Below is the audio recording of Christine M. Korsgaard’s John Dewey Lecture, “Thinking in Good Company,” given at the 2022 Eastern Division Meeting. The full text is available on the APA website (member sign-in is required).  The audio of the lecture is available here: “Thinking in Good Company” by Christine Korsgaard Christine Korsgaard is Arthur […] The post 2022 Eastern Division Dewey Lecture: “Thinking in Good Company” first appeared on Blog of the APA. The post 2022 Eastern Division Dewey Lecture: “Thinking in Good Company” appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “The thinker needs no one to refute him, for that he has himself.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow, 249 The post philosophybits: “The thinker needs no one to refute him, for that he has himself.” — Friedrich… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“If all things are striving for perfection, why do they fail? What holds them back? What could? Plato, I believe, thought that the problem was in us, that sense experience itself was a kind of illusion, or perhaps that the badness of the world was an illusion produced by the perspective of sense. And because the problem was in us, he put forth, in the Phaedrus, a doctrine of the Fall. But like his Christian followers, he had to leave it as a mystery; he could give no real explanation of why we fell.” - Christine M. Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity The post “If all things are striving for perfection, why do they fail? What holds them back? What could?…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

suliqyre:You’ve found meaning in a particular idea. It feels valuable and important to you. You tell me about your idea and the meaning you’ve found in it. I listen carefully to your words, but I do not share in your conclusion. I cannot see the meaning of your idea. For me, the story you’ve crafted around it doesn’t seem real or plausible.I tell you about my doubts, supplying what I believe to be a convincing argument against your idea and its meaning. I do this because I want you to be free from delusion. I want you to see the reality of your idea as I do.But in truth, all that’s happened here is a disagreement. Your experiences and values have led you to feel that your idea is meaningful, whereas my experiences and values have led me to feel that it isn’t. Neither of us is correct, regardless of the arguments or evidence we can muster for our own side.Read more… The post You’ve found meaning in a particular idea. It feels valuable and important to you. You tell me about… appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the shadow certain troubling aspects of a too complex situation. But their attempt to lie to us is in vain. Cowardice doesn’t pay.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity The post philosophybits: “At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“Some people’s temperaments are so unfortunate that among a thousand perfections they will find a single defect and censure it and blow it out of proportion. They are the garbage collectors of the will and of the intellect, burdened down with blemishes and defects: punishment for their poor discernment rather than proof of their subtlety. They are unhappy, for they batten on bitterness and graze on imperfections.” - Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom The post “Some people’s temperaments are so unfortunate that among a thousand perfections they will find a…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

In the 1950s Foucault sped around Sweden — quite dangerously — in a spectacular Jaguar The post In the 1950s Foucault sped around Sweden — quite dangerously — in a spectacular Jaguar appeared first on Philosophy News.

In the Victorian era, discoveries upended humanity's place in the cosmos. Tennyson turned this metaphysical crisis into poetry The post In the Victorian era, discoveries upended humanity’s place in the cosmos. Tennyson turned this metaphysical crisis into poetry appeared first on Philosophy News.

"I find myself being more and more difficult," Toni Morrison once said. "It's something I really relish." The difficulty was the point The post “I find myself being more and more difficult,” Toni Morrison once said. “It’s something I really relish.” The difficulty was the point appeared first on Philosophy News.

The film critic A. S. Hamrah has no use for plot description, boosterism, and take-downs. He focuses, instead, on continuities and contradictions The post The film critic A. S. Hamrah has no use for plot description, boosterism, and take-downs. He focuses, instead, on continuities and contradictions appeared first on Philosophy News.

“Most people who subscribe to scientific materialism take it to be so obviously correct that it could not be denied by any rational person who truly understood it” The post “Most people who subscribe to scientific materialism take it to be so obviously correct that it could not be denied by any rational person who truly understood it” appeared first on Philosophy News.

Confessions of a midlist writer. Once, it was okay for a writer’s debut to sell only a few thousand copies. No longer The post Confessions of a midlist writer. Once, it was okay for a writer’s debut to sell only a few thousand copies. No longer appeared first on Philosophy News.

