‘Philosophy in the news’ Category
Britain officially apologizes to Turing
According to the Times, British P.M. Gordon Brown has issued an official apology for the inhumane treatment it visited upon mathematician/philosopher and WWII codebreaker Alan Turing. Turing, who was gay, was convicted of “gross indecency” and forced to take female hormones. He committed suicide at age 41. Read the full article here: Britain Apologizes to Gay [...]
In Memoriam Leszek Kolakowski
The Polish-born philosopher Leszek Kolakowski died July 17 at the age of 81. Theoretically, his work moved from Soviet-style Marxism, to Marxist humanism, to a view that eventually rejected Marxism altogether, on the grounds that it was guilty of all the sins of capitalism, plus a few of its own. His sizeable corpus includes everything from [...]
Welcome home Sara Jane
The Reverend Paul Tidemann, who recently spoke at our biennial “Mom, Dad, I’m a Philosophy Major” dinner, shared with us the following remarks he wrote regarding Sara Jane Olson, who has been paroled from prison after serving a sentence for her involvement in the activities of the Symbionese Liberation Army, during the Vietnam War. Tidemann’s [...]
Examined Life: The Movie!
Yep, you read right. “Examined Life,” a new film by Astra Taylor, takes you into the heads of eight real, live, honest-to-gosh, dues-paying philosophers. (Okay, just kidding about the dues part.) Watch for its DVD release soon…but in the meantime, check out this trailer.
Ghana: Post Independence Reflections
On March 6, the fifty-second anniversary of Ghana’s independence, the Philosophy Department hosted a small gathering in the Courtyard Café, to celebrate that independence (and the role of its leader, the philosopher Kwame Nkrumah), and also to learn about Ghana today. We heard from three Ghanaians who are a part of the Gustavus community: Sidonia [...]
Reflecting on the current crisis: an invitation
Last Sunday morning, while driving to Minneapolis, I happened to catch a radio program on which eight prominent intellectuals–ethicists and environmentalists, theologians and historians, scientists and artists–spoke about the current economic crisis. Well, sort of. They weren’t talking about subprime mortgages or TARP or whether or not to nationalize the banks. Instead, they were considering [...]
Happy Birthday, Ghana!
Today, the West African nation of Ghana celebrates its fifty-second independence day. Ghana is the first African nation to declare its idependence from colonial rule, which it did in 1957. The nation holds a particular significance for some philosophers, because its first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, was himself a philosopher. Nkrumah studied in the United States, earning [...]
Think! Win Valuable Prizes!
The Great American Think-Off is held each year inthe tiny town of New York Mills, Minnesota. This year’s contest topic is “Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?” Seven-hundred-and-fifty-word essays on the topic are due by April 1 (no fooling here). Contest finalists will debate the matter in New York Mills on June 13. [...]
“Show me something pleasurable and I’ll show you something which is very likely associated with Pleistocene adaptation”
Denis Dutton, Professor of Philosophy at University of Canterbury in New Zealand, has published a book entitled The Art Instinct, in which he argues that art is an evolutionary adaptation. If you give a monkey a typewriter….
Oxford don and his, um, plagiarism-detecting computer program
According to the (London) Times , a California businessman and a Uah legislator contacted Peter Millican, a philosophy professor who has created a computer program that can detect “when works are by the same author.” The two were seeking evidence that would prove that Barack Obama’s memoir was actually ghost-written by Bill Ayers. Millican reported [...]