Is peace really so precious that it is popularly viewed in irenology (peace studies) of our time as “natural” and “a prime force in human behavior”—whereas war, its opposite, is instead condemned as “sinful” and “not” natural? In fact, there is even the prestigious Nobel “peace” prize to be awarded to those who contribute to world peace but not an equivalent Nobel “war” prize to those who do the contrary.

This euphoric view of peace is by no means a constant conventional wisdom in human history, as it can be sharply contrasted with an equally seductive view of...

What makes the rule of law so special that it is to conscientiously punish the “bad” doers and reward the “good” ones—such that, where there is the rule of law, peace and order are to be expected, so that “the rule of law is better than the rule of any individual”?

Take the case of international law, as an illustration. While different international courts have been busy going after the killers of innocent victims in Rwanda and Liberia, they have turned a blind eye to the major powers which have killed—on a much larger and more brutal scale, by comparison—innocent...

What exactly is so appealing in formal science, such that its influence can be seen in numerous disciplines nowadays, for practical purposes like better functionality, performance, and so on—as Pythagoras already famously said in antiquity: “Number is the ruler of forms and ideas and the cause of gods and demons”?

This contemporary addiction to practical convenience in formal science has turned a blind eye to its other side, which has impoverished both our knowledge of reality and the well-being of our lifeworld.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the other side of this...

What precisely resides in “sexuality” which warrants the popular discourse on sexuality as “part of our world freedom,” or something as an inspiring source for “our own creation” of “new forms of relationships” or “new forms of love” never before possible in human history?

This popular treatment of sexual freedom has become so politically correct, in this day and age of ours, that it fast degenerates into a seductive ideology which has impoverished our understanding of sexuality by blinding us from its dark sides.

Contrary to this intoxicating conventional...

Is chemistry really so valuable that, as Theodore L. Brown (2011) and his colleagues continue to claim in the twelfth edition of their work in 2011, chemistry is “the central science” in connecting the physical sciences with the life and applied sciences? (WK 2011 & 2011; C. Reinhardt 2001)

This crowning of chemistry, however, can be contrasted with an opposing view, as Michael Polanyi once questioned the centrality of chemistry, when he wrote that “[n]o inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of . . . chemistry,” so other fields of study are just as important. (BQ...