A plug for what I found to be a useful discussion of this philosopher. Linking again as Kant and his complicated relationship to the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment are again being hotly contested. “Immanuel Kant is a famously difficult philosopher, but also undeniably an important one. It isn’t hard to argue that he belongs somewhere in […]
Cato series on Kant and the Classical Liberal Tradition Read More »
The connections between philosophy theory and political practice are often long-term. Here are three juxtapositions of quotations from philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and philosopher Gentile and politician Mussolini in the 1930s. On what’s good for the species versus what’s good for the individual: Kant,: “For all of that, this path that for the
3 paired Kant and Mussolini quotes on individuals, reason, war Read More »
In the religious wars of the16th and 17th centuries, persecution, torture, and killing were widespread. Yet out of that ugliness we learned, morally, that tolerating others’ mistaken views is essential and, politically, that individuals must be free to think, learn, and act. We learned to live and let live in regular life, and we learned
Re-learning tolerance, 21st century version Read More »
“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer,
Young B. Franklin on free speech and wisdom Read More »
Historical example to keep in mind: Text version: “Although the new National Socialist government refused to grant its student supporters the power they demanded to hire and fire professors, it did make job tenure a matter of political ideology.” (Source: historian Arthur Herman’s fine 1997 book, The Idea of Decline in Western History, p. 252)
When professors are hired ideologically Read More »
Review of Leonidas Zelmanovitz,The Ontology and Function of Money: The Philosophical Fundamentals of Monetary Institutions Lexington Books, 2015, 447 pp.Reviewed by Stephen HicksFirst published at Law and Liberty, edited by Richard Reinsch and Lauren Weiner. Money is funny, the old saying goes, both in the cognitive puzzles it generates and the motivational extremes of human
Review of Zelmanovitz on the philosophy of money Read More »
It takes strength of mind to say: “I dislike intensely what you’re saying, yet I will tolerate your saying it.” It takes even more strength to respond with arguments rather than fists or censorship. Related:
Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D., was Reich Minister of Propaganda for the National Socialist government from 1933 to 1945 and, after Hitler, the second or third most powerful man in Germany. “According to the idea of the NSDAP [Nazi party], we are the German left. Nothing is more hateful to us than the right-wing national ownership block.”
Was Goebbels a Socialist? Read More »