Author: Henrique Schneider Categories: Chinese Philosophy, Historical Philosophy Word Count: 997 Wu-wei (無爲, wúwéi) is a central concept in early Chinese philosophy. However, different schools of thought conceptualized the notion differently, so it is difficult to briefly capture its multiple senses and uses. Our focus here will be on one sense of wu-wei in the … Continue reading Wu-Wei: Acting without Desire
Author: Joseph Frigault Category: Philosophy of Race, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics Word Count: 996 History is marked by large-scale injustice. In the United States alone, Native Americans were violently displaced, Africans were enslaved and their descendants subject to lynchings and Jim Crow laws, and Japanese Americans were interned during World War II, among other … Continue reading Reparations for Historic Injustice
Author: Travis Joseph Rodgers Category: Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy Word Count: 995 Criminals are punished with fines, public scorn, imprisonment, death and more. Philosophical theories of punishment ask what justifies punishment, both in general and what justifies particular punishments. Most theories appeal to punishment’s effects on the future or facts about the past. This essay … Continue reading Theories of Punishment
Author: David Antonini Category: Social and Political Philosophy, Phenomenology and Existentialism Word Count: 1000 Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), born in Hanover, Germany, was a public intellectual, refugee, and observer of European and American politics. She is especially known for her interpretation of the events that led to the rise of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. Arendt … Continue reading Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought
Author: Ben Davies Category: Social and Political, Ethics Word Count: 999 Some people are multi-billionaires; others die because they are too poor to afford food or medications. In many countries, people are denied rights to free speech, to participate in political life, or to pursue a career, because of their gender, religion, race or other factors, … Continue reading John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’
Author: Henrique Schneider Categories: Chinese Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics Word Count: 998 Way, Chaos, and Order are central to (early) Chinese philosophy. The Way is not a metaphor, but a natural structure to be uncovered by thinking and action. Chaos happens when people do not find a Way. Not finding a … Continue reading How to Establish Social Order? Three Early Chinese Answers
Author: Simone Webb Category: Historical Philosophy, Philosophy of Sex and Gender, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Education Word Count: 978 Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is established in the popular imagination as the “first feminist,” but another philosopher provided a systematic analysis of women’s subjugated condition and a call for female education nearly a century before … Continue reading Mary Astell’s “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies” (1694)
