ፍትህ ለሁሉም / Justice for All
We may be all too familiar with roses as a rule, but it remains intriguing to look at a beautiful rose and wonder what forces, or perhaps intelligence, led its stem to be studded with protective thorns that say to the observer, “keep your distance.” There are insects whose form is virtually indistinguishable from twigs …
The term ‘continental philosophy’ covers a plurality of philosophical currents, including German idealism, existentialism, phenomenology, structuralism, post-structuralism, and critical theory. Accordingly, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Arendt, Adorno, Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze are all considered continental philosophers. Generally speaking, ‘continental philosophy’ refers to a large set of 19th and 20th-century philosophical traditions and philosophers, mostly from …
In a speech about climate change from April 4th of this year, UN General Secretary António Guterres lambasted “the empty pledges that put us on track to an unlivable world” and warned that “we are on a fast track to climate disaster” (1). Although stark, Guterres’ statements were not novel. Guterres has made similar remarks …
Physicalism is, in slogan form, the thesis that everything is physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature …
Dualists in the philosophy of mind emphasize the radical difference between mind and matter. They all deny that the mind is the same as the brain, and some deny that the mind is wholly a product of the brain. This article explores the various ways that dualists attempt to explain this radical difference between the …
The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics, by Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan, Cambridge University Press, 250 pages, $28.99 With The Other Divide, political scientists Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan have made a significant contribution to the polarization debate. Wait! What debate? Everyone knows that Americans are more polarized now than at …
William James is considered by many to be the most insightful and stimulating of American philosophers, as well as the second of the three great pragmatists (the middle link between Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey). As a professor of psychology and of philosophy at Harvard University, he became the most famous living American psychologist and later the …
A Curtin University-led research team used a supercomputer to simulate how a supercontinent forms. They discovered that because the Earth has been cooling for billions of years, the thickness and strength of the plates under the oceans reduce with time, making it difficult for the next supercontinent to assemble by closing the “young” oceans, such …
Even if the really big finds of archaeology may already belong to the past, experts are all over the world looking for traces of former civilizations and their remains. In the process, small and large things are found every day that help to establish connections and better understand the origins of today’s civilization. Again and …
“Advising billionaires on how to give away their money and encourage them to give more is definitely not where I saw my life going.” That’s William MacAskill (Oxford), quoted in a New York Times article about his influence on the philanthropy of the very wealthy. He adds: “If I can help encourage people who do have enormous …