe the liberals’ heart is in the right place, I believe the critiques of liberal universalism both within the academy and without hit home in some real ...
The Anniversary Gift: Texas opens public universities to firearms
The most striking architectural feature of the University of Texas at Austin is the tower that sits atop a hill at the center of campus. It is a twenty-seven story limestone monolith; a “toothpick” according to one detractor, more suited to the New Jersey cityscapes that inspired its architect, ...
What Is It to Live with Contingent Foundations? A reply to Michael Weinman
Butler’s “ethic of vulnerability” and redefining “liberal” in the “liberal arts”
Agnes Heller and “Everyday Revolutions”
Portrait of a Philosopher
The forms of the southern clouds at the dawn of April 30th, 1882, are comparable to those mottled streaks on this one book he had only seen once (a Spanish edition). Following the Naturalis Historia, he recounts exactly four historically exemplary cases of prodigious memory: Cyrus ...
...When Is Someone “Like Us”?
Stanislaw Baranczak: A Widening Horizon
A tribute
Barańczak is no longer with us. In a while no one will give credence any more to the existence of this Atlantis, this man who transcended boundaries imposed by human force and a system of power. Just like the sunken platonic continent on which there existed or did not exist a ...
Replication Problems in Psychology: Crisis, Tempest in a Teapot, or Opportunity?
An assessment of the field
In late August 2015 an article appeared in the New York Times with a loaded headline: Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says. The article reported on a recent publication in the journal Science, which raised ...
...The Triumph of Design (Thinking)
What’s wrong with useful creativity
September’s edition of that venerable and elite journal of contemporary capitalism, the Harvard Business Review, is devoted to the evolution of something called “design thinking” and its role in current business practices. We are all likely familiar with the way in which design has come to play a central role ...