1961 West German Bundespost stamp featuring Kant
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All essays in this series available here
With this, the tenth essay in this series, we have reached a significant milestone. Our journey has taken us from Plato to Kant, and this is the fourth essay on Heidegger’s Kant interpretation. In the last installment, we saw that Kant is struggling to transcend the representationalist paradigm, but that he is inconsistent in this. (more…)
M. C. Escher, Hand with Reflecting Sphere, 1935.
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All essays in this series available here
My two previous essays introduced readers to Kant’s transcendental idealism and discussed the similarities and differences between Kant’s critique of metaphysics and Heidegger’s. It is now time to begin to consider Heidegger’s critique of Kant, and how Heidegger locates him within his history of metaphysics. (more…)
Giacomo Balla, Science Against Obscurantism, 1920
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Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here
My last essay ended with the observation that there are clear points of convergence between Kant’s thought and Heidegger’s. (more…)
1974 West German Bundespost stamp, commemorating Kant’s 250th birthday
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Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here
1. Introduction
In the previous essay in this series, we saw Heidegger claiming that Leibniz “prepares” the completion of the metaphysical tradition, but that it is Nietzsche who actually brings it about. I will devote a future essay to Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche, but we may note here that the completion of metaphysics would have been impossible without Kant, who answers Leibniz and inadvertently prepares the way for Nietzsche. (more…)
G. W. Leibniz Memorial in Leipzig
7,567 words
Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here
1. Introduction: Leibniz and the Completion of Metaphysics
Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von Leibniz (1646–1716) is one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of ideas. A true polymath, he was not only a philosopher but a physicist, historian, jurist, diplomat, inventor, and mathematician. (more…)
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Of peasant ancestry on his father’s side and boasting aristocratic (boyar) maternal roots, the Romanian poet, prose writer, and editorialist Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) had not put his modest inherited wealth to waste. Educated in the German language since childhood, Eminescu was culturally — if not always geopolitically — an enthusiastic Germanophile. (more…)
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Why does Scruton not examine the role of Melot in Death-Devoted Heart more closely?
Tristan und Isolde echoes themes from Romeo and Juliet and Othello, so it is unlikely that Wagner did not have both plays in mind when he composed his opera. The Othello theme is especially clear in the regrets expressed by King Marke that he could not clearly see, just as Othello could not clearly see. Melot, like Iago, faces death if he cannot make good the claim of adultery; (more…)
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Sir Roger Scruton, who died of cancer on January 12th, 2020 at the age of seventy-five, wrote more than fifty books, was the editor of the conservative publication The Salisbury Review, and in his final years was briefly chairman — dismissed and subsequently reinstated — of the Conservative Government’s “Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.”
I once met Roger Scruton. He invited me to his flat in London in 1982 where I remember enjoying his excellent wine. (more…)
Friedrich Schiller
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To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
I gave this lecture on the concepts of the sublime and the grotesque in a course on Basic Concepts of Aesthetics on September 5, 2000. I apologize for the poor sound quality and noise from the audience. There are also some abrupt cuts where I removed the voices of students, who were mostly inaudible. (more…)
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As the Chinese “silent invasion” of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada continues, you may want to learn something about the Western academics who lay the intellectual groundwork for this invasion. In a prior article, “The Transcendental Mind of Europeans Stands Above the Embedded Mind of Asians,” we met two influential scholars calling upon whites to abandon their “failed” attempts to formulate transcendental truths for the sake of the more “profound” contextual approach of Chinese philosophers with their demonstration that all thinking is “embedded” to a time and a place. (more…)
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Part 2 of 4
Conventional vs. Postconventional Morals
Europeans will never become tribal and collectivist in the manner and degree of non-Europeans. Having an individual identity, an awareness of one’s inner being, that one’s actions can be causally dependent on one’s free will rather than on preceding events, (more…)
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The subtitle of the English translation of Julius Evola’s Ride the Tiger (Cavalcare la Tigre) promises that it offers “A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul.”[1] As a result, one comes to the work with the expectation that it will constitute a kind of “self-help book” for Traditionalists, for “men against time.” (more…)
Fichte addressing the German people on the importance of nationalism.
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“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live. . .”
