Stephen Hicks

A fascinating article at Reservatio’s substack on the battles over Kant. While Putin has called Immanuel Kant one of his two favorite philosophers, in this new era of Russian nationalism and the Kaliningrad governor’s recent accusation, the deep question now is whether Immanuel is actually a subversive agent of Western imperialism. Fortunately, “government-loyal Russian philosophers“

At the beginning of a new era, Bacon asks: * What can make science and philosophy productive and generative, not stagnant and sterile as it currently is? * Should we really give tradition much credence? * Learning begins with the senses, but how do we overcome our senses’ and intellects’ native weaknesses? * What is

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