The Ayn Rand Guide to Romance

in Life, Philosophy | June 14th, 2011

Can Ayn Rand tell us some­thing about achiev­ing a deeply sat­is­fy­ing rela­tion­ship? It’s hard to imag­ine. She was noto­ri­ous­ly churl­ish, dumped friends and allies who did­n’t give her works pos­i­tive reviews, and cheat­ed on her hus­band with a man 24 years her junior, then even­tu­al­ly expelled the young Nathaniel Bran­den from her intel­lec­tu­al cir­cle. And heck, she even made her hus­band wear a bell on his shoe, to warn her about his com­ings and goings.

But, no mat­ter, you have to sep­a­rate the phi­los­o­phy from the per­son … or so many acolytes of flawed thinkers have argued. Right fans of John Edwards? All three of you? So here you have it, The Self­ish Path to Romance, a love man­u­al based on Ayn Rand’s Objec­tivist phi­los­o­phy. The video almost screams par­o­dy, but it’s appar­ent­ly not. You can snag a copy of the book on Ama­zon here…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ayn Rand Helped the FBI Iden­ti­fy It’s A Won­der­ful Life as Com­mu­nist Pro­pa­gan­da

In Her Final Speech, Ayn Rand Denounces Ronald Rea­gan, the Moral Major­i­ty & Anti-Choicers (1981)

Flan­nery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960)

Ayn Rand Argues That Believ­ing in God Is an Insult to Rea­son on The Phil Don­ahue Show (Cir­ca 1979)

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230 Cultural Icons: A New Collection

in Film, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Psychology | June 13th, 2011


Time to roll out a new media col­lec­tion — a big col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons. Here you will find great writ­ers, daz­zling film­mak­ers and musi­cians, bril­liant philoso­phers and sci­en­tists — fig­ures who have changed our cul­tur­al land­scape through­out the years. You’ll see them in video, or hear their voic­es in audio.

The list cur­rent­ly fea­tures 230 icons, all speak­ing in their own words. The col­lec­tion will inevitably grow as we add more mate­r­i­al, or as you send sug­ges­tions our way. For now, how about we whet your appetite with 10 favorites? Then you can rum­mage through the full col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons here.

(Note: Down the road, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing “Cul­tur­al Icons” in the top nav­i­ga­tion bar.)

Sal­vador Dali - Video – Sur­re­al­ist artist appears on “What’s My Line?” (1952)

John­ny Depp - Video – The ver­sa­tile actor reads a let­ter from Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son.

Anne Frank - Video – It is the only known footage of Anne Frank, author of the world’s most famous diary, and it’s now online.

Pat­ti Smith — Video — The “god­moth­er of punk” recalls her friend­ship with artist Robert Map­plethor­pe.

Quentin Taran­ti­no - Video – Pulp Fic­tion direc­tor lists his favorites films since 1992.

Leo Tol­stoy – Video – Great footage of the last days of the tow­er­ing Russ­ian nov­el­ist. 1910.

Mark Twain – Video – America’s fabled writer cap­tured on film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909.

Andy Warhol - Video – In 1979, Warhol cre­at­ed pub­lic access tele­vi­sion pro­grams. In this episode, he chats with Bian­ca Jag­ger & Steven Spiel­berg.

Tom Waits - Video – The raspy singer reads “The Laugh­ing Heart” by Charles Bukows­ki.

Vir­ginia Woolf — Audio — Record­ing comes from a 1937 BBC radio broad­cast. The talk, enti­tled “Crafts­man­ship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” The only known record­ing of her voice.

Get the rest here. Don’t miss us on Face­book and Twit­ter!

