This past week I was honored to be guest at the Army War College National Security Seminar in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The aim of the Army War College is “to educate and develop leaders for service at the strategic level while … Continued
In his Lectures on Ethics, Immanuel Kant proposed that there are two methods by which people measure themselves morally: (1) comparing themselves with perfection and (2) comparing themselves with others. For those who do the latter, he observed that when … Continued
Recently, an article of mine entitled “Open-mindedness and Disagreement” was published in the journal Metaphilosophy. You can access the article here. In the article I consider the relevance of open-mindedness to the problem of peer disagreement. Here is the article … Continued
Recently, I returned from a 17-day sojourn through Greece and Italy. The trip was led by Footsteps Ministries and traced the “footsteps” of the Apostle Paul on his missionary journeys as recorded in the book of Acts. More than 50 … Continued
It’s been another exciting year, and we want to thank you all for reading and, if applicable, posting comments on our blog. Once again, we would like to close out the year with some summary remarks about good and bad stuff … Continued
Generally speaking, we all value—or ought to value—diversity. Be it ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic, aesthetic, methodological, culinary, or human developmental (i.e., age), we know—or should know—that human diversity is a good thing for a community and a good thing for … Continued
In his August 21 Chicago Tribune column Steve Rosenbloom calls into question the “character” of new Chicago Cubs player Daniel Murphy simply because Murphy has declared his disagreement with the homosexual lifestyle of former player Billy Bean. Rosenbloom never bothers … Continued
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on music, so I’ll do a little catch up here by highlighting some of my favorite albums of the last couple years, all gathered under the descriptor “smart,” because, well, that’s exactly what … Continued
Great artists and intellectuals take risks. They dare to challenge prevailing paradigms of thought and popular practice, which guarantees they’ll receive resistance and ridicule. Gregor Mendel’s pioneering work in genetics was ignored by his peers. Claude Monet endured abuse by … Continued
Our culture treats sex like its oxygen or food—as if it were something one needs to survive. In fact, sex isn’t necessary for survival, nor is it even necessary for the good life. Even the philosophical father of hedonism, Epicurus, … Continued