G. W. F. Hegel: “From the Kantian system and its completion I expect a revolution in Germany.” Johann Holderlin: “Kant is the Moses of our nation.” “Within a few years of the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the seminal thinkers […]
Some post-Kantians on Kant, pro and con Read More »
In Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice by Nikhil Goyal asks: Are America’s schools little more than cinderblock gulags that spawn vicious cliques and bullying, negate creativity and true learning, and squelch curiosity in their inmates, um, students? Goyal is a recent high school graduate (2013), but recalls his
Goyal’s *Schools on Trial* Read More »
University of Pittsburgh philosophy professor Robert Brandom: “I want to start going back and looking at the roots of American pragmatism in the German Idealist tradition. I think developments over the last four decades have secured Immanuel Kant’s status as being for contemporary philosophers what the sea was for the poet Swinburne: ‘the great grey
Robert Brandom: Kant as “the great grey mother of us all” Read More »
[From lecture notes for Immanuel Kant’s 1775-1780 courses as published in Lectures on Ethics [1775-1780], translated by Louis Infield, New York: Harper and Row, 1963, pp. 162-168. The text is below and here as PDF.] Duties towards the Body in Respect of Sexual Impulse Amongst our inclinations there is one which is directed towards other
Kant on sex, marriage, concubines, prostitutes, and incest [text] Read More »
Professor Roderick T. Long has published his essay, “Kant: Liberal, Illiberal, or Both?”, in the Cato Unbound discussion series. Here is the abstract of his essay: Roderick Long offers a complex view of Immanuel Kant, who emerges as more often liberal in principle than in practice. Kant approved of taxation, a welfare state, and even
Long on Kant and liberal politics [Cato Unbound Series] Read More »
In the Cato Unbound series, my article “Does Kant Have a Place in Classical Liberalism?” is now up. Here, courtesy of editor Jason Kuznicki, is an abstract: Stephen R. C. Hicks argues that if our case for liberty comes from a mysterious other realm, then perhaps we have no case at all. He describes how
Kant’s non-defense of classical liberalism — my article for Cato Unbound Read More »
In this article, Newberry discusses Kant’s theory of the sublime and contrasts it to Aristotle’s and Rand’s aesthetic theories, along the way using modernists and postmodernists such as Duchamp, Manzoni, Hatoum, and Creed as examples, and then giving an extended review of Start Mark Feldman’s The Future in Our Hands sculpture group. Pandora’s Box: The
Michael Newberry on the sublime in art Read More »
Here is a common scenario: A successful person makes a donation to a worthy cause but downplays any praise by saying “I’m only giving back.” Like many others, I am troubled by the “giving back” phrase when I hear it. The usual gentle rejoinder is to point out that the phrase assumes that the giver
Kant and “giving back” Read More »