I am ready to come clean with my worry about these two terms, “civil society” and “the public sphere.” My political theorists friends (trained in political science departments) act and talk as if the difference between the two is patently obvious. I just nod, a bit hesitant to admit that I don’t quite get it. [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: civil society, democracy, Habermas, Hegel, politics, public sphere | 3 Comments »
1. It’s odd that no one paid attention to the adjective “wise” in Sotomayor’s comment, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.” If “wise” means anything, then all she said was a tautology.
2. It’s good that some companies are [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Cronkite, facebook, Franken, New York Times, Proposition 13, Sotomayor, twitter, Wall Street Journal | 4 Comments »
Yesterday the Australian philosopher Paul Patton was featured on Australia’s Philosopher’s Zone radio program. First, let’s give a huge round of applause to Australia for having a radio program devoted to philosophy.
APPLAUSE!
I’ve met Paul Patton a few times and I have always been impressed. The main point he makes here is that the analytic / [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, Paul Patton | 6 Comments »
