Digressions&Impressions

Scientific Pragmatism Confronts Political Realism (Nagel vs Morgenthau)

Mr. Morgenthau's positive proposals as to how social problems ought to be approached exhibit an irresponsible romanticism. He rejects "scientism" because its universalist conception of social laws is allegedly unhistorical--though alre...

On the Polemics against Religious Philosophy in Analytic Philosophy

The views which have been noticed thus far attempt to limit the scope of scientific methods on the basis of considerations that are at least nominally scientific in character. The criticisms of science to which attention must next be d...

The Case Against Hume (I)

The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory, so much as the traditional poetry of the people, which, assisted by the power of music, and the jollity of festivals, made deep impression on...

On Identity, Phoenicians, Bullies

It is striking in this light that the first surviving visible expression of an explicitly “Phoenician” identity was imposed by the Carthaginians on their subjects as they extended state power to a degree unprecedented among Phoenician-...

Decolonizing the Curriculum and Viewpoint Diversity

But then I look at the stereotyped Non-Western philosophy list and I can't help but notice another thing - it's a rejection of things that contemporary heirs to the Romantic tradition hate. Fair enough, they are trying to draw out what...

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 ...