Author Archives: Steven Yates

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About Steven Yates

I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy, taught the subject at a number of universities around the American Southeast, then became disillusioned in the profession, moved to Chile in 2012. I am the author of Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994), Four Cardinal Errors: Reasons for the Decline of the American Republic (2011), What Should Philosophy Do? A Theory (2021), and most recently, So You Want to Get a PhD in Philosophy? (2025). I've also published around two dozen articles & reviews in academic journals, and hundreds online on numerous topics ranging from pure philosophy to political economy. My Substack publication is Navigating the New Normal. I currently live near Concepcion, Chile, with my wife Gisela and our two spoiled cats.

What Is a Liberal Arts Education For?

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Steven Yates

Liberal arts education has suffered from increasing neglect for a very long time — for at least 40 years, possibly longer. While it continues to exist in a few private liberal arts colleges, obviously, it long ago ceased to be … Continue reading →

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A “Rape on Campus”? Radical Feminism & the Rolling Stone Fiasco

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Steven Yates

[Note: I’d planned on doing a piece entitled “What Is a Liberal Arts Education For?” But the culmination of the events described here, and their implication for the sorry state of both higher education and popular journalism today, seemed more … Continue reading →

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How Higher Education in the U.S. Has Slowly Self-Destructed

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Steven Yates

There can be little doubt that at one time, the U.S. had the best higher education system in the world — rivaled only by, perhaps, by institutions in Great Britain such as Oxford and Cambridge. It still lives on that … Continue reading →

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Leopold Kohr: Unsung Hero of Twentieth Century Social Philosophy for the Twenty First Century

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Steven Yates

As an outsider, I’ve tended to gravitate towards other outsiders … not because they are outsiders but because very often they have something to say, something which got past the gatekeepers of their time and survived because it was important. … Continue reading →

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The Fundamental Unsolved Problem in Political Philosophy

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Steven Yates

Political philosophy I define as the philosophical study of social governance. Note, I did not say government, as there are political philosophies (anarchism is the obvious example) which urge us to do away with specific institutions devoted exclusively to governance … Continue reading →

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Scholarship “In the Doldrums” as Elderly Generation Dies Out and Is Not Replaced

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Steven Yates

Our point of departure for this week’s article will be a remark by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, best known as having authored the colorful little tract On Bullshit (2005) which, significantly, may be the only work by a professional philosopher to … Continue reading →

Posted in Where Is Philosophy Going? | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Welcome to this Blog

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Steven Yates

Hello. I’ve had this WordPress title for quite a while, but have only recently decided to use it. To those who have found their way here: welcome. What’s this all about? I am a Lost Generation Philosopher. What’s a Lost … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Political Economy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments