Topic: Philosophy

Classical Liberalism, Crisis, Education, Philosophy

What Do We Mean by Liberal Education?

– August 28, 2022

“The mark of a genuinely liberal education is that it aims at instilling a set of paradoxical qualities, which are often quite fiercely at odds with one another: the capacity for inquiry, and the capacity for membership.” ~ Wilfred M. McClay

Government, Philosophy, Science

Complexity, Scientism, and Contemporary Politics

– August 26, 2022

“The scientistic attitude encourages policymakers to adopt what Hayek called a ‘pretense of knowledge,’ an overconfident, if not plainly false, belief in their own knowledge and powers of social control.” ~ Scott Scheall

Economic Education, Government, Philosophy, Socialism

Open Letter to a Young Marxist

– August 20, 2022

“If any social experiment depends on scorching the earth before building a Utopia, it is probably not the way. But if an ideal system starts small and grows, pulling more human souls into its influence, it’s probably got legs.” ~ Max Borders

Art and Culture, Books, Government, Philosophy

How Thomas Aquinas Desacralized the State

– August 8, 2022

“McCormick illustrates that Aquinas’s De Regno provides us with a politics that takes liberty and virtue seriously—but always together and never apart. And that should matter to anyone, religious or otherwise, who refuses both nihilism and collectivism.” ~ Samuel Gregg

Government, History, Philosophy

Hannah Arendt’s Chilling Thesis on Evil

– August 6, 2022

“As Arendt explained, ‘Going along with the rest and wanting to say ‘we’ were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible.'” ~ Lawrence W. Reed

Government, History, Philosophy

Conservatism, National or Constitutional?

– July 22, 2022

“National conservatives seem to be trying to beat the left at its own game: to deploy the same disastrous methods but merely switch the ends. This is not a path to lasting improvement.” ~ Tyler Syck

Crisis, Free Markets, Philosophy, Technology

Tyrannies of Hyperreality

– July 13, 2022

“Outsourcing our problems to distant capitals has always gotten us into bigger problems. So the lesson here is not just about hyperreality. We must start to decentralize. Localize. Self-organize.” ~ Max Borders

Classical Liberalism, Government, History, Philosophy

The Rule of Law

– July 13, 2022

“The rule of law gives warrant to liberalism. We should better learn to expound on how liberalism promotes the rule of law and how the governmentalization of social affairs tends to destroy the rule of law.” ~ Daniel B. Klein

Government, History, Philosophy

You Should Care About Martin Van Buren

– June 30, 2022

“Martin Van Buren may not be everyone’s favorite President, but he is worth studying. After all, an estimated 28 percent of Americans identify with the Democratic Party. People should at least know how their political party came to be and why it endured.” ~ Garion Frankel

Art and Culture, History, Philosophy

Athens and Jerusalem Revisited

– June 27, 2022

“Perhaps it’s time to trust what seems self-evident, and stop being afraid to look for guidance in a tradition that has proved reliable for so many for so long.” ~ Juliana Geran Pilon

Crisis, Education, Government, Philosophy

What Are Philosophers of Education Even Talking About?

– June 21, 2022

“Let’s make something clear: A third grade teacher who is struggling to teach more than twenty children, many of whom likely have behavioral problems, how to do math couldn’t care less about posthuman eating.” ~ Garion Frankel

Books, Crisis, History, Philosophy

The Oikophobic Will to Power

– June 21, 2022

“What the oikophobe wants is power within his own country, and oikophobia is an instrument to achieve it by delegitimizing those he thinks already have it. He wants to replace one ruling class, as he sees it, with another – his own.” ~ Theodore Dalrymple