Philosophers’ Corner

  When I was in graduate school at Cornell from 1964 until 1968, and for…

We at Philosophy Talk are really pleased to begin airing on Valley Public Radio, covering Fresno,…

  Commerce in certain bodily parts is allowed, at least if we define `bodily part’…

My father, grandfather and uncle were lawyers, in the small firm then called “Perry & Perry” in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my cousin and his son continue in that firm, now known as “Perry, Guthery, Haase & Gessford”. If the Danforth Foundation hadn’t kindly offered me a fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell, I would have followed the family tradition. It never occurred to me, as I was growing up, the law was anything but the most honorable of professions.

Share your thoughts about today’s show.     Don’t have time to add any thoughts…

The founding fathers in their considerable wisdom took the separation of powers to be a “bulwark of liberty.” Indeed, they took the concentration of power into a single agency to be the very definition of tyranny. Conversely, they apparently believed that not just the formal separation of powers among the branches of the federal government and between the federal and state governments, but also what might be called the subsantive seperation of political interests to which the formally separated branches are asnwerable, was the key to a government that was unlikely to ever devolve into tyranny.

There’s almost no rational grounds for currently believing in old-fashioned Cartesian Dualism of the mind and body. According to that form of dualism, the mind and body were two metaphysically distinct substances — with the body being extended in space and the mind being an immaterial somewhat, with no extension, no location.

Posted by Peter Stone Hello All, It’s taken me a couple of days, but I…

Today’s episode is about Lotteries — not the state sponsored gambling type, but the type…

I’m sitting in my study at home listening and thought I would get this blog back on track. Right now, a repeat episode of Philosophy Talk s about to air, even as I type. The episode is Philosophy and Film, with noted critic, David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. I thought that maybe a good way to get the show started would be to do a little bit of live blogging.

Dear Listener: You probably have notice the lightness of blogging recently. But things are about…

Nick Smith, J.D. and Ph.D., author of I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies (Cambridge…

Augustine’s mother, Saint Monica, was a Christian, and wanted him to become one. When he got an involuntary erection as a teenager in the public baths, she was mortified. His father wasn’t Christian, and took pride in his son’s precocious erection. So Augustine started life somewhat conflicted.

I’m in the airport at Tucson. I’m listening online to our episode on “Why Music Matters” which we recorded in front of live audience at a locale in San Francisco. David Harrington, of the world famous Kronos Quartet is our guest. Since my flight is about to board, I won’t have time to listen at length. And I’ve been too wrapped up in the conference to blog about the topic. But I thought it might be fun just to open up an entry to comments from listeners about the show and the topic.