David Berlinski on Architectural Nihilism, Human Nature and the Holocaust, and Emotivism
We live in intellectually mediocre times, when commitment to true debate as a means of ascertaining truth — and the understanding that reasonable people can have different opinions — has been replaced by a desire among the culturally powerful to stifle heterodox thought and punish unapproved opinions.
Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize refuses to yield to such intellectual straightjacketing. A true polymath, Dr. David Berlinski advocates heterodox ideas and thought, ranging from questioning Darwinism, to espousing the once-self-evident truth that there is such a thing as human nature. He and Wesley discuss the philosophy of mathematics, the corruption of science, and the causes of the ongoing devolution of Western society. Berlinski is stupefied to learn of the new environmental movement known as “nature rights,” which he rightly brands as “idiotic.” It’s a fascinating conversation with Berlinski, who is rightly considered one of the great minds of our time.
David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
Dr. Berlinski has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has also taught philosophy, mathematics and English at such universities as Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York and the Universite de Paris.
He is author of numerous books, including A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm, Newton’s Gift, A Short History of Mathematics, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements, and his most recent, Human Nature, published in 2019. He is also the author of too many essays to count and the subject of innumerable interviews.