Philosophy

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:

Here’s a list based on philosopher Douglas Lackey’s 1999 survey of philosophers. The results were published in The Philosophical Forum. Interesting that the full list is dominated by works in epistemology. Metaphysics and ethics are less represented by a significant margin. The top ten books cited:1. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [179 citations]2. Heidegger, Being and Time