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436Book review of: S. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (review)Liberty (June): 37-41. 2005.
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125Movie review of: GoodLiberty 11. 2010.In this essay, I review the movie Good. Good tells the story of the moral corruption of its protagonist, a writer, who is seduced by blandishments and material rewards given to him by the Nazi regime. It is a nice illustration of corruption—the degradation of character wrought by the desire for wealth and fame—what Aristotle would call “pleonexia.”
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276Notes tow Ard a formal conversation theoryGrazer Philosophische Studien 10 (1): 119-140. 1980.Dialectic, as commonly approached, is not an analytic study, as the notion is defined in the paper. Where it is analytically approached (as, for example, by Grice and Hamblin), the result is pragmatic in nature, as well as syntactic and semantic. This paper lays the foundations of a purely formal (nonpragmatic) analysis of conversations. This study is accordingly called "Conversation Theory". The key notions of "conversation", "dialogue", "conversation game", "rules of response", "epistemic comm…Read more
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467Book review of: P. Booth, ...and the Pursuit of Happiness: Wellbeing and the Role of GovernmentReason Papers 37 (1). 2015.This essay is my review of Philip Booth’s ...and the Pursuit of Happiness: Wellbeing and the Role of Government. The book is an anthology of original articles by eminent researchers in modern happiness economics, such as: Booth himself; Paul Omerod; David Sacks, Betsey Stephenson, and Justin Wolfers; Christopher Snowden; J. R. Shackleton; Christian Bjornskov; Peter Boettke and Christopher Coyne; and Pedro Schwartz. I conclude by offering several criticisms of the work.
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2Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writing on Timely IssuesCreateSpace. 2015.Philosophy lecturer and essayist Gary Jason tackles timely issues from education reform to the Arab Spring in his new anthology Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writings on Timely Issues. Disturbing Thoughts collects more than 160 political and social commentary essays published between 2010 and 2012. Among the many topics addressed are environmentalism, public employee pensions, education, and political reform. Today's headlines are filled with discussion on the growing dysfunction of unfunded p…Read more
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1846Portraits of Egoism in Classic Cinema I: Sympathetic PortrayalsReason Papers 36 (1). 2014.In this essay, I look at more or less sympathetic portrayals of egoists in film. I start by explaining some basic concepts: psychological egoism; ethical egoism; default egoism; rational egoism; egotism; cynicism; narcissism; and psychopathy. I then review in-depth two excellent WWII films, Stalag 17 and The Bridge on the River Kwai. I note that the key protagonist in both pictures is the same type of character—both played by the same fine actor, William Holden. The main protagonist in both is a…Read more
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1100The History of Cinema and America’s Role in It: Review Essay of D. Gomery and C. Pafort-Overduin’s Movie History: A Survey (review)Reason Papers 35 (1): 170-186. 2013.Cinema
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180Book review of: A. Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth of Compassionate Conservatism (review)Liberty (March): 43-46. 2009.
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203Is there a case for ad hominem arguments?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62 (2). 1984.This Article does not have an abstract
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425Movie review of: The Man Who Knew InfinityLiberty 6. 2016.This is a review of the biopic of the great mathematician Ramanujan, 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'(2016).