–Deuteronomy 30:19
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Matthew Crawford
The World Beyond Your Head
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016
Matthew Crawford is a new but powerful intellectual. His debut in the public sphere began in 2009 with his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, which was affectionately dubbed “Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Slate, and positively reviewed by Francis Fukuyama. Crawford’s second polemic, however, is more far-reaching, and stands to supplant his first work as his philosophical masterpiece. (more…)
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A few months ago, a delightful eccentric was interviewed on the streets of New York, claiming that Donald Trump, if elected, would “raise Thule,” as well as Atlantis. This chubby-cheeked, curly-haired, manic moppet (who calls himself “Kantbot”) went on to predict that Trump would “complete the system of German Idealism.” The video went viral – at least in our circles.
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Introduction
This essay examines Alain de Benoist’s book Beyond Human Rights, translated into English in 2011 by Arktos, originally published in French in 2004. This book is a powerful condemnation of the Western idea of natural rights, which it claims to be intrinsically associated with the idea that all humans across the world have human rights. It objects to the imposition of human rights obligations on an otherwise multicultural humanity. (more…)
Peter Paul Rubens: „Die vier Philosophen“, mit einer Büste von Seneca, 1611-1612
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Übersetzt von Deep Roots
English original here
Vor ein paar Jahren entschied ich, daß ich einen Kodex brauchte, um danach zu leben: eine Reihe von Prinzipien, die mein Leben leiten. Nun, es ist nicht so, als hätte ich nicht bereits einige Prinzipien entdeckt, die mir als richtig erschienen; es war nicht so, als ob ich im Blindflug unterwegs gewesen wäre, ohne irgendwelche Überzeugungen. Aber ich hatte mich nie hingesetzt und darüber nachgedacht, woraus genau mein „Kodex“ bestand, und das alles zu Papier gebracht. (more…)
Ecstatic with herself
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The world of academia is full of hyper-inflated academics with multiple titles, prizes, honors, publications, grants and “original” ideas. Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, is a typical case in point; (more…)
Peter Paul Rubens, “The Four Philosophers,” with a bust of Seneca, 1611-1612
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German translation here
A few years ago, I decided I needed a code to live by: a set of principles to guide my life. Now, it’s not as if I hadn’t already discovered some principles that seemed right to me; it wasn’t as if I was flying blind, without any convictions. But I had never sat down and reflected on exactly what my “code” consisted in, and put it all on paper. So, I decided one day to do just that.
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The Nature of Mind
“We are now in the last stages of idealism,” Lawrence writes in Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, and he goes on to claim that psychoanalysis is conducting us through those last stages.[1] Furthermore, he also tells us that idealism is “the one besetting sin of the human race.”[2] What does Lawrence mean by idealism, and why is he so opposed to it?
Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner
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A number of years ago I wrote an essay offering an interpretation of the cult TV series The Prisoner (anthologized in Summoning the Gods, published by Counter-Currents).
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte was one of those rare men who are both thinkers and heroes. His challenging Wissenschaftslehre (“doctrine of science”) remains one of the most ambitious attempts to encompass the world and its meaning in a speculative philosophical system. In his elaboration of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of ethical idealism, Fichte achieved a compelling synthesis of the complementary values of freedom and duty. (more…)
Clemency of Marcus Aurelius, detail, Capitoline Museum
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Part 4 of 5
Ricardo Duchesne
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization
Leiden: Brill, 2011
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English original here
1 – Fichte e o Destino da Nação Alemã
J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), o primeiro dos grandes idealistas alemães pós-kantianos, é uma figura importante na ascensão do nacionalismo alemão – e tem sido muitas vezes acusado de ser um dos pais fundadores do Nacional-Socialismo.
Philipp Veit, “Germania,” 1848
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Portuguese translation here
1. Fichte and the Destiny of the German Nation
J. G. Fichte (1762–1814), the first of the great post-Kantian German Idealists, is an important figure in the rise of German nationalism – and has often been accused of being one of the founding fathers of National Socialism.
Norns by J. L. Lund (1777-1867)
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English original here
1. O Problema
Nós temos “livre-arbítrio”? Certamente isso me parece que eu livremente escolho o que eu faço em vida, com respeito a coisas tanto maiores quanto menores. Minha decisão de graduar no colégio, por exemplo, certamente parece ter sido feito livremente, sem nenhuma coerção de outros. (more…)
