Author: Rufus F.

In an interesting post at Girl w/ Pen, Alison Piepmeier discusses her discomfort with using battle metaphors to describe life with illness and disability: “I’d be politically troubled or offended if someone had referred...

A landmark worth noting: After 15 years of work, scientists have, for the first time, created a new, synthetic, living, and self-replicating cell. If that seems unimpressive, the Economist notes: “The result is the...

The French Romantic author Gérard de Nerval once wrote: “In the character of our nation, there is a tendency to exercise force when one possesses it, and have pretensions to power, when one does...

Always follow your dreams! Like Quentin Dupieux, whose dream was to make a horror movie about a run-amok killer tire that blows people up with its mind. Yes- you read that right.

Now we come to the dialogue “Crito”, which poses the question: What does the individual owe his society? Specifically, if living in a society means obeying the “laws of the land”, do we owe...

In the Apology, Socrates defends himself, badly, against the charge of impiety stemming from the belief that he has corrupted the youth, denied the city’s gods, and introduced new divinities. On trial for his...

“He must have felt as though he had butted out a cigarette on his own soul.” From Chris Jones’s beautiful take down of a fellow whose inner dickweed was recently unleashed by the Internet.

In Euthyphro, Plato deals with piety and the mystery thereof. As the dialogue opens, Socrates encounters Euthyphro on the porch of the king Archon. Socrates is there because the young man Meletheus has brought...

In Gorgias, Plato expands on many of the themes of the Republic while posing the implicit question: Why do democracies fail? In particular, why did Athenian democracy fail? In doing so, he makes a...

It’s a bit of a cliche to suggest that, if you want to understand the 60s, the play to see isn’t Hair; it’s the Bacchae. A depiction of orgiastic release that tips over, as...

In The Republic, Plato attempts to translate the Sacred Order of transcendent Being into the Social Order of the Polis. In a philosophical soul, the higher reason will rule over the lower instincts by...

“Are American women holding aviation back?” asks Amelia Earhart. This and much more can be found in Liberty Magazine (circa 1937)- now online.

Plato’s ideal state is not a patriarchy. In a number of ways, it actively promotes a radical sort of equality between the sexes, in spite of Socrates’s insistence that the accomplishments of women will...

The Republic is an exceedingly difficult text to write about. This is because it’s that rarest of books: one that everyone calls a must-read, and that they actually have read. Gallons of ink have...

Dominique Homberger, biology professor, is one of those “tough” profs we’ve all had. She holds her students to a high standard because she says, “I believe in these students. They are capable.” What-ever, dude!...

Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring after a long and distinguished career with many applaudable decisions. But, before we all start to tear up, Lexington reminds us about his opinion in Kelo v New...

“Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine wisdom; wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in his heart.” 179. One rather strange argument against reading the canon...

So, how does Plato explain interaction between the Forms, which are eternal, unchanging Being; and the physical world, which is changing (and mortal) Becoming? In the Timaeus treatise, he adds the clarifying concept of...

Via the Economist, The Tokyo municipal government is now considering extending their child pornography laws to protect “non-existent minors” in order to fight child porn in manga, anime, and video games, following a precedent...

Parmenides clearly had an influence on Plato. The assertion that we live in a world of appearances, which gives the illusion of change and difference that Parmenides thinks are impossible, makes its way into...