Humanist Traditions
-
Dying Traditions
[I’m reposting this essay for a couple of reasons. First, it sets up what I want to say soon about Herder’s idea of ‘the nation’ or the ‘folk soul’ and then contrast that with Hazony’s call for a nationalist state. Second, I think it’s pretty good and worth rereading. It sets up much of what
-
Is Moral Maturity a Thing?
[Inspired by David Bentley Hart’s All Things, I’m going to use this dialogic form from time to time in hopes that it will make some of my arguments easier to engage with. In this post, I’m attempting to set up why it’s important to understand the argument that Alasdair MacIntyre is making in his After
-
Toward a Participative Ontology and Epistemology
Q: What’s the question this post is attempting to answer? A: Why has our late modern experience for more and more people become so flat, one-dimensional, and with each passing decade so much more meaningless? Q: Do you have a short answer? A: Yes. It’s because the way we use language—and other symbolic representations—has come
-
AI and the Current Zeitgeist
Apologies if I'm throwing more AI stuff at you than you care to read, but things in the world of AI are happening fast, and the argument I've been making here for the last couple of years is that what's happening there is more important to understand and to resist than whatever is happening in
-
Why Nobody Cares about the Humanities
As a humanist — someone who reads, teaches and researches primarily philosophy but also, on the side, novels and poems and plays and movies — I am prepared to come out and admit that I do not know what the value of the humanities is. I do not know whether the study of the humanities
-
What Is After the Future About?
Note: Every once in a while I revise my About statement at the top of the left column on this site. I thought I'd post my most recent revision here today: After the Future is a public diary that I've been writing for over twenty years. It's what I'd be writing anyway if there were
-
Forcing Change vs. Inspiring Change
Over the years, social scientists who have conducted careful reviews of the evidence base for diversity trainings have frequently come to discouraging conclusions. Though diversity trainings have been around in one form or another since at least the 1960s, few of them are ever subjected to rigorous evaluation, and those that are mostly appear to