In a letter from 1890, Karl Marx’s colleague takes up the widespread anti-Semitism in their movement. My favorite line: “anti-Semitism betokens a retarded culture.” (Still true 130+ years later.) Further from Engels: “Hence anti-Semitism is merely the reaction of declining medieval social strata against a modern society consisting essentially of capitalists and wage-labourers, so that […]

My favorite headline so far in 2024: Kaliningrad Governor Blames Immanuel Kant for Ukraine War.* The governor of Kant’s hometown no doubt has in mind Kant’s late “Perpetual Peace” essay, which projects a future republican cosmopolitan federation of states committed to universal duties and dignities. Such a future is the opposite of Putin’s nationalistic and

Binary oppositions are rare in philosophy and politics. Frequently, apparent enemy positions share implicit underlying premises. Related: This abstract philosophical taxonomy from Chapter 1 of Explaining Postmodernism:

Michel Foucault is the most famous postmodernist, and In his History of Sexuality he asks, among other questions:* Are we less sexually repressed than the Victorians?* Is casual pedophilia really such a big deal?* Is sexual liberation actual, or simply a new strategy of capitalist power? In the Philosophers, Explained series:

Related: Mill’s powerful advocacy of free thought and free speech: