Category: Uncategorized

• January 27, 2011

  Does philosophy still matter?

  A 1.5 hour discussion of the relevance of contemporary philosophy. Participants include Jim Miller, Simon Critchley, Anthony Gottlieb, Astral Taylor, and Cornel West. Moderated by Lewis Lapham. The first 45 min. or so are well worth the price of admission.
• January 26, 2011

  Robert Rowland Smith defends psychoanalysis

  Rowland Smith observes that, much to its credit, psychoanalysis foregrounds the relationship between analysand and analyst. In doing so, it initiates the slow process of self-improvement.
• January 22, 2011

  Russell Jacoby pans Erik Olin Wright’s book on ‘real utopias’

  For those unfamiliar with Jacoby or his writings, you’re in for a treat. Jacoby’s prose is clear, punchy, and witty. Here are a few choice examples: “To call this book dull as dish water maligns dish water.” “Wright is no genius,” and “the book is suffocatingly narrow in scope, impossibly cramped in imagination, and irreparably muddy…
• January 14, 2011

  NYT columnist David Brooks on civility

  Civility, Brooks shows,  is a public virtue that’s largely absent from political life today. He concludes that the source of civility is a sense of modesty.