Finding a Fit for Life's Funcʃions
Who Is Max Weber? A German sociologist – regarded as one of its three founders – and political economist. He surfaced in 1864, and departed in 1920. In his time, he argued that capitalism developed out of a Protestant ethic, which regarded work as a religious calling. As the religion...
Who Is Ivan Illich? A Croatian-Austrian philosopher. He surfaced in 1926, and departed in 2002. In his time, he writes radical polemics which fundamentally challenged the logic of Western institutions. He was a boldly deviant thinker under-appreciated by both the left and the right in later years. Look him up...
Philosophy intrigues me. But like most of you, I hold onto a stereotypical fear of the subject: too abstract. In some sense we are right; there are technical branches within philosophy which deal with signs and symbols. (Not the kind of ‘logic’ we understand.) Yet there is also phenomenology, which...
Ri An asked us to each name a medical condition observed in the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When it was my turn, I said “delusion”. Murmurs broke out in the class. Voices emerged and explained that delusion was not a medical condition, but a symptom. There was...
Sociology speaks to individuals finding places within societies. Isn’t that what we do everyday, all our lives?
