Professor Mark White has published the opening essay, “Defending Kant’s Classical Liberalism,” in the Cato Unbound discussion series. Here is the abstract of his essay: “Mark D. White praises Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy and recommends it to modern classical liberals. Kant’s ethics has often been caricatured as one of rigid, unthinking duty, and also of
White on Kant and Classical Liberalism [Cato Unbound series] Read More »
[I’m re-posting this good discussion from 2012 at Cato Unbound.] An instructive trio of essays by economists at Cato Unbound about Austrian economics’ reputation — especially Mises’s praxeological version — for being strongly a priori rationalist: Is Austrian economics anti-empiricist? Steve Horwitz says no. Bryan Caplan says yes. George Selgin also says yes. To Selgin’s
Is Austrian economics anti-empirical? (Horwitz, Caplan, Selgin, and Boettke) Read More »
Now that we are solidly into Stage 3 … Stage 1 (early 20th century): Socialism is really true and moral and liberal capitalism is evil. [The evidence comes in. Shit.] Stage 2 (late 20th century): Evidence and logic are subjective constructs and all alternative constructs are equal. [Liberal-capitalist constructs continue to appeal to many people.
The Three Stages of Far-Left Advocacy (sarcastic version) Read More »
[This is a Portuguese translation of Part 6 of the Theist vs. Atheist debate series between Stephen Hicks and John Wright, originally published in English at EveryJoe.] A religião é boa ou má para a política? Por John C. Wright Tradução de Matheus Pacini Revisão de Mateus Bernardino A questão dessa semana é se a
Next week Cato Unbound will publish a four-part discussion of Immanuel Kant’s place in the classical liberal tradition. The formal title of the series is: “Immanuel Kant and Classical Liberalism.” The whole series will be edited by Jason Kuznicki and will consist of four scholars addressing the topic from (likely) different angles. Professor Mark D. White (Staten
Was Kant a liberal? Discussion at Cato Unbound Read More »
[This column is a part of the Theist vs. Atheist debate series between Stephen Hicks and John C. Wright. Here Hicks responds to Wright’s article. And here are the links to other columns in the series.] The quest for a meaningful life comes naturally to us. As infants we delight in exploring the world and developing
Making Life Meaningful without Religion [Theist vs. Atheist series] Read More »
Some parts of the world really are environmental Hells. They are dirty and depleted, making them unhealthy and economically unsustainable. We can argue about the severity of various places’ problems, but I want to focus on another aspect of the debate: determining accurately the causes of the degradation so we can focus productively on finding
Blamestorming and Environmental Problems (Part I) [Good Life series] Read More »
Patterson in Pursuit is Steve Patterson’s series of podcast discussions with intellectuals. Recently Patterson and I discussed the themes and background developments that led to postmodernism — the premodern worldview, modernism’s revolutionary break, the Enlightenment project, the counter-Enlightenment, an assortment of key people including Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Rorty, and whether we are actually living
Postmodernism — podcast discussion with Steve Patterson Read More »