I read, I write, I try to make a difference.
I’m here to produce quality content and do my best to help people and our society. Medium makes it difficult to see any stories prior to the last few an author has written, so here is a list of my more popular articles. …
Paying attention to a simple detail can mean so much.
It angers me. I know they don’t mean it, but it still angers me.
I read a lot as a writer and professor and I see it all the time. People are dehumanizing other people with their words. Sheer obliviousness.
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Philosophy
Well, a small part of it, anyway
Karl Marx (1818–1883) is not that difficult to understand, but a century of misinformation about what Marx actually wrote and advocated for has given people false impressions. Much of that false information about Marx came from those who claimed to be instituting his ideas but, in fact, were not. There…
Both proponents and opponents of capitalism conflate it with free enterprise, hampering discussion and reform
Capitalism is an economic system that has both passionate defenders and fierce critics. But both sides in the debates over capitalism’s beneficial and harmful affects tend to conflate capitalism with free enterprise. Much of the defense of capitalism takes the positives of free enterprise and incorrectly attributes them to capitalism…
Will, Duty, and the Categorical Imperative
Kant’s moral theory in some ways connects with the rest of his philosophy but mainly stands apart from it. Kant took seriously Hume’s critique of epistemology, but he dismissed Hume’s contention that morality is based on feeling. For Kant, everything is about reason, and that includes morality. His basic…
Opening the Door to Subjectivity
German idealism was a philosophical movement in the early 1800s. It was a direct reaction to Immanuel Kant’s philosophical system. We call the movement “ German” because it was discussed by a circle of German philosophers and artists, and we call it “idealism” because the movement argued that everything must…
Removing the masks, we can see the individual people who the labels obscure.
My article from three years ago “The Problem with the Transgender Label” asked a question some people don’t want asked: does that label cause more problems than it solves? It remains one of my most-read articles with mostly positive responses. …
What some productivity “Experts” haven’t awakened to
Modern life is a collision of two forces: people and days, and more to the point — individuals and hours. This continual conflict has ruined many days for many people. …
Moving the center of epistemology to the active mind
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804, rhymes with “want”) is the single most influential philosopher in history, even though you have probably never heard of him. How we think of ourselves and how we think about how we perceive the world is from Kant’s philosophy. Philosophy is a long conversation. Immanuel Kant formed…
Correcting some revisionist history about the medieval era
For centuries, it has been taught that there was a long “dark age” in European history from about 450 CE to sometime between 1250 to 1350 CE. The idea has been repeated so often that it is accepted as truth. This period is denoted by the relative lack of new…
Douglas Giles, PhD
Philosophy professor reaching beyond the ivory tower and digging deeper. elmhurst.academia.edu/DouglasGiles, @DGilesPhd, InsertPhilosophyHere.com.
