Ron Paul makes no secret of his admiration for the “Austrian School” of political and economic thought—especially F.A. Hayek’s work. To most Americans, though, he might as well keep it a secret. Who is this Austrian guy Paul likes so well? What about him do conservatives find so sexy? As an academic familiar with Hayek’s work, I … Continue reading
“Without strong movements to arouse and mobilize grievances at the grassroots, elite reformers stood naked before their stand-pat adversaries. Yet, without the aid of insiders able to speak to a national constituency and work the levers of government, movements withered away or became impotent, bitter shells. Legitimacy of this sort carries a price, of course. … Continue reading
More thoughts from the dissertation (working along similar lines to this earlier post): – While this is not a knockout argument proving the objective worth of democratic institutions, it suggests that they are appropriate matches for the times in which we live, an apt constellation of political ideals to match the state of modern material … Continue reading
I’ve been surprised by how many page views these dissertation excerpts get, so here’s another one, for all the dorks out there. This is part of the continuing argument I’m building between Dewey’s and Oakeshott’s views on science and politics… Here’s another way of putting this: Dewey admits that inquiry is “only” a response to … Continue reading
Follow-up on my earlier post on “Politics and Perception:” “Many persons seem to suppose that facts carry their meaning along with themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them and their interpretation stares out at you. … But … no one is ever forced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory … Continue reading
Here’s the latest from my chapter on Dewey’s and Oakeshott’s treatments of science: When scientific inquiry forays into practical grounds, it takes on the characteristics of the practical mode of experience. In his discussion of practical life, Oakeshott argues that it projects its own standard for organizing the world of experience. It is “the totality” … Continue reading
…a continuation of today’s earlier post. I had forgotten this part…during the campaign, then-Candidate Gray asked the FBI to take a look at alleged vote-buying on the part of the Fenty campaign. Hilarious, since now the FBI is looking into multiple allegations of fraud on the part of the Gray campaign. Sanctimony cometh before a … Continue reading
More Niebuhr, along the lines of my earlier post on Obama: The fact of death threatens life with meaninglessness unless man is ‘saved by hope’ and understands life in such a way that neither his involvement in history nor his transcendence over it destroys the meaning of life. … Life and history are filled with … Continue reading
