More: Philosophy
“Dignity” and “Thought”: When the American President Declares War on Reason
“All our dignity consists in thought.”-Blaise Pascal, Pensées
It’s a New Year. For the most part, penetrating thought remains the veiled province of academic specialists....
“No Attention to Spare for Reasoning”: When the American President Is “Mass Man”
“The mass-man has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.” - Jose Ortega y’Gasset, The Revolt of the...
Are we in the twilight of scientific age?
Meritocracy in the 21st century is fast becoming the new aristocracy. Envisaged as an ideal to counter inequality, it has become one to create,...
Makhanda: Some Thoughts On a Journey into Poetry, Philosophy, and Memory
A memory comes to mind from years ago. I am sitting at a desk in a very cold room on a farm. I was...
Primal Connections: Death, Time and Nuclear War
“It is through death that there is time….” Emmanuel Levinas, God, Death and Time (1976)
The threat is not mysterious. In the final analysis, it...
From Plato to Populism: The Crisis of Democracy as a Moral Idea
The idea of democracy has been more than a political system over centuries; from Plato’s Republic to the rise of twenty-first-century populism, it has...
Back to the Microcosm: Deeper Meanings of World Politics
“The State is the march of God in the world.”-Georg Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820)
An Inconspicuous Struggle
Ultimately, world politics is not about military...
Renouncing Truth: The Inglorious Challenge of Anti-Reason in America
“The enemy is the unphilosophical spirit which knows nothing and wants to know nothing of truth.” - Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in Our...
What is Justice in a Post-Truth World?
In a world after the truth, justice is not any longer the blindfolded figure standing fiercely over a pair of scales; it is now...
Marx Was Right, but So Was Jesus: Sunday Rituals Through Bourdieu, Marx, and the Postcolonial Lens
In post-apartheid South Africa, where class divides remain entrenched and youth unemployment persists at staggering levels, religious practice among young people offers a revealing...