THE BLOG @ PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER
THE BLOG @ PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER
Philosopher of Action
09
Jan 2025
Anscombe was a hugely important 20th-century philosopher who worked on many topics: history, metaphysics, religion, language. But above all she was a pioneering figure in the philosophy of action, which asks questions like what’s the difference between doing something on purpose and just having it happen.
Read moreThe (Re)creation of the World
12
Dec 2024
How much can we know about Mayan Mythology? Much of the Mayan way of life, along with its associated oral traditions, was wiped out by European invaders in the 16th century. But there are still Maya communities today, and we also have a few written sources, including the Popol Vuh.
Read moreWell, Isn't That Special!
27
Nov 2024
It seems obvious that many things make humans special. Take language: it's pretty unlikely, no matter how smart they are, that dolphins could either read or write this blog. But that attitude vastly underestimates what non-human animals can do with their complicated communication systems.
Read morePhilosopher of Anarchism
13
Nov 2024
Emma Goldman is a fascinating—and controversial—figure. She lived in my places: from Lithuania and Latvia to New York, London, Berlin, Spain, not to mention the Soviet Union, where she was deported in 1919. J. Edgar Hoover called her “one of the most dangerous anarchists in America.”
Read moreLooking, Listening, Liberating
21
Oct 2024
Simone Weil was an early 20th-century French philosopher who was born into a Jewish family but later adopted a mystical form of Christianity. She had many strong views, but she often practiced what she preached.
Read moreThe Birth of Black Feminism
30
Sep 2024
Anna Julia Cooper was born into slavery but became only the fourth African-American in history to earn a PhD. She lived into the 1960s, witnessing Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. Her book "A Voice from the South" influenced later thinkers like Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Read moreMarx the Moralist?
16
Sep 2024
Did Karl Marx hate morality? He called morality a bourgeois prejudice, a way to trick workers into being docile drones instead of rebelling against the system. And yet at other times Marx sounds like very much the moralist.
Read moreMystic, Composer, Polymath
21
Aug 2024
Many people know Hildegard of Bingen for her musical compositions, which were really innovative for the 12th century and are still being performed today. In fact in the 1990s, an electronic version of them by Richard Souther even reached number one in the charts.
Read moreWho Made You Spokesperson?
21
Jul 2024
When we think of people who speak on behalf of us, we usually think of someone elected or appointed to do so: a congressperson, a senator, maybe even a department chair. But what about people who aren’t elected or officially appointed?
Read moreBrazil's First Feminist?
03
Jul 2024
Nísia Floresta is often called "the Brazilian Mary Wollstonecraft" because people thought her first book was a translation of Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women." She does have some things in common with Wollstonecraft, especially with regard to women’s rights.
Read moreSummer Reading Extended
07
Jun 2024
This year's Summer Reading special (our 18th!) was a relatively orderly one, with a trio of interviews that shared some common ground in pop culture, exploring philosophical issues in popular TV series, fictional movie universes, and semi-obscure sci-fi stories.
Read moreThe Logic of Logic
23
May 2024
Suppose you need to persuade your roommate to do the dishes. You might try to reason with them, using an argument about fairness. But logical arguments often don't work, and you may find yourself resorting to guilt and shame—or even threats—to get what you want.
Read moreA Vindication of Mary Wollstonecraft
07
May 2024
Mary Wollstonecraft was a fascinating philosophical figure, in part because she didn’t just write philosophical treatises. Like our previous Wise Woman, Margaret Cavendish, she wrote pamphlets and even novels. And she campaigned not just against sexism but against all kinds of inequality.
Read moreWeird, Wild Stuff
25
Apr 2024
Did you know that some lizards reproduce themselves by cloning? And sea squirts are even weirder: they start their lives as free-swimming larvae, but then they attach themselves to rocks, digest their own brains, and become a totally different kind of creature.
Read moreShakespeare's Anti-Heroes?
12
Apr 2024
In Shakespeare’s plays, characters like Othello, Shylock, and Caliban are often more interesting than the heroes. But Shakespeare can also be really unfair to those characters—they basically come off as racist stereotypes.
Read moreWhat's On Your Mind?
28
Mar 2024
We’re constantly sharing what’s on our minds; heck, I'm doing it right now, by writing this blog. What's fascinating, though, is that we also seem to do it without trying, or so much as noticing.
Read moreMargaret the First
21
Mar 2024
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle in the 17th century, was a fascinating polymath. And she had a radical idea about the universe: everything in it thinks. Amoebas, rocks, trees, dust—you name it, it's cogitating.
Read moreThe First Confucian Feminist
22
Feb 2024
Im Yunjidang was an early proponent of egalitarianism: she and thought all human beings have the same nature—men and women aren’t that different from each other, at a deep level. So anybody can achieve spiritual perfection, if they just work hard enough at it.
Read moreWelcome Our New Language-Learning Robot Overlords
02
Feb 2024
Babies have to learn lots of thing: how the objects around them behave, the rules of social interaction, the various parts of language. And it certainly seems like A.I.s learn language too. But what if all they do is imitate human speech?
Read moreQuiz Night: The Slides
25
Jan 2024
For those of you following along at home, here are the slides from our 20th Anniversary Quiz Night, held November 9, 2023 at KALW's popup event space in downtown in San Francisco.
Read moreFarewell to the Republic We Once Dreamt of?
26
Dec 2023
As part of the inaugural Ken Taylor Memorial Episode, we are republishing Ken's 2018 blog post, "Why America Is Not a Nation," in which he articulates some of what inspired this week's special program.
Read moreThe Possibility of Impossibility
15
Dec 2023
Philosophers talk a lot about possible worlds. Out there in the multiverse, maybe there’s a world where Josh teaches logic and Ray teaches Proust; that’s entirely imaginable. But could there somehow be an impossible world? One where Ray both does and does not teach Proust?
Read moreWondrous Wonderment
01
Dec 2023
Wonder is a pretty cool emotion, one that we can feel toward so many things: the stars above us, the beauty of nature all around us, the artistic feats that humans are capable of. And it’s not just big things: watching a hummingbird in your garden, hearing a beautiful guitar solo, or feeling sand under your feet at the beach—those things can fill you with wonder too.
Read moreThe First English Feminist
17
Nov 2023
Mary Astell argued that women are men’s intellectual equals, encouraged women not to marry, and proposed that they go to an all-women’s school instead. And she defended this proto-feminism with some really cool arguments.
Read moreThe Tao of Zhuangzi
03
Nov 2023
Zhuangzi is a Taoist philosopher from 4th-century BCE China as well as the name given to the text containing his writings. It's a lovely—and highly quotable—book, in which he argues (among other things) that everything is relative. He writes, “From the point of view of the Way, no thing is more valuable than any other.”
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