Photos
Some External Links:
The Hunger Site
The American Philosophical
Association
Center for Inquiry
The Jefferson Center
The American
Humanist Association
The Society of Christian
Philosophers
Erik Wielenberg,
Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Phone: (765) 658-6275
E-mail: ewielenberg at depauw dot edu
"[T]he practice of
arbitrary imprisonments [has] been in all ages [one of] the most
formidable instruments of tyranny." - Alexander Hamilton
"[I]f once it were left in
the power of any magistrate to
imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper
there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. ...
[C]onfinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his
sufferings are unknown or forgotten is therefore a dangerous engine of
arbitrary government." - William Blackstone
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of
blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
"[T]he origin of the American Republic is distinguished by peculiar
circumstances. ... In the formation of our constitution, the wisdom of
all ages is collected -- the legislators of antiquity are consulted --
as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are
concerned. In short, it is an empire of reason." - Noah
Webster, 1787
"[W]e know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and
non-believers." - Barack Hussein Obama, 2009
"[A]ll the teaching must still be
done by concrete human individuals. The State has to use the men who
exist. Nay, as long as we remain a democracy, it is men who give the
State its powers. And over these men, until all freedom is
extinguished, the free winds of opinion blow." - C.S. Lewis
"Both keeping past teachings alive and understanding the present --
someone able to do this is worthy of being a teacher."
- Kongzi (a.k.a. "Confucius")
A Bit About Me
I did my graduate work at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst
and was fortunate enough to spend a year studying at the Center
for
Philosophy of Religion at the University
of Notre Dame. My dissertation was directed by Fred
Feldman. My research is focused in ethical theory, particularly
moral psychology, meta-ethics, and moral epistemology, and contemporary
analytic philosophy of religion.
A Bit About the Fate of Jeremy
Bentham (life: 1748-1832;
stuffed corpse on display: 1832-present)
According to several eminent scholars, including Neil Young, Def
Leppard, and the Kurgan from the film The Highlander, "it's better to
burn out than to fade away."
Perhaps, but it's better still to have your organs removed, be stuffed
with straw, have your real head replaced with a wax one, and be
displayed in what appears to be a closet with your name engraved at the
top.
Bentham's dream is also my dream;
anyone who is interested in contributing to the Erik Wielenberg
Preservation Project should contact me via email.
Bentham, Melville, and Garneray
"Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the
library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a
burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading
personal characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred
from any Leviathan's articulated bones." - Herman Melville in Moby
Dick
Behold! -- perhaps the greatest literary description of awakening with
a debilitating hangover:
"Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he
could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from
the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled,
too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry
shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as
looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move
his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before
him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some
small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the
night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been
expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad." - Kingsley Amis in Lucky
Jim
