Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 866 )

• Philosophers and Marx in the 1950s

  

  In the 1960s, as an undergraduate and eventually a graduate student in philosophy, I had the strong impression that Anglophone philosophy did not pay much... Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2022 SOCIETY

• Organizational Factors and Nuclear Power Plant Safety

  

  image: Peach Bottom Nuclear PlantThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission has responsibility for ensuring the safe operations of the nuclear power reactors in the... Read more

  Posted on 25 August 2022 SOCIETY

• A Trump-era Atrocity

  

  The family separation debacle during the Trump presidency seemed horrible at the time. Thanks to a superb piece of investigative journalism in the Atlantic, we... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2022 SOCIETY

• Resisting Authoritarian Populism

  

  The rise of an organized effort to create an authoritarian right-wing government in the United States is palpable. Unhinged Republican elected officials call fo... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2022 SOCIETY

• Can We Avoid Catastrophe?

  

  The three greatest threats we face today seem almost insurmountable. They include global climate change, whose consequences are potentially catastrophic for... Read more

  Posted on 07 August 2022 SOCIETY

• The Growing Risk of Authoritarian Rule in the US

  

  Thomas Edsell's piece in the August 3, 2022 New York Times offers a truly chilling view of the plans currently underway by Donald Trump and his supporters for... Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2022 SOCIETY

• Is There a Working Class in the US?

  

  There is certainly a working class in the United States, and it is a majority of the population (persons who earn their livelihood through wage-paying... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2022 SOCIETY

• Gross Economic Inequalities in the US

  

  An earlier post (link) highlighted the growing severity of inequalities of wealth and income in the United States, as well as Elizabeth Warren's very sensible... Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2022 SOCIETY

• English Socialism

  

  What were the social conditions that led many English intellectuals in the 1930s to engage in fundamental critique of the society in which they lived? Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2022 SOCIETY

• HB Acton's Version of Marxism

  H. B. Acton gained celebrity with the publication of Illusion of the Epoch in 1955, supposedly as a serious philosopher's even-handed exposition of the... Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2022 SOCIETY

• Sidney Hook's Theory of Education in a Democracy

  

  Philosopher Sidney Hook is best remembered for his debates with other philosophers and engaged political figures about Marxism and Communism (link). Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2022 SOCIETY

• A 1934 Debate About Communism Among American Philosophers

  

  The appeal of Marxist socialism -- communism -- as an alternative to the consumerism, inequality, and exploitation of European and American capitalism was a... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2022 SOCIETY

• Paradigms, Conceptual Frameworks, and Denkkollektive

  

  Image: Ludwik Fleck as prisoner / scientist in BuchenwaldAn earlier post opened a discussion of the "historical turn" in the philosophy of science in the early... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Social Embeddedness of Scientific and Intellectual Work

  

  How do complex, socially embodied processes of cultural and scientific creation work? (I'm thinking of artistic traditions, scientific research communities,... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2022 SOCIETY

• The GOP Descent into Right-wing Authoritarianism

  

  In December 2020 I reviewed Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism (link) to try to assess the damage and threats... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Philosophy After the Holocaust

  

  The sustained, extended atrocities of the twentieth century -- the genocide of the Holocaust, the Holodomor, totalitarian repression, the Gulag, the Armenian... Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Dysfunctions of Soviet Economic Ministries

  

  In my book A New Social Ontology of Government (2020) I tried to provide an analytical inventory of the sources of "dysfunctions" in large organizations and... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Soviet Atrocities in Ukraine, 1941

  

  In light of the horrific information now available about atrocities committed in Ukraine by occupying Russian forces in towns such as Bucha -- rape, torture,... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2022 SOCIETY

• Infrastructures of Evil

  

  Politicians, generals, corporate directors, and ordinary men and women had a direct relationship to the evils of the twentieth century. Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2022 SOCIETY

• How Will Russia's Fascist Aggression End?

  

  Ukraine has demonstrated a truly singular level of competence and commitment in its armed resistance to Russia's war since February 24. Much credit goes to... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2022 SOCIETY