 

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10 Famous Philosophers in Words and Images

in Philosophy | June 6th, 2011

The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion has post­ed a nice set of por­traits called “Gallery of Minds,” fea­tur­ing images of 10 world-famous philoso­phers, includ­ing Richard Rorty, David Chalmers, and renowned philoso­pher and art crit­ic Arthur Dan­to, who also wrote a com­pelling intro­duc­tion. Dan­to focus­es on the visu­al artistry of the series’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Pyke, a long-time staff mem­ber at the New York­er, but we found the great thinkers’ own state­ments — their answers to the “why” of their cho­sen pur­suits — equal­ly, if not more, com­pelling. Here is MIT’s fem­i­nist meta­physi­cian Sal­ly Haslinger:

Giv­en the amount of suf­fer­ing and injus­tice in the world, I flip-flop between think­ing that doing phi­los­o­phy is a com­plete lux­u­ry and that it is an absolute neces­si­ty. The idea that it is some­thing in between strikes me as a dodge.

And Robin Jesh­ion, best known for a the­o­ry of sin­gu­lar thought which she calls Cog­ni­tivism, has this to say:

Phi­los­o­phy’s dis­tin­guish­ing val­ue? For me, it resides not so much in the big ques­tions’ mul­ti­far­i­ous answers, them­selves, nor, alas, in wis­dom attained through the exact­ing process of answer­ing them, but rather in how it invari­ably reminds us how lit­tle we real­ly do know. Phi­los­o­phy is, or should be, hum­bling — and is, for this, ennobling.

Final­ly, per­haps our favorite ‘mis­sion state­ment,’ from Jer­ry Fodor, the cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist who has worked out the­o­ries on the archi­tec­ture of the mind:

To the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion, I became a philoso­pher because my par­ents want­ed me to be a lawyer. It seems to me, in ret­ro­spect, that there was much to be said for their sug­ges­tion.

via @brainpicker

Relat­ed Con­tent:

275 Cul­tur­al Icons: Great Artists, Writ­ers & Thinkers in Their Own Words

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

 

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Leo Strauss: 15 Political Philosophy Courses Online

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 23rd, 2011

strauss-large

In 1949, Leo Strauss, the Ger­man-Jew­ish emi­gré, land­ed at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, where he spent decades teach­ing and writ­ing on polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, espe­cial­ly the polit­i­cal thought of the Ancients. Strauss’ think­ing skewed con­ser­v­a­tive, and if he was some­times con­tro­ver­sial while alive, he has become only more so in death (1973). Nowa­days he’s con­sid­ered right­ly or wrong­ly the “intel­lec­tu­al god­fa­ther of the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal move­ment,” if not an “intel­lec­tu­al force behind the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s plan to invade Iraq.” Although Strauss com­ment­ed occa­sion­al­ly on con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics (Harper’s has more on that), he spent most of his time work­ing through major philo­soph­i­cal texts, and through his com­men­taries, devel­op­ing his own philo­soph­i­cal posi­tions, which were gen­er­al­ly hos­tile to the Enlight­en­ment project and mod­ern individualism/liberalism.

Strauss was unques­tion­ably an influ­en­tial fig­ure even if he still divides us, and now, cour­tesy of U. Chica­go, you can lis­ten to 15 of his phi­los­o­phy sem­i­nars online. They were record­ed between 1959 and 1973, and some rep­re­sen­ta­tive titles include Montesquieu’s The Spir­it of the Laws (a course that Paul Wol­fowitz took dur­ing the ear­ly 70s), Niet­zsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Hegel’s The Phi­los­o­phy of His­to­ry.

More sem­i­nars will be com­ing online. For now, we have cat­a­logued all 15 exist­ing sem­i­nars in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Four Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader

in Film, Philosophy | May 10th, 2011

A few weeks ago we direct­ed you to a won­der­ful three-part BBC doc­u­men­tary about mod­ern phi­los­o­phy called Human, All Too Human, adding that we con­sid­ered the chap­ter on Jean-Paul Sartre the most sat­is­fy­ing of the three.

