A long-running battle between the so-called Catholic left and the so-called Catholic right concerns which political issues the Church should speak about and which ones she shouldn’t. One crucial distinction is that teaching the basic principles of Catholic social doctrine go to the heart of her charism, but she has no special expertise in prudential judgments about how to apply them. Continue Reading »
Here is an excerpt from an article on Chantal Delsol I have forthcoming in Perspectives on Political Science : In the place of “true judgment” or prudence, the defenders of international justice satisfy their hunger for rational certitude and analytical specificity with mere . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the most telling but least commented upon lines in President Obama’s inaugural speech was his promise to “restore science to its proper place”. Since he doesn’t expand upon this restoration in the remainder of the speech it’s not immediately obvious what this . . . . Continue Reading »
One can surely make a reasonable argument that Sarah Palin was underqualified to be the next Vice President. Nevertheless, I argue here that the hyperventilated contempt shown for her by our cosmopolitan elites reveals a caricatured and ugly dismissal of the lives of ordinary Americans. It’s . . . . Continue Reading »
It is often correctly pointed out that Kant saw himself as carrying out a grand Socratic mission inherited from Rousseau. However, as Kant himself makes clear in his Logic , this had less to do with the recognition of the aporetic character of philosophy and more to do with the distinction . . . . Continue Reading »
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