You're Welcome

Workplace violence. In this case one of my coworkers has been slugging another one of my coworkers. The very definition of a hostile and intimidating work environment. Bad. Wrong. Illegal. I had reported this misbehavior to my supervisor some time ago and hoped that my complaint would result in a cessation of hostilities. No such luck. I then reported the problem to a manager a little higher up the chain of command. The first words out of his mouth were: "I take this very seriously". At first I thought that the statement was appropriate but something was nagging at me. I later realized that the statement was value neutral. The manager had failed to say something like: "That's terrible!", "That's horrible!", "That's wrong!". The manager's neutrality about this obviously unethical behavior is troubling and its troubling because its common and its common because of the influence of American counter-culture. American c...

In the book The Four Dimensions of Philosophy by Dr. Mortimer Adler, the author bemoans the fact that philosophy doesn't get the respect from American society that science does. Dr. Adler goes on to explain why he thinks that this is so and what philosophers can do about it. Again the doctor misses the point. Complaining that philosophy doesn't get the same respect as science is like complaining that the foundation doesn't get as much respect as the rest of the house. Philosophy provides the foundation for all other intellectual activities scientific or otherwise. And so, garbage in, garbage out. If science is backed by philosophy then it will be solid, reliable. If it is undermined by psychologistic theory (Hegel, Kant et. al.) it will be doomed to failure. In short, fretting about philosophy's respectability is a waste of time. You're welcome.