Now we give you a light-heart­ed chas­er for that doc­u­men­tary’s strong spir­its: The French philoso­pher’s teach­ings as inter­pret­ed by the sci­ence fic­tion over­lord Darth Vad­er. Per­haps more than any oth­er 20th cen­tu­ry supervil­lain, the dis­graced Jedi knight trag­i­cal­ly and per­fect­ly embod­ies the Sar­tri­an notion that “Free­dom is what you do with what has been done to you.”

For those who might con­sid­er the Jok­er a bet­ter can­di­date, we humbly sub­mit that with the Jok­er, it’s more of a Niet­zschean thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

via Roger Ebert’s Jour­nal

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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David Hume in 3 Minutes … For His 300th Birthday

in Philosophy | May 8th, 2011

The Stan­ford Ency­clo­pe­dia of Phi­los­o­phy calls David Hume (1711–1776) “the most impor­tant philoso­pher ever to write in Eng­lish,” and this week the phi­los­o­phy world cel­e­brates the 300th birth­day of the great Scot­tish empiricist/skeptic. Around the web, you can find more seri­ous com­men­tary on Hume’s phi­los­o­phy. Just head over to The Philoso­pher’s Zone, Phi­los­o­phy Bites, or The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life to lis­ten to their enlight­en­ing pod­casts. And then you have this: Hume’s phi­los­o­phy summed up in three slight­ly rib­ald min­utes. It’s part of a series of YouTube clips that offer idio­syn­crat­ic sum­maries of the phi­los­o­phy of Aris­to­tle, Kant, Descartes and oth­er giants.

Mean­while, let us note that you can down­load free ver­sions of Hume’s major works online. Let us list a few for you:

  • An Enquiry Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing Audio — Text
  • Dia­logues Con­cern­ing Nat­ur­al Reli­gion Audio — Text
  • Trea­tise of Human Nature Audio — Text

Find more great works in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and eBooks

via The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life

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Sartre, Heidegger, Nietzsche: Documentary Presents Three Philosophers in Three Hours

in Philosophy, Video - Politics/Society | April 26th, 2011

“Human, All Too Human” is a three-hour BBC series from 1999, about the lives and work of Friedrich Niet­zsche, Mar­tin Hei­deg­ger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The film­mak­ers focus heav­i­ly on pol­i­tics and his­tor­i­cal con­text — the Hei­deg­ger hour, for exam­ple, focus­es almost exclu­sive­ly on his trou­bling rela­tion­ship with Nazism.

The most engag­ing chap­ter is “Jean-Paul Sartre: The Road to Free­dom,” in part because the film­mak­ers had so much archival footage and inter­view mate­r­i­al (Check out a still love­ly Simone de Bou­voir at minute 9:00, gig­gling that Sartre was the ugli­est, dirt­i­est, most unshaven stu­dent at the Sor­bonne).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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American Philosophy on Film: Pragmatism, Richard Rorty and More

in Philosophy, Video - Politics/Society | April 15th, 2011

In his online bio, Penn State lec­tur­er Phillip McReynolds con­fess­es his “unhealthy fas­ci­na­tion with movies.”  McReynolds chan­nels that obses­sion to healthy effect in his doc­u­men­tary “Amer­i­can Philoso­pher.” The film — which is real­ly a series of 8 shorts — fea­tures inter­views with Richard Rorty, Hilary Put­nam, Joseph Mar­go­lis, Crispin Sartwell, Richard Bern­stein, and many oth­er promi­nent philoso­phers. The con­ver­sa­tion gen­er­al­ly turns around prag­ma­tism, the nation­al char­ac­ter, and the cen­tral ques­tion: Is there such a thing as a native Amer­i­can Phi­los­o­phy?

Our favorite sec­tion is prob­a­bly Part 6, “Progress:” It fea­tures a live­ly 2002 debate between Rorty and Put­nam which (the film argues) was large­ly respon­si­ble for the revival of prag­ma­tism as a viable school of thought.

(Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Mr. McReynolds did his dis­ser­ta­tion on John Dewey.)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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