Joseph Keppler, The Bosses of the Senate (1889) Recently my post-breakfast experience included yet another piece of news that created cognitive dissonance. This time it was from NPR and read: “As part of the settlement agreement, the U.S. is “forever… Read more ›
Memorial Day is a day for honoring those members of the armed forces that died in battle. But, as you know, many people are more interested in barbecues and other forms of recreation these days. Faced with an increasing number… Read more ›
We often bemoan just how incredibly, well, unwise people in politics are. And we often bemoan how this lack of political wisdom leads to a variety of vices, such as ignorance, cowardice, injustice, and immoderation, which cause so much suffering,… Read more ›
In his book The Genealogy of Morals (part 3, section 7), Friedrich Nietzsche writes: “Every animal, including la bête philosophe [philosophical animal] strives instinctively after an optimum of favorable conditions, under which he can let his whole strength have play, and achieves… Read more ›
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Introduction There are two common positions when it comes to judgments of beauty. On the one hand, many think that beauty is “in the eye of the beholder”: a matter of opinion with no objective reference whatsoever.… Read more ›
Introduction The concept of love can be helpfully approached by understanding insights from three popular theories of it: eros, agape, and philia. In this post I offer a few central insights from each theory and show how these insights can… Read more ›
In 1978, when I was 8 years old, a friend did something amazing: he switched from the VHF dial on his TV to the UHF dial and, very slowly, made his way to channel 68. Through the crappy reception I… Read more ›
Go here for my essay on King’s use of natural law theory to fight the injustice of segregation. Go here for my post on King’s non-violence. And go here for my two-post series on reducing the polarization, demonization, and lack… Read more ›
The enlightenment philosopher and polymath G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716) was a master at articulating various general and fundamental principles and applying these principles to philosophical problems. Principles are statements of basic laws, truths, or rules from which other laws, truths, or… Read more ›
Robert C. Soloman (1942-2007) Chapter 9 of Robert C. Soloman’s book From Hegel to Existentialism (New York: Oxford, 1987) is “Freud’s Neurological Theory of Mind.” In this chapter, Soloman argues that Freud’s theory, first explored in his unpublished “Project for… Read more ›
“There’s ways of killing yourself without killing yourself.” – Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) offered the world plenty of fascinating and often shocking ideas. His seduction theory, infantile sexuality, parapraxes (Freudian slips), Oedipus complex, penis envy,… Read more ›
St. Augustine (354-430) famously put forth the privation theory of evil. Consider this passage: “For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence… Read more ›
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Introduction I recently reread Sigmund Freud’s brilliant essay “The Uncanny” (1919) and I came across a fascinating claim which I failed to adequately process in the past. It has to do with his psychoanalytic analysis of one… Read more ›
Juneteenth (officially Juneteenth National Independence Day since 2021) is celebrated on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. “The holiday’s name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of the words “June” and “nineteenth”, referring to June 19, 1865,… Read more ›
The great Sylvester Stewart, Sly Stone, passed away yesterday at 82 (March 15, 1943 – June 9, 2025). I have loved his music since I first saw Sly and Family Stone perform “Music Lover/Higher” and “I Want to Take You… Read more ›