Category: politics

• March 9, 2011

  Philosophy as confession

  In his review of Stanley Cavell’s autobiography, “Philosophy as Confession,” John Cottingham seeks to show that Cavell’s way of doing philosophy is more humane than the desiccated way of doing philosophy in the academy. For a number of years, Cottingham has been trying to effect a rapprochement between philosophy, religion, and psychoanalysis. He finds a…
• March 6, 2011

  Forget college

  Once in a while, I like to read Bob Herbert because he gets things wrong. But seeing how he gets things wrong helps me to see things more clearly. (One should always give credit where credit is due.) On March 4, he got higher education wrong. Herbert observes that students are not studying, they are…
• March 4, 2011

  Which comes first: freedom or goodness?

  Does the good trump freedom, or is it the other way around? The question is raised, once again, by what the Wall Street Journal on March 3 dubbed a “classroom sex show.” During a class held the week of Feb. 21, a tenured Northwestern University professor, John Michael Bailey, arranged for a married couple to stage…
• February 28, 2011

  On radical politics

  Here’s my essay entitled, “Radical Leftist Politics, What Have You Done for Us Lately?” at New Public Thinking. I welcome your thoughts, queries, and criticisms–but please make them at New Public Thinking.
• February 26, 2011

  On new public thinking

  I’m now working with a wonderful group of eclectic, brilliant Life of the Minders at New Public Thinking, a loose organization devoted to the question: “What will public discourse and the public sphere look like–what should they look like–in the 21st C.?” Please have a look around. Start with my friend Dougald’s fine manifesto.