Author Archives: egoldstein

Justin Smith loves kids, he really does. But please stop telling him that a philosopher cannot realize his potential unless he becomes a parent… more»

Elegies for ink and paper abound, but are physical books going away? Not necessarily. Handwriting, on the other hand, is toast… more»

Homework has few champions: Children loathe it, parents suffer through it, teachers can’t get out from under it. Now the president of France wants to ban it… more»

Teenage boys are impressionable. Some fall under the sway of Ayn Rand, others of Tolkien. For Paul Krugman it was Isaac Asimov… more»

Amy Leal used to dream about becoming a renowned literary scholar. Now she dreams about her son – that he remains alive and able to eat and walk… more»

One hundred years ago, the leading lights of modernism broke ranks with the arbiters of culture. “No single event, before or since, has had such an influence on American art”… more»

How did the art world become a hellhole of money-crazed pretension and 70s-era punk-rock-shock tactics? Simon Doonan has some thoughts… more»

John Kaag was the kind of kid who worried about the bus crashing, or about getting hit by it, or about his ham sandwich. Naturally, he became a philosopher… more»

Omniscient, omnipotent, perhaps indifferent. Is God happy? Not in any way that we can understand. Leszek Kolakowski explains… more»

Philosophy used to be spiritual exercise. Now it’s just a job. What happened to the idea that a philosopher’s life should be led philosophically?… more»