Digressions&Impressions

On the Misuse of Science

One of the tasks of history and philosophy of science is to develop awareness of the misuse of science, so that with any luck we can learn from the misdeeds of the past. It is misguided to treat the terrain covered by Cofnas as if no m...

Socrates' "True City" Reconsidered

But again, within the city itself how will they share with one another the products of their labor? This was the very purpose of our association and establishment of a state.” “Obviously,” he said, “by buying and selling.” “A market-pl...

On Total Humanity, The Origins of Human Rights, and Unreasonable Pluralism

[T]he totalitarian rebellion of our time is not only directed against nineteenth-century liberalism and democracy. It attacks the sum total of the tradition of the Western world, its religion, its science, its law, its State, its prope...

On Surveys of the History of Political Philosophy/Theory

After the death of Mohammed in 632, Islam began a triumphant century of conquests. These victories, which left Islam the dominant force in the wealthy Eastern Mediterranean, destroyed what was left of the urban cultural base of the Ro...

On the Neuraths, Eugenics, and Translation

Now there is no denying that, given the trajectory of his later career, Neurath’s translation (with his first wife Anna Schapire-Neurath) of the second edition of Francis Galton’s Hereditary genius as Genie und Vererbung (1910) stands ...

On Being a Constrained Human

Disabled people are constrained and limited by their bodies....The simple act is that, disabled or non-disabled, we are all limited and constrained by our bodies. To have a body that is any particular wa is to have a body that is limit...

On The Very Idea of Non-Western Philosophy

The vast majority of philosophy departments in the United States offer courses only on philosophy derived from Europe and the English-speaking world. For example, of the 118 doctoral programs in philosophy in the United States and Cana...

Singer on Moral Shifts

As our moral standards shift, however, different characteristics of the historical person become more relevant, and the symbol can develop a different meaning. When Wilson’s name was added to Princeton’s School of Public and Internatio...

On (not) Teaching Galton and Pearson

First, one of the core modules, called ‘Critical Whiteness and Critical Eugenics’ which focused primarily on the history and legacy of Eugenics at UCL (Galton and Pierson [sic]) was thought to be too narrow for a core module.--Jo Wolff...