Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History — Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Carl Becker (07 September 1873–10 April 1945), who was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on this date in 1873. Becker’s collection of essays Everyman His Own Historian includes studies of a number of contemporaneous concerns in historiography, including chapters on Marx’s philosophy…

Friday 01 September 2023 — In several recent newsletters I have discussed some of the ways in which science can grow and expand. It seems likely that science could expand in many different ways in the future, and equally likely that it will not expand in all of the ways in which it might possibly…

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History — On Friday, 01 September 1939, eighty-four years ago today, Germany invaded Poland, transforming a dangerous and ambiguous military and political situation into a “hot” war. It is this date that is most frequently employed for the beginning of the Second World War. For Americans, the war didn’t begin until 07…

Friday 25 August 2023 — I spent most of my time over the past week working on my presentation for Warsaw about big history and civilization. This is primarily concerned with the methodological problems that face any attempt to think about “big picture” objects of knowledge — big history, or even history simpliciter, and civilization…

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History — Today is the 149th anniversary of the birth of Max Ferdinand Scheler (22 August 1874–19 May 1928), who was born in Munich on this date in 1874. Scheler is primarily remembered as another founder of phenomenology, following Husserl but also taking his own position and his own place in the…

Friday 18 August 2023 — In many newsletters I have discussed some of the ways in which science might expand in the future, making scientific knowledge more comprehensive, with some of these suggestions being relatively concrete and some of them being relatively speculative. Among the more concrete possibilities for a more comprehensive science are better…

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History — Today is the 254th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769–05 May 1821), who was born in the city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica on this date in 1769. Vive L’Empereur! Given that men like Napoleon shape history, any philosophy of…

Friday 11 August 2023 — In last week’s newsletter I discussed the possibility of a Kantian ethic for space exploration. I noted in that newsletter that Kant’s formulations in ethics concern themselves with any rational being, so he has already made the initial step toward transcending a purely anthropocentric formulation of ethical problems. I also…

Friday 04 August 2023 — Week before last, in newsletter 246, I discussed formulating a provisional ethic of space exploration. In that discussion I mentioned the ethic that Walter Kaufmann formulates in his The Faith of a Heretic, and I began trying to formulate something similar in terms of virtues. However, the more I have…