September 7, 2006
Relativism is Boring
This book, if reviewed by someone other than Richard Rorty, could have potentially started a very interesting conversation. Unfortunately, relativists are more famous than virtue ethicists, if only because they […]
September 1, 2006
Too Bad The New Yorker Doesn’t Have a Zero-Tolerance Policy for Sloppy Logic
In this New Yorker tidbit, Malcolm Gladwell makes a number of mistakes–since he’s talking about education, let me recommend to him a rudimentary logic class. Once he’s taken it, he […]
August 29, 2006
Today is John Locke’s Birthday
I think it’s time we had a little chat about free speech, Stanley Fish notwithstanding. It is to John Locke we Americans owe our Declaration of Independence (if Thomas Jefferson […]
August 17, 2006
Heroes (Super and Otherwise)
Aside from James Bowman, who I’ll get to in a moment, who doesn’t like superheroes? In addition to being a valuable part of childhood for many of us they provide […]
August 16, 2006
Well, It’s Not Like He Won the Peace Prize, People
The Nobel Prize committee has done the right thing and announced there are no plans to revoke Gunter Grass’ 1999 award. An award for literature, not for moral authority, by […]
August 10, 2006
The Ethics of the Hatchet Job.
There’s an old saw about the pen being mightier, when employed in this kind of writing, it is virtually indistinguishable from the sword. You love them. You know you do. […]
August 4, 2006
“I am a Joyce and not a Joycean.”
Stephen is a handsome man of seventy-four, with a gray beard, sloping forehead, and deep-blue eyes–he looks the way Joyce might have looked if he had not smoked and drunk […]
August 3, 2006
Elizabeth Bishop on Deck at Arma Virumque (And Elsewhere)
As part of The New Criteron’s recent Best of series, Elizabeth Bishop is being considered at Arma Virumque. Most recently, Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box : Uncollected Poems, Drafts, […]