“The world in which we live today and which surrounds us, is a technological one,” wrote Günther Anders in 1979. The Cold War world, just as much as our own, was a world fundamentally shaped by technology. Technology’s promise included the automation of work, the possibility of abundance, the discovery of new cures for diseases, […] The post ‘Totalitarian’ Technologies and the Transformation of the Political World: A Radical Cold War Critique first appeared on Blog of the APA. The post ‘Totalitarian’ Technologies and the Transformation of the Political World: A Radical Cold War Critique appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “Isn’t it surprising that precision should be paired off with incorrigibility, vagueness with impossibility of verification? After all we speak of people ‘taking refuge’ in vagueness — the more precise you are, in general the more likely you are to be wrong, whereas you stand a good chance of not being wrong if you make it vague enough.” — J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia The post philosophybits: “Isn’t it surprising that precision should be paired off with incorrigibility,… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“The tendency to spread the suffering beyond ourselves. If through excessive weakness we can neither call forth pity nor do harm to others, we attack what the universe itself represents for us. Then every good or beautiful thing is like an insult.” - Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace The post “The tendency to spread the suffering beyond ourselves. If through excessive weakness we can neither…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections The post philosophybits: “Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.” — Johann Wolfgang… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“In the objective history of the world nothing transpires but a conventional symbolism; the idea of sacredness is peculiar to the existential world, to existential subjects. The real depths of spirit are apprehensible only existentially in the personal experience of destiny, in its suffering, nostalgia, love, creation, freedom and death.” - Nikolai Berdyaev, The Spirit and Reality The post “In the objective history of the world nothing transpires but a conventional symbolism; the idea of…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden The post philosophybits: “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man… appeared first on Philosophy News.

thirdity: “As the end approaches, there are no longer any images from memory — there are only words. It is not strange that time may have confused those that once portrayed me with those that were symbols of the fate of the person that accompanied me for so many centuries. I have been Homer; soon, like Ulysses, I shall be Nobody; soon, I shall be all men — I shall be dead.” — Jorge Luis Borges, “The Immortal” The post thirdity: “As the end approaches, there are no longer any images from memory — there are only… appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “Survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” — Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider The post philosophybits: “Survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“A rule of syntax corresponds to a configuration of a game… Syntax cannot be justified.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, B. F. McGuinness, ed. The post “A rule of syntax corresponds to a configuration of a game… Syntax cannot be justified.” appeared first on Philosophy News.

2026.02.6 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews Jürgen Habermas, Also a History of Philosophy, Vol: III: Rational Freedom: Traces of the Discourse on Faith and Knowledge, Ciaran Cronin (trans.), Polity Press, 2025, 560 pp., $45.00 (hbk) ISBN 9781509558650. Reviewed by Andrew Buchwalter, University of North Florida In 2019, Jürgen Habermas published with Suhrkamp Press his 1700-plus page Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie. The work appeared in two volumes, subtitled: (1) The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge and (2) Rational Freedom: Traces of Discourses on Faith and Reason. In the English language, Also a History of Philosophy (AHP), masterfully translated by Ciarin Cronin, is published by Polity Press in three volumes: (1) The Project of Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking (2022); (2) The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge (2024); and (3) Rational Freedom. Traces of the Discourse on Faith and Knowledge (2025). The review that follows focuses on Volume III of the English translation. First, I provide an overview of some of the work’s more important claims. Then I pose some questions,... Read More The post Also a History of Philosophy, Vol: III: Rational Freedom: Traces of the Discourse on Faith and Knowledge appeared first on Philosophy News.

philosophybits: “Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself.” — Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception The post philosophybits: “Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner… appeared first on Philosophy News.

“When in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground The post “When in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own…” appeared first on Philosophy News.

suliqyre:When I have a reason to do something, I’m more likely to do it than another thing I don’t have any reason to do. But often there will be several things that I have at least one reason to do, and I’ll be forced to make a choice about which reason takes priority.I might then appeal to a hierarchy of reasons to figure out which reason is most important according to my values or beliefs. Depending on the ordering of this hierarchy, I may or may not do the thing that is best in this moment. This matters most when one of the competing reasons is a moral reason. If I choose something other than the morally best option then it seems I’ve failed to be motivated in the right way. I end up doing something other than what I ought to do.Read more… The post When I have a reason to do something, I’m more likely to do it than another thing I don’t have any… appeared first on Philosophy News.