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Philosophical Research Most of my past philosophical work is collected in two books: Nietzsche and the Modern Crisis of the Humanities: This was originally my dissertation, in which I argued that Nietzsche held relativist views that made moral truth appear impossible; but he made a basic mistake in arriving at this nihilistic position. His mistake was to hold a particular theory of "culture" that cannot be valid. I argued that the same error (and the same unfortunate conclusions) can also be detected in the work of poststructuralists, especially Jacques Derrida, and in the thought of the German-American conservative thinker Leo Strauss. I claimed that Strauss was an esoteric Nietzschean, a theme that I also used in my novel. Available from Amazon for $18.95. Living Without Philosophy: On Narrative, Rhetoric, and Morality: Drawing on implications from ethics, theology, law, politics, and education, this book argues that we can decide what is right by describing particular cases in detail, without the aid of ethical theories and principles. Instead, we can judge particular cases by describing the relevant circumstances in detail. When our judgments differ, we can decide how to act by deliberating under fair conditions. I provide both a philosophical argument for this position and readings of literary texts in which moral theorists are portrayed as concrete characters. These works include Plato's Protagoras, selections from the Gospels and Dante, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, the debate between Erasmus and Luther, Erasmus's Praise of Folly, Shakespeare's King Lear, Nabokov's Lolita, and Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I offer essentially a moral argument for the humanities, discussing the implications not only for ethics, but also for theology, law, politics, and education. Available from Amazon for $22.95.
I am continuing my work on the relationship between philosophy and literature by writing a book on Dante. My articles on related topics include:
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