Professor Kant taught an anthropology course yearly from the early 1770s until his retirement in 1796. The lectures were published in 1798[1], six years before his death in 1804. One nugget from his views on the differences between men and women: “It is easy to analyse man; but woman betrays her secrets even though she […]
Kant on the woman’s way of war Read More »
“He is writing a book on metaphysics, and is really cut out for it; the clearness with which he thinks he understands things and his total inability to express what little he knows will make his fortune as a philosopher.” (Quoted in Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style, Manchester U.P., 1954, p. 28)
W. K. Clifford on an intellectual acquaintance who was writing a book about metaphysics Read More »
“Something of enormous global significance is happening almost without notice. For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. By our calculations, as of this month, just over 50 percent of the world’s population, or some 3.8 billion people,
More than half the world is middle class or higher now Read More »
Relevant for: Politics is downstream from culture, Where innovation happens, Where the Enlightenment did and didn’t take hold, and more. Source. Related: The Enlightenment Vision flowchart.
World Cultural Map charting traditional/secular and survival/self-expression values Read More »
One hundred years ago, Hilaire Belloc published The Servile State, with this provocative claim about his mixed intellectual world: “the effect of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters — to wit, the Servile State.” The nineteenth century was largely capitalist in theory and
The servile state — Belloc’s 1913 prediction Read More »
“The symbol of this struggle, inscribed in letters legible across all human history, is ‘Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome.’” Lecture Eight: Liberal or Anti-Liberal? John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche Themes: Darwinism. Utilitarianism versus Expressive Power. Liberty versus Slavery. Social philosophy as derived from basic philosophy. Continuing or rejecting the Enlightenment? Pasteur. Darwin, biology
Updated for the new year: My collected posts on key thinkers from Homer, Socrates, and Augustine to Descartes, Kant, and Rand. Related: My Philosophers, Explained series.
Intellectual History page updated Read More »
The cartoon reminds me of an earlier post about Rimsky-Korsakov on the “hardship” of the composer’s life. According to Shostakovich: “Rimsky-Korsakov used to say that he refused to acknowledge any complaints from composers about their hard lot in life. He explained his position thus: Talk to a bookkeeper and he’ll start complaining about life and
The difficulties of being/not being an artist Read More »