thoughts in and out of season
Modernity is based on a system of knowledge that starts with logic and clear and unquestionable truths and out of those things claims to construct all we can know. Such an approach to knowledge severely limits what we can recognize as real, and thus profoundly affects our view of what there is and what we … More ...
Rationalized insanity like “zero tolerance” and political correctness suggests there is something basically irrational in social life today that has to do with a conflict between publicly compulsory standards and normal human expectations. Some people try to laugh the conflict off and make jokes about PC or whatever. Others deny it or explain it away—these … More ...
IN THIS, HIS MOST RECENT BOOK, Thomas Molnar calls for a “return to philosophy” that would broaden its scope and simplify its discourse. Narrowness and complexity have ruined much of philosophy, he stresses, and a restoration is needed. The issues … More ...
A slightly edited version of the following essay appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Modern Age.
Emerson tells us that truth is “such a flyaway, such a slyboots, so untransportable and unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light.”[1] However things may be with truth, it is so with … More ...
A slightly edited version of the following essay appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of Modern Age. The essay is also available in Dutch.
Confucius has had distinguished individual admirers[1] in America but otherwise no perceptible influence on our political thought. We have lost by our failure to attend to him. … More ...
How rational is morality? Are fact and value separate affairs, with modern natural science final authority for one and personal choice for the other? Or are they inseparable aspects of a single complex world that must be understood as such?
Modern understandings of man, the world, politics and morality tend to separate fact and … More ...
John Dewey (1859-1952) remains an extremely influential thinker whose thought sums up important trends in American life. Many oppose his thought and the trends it favors. He wrote a huge amount (his collected works run to 37 volumes) and frequently expressed himself unclearly or outright contradicted himself. Perhaps as a consequence, too many … More ...
A correspondent with a scientific turn of mind wanted to pursue a question raised here a a week or two ago, why the Derrida and similar viruses are such a plague now when earlier they weren’t a problem.
My comments (slightly edited):
… More ...It seems that most “why now” explanations emphasize features of modern life
Memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus discusses the reliability of people’s beliefs about their own experiences. Her research suggests—and I think it’s borne out by daily experience—that they’re often not reliable at all. Further, notorious cases involving “recovered memories of abuse,” which she also discusses, demonstrate that expert intervention tends to make things worse. Experts are human … More ...
It’s hard to keep people from believing what they want to believe. That’s especially true if the people are experts. After all, expert opinion defines what is true, that opinion is “expert” because of certain formal procedures and qualifications and coherence with the opinions of other experts, and a well-placed group can manipulate those things … More ...