[This is Appendix 3 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism Martin Luther (1483-1546): “The Jews deserve to hang on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” And: “We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”[189] Immanuel […]
Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism [Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
I’m all confused. The hot-headed Nietzsche’s startling line from his 1887 Genealogy of Morals has always stuck with me: “the truly great haters in world history have always been priests.” That’s from the First Essay, Section 7, in the context of his analysis of slave morality born of ressentiment. But now I read that, according
What does it mean to be a philosopher in the modern era?What made you decide on Philosophy?Religion-friendly philosophies contrasted to Science-friendly philosophies.Both contrasted to Skeptical-negative philosophies.What is Postmodernism, and why do some people become Postmodernists? Related: Is Postmodernism neo-Marxist? | Open College No. 23 | Stephen Hicks
Rattlesnake TV interview of Stephen Hicks Read More »
For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration (1620). The New Organon (1620). Jacques Derrida, “Cogito & The History of Madness” (1963). Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. 1 (1976). Werner Sombart, Chapter 1 of Merchants and Heroes (1915). Voltaire, Letters on England
Texts in Philosophy — late 2023 additions Read More »
Darkly amusing: Marcel Duchamp may have swiped the piece that made the 20th-century’s ‘conceptual’ [more accurately: ‘anti-conceptual’] and postmodern art world giddy: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/15/conceptualist-art-fountain-is-fake-say-historians-marcel-duchamp Related: My “Why Art Became Ugly” article, explaining the evolution and devolution of high art’s variants during the 1900s The article was first published in 2004, based on a 2003 lecture in
Duchamp’s Urinal as a Double Scam? Read More »
Some quotations and brief glosses on Augustine’s views on persecuting and torturing to save souls. “No salvation outside the church.” (418 CE) “[M]any must first be recalled to their Lord by the stripes of temporal scourging, like evil slaves, and in some degree like good-for-nothing fugitives.” Augustine had defended toleration for much of his life.
St. Augustine: Righteous Persecution and Benevolent Torture Read More »
Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment? Heavens, no. Brief history-of-politics series of points, in response to this question from a few places on social media: 1. For millennia all communisms were religious. (* exception at end) 2. Think of the many religious monasteries and convents, populated by those who see their
Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment? Read More »
On this day, I am thankful in a way that history puts in perspective. Three quotations: From William Manchester, A World Lit Only By Fire, on life in medieval Europe: “Because most peasants lived and died without leaving their birthplace, there was seldom need for any tag beyond One-Eye, or Roussie (Redhead), or Bionda (Blondie),
A flotilla of ships is approaching your shore. Does it matter to you whether they are carrying smartphones and shoes — or rockets and soldiers? In his Economic Sophisms, Frédéric Bastiat makes this exasperated point: “A French ironmaster says: ‘We must protect ourselves from the invasion of English iron!’ An English landlord cries: ‘We must
War metaphors and trade — Bastiat Read More »
I posted earlier on The Knife Man and John Hunter, the great 18th-century anatomist and surgeon. In Hunter’s era surgery was brutal, in large part due to surgeons’ ignorance of anatomy, and in that earlier post I wondered: Why there was still such ignorance of anatomy given that the 1700s were two centuries after Andreas
Anatomy and the Practicality of Philosophy Read More »