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1. Introduction: Remind me, why Fichte?
Readers have been asking me why I am devoting multiple essays to J. G. Fichte, an exceedingly difficult and seldom-read German Idealist born in 1762. The simple answer is that these essays are a continuation of my series on Heidegger’s “history of metaphysics.” Having devoted several essays to Kant, I am continuing with Fichte, then will move on to Schelling and Hegel, and then, finally, to Nietzsche. (more…)
J. G. Fichte meets Immanuel Kant, 1791
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1. “The circumference of my world is equivalent to the limits of my will.”
In my last essay, we established that for Fichte self-consciousness is an ultimate fact. We saw via our own experiments in introspection that the “I” — this “presence” that says, in effect “I am” — is not simply a feature of the self, it is the self. (more…)
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1. Martin Heidegger Reads Fichte
On June 25, 1929, Heidegger wrote to Karl Jaspers, “At the present moment I am lecturing on Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling for the first time — and once more a new world opens up before me. (more…)
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David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is not just a great film, it is a nearly perfect one. Even better, it was recognized as such from the start by virtually everyone. The critics lionized it and continue to include it on their “best” lists. The movie business showered it with prizes. Bridge won seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. Audiences made it the biggest film of 1957 and a perennial favorite ever since. (more…)
Detail, Wojciech Gerson, The Capture of the Wends, 1866.
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Populist leaders like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen are right in zeroing in on the economic damage that the globalists have inflicted on the working and middle classes. (more…)
White students pondering over a Herbert Marcuse lecture on the “one-dimensional mind” of the white race.
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No one knows Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861). He was a legal philosopher of Jewish parentage who converted to Christianity and became a defender of Prussian Lutheran conservatism against the imposition of Enlightenment values. He rejected Hegel’s argument (more…)
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In the latest episode of Guide to Kulchur, Greg Johnson joins Fróði Midjord for a conversation on Nietzsche’s second essay in the Untimely Meditations, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life (1874). Topics include civilizational decline, nihilism, vitalism, Christianity, and Nietzsche’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of history.
The episode is archived on BitChute (video) and Spreaker (more…)
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You’d rather see me in the pen
Than me and Lorenzo rollin’ in a Benz-o
Beat a police out of shape
And when I’m finished, bring the yellow tape
To tape off the scene of the slaughter
Still getting swole off bread and water
I don’t know if they fags or what
Search a nigga down, and grabbing his nuts
And on the other hand, without a gun, they can’t get none.
— N. W. A., “Fuck tha Police.” (more…)
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In the fall of 2000, I taught an adult education class entitled Philosophy on Film, where we discussed The Matrix, American Beauty, Ground Hog Day, Network, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Gattaca, and Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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Richard M. Weaver
Ideas Have Consequences
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948
Expanded edition, with a Foreword by Roger Kimball and an Afterword by Ted J. Smith III, 2013.
The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture …. (more…)
Alexandre Kojève
5,094 slov
English original here
Poznámka autora: Následuje přepis řeči, kterou jsem v roce 2000 přednesl v Atlantě. Odstranil jsem příliš košaté větné konstrukce, stejně jako občasnou interakci s publikem.
Žijeme v době bohaté na předpovědi konce věků. Loni, na konci roku 1999, oslavovala drtivá většina silvestrovských hýřilů o rok předčasně konec milénia. (more…)
Hendrick ter Brugghen, Heraclitus, 1628
2,226 slov
English original here
Poznámka autora: Následuje text části přednášky z 15. srpna 1996 z kurzu pro dospělé v Atlantě, který jsem vedl během svého doktorského studia. Celá přednáška byla podstatně delší a mluvil jsem při ní mj. o Rousseauovi, Kantovi, Schillerovi nebo Hegelovi.
Proč jsme se tu dnes večer sešli? (more…)