One of the oldest and most exhausted questions in the history of philosophy is why Plato found it necessary and expedient to deport the poets from his perfect society in The Republic. It’s a question many have hypothesized about although, perhaps, unsatisfactorily. One of the 20th century’s great classicists, Eric A. Havelock, considered the expulsion of the poets in his … [Read more...] about Questioning Doubt and the Expulsion of the Poets
Putting the Liberal back into Democracy
On a recent panel discussion at conference for the Media Ecology Association, I was challenged to answer a question concerning the role of traditional, liberal arts in an increasingly untraditional and scientific world. Where the liberal arts once sought to provide an education that creates freethinking, rational citizens, who use their vote to improve society, now the liberal … [Read more...] about Putting the Liberal back into Democracy
Disciplinary Inaction
We live in an unnecessarily divided world. A world where religions are pitted against one another, where people fight over real or perceived differences. A world where technology allows us to shout and scream in a digital whirlpool. A world where philosophy seems archaic or even tangential. Much of the strife in our world comes from a lack of trust across, and perhaps a loss of … [Read more...] about Disciplinary Inaction
Embarked
This essay is part of a series of essays called Embarked that seek to explain both the reasons why we have undertaken this project and where we hope to explore. One of the reasons we have embarked on this project is to that we wish to create a place where anyone can come to read and learn. This is an ambitious task, but an unspecific one. Lots of places—from public … [Read more...] about Embarked
Lifeworld
This started as a piece about student loans, aged as an art-history expose, and ends, predictably, with supplication. I am currently 75,000 dollars deep in a hole called student loans. A bit like Hades, with compounding interest playing the role of Sisyphus, full of defeat. Where to go? Is there an escape? That $75,000 hole was offered to me as an 18 year-old. Stupid and … [Read more...] about Lifeworld