On Christianity’s moderate importance
When it comes to writing about Christianity, C.S. Lewis had an impressive talent for making claims that were witty, sincere, clever, pithy, and completely wrong. I discussed one of these – the “Lord,...
View ArticleThe supernatural without Ascent
I’ve repeatedly returned on this blog to the concepts of Ascent and Descent, derived above all from Ken Wilber’s work and to a lesser extent from Martha Nussbaum’s. I have found that these concepts do...
View ArticleBuddhists and “Hindus” against traditional family values
A while ago I wrote about how Indian traditions upset conventional assumptions about family and community being essential to premodern tradition and culture. There, I was responding to a piece by...
View ArticleIndian intimacy
I’m back from a trip to see my family in India, and have an Indian wedding ceremony. It was wonderful to see everyone there, and it also got me thinking. When I wrote recently about my Indian...
View ArticleFeminine and masculine, or intimacy and integrity?
By his own account, Thomas Kasulis developed the distinction between intimacy and integrity worldviews while trying to understand and express the differences between Japanese and American culture:...
View ArticleModernity and modernism
It can feel pedantic to insist on the distinction between modernity and modernism (as I do in my tag cloud). I’ve seen eyes roll when I do it, and understandably so. Two nouns both deriving from the...
View ArticleMust we come to terms with postmodernity?
This post is a followup to last week’s, and is best read in tandem with it. I argued that the difference between modernity and modernism (which is to say, the difference between modern and modernist)...
View ArticleDigital philosophy
The term digital humanities has quickly become trendy over the past couple years. The term has often excited me, since digital technology in the humanities is both a part of what I do for a living, and...
View ArticleThe justifiable conservatism of the humanities
For those of us who think at length about universities and the changes they may undergo, it’s a commonplace to refer to the medieval origins of the modern university system. These origins are typically...
View ArticleHow money corrupts the university’s values
This April, during an ELI online conference on massive open online courses, I had an interesting exchange on Twitter with fellow educational technologist Edward O’Neill. (It was through my professional...
View ArticleA journey to Buddhism with Hegel
A few years ago I told what I thought of at the time as the story of my philosophy: how I left a utilitarian worldview and came to discover Buddhism in Thailand at age 21. I realize now that there’s...
View ArticleHegel after Hegel (II)
Last time I explored how James Doull – from a Hegelian perspective – understood the world in the century or two after Hegel, up to the fall of fascism and Communism. This week I’m following up with his...
View ArticleStudents are not customers
My job leads me to think a lot about the contemporary conditions of academic institutions. Regular readers will have noticed that I have returned to these issues quite frequently in recent months. I...
View ArticleIdeal types in philosophy
When I use concepts like intimacy and integrity and ascent and descent on this blog, I very often refer to them as ideal types. So far I have explained what that means mostly in passing, and it’s time...
View ArticleThe bodhisattva complex
There is a destructive pattern of behaviour I’ve observed too often which, in an amateur psychological diagnosis, I have come to call the bodhisattva complex. I thought of this term as a friend of mine...
View ArticleOf disruptive innovation
If one follows current conversations about technological changes in higher education — which it is a major part of my job to do — one quickly encounters a great deal of praise given to “disruption” and...
View ArticleParadigms in philosophy
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a groundbreaking work that changed the way the world thinks about natural science. Kuhn claims that science works not as a steady, additive...
View ArticleFirst principles of paradigms
There are two different ways to apply the distinction between dialectical and demonstrative argument, and it’s important to be aware of the difference. I draw the terms dialectical and demonstrative...
View ArticleThe middle ground in philosophy of science
Last time I looked to find a middle ground in philosophy of science, between Francis Bacon’s historically untenable inductivism and Paul Feyerabend’s irrationalism. I noted then that I think Karl...
View ArticleThe psychological case for disengaged Buddhism
My project on disengaged Buddhism has now been submitted to a journal. It’s undergone several revisions by this point. One of the most important such revisions was suggested unanimously by BU’s...
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