Imagine if the next time someone says to you, “Don’t be so judgmental,” you gently pushed back and said, “Excuse me. Are you judging me?” Imagine the conversation going something like this: Friend: ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Alan Saunders: Hello, and welcome to The Philosopher's Zone, I'm Alan Saunders. A couple of weeks ago ...

This is Part 2 of a series on moral relativism. The previous article can be found here. Lack of virtue. Moral relativism is based on individual preferences. Exactly who would do the nominating who for ...

Shortly before he was elected pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered a withering denunciation of relativism. For those unfamiliar with even the blunter points of philosophy, what was he driving at?

The core of Allan Bloom’s 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, a complaint about the nature of higher education, is an argument against cultural relativism. “There is one thing a professor can ...

Cardinal Ratzinger’s sermon on relativism at the Mass for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff hit the note most important both in his own life and in the coming life of the Church, in an age calling ...

Four years before he was hoisted to Speaker of the House, a smooth-faced Representative Paul Ryan declared, “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, ...

It was a spring evening in 1993 at Stanford; Fred Dretske (1932–2013) was introducing the man who would deliver that year’s Immanuel Kant Lectures, a distinguished philosopher of the cognitive and ...

Aside from a small assortment of political extremists, religious fanatics, and rabid ideologues, few today are more certain of their position, or less open to the views of others, than those who ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Suppose you believe abortion is permissible.