Winter 2006 • Vol. 1, No. 4

Critiques Rodney Stark’s best-selling book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Bernstein’s analysis proves Stark’s thesis to be historically false and philosophically impossible. The fundamental factor that led to freedom, capitalism, and Western success, Bernstein shows, was not the Christian, scripture-based approach of applying “reason” to the goal of understanding “super-nature,” but rather the Aristotelian, observation-based method of applying reason to the goal of understanding actual nature.

Consults historical precedent to evaluate America’s response to the attacks of 9/11. Considering key historical attacks against America, along with her responses to those attacks, Lewis highlights the moral and practical issues involved, and draws vital lessons that Americans must grasp and apply in the current war—if we want to win it.

Examines the misconceptions of self-esteem that are widely accepted and propagated by educators and psychologists today, illustrates the philosophical causes of those misconceptions in modern philosophy, and presents the correct view of self-esteem along with its philosophical roots in rational philosophy.

Analyzes Bernard H. Siegan’s Economic Liberties and the Constitution, showing the first edition of the book (not the second edition) to be a valuable source for those seeking to understand how legal protections for property rights in America were gradually lost. Salzman also shows that, although Economic Liberties has certain virtues and is one of the best scholarly books on the subject, it fails to provide a proper philosophical grounding of property rights, and thus cannot stand on its own in defense thereof.

Examines the popular television series House, M.D., zeros in on its main flaw—acceptance of the reason-emotion dichotomy and all that it entails—and shows why this potentially excellent show is tragically mixed.