For all their differences, Descartes, Locke and Berkeley share one trait: they believe that it is possible to develop an argument that defeats skepticism and gives human knowledge a foundation of certainty. That optimism is not universal among philosophers, as David Hume makes clear in Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume is probably the most noted […]
The worst thing about coming back from vacation is getting back to work. The best thing about coming back from vacation is telling people who didn’t go anywhere about what a great time you had. I figure if I combine the two and write a column about my vacation, I’ll come out somewhere in the […]
I had the following dialogue at least a dozen times in the beginning of July: ME: I have to go downtown for jury selection on the tenth. OTHER PERSON: Oh, they’ll never pick you. Lawyers never pick jurors with too much education. I’ll be honest, I assumed the same thing, and I guess I can’t […]
One of my graduate courses last spring was a seminar in what’s currently called “public history,” which pretty much covers any historically-grounded work that’s produced by and/or intended for an audience consisting of people outside the academic historical community. Museums, monuments, and commemorative memorabilia all fall into this category; so do many forms of historically-derived […]