My review essay on Donald Frey’s America’s Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics (SUNY Press, 2009). My conclusion: “America’s Economic Moralists is a good historical survey of mostly religious commentaries on economics. Frey’s work is in part a historical survey and in part a polemic against the autonomy individualists. In my judgment, […]
Frey’s *America’s Economic Moralists* — review Read More »
My lecture, “What Moves History: An Introduction to the Philosophy of History”, was given at an Atlas Society’s summer conference several years ago. In the lecture I refer to a flowchart, which is available here: Social Dynamics [pdf]. Audio: Related: Hegel’s influential Philosophy of History, in the Philosophers, Explained series:
*What Moves History* — online Read More »
Reprising this recommendation of four books that focus on the postmodern challenge in specific intellectual areas: * Literature: John Ellis, Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities. * History: Keith Windschuttle, The Killing of History. * Science: Noretta Koertge, editor, A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science. * Law:
Four recommended books on postmodernism Read More »
Pyrrhus, the great Greek general, is off to conquer the world — Italy, Sicily, Libya, Carthage, and beyond. Cineas, his eloquent adviser and ambassador, asks him: What will you do after you conquer the world? Pyrrhus answers that he will take his ease. Cineas replies, Then why not take your ease now? Source: Paraphrasing from
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[This is Section 29 of Stephen R.C. Hicks’s Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 29. On contemporary Germans: the world’s hope or contemptible? While the Nazis put the German-Aryan racial type first, Nietzsche is almost never complimentary about his fellow Germans. In Nietzsche’s view, Germany has slipped into flabbiness and whininess. Germany once was something to be
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[Courtesy of the translator, W. H. F. Altman, here is the text of Martin Heidegger’s speech, delivered on the occasion of a 25th anniversary reunion in Konstanz, May 26-27, 1934.] Martin Heidegger, The Reunion Speech Twenty-five Years after Our Graduation, Reunion in Konstanz on May 26-27, 1934 Dear classmates! Our reunion—after twenty-five years and more—might
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From philosopher Martin Heidegger’s lectures in the winter semester of 1929-1930 on “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.” The Great War (1914-1918) had ended over a decade before but, Heidegger argued, its world-historical significance must not be lost. So the professor is explaining to his students what Germany needs: “We must first call for someone capable
Heidegger calling for a leader “capable of instilling terror” Read More »
I’ve always admired the Greeks — one must admire a culture that has a god for drinking and partying — but now the Lithuanians of old have risen in my affections. The Baltic pagans had not one but three deities devoted to beer and beer production: Raugutis, the god of beer; Raugutiene, Ragutis’s consort who
What the pagan Lithuanians got right Read More »