Author: Collin Cleary

Portrait of Schelling by Karl Joseph Stieler

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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

In the first part of this essay I introduced readers to Schelling, who is one of the first philosophers to react against what Heideggereans have called “the metaphysics of presence”: the hidden will in Western metaphysics that gives primacy to human subjectivity, adjusting our understanding of the Being of beings to the human desire that beings should be completely transparent to us, hiding nothing, and readily available for our manipulation. In response to this, Schelling argues that it is nature, not human subjectivity, that should be the starting point of philosophy. (more…)

A daguerreotype of F. W. J. Schelling from 1848, the first known photograph of a philosopher.

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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

1. Introduction: A Philosophical Rebel

This essay is a continuation of my series on “Heidegger’s History of Metaphysics.” With Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) we have reached a significant milestone, in a number of ways. Behind us, in our journey toward Gelassenheit, we have Plato, the philosophers of the Middle Ages, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Fichte. Ahead of Schelling we have only two more philosophers to discuss, Hegel and Nietzsche, before we turn to cover in more detail Heidegger’s response to the metaphysical tradition and to modernity. (more…)

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Having already published two extensive articles on The Prisoner (see here and here), I didn’t expect to ever write about the series again. But times have changed, and so has The Prisoner. Works of art are living things, and their meaning changes over time. This ultimately has little to do with the artist’s intentions. That The Prisoner had changed was brought home to me one evening when, on a whim, I chose to revisit an episode I had always disliked. (more…)

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Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

1. Fichte on the Nature of the State

We began to explore Fichte’s political philosophy in the last installment, as expounded primarily in his 1796 work Foundations of Natural Right. It is a basic principle of Fichte’s philosophy that subjectivity, what he calls the “I,” must bring nature under the control of reason. (more…)

A French Jacobin

3,782 words

Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

1. Introduction: Transcendental Idealism as Political Radicalism

In part one of this essay, I covered J. G. Fichte’s moral philosophy, as set out in his 1798 work The System of Ethics. In the present installment, which is largely self-contained, I shall cover his social and political philosophy, chiefly as expounded in The Foundations of Natural Right. Here we will find many ways in which Fichte lays the groundwork for contemporary Leftism, including a surprising anticipation of what Gen Z calls “real Communism.” (more…)

J. G. Fichte

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Part 1 of 3 (Part 2 here)

1. “I am what I freely make myself to be”

This is the sixth essay I have written for Counter-Currents on the German idealist J. G. Fichte (see the introductory essay here), and it is effectively a continuation of my series on “Heidegger’s History of Metaphysics.” However, the reader need not be familiar with any of the earlier entries in order to understand this one. (more…)

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English original here

Edred Thorsson
History of the Rune-Gild: The Reawakening of the Gild 1980-2018, North Augusta, S.C.: Arcana Europa, 2019.

Pozn. překladatele: Kniha má, snad trochu překvapivě, vztah i k České republice. Obsahuje totiž krom jiného také fotky české pohanky Šárky Sedlákové, která se setkala s Edredem Thorssonem/Stephenem Flowersem osobně, je členkou Runové gildy, a mimo jiné též stála za chaosmagickou edicí KIAton. (more…)

Mr. Gurdjieff

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We are not exactly sure when George Ivanovich Gurdjieff arrived on this Earth, but it was probably January 13, around 1866. He was born in Alexandropol, then part of the Russian Empire, to a Greek father (an ashik or singer-poet) and an Armenian mother. As a young man, Gurdjieff travelled through the Middle East and Central Asia for around 20 years, searching for enlightenment. (more…)

G. I. Gurdjieff

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As I write this, I am spending Yuletide in Salzburg. A day ago, I took the train to Vienna and stopped at the Café Mozart for lunch. There, as luck would have it, I ran into a good friend of mine who is some 15 years younger than me. After lunch, we decided to visit the Christmas markets. There, we drank Glühwein and he unburdened himself. My young friend has had his share of personal problems, and very much wants to move on with his life. However, as he talked I noticed a pattern showing up in his conversation, one which I had seen before. It was a tendency to dwell on the past. (more…)

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1. Knowledge of the Right Use of All Things

To explain what philosophy is, we always have to go back to the beginning. Pythagoras (ca. 570-495 BC) is said to have been confronted by Leon, the tyrant of Philius, who demanded to know if he was wise. He responded that he was not a wise man, but merely a φιλόσοφος (philosophos), a “lover of wisdom”; a practitioner of φιλοσοφία (philosophia). Φίλος (philos) means “love,” and σοφῐ́ᾱ (sophia) means “wisdom.” (more…)

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1. Introduction

The thesis of this essay is that it is wise to be superstitious. To put it differently, I will argue that my readers should be superstitious — or that they should embrace the superstitious nature they already have (for most of us have it), rather than try to disown superstition. (more…)

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Part 4 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

5. Critique of Magical Idealism (Continued)

(b) How strong is Evola’s case for idealism?

I noted earlier that Evola sums up his idealism using Berkeley’s famous expression esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). (more…)

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Part 3 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 4 here)

5. Critique of Magical Idealism

In this concluding section, I will discuss three major difficulties with magical idealism: (more…)