Defending A Role For Philosophy

“It is our obligation as philosophers and citizens to celebrate this day by defending the role and the meaning philosophy has for society, in order to overcome the ideology behind these conservative politicians, who seem so ready to restrict young people’s opportunities to learn philosophy or to make philosophical research more available to the general public.”

Here’s Just How Difficult The Issue Of Racial Diversity Is

“I believe that the sooner we as a field start framing our efforts not around “what can we do as artists and arts administrators to promote diversity?” but rather “how does racial injustice manifest today, what are its root causes, and how can we as human beings most effectively be part of the solution?”, the sooner we’ll actually have something to be proud of.”

Trial Over Funding For Stalled Lucerne Opera House Underway In Bermuda

In 2007, philanthropist Christof Engelhorn pledged, through a Bermuda-based trust fund, 120 million Swiss francs (roughly $131 million) for the construction of a new adjustable opera/concert venue called the Salle Modulable for the Lucerne Festival. Since Engelhorn’s death in 2010, the trust has refused to honor the pledge, maintaining that it was not formally contracted. The Lucerners sued, and the case has now gone to trial in a Bermuda court.

How Conspiracy Theorists Think

“How can so many people, in the name of skepticism, promote so many absurdities? The answer is that people who suspect conspiracies aren’t really skeptics. Like the rest of us, they’re selective doubters. They favor a worldview, which they uncritically defend. But their worldview isn’t about God, values, freedom, or equality. It’s about the omnipotence of elites.”

Bringing Leo Ornstein Back From 60 Years Of Self-Imposed Oblivion

“Ornstein was considered among the most influential composer/performers in the decade before World War I, and maybe the most sensationalized. … Though [he] arrived in the 1930s as one of the most famous pianists of his day, he departed so quietly in the late 1950s – by choice – that nobody quite knows when he left. His death in 2002 at age 107 … was noticed, but not widely.”