Van Harvey reflects on Huxley’s and Clifford’s reasons for not believing. In the struggle against obscurantism and the appeal to blind faith that was rampant in Victorian culture, it would be difficult to find two greater champions of restraint on unfounded opinions and beliefs than W.K. Clifford (1845-1879) and T.H. Huxley (1825-1895). Moreover, both of …
Stephen Doty says that the accumulated folk wisdom of the investment community should be taken with a large pinch of salt. Some people need to invest more in philosophy, not in stocks, so that empty sayings don’t muddle their thinking and mislead them. A yacht club gentleman gave me a little lecture on investing the …
Jessie Burdick wonders whether it is cheating for athletes to take dietary supplements, and we ask you, the reader, to tell us what you think. What would you be willing to do to become a professional athlete? This is a question that demands more than a fleeting thought, because not only will becoming a successful professional …
Adam Carter examines the most morally corrupting sport of all. Tom: “So, what did you have back on hole six, buddy?”Buck: “I told you – I had a par.”Tom: “I know that’s what you said, but are you sure?”Buck: “Are you … calling me a cheater, Tom?”Tom: “All I’m saying is that you were two in …
James Moran considers the archetypal American antedeluvian’s criticism of someone else’s technological paradise. Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-loved authors in American history, and its most famous chronicler of the simple life. Some might argue that there are utopian elements in Thoreau’s account in Walden (1854) of his two years and two months living in the …
Alfred Geier says it’s not about the state of the state. The Republic is Plato’s most famous dialogue, contains many of his best-known arguments and is one of the great classics of world literature. It is also the victim of a serious and widespread misconception, in that it is held to present a political utopia, a polis [city state] to …
Go to the conference’s page Conference Venue: Carr Center for Human Rights , Harvard UniversityCambridge, United States Details The Harvard University Center for the Environment and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School invite abstract submissions for a conference on the Ethics of Solar Geoengineering, to be held on February …
Go to the conference’s page Conference Venue: Department of Philosophy, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China Details We invite graduate students and postdocs to submit papers in any area of analytic philosophy, but preference will be given to papers related to normativity and rationality. Papers can be written in English or in Chinese. Keynote speakers:Paul Boghossian (New York …
CFP: The 1st Beijing International Graduate Conference in Analytic Philosophy Read More »
Ludwig Wittgenstein, in full Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, (born April 26, 1889, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]—died April 29, 1951, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England), Austrian-born British philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Wittgenstein’s two major works, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922) and Philosophische Untersuchungen (published posthumously in 1953; Philosophical …
René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden), French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon Scholastic Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he promoted the development of a …