Philosophers’ Corner

  • [VIDEO] So You Think You Can Know?

    What does it mean to know something? How is knowing different from merely thinking of believing? Can we establish strict rules for what constitutes knowledge and what does not?

  • What are Crony Beliefs?

    Crony beliefs are beliefs you have partly because you want to believe them. But is it really possible to form beliefs because you want to have them? Does that explain why so many people seem to believe things that serve their self-interest? Or is there another explanation for that?

  • Do Philosophy For Its Own Sake, Not for a Job

    Should we encourage students to study philosophy because it turns out that it’s actually a great way to make money and have a lucrative career? Or in doing so are we losing sight of the value of a philosophical education? Isn’t philosophy essential for a democratic citizenry, for example?

  • Art and Obscenity

    The Supreme Court defines obscenity as any material which “appeals to a prurient interest in sex, portrays sexual conduct in a patently offensive way,” and which “does not have any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” But can’t some work be both obscene and also have “serious artistic value”?

  • To ‘Get’ a Piece of Art? Maybe 20 Minutes

    How long do you think one should spend with a piece of visual art to “get” it? And what does it really mean to “get” a piece of art? What is art doing for us? And what explains the feeling of understanding art?

  • [AUDIO] Art and Morality

    It is not unusual for pieces of art, such as literature or cinema, to address moral questions. However, is art not seen as entertainment by most? Does its role as entertainment affect its ability to comment on morality? Does art have something to offer on ethical questions that other fields, such as philosophy, cannot offer?

  • A Country is a Country

    A bizarre, somewhat tongue-in-cheek meditation by Point Maganize’s Michael Kochin on the concept of a…

  • Why Is Analytic Philosophy Dominant?

    How did analytic philosophy come to dominate Anglo-American philosophy departments? If you think it’s because analytic philosophy is just superior, that might be your bias showing. Some seemingly important developments in the history of thought are determined by rather uninspiring and unglamorous contingencies like rivalries or personal idiosyncracies.

  • We Don’t Decide Who We Love

    We often think of a love as something natural and powerful—a mysterious feeling we experience spontaneously, deep in the recesses of our essential selves. But our love, and our capacity to love, may have a lot more to do with our society than we acknowledge.

  • [AUDIO] What is a Woman?

    What does it mean for someone to be a woman? While the answer to this question for much of human history may have seemed obvious, modern feminist thought objects to many longstanding ideas about gender. Is gender just socially constructed? Is anyone whom identifies as a woman, really a woman?

  • #FrancisOnFilm: I Am Not Your Negro

    I Am Not Your Negro, an extraordinary documentary by Raoul Peck, presents the critical relevance of James Baldwin to the violence that engulfs many African Americans today. But is it a movie made more for white liberals than for African-Americans?

  • Is Milo Really a Conservative?

    Although the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg doesn’t frame the aricle this way, I took his…

  • Free Speech on Campus

    When a Stanford student posts a picture of a lynching on a the door of an African-American student with the words “Go Home” scrawled across the bottom, that is a violation of the honor code. If Stanford expels the student, as I believe it should, it has abridged his or her freedom of speech. But it hasn’t violated the First Amendment.

  • Are Self-Help Books Useless?

    Do self-help books rely on a sort of magical thinking about the control we have over our lives? Do they feed into an idiosyncratic, American narcissism that prioritizes furthering our pursuits over helping others? Are they even worth reading in the first place?

  • The Responsibility of Intellectuals

    In these times, in which truth and lies are nearly indistinguishable, do all intellectuals have a responsibility to devote their efforts toward directly speaking truth to power and mobilizing for social justice? Or are some exempt from this responsibility to pursue their interests wholeheartedly, regardless of whether it directly helps the people or not?