Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 893 )

• Botton's Philosophy of Life in the World

  

  image: Diogenes and his barrelI've somehow missed reading any of the numerous books of philosophical reflections authored by Alain de Botton. Read more

  Posted on 04 February 2021 SOCIETY

• A Rapid Tour of Actor-centered Social Ontology

  

  Ontological individualism holds the fairly humdrum view that the social world is entirely constituted by the activities, thoughts, and social relationships of... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Remembering MLK

  

  Our democracy is shaken by the extreme right today, and racism lies at the bottom of the fears and antagonisms that have been used to stir up violent actions an... Read more

  Posted on 18 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Guest Post by Paul Roth on Neil Gross's Richard Rorty

  

  Paul Roth is distinguished professor of philosophy and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Roth has written extensively on the philosoph... Read more

  Posted on 16 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Even Worse Than We Thought ...

  

  We have understood for quite a while that there are dangerous anti-democratic forces in America today — hate-based organizations, right-wing militias,... Read more

  Posted on 10 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Vienna Circle in Emerson Hall

  

  I am enjoying reading David Edmonds' The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle, which is interesting in equal measures in its... Read more

  Posted on 08 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Orwell's Study of Mentality and Culture

  

  George Orwell wrote a great deal of literary criticism, book reviews, and intellectual commentary, almost always with a down-to-earth plain speaking that... Read more

  Posted on 05 January 2021 SOCIETY

• Trumpism and Hannah Arendt's Reflections on Totalitarianism

  

  In a recent post I considered Hannah Arendt's reflections on what she termed the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Read more

  Posted on 30 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Hobbes, Thucydides, and Conflict

  

  Anyone interested in the development of modern political philosophy is unavoidably interested in Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan and one of the earliest... Read more

  Posted on 29 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Is "totalitarianism" a Thing?

  

  Hannah Arendt's most important contribution to political theory was her book on totalitarianism, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Read more

  Posted on 28 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Evil in the Peloponnesian War?

  

  Recent posts have focused attention on the topic of the evils that occurred in the twentieth century: genocide, deliberate mass starvation, mass enslavement, an... Read more

  Posted on 23 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Conservative and Progressive Forms of Democracy

  

  An earlier post suggested that we cannot really address the issue of the stability of liberal democracy without considering issues of economic justice as well. Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Social Democracy, Unbridled Capitalism, and Right-wing Populism

  

  An earlier post raised the question of popular support for -- satisfaction with -- the state of democracy in many democratic nations. Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2020 SOCIETY

• Making the Case for Liberal Democracy

  

  Recent posts have considered the question of whether liberal democracy is stable, or whether the assaults on liberal democracy by the populist far-right are... Read more

  Posted on 23 November 2020 SOCIETY

• The Moral Force of the US Constitution

  

  Why should we revere our constitution as the fundamental set of political and moral principles underlying our democracy? Is it simply because it was written... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2020 SOCIETY

• Astounding Assault on Democracy

  

  Donald Trump's attack on the electoral system has gone far beyond normal and evidence-based legal challenges to details about the election and the vote counting. Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2020 SOCIETY

• The Difference Between "apartheid" and Apartheid

  

  I am spending several weeks in one of my courses on the struggle in South Africa to bring the apartheid system to an end. This is a struggle many of us... Read more

  Posted on 18 November 2020 SOCIETY

• Thirteen Years of Understanding Society

  

  This month represents the end of the thirteenth year of publication of Understanding Society. Since 2010 the blog has received 11,874,515 pageviews. Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2020 SOCIETY

• The 2020 Election

  

  There is something encouraging about the health of American democracy on Election Day, 2020. That is the passion for our democracy that so many millions of US... Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2020 SOCIETY

• Issues of Ethics in Philosophy of History

  

  Most writings in the philosophy of history have focused on issues of epistemology, method, and explanation. But our history as human beings is thoroughly... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2020 SOCIETY