The Scottish common sense philosophy, or ‘Scottish realism’, became the unofficial American philosophy of the early Republic, and offered a foundation for talking about morality. However, there was a lot of dissent against it. […]
How did Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton know that there was such a thing as a human nature that is common to all humanity? The answer to this came from Jonathan Edwards, a committed Protestant Calvinist. […]
Hobbes believed that the state of nature was so terrible that people would give up almost anything to get out of it. He advocated for a powerful, centralized state authority—preferably a strong monarchy. […]
Kant took ten years off and afterward published a huge 800-page manuscript. But his writings were not understood and thus deemed not important at the time. […]
An attempt to arrive at an interpretation of Inception leads us to more philosophical questions. For one, why should we bother to interpret what is obviously fiction? […]
Quantum mechanics and Eastern philosophy are described as essentially bound to each other, but that is terribly wrong. Quantum mechanics does not support any religion or philosophy. Then why is the misconception so common that even books have been written on it? […]
As we approach toward the end of the play, we see Macbeth’s acts becoming more and more repellent. This is in complete contrast to his actions at the beginning of the play. […]
Philosophy is your chance to engage in intellectually exciting pursuits as you address issues that have preoccupied great minds for millennia. This series of courses teach you why it is indispensable to think critically and reason from valid principle. […]
Moses Maimonides, the great 12th-century philosopher and legalist, lived at the pinnacle of Jewish culture in the Islamic world. What is amazing about Maimonides is that, despite making his living as a physician and having an active medical career, he was also a prolific writer. And “prolific” doesn’t do justice to describing the extraordinary output of his writing. […]
Greek philosophy is divided into the period before and after the life of Socrates. Starting with the Ionians, the earliest philosophers are now known as the “Presocratics”. The question is, what was their role in defining Western Philsophy as we know it today? […]
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