Philosophers’ Corner

  • The Ethics of Soda

    At the Conservative Political Action Conference a couple of months ago, Sarah Palin sipped from…

  • Tennis as a Way of Knowing

    What does Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë mean when he says that dance is a form…

  • The Dark Side of Science

    This week we’re stepping over to the Dark Side of Science. Of course a skeptic might ask, what dark side? Without modern science, we’d still be bleeding the sick, travelling by horseback, and using carrier pigeons for long distance communication. But there are no unmixed blessings.

  • Latin-American Philosophy

      It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month, and this week on the program we’ll be tackling…

  • Diogenes the Cynic

    Diogenes was born about 413 BCE and died in 323 BCE, the same year, and, at least according to legend, the same day as Alexander the Great, who had an unrequited admiration for Diogenes. Cynicism was a School of Philosophy that was founded in Athens by Antisthenes (455—366 BCE), a student of Socrates. The School lasted about 800 years after Diogenes, and was a major influence on Stoicism. Our modern words “cynic” and “cynicism” are historically connected to this School, but their meanings are only tangentially related to Diogenes views.

  • Richard Fletcher, Historian

    Richard Fletcher was a rarity among historians. A medievalist, Fletcher published books on Anglo-Saxon England…

  • My Discovery of the X-Files

    I missed the X-Files in its hey-day. The nine seasons running from 1993 to 2002 corresponded almost exactly…

  • Science, Philosophy, and Theology

    There’s a saying: as science advances, religion retreats. These days, the boundary between science and religion is clear. They’re considered completely separate domains, even if philosophers sometimes think about both. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part religion, these days, is not in the business of making claims about the nature of the cosmos or the origins of life. In the 90s, Pope John Paul II even declared that evolution was a scientific fact Catholics should wholeheartedly embrace. I take that as a real mark of progress.

  • Teaching Philosophy

    The study of philosophy, or the study of what other people have said that gets…

  • What is philosophy?

    I have a few moments. So I want to ask the basic question: What is…

  • The Psychology of Partisan Politics

    To appreciate how divided Americans are about politics, we might start with god, guns, and sex. Some Americans view gun ownership as a non-negotiable, an almost sacred right, and view homosexuality as an unholy abomination. Other Americans see guns as one of our greatest social ills and see differences in sexual orientation as no more significant than differences in eye color. But, of course, those are intrinsically emotionally charged issues, so you might expect deep divisions in such domains.

  • The Self

       What is a self? Here’s is a really simple answer.  I’m a self, namely, myself….