Nature and the Nation

In this episode I examine one of the many essays in Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey's massive History of Political Philosophy 3rd Edition, detailing the thoughts of Thomas Hobbes. This essay by Laurence Berns discusses the weaknesses of Hobbes' conception of sovereignty. This episode is the first of a series.

In this episode I revisit the history of trade policy in America, with Gill's book Trade Wars Against America. I look especially at the 2nd half of the 19th Century and Woodrow Wilson.

In this episode I revisit Louis Menand's collection of Pragmatist writings, Pragmatism: A Reader, with an eye toward the more recent writers. I discuss Richard Rorty's Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism and Richard Bernstein's Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Healing of Wounds.

In this episode I look at some of the early pragmatist writings, in particular The Will to Believe by William James, and The Ethics of Democracy by John Dewey. This episode is the first of a two part series on this book.

In this episode I look at the evolutionary exposition of Richard Dawkins in his classic The Blind Watchmaker, with a closer look at how DNA replicates and evolves.

In this episode I look at a few of William James' early essays What Is an Emotion? and The Function of Cognition, and I make a particular examination of his essay The Dilemma of Determinism.

In this episode I examine the deterministic vision of the nature of the universe as described by P. W. Atkins in The Creation.

In this episode I explore the myth of the divine child, viewed through both historical myths and the archetypes of the collective unconscious, in the collaborative book by both Carl Jung and Carl Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology.

In this episode I look at the ancient Roman god of Saturn and the festival of Saturnalia, as described in Samuel Macey's Patriarchs of Time.

In this episode I explore the lack of myth in our modern world, as described by Rollo May in The Cry for Myth.