Yesterday, in my Twentieth Century Philosophy class, we worked our way through Bertrand Russell‘s essay on “Appearance and Reality” (excerpted, along with “The Value of Philosophy” and “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” from Russell’s ‘popular’ work The Problems of Philosophy.) I introduced the class to Russell’s notion of physical objects being inferences fromContinue reading “The Philosophical Education Of Scientists”
Category Archives: Books
Robert Mundell On Why The Market Is Feminine
Robert Mundell received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1999 for his work in “monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas.” (He is currently professor of economics at Columbia University.) For as long as I can remember, I’ve owned a copy of his little primer, Man and Economics (McGraw-Hill, 1968; another edition bears the subtitle The ScienceContinue reading “Robert Mundell On Why The Market Is Feminine”
My Favorite Reader
For as long as I have been married, my wife has been my favorite reader. She reads and offers comments on almost everything I write, from the brief posts here (and at The Cordon) to my books. She reads my angry emails, my applications for various academic offerings–nothing is too long or too short orContinue reading “My Favorite Reader”
The Dog Stars: The Apocalypse As Outdoorsman Fantasy
Peter Heller‘s The Dog Stars is one of those post-apocalyptic novels in which authorial fantasies are overwhelmingly transparent. The world is coming to an end; flu has stalked the land; millions have died. Violence is the currency of most human interaction; food is scarce; government is invisible. And so on. You’ve seen most of thisContinue reading “The Dog Stars: The Apocalypse As Outdoorsman Fantasy”
Polygamy And Joseph Smith’s Convenient Revelations
In Under The Banner Of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer cites Fawn Brodie‘s No Man Knows My History, her classic biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism: Monogamy seemed to him–as it has seemed to many men who have not ceased to love their wives, but who have grown weary ofContinue reading “Polygamy And Joseph Smith’s Convenient Revelations”
Neil Postman On Disguised Technologies, And The Night Class
In his sometimes curiously conservative Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman writes: Some technologies come in disguise. Rudyard Kipling called them “technologies in repose.” They do not look like technologies, and because of that they do their work, for good or ill, without much criticism or even awareness. This applies not only to IQ tests and toContinue reading “Neil Postman On Disguised Technologies, And The Night Class”
Camus On The Death Penalty And The Right To Make Amends
In Reflections on the Guillotine Albert Camus writes: Deciding that a man must have the definitive punishment imposed on him is tantamount to deciding that that man has no chance of making amends….none among us can settle the question, for we are all both judges and interested parties. Whence our uncertainty as to our right to kill and our inability to convinceContinue reading “Camus On The Death Penalty And The Right To Make Amends”
Susan Sontag’s Paragraphed Interview Answers
In his introduction to Susan Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stones Interview, Jonathan Cott writes: In one of her journal entries from 1965, Susan avowed: To give no interviews until I can sound as clear + authoritative + direct as Lillian Hellman in Paris Review.” ….as I listened to her clear, authoritative, and direct responses to myContinue reading “Susan Sontag’s Paragraphed Interview Answers”
The Road And The Apocalyptic World of the Homeless
Last week, the students in my Philosophical Issues in Literature class and I, as part of our ongoing discussion about Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road, watched John Hillcoat‘s cinematic adaptation of it. On Monday, we watched roughly half the movie in class, and then on Wednesday, we concentrated on three scenes: the encounter with Ely theContinue reading “The Road And The Apocalyptic World of the Homeless”
Tillich On Symbols, Religion, And Myths
This week, I’ve been teaching and discussing excerpts from Paul Tillich‘s Dynamics of Faith in my philosophy of religion class. (In particular, we’ve tackled _The Meaning of Symbol_, _Religious Symbols_, and _Symbols and Myths_, all excerpted in From Religion To Tolstoy and Camus, Walter Kaufmann, ed.) I suggested to my students before we started our conversationContinue reading “Tillich On Symbols, Religion, And Myths”
Samir Chopra 