Tag: philosophy

Judith Butler

4,207 words

Introduction

Why do Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and Hannah Arendt appear alongside Aristotle, Leibnitz, and Wittgenstein in a list of the 50 greatest philosophers of all time, which omits Spinoza, Frege, and Popper?[1] Why does a list of 90 supposedly famous philosophers include people like St. Teresa of Avila and Anna Comnena, whoever they were?[2] It is done to be politically correct. The lack of great female philosophers is so complete that it is felt that one or two women must be put on such lists so as to suggest that it is not beyond a woman to think deeply. (more…)

James Burnham

1,130 words

In The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom,[1] James Burnham sets forth a Machiavellian method for interpreting political texts. (Methods of interpretation are also known as “hermeneutic” methods.) Burnham distinguishes between the “formal” and the “real” meanings of texts. The formal meaning of a text is “what it explicitly states when taken at face value” (p. 8). The formal meaning also expresses, albeit in an indirect and disguised manner, “what may be called the real meaning” (p. 8). (more…)

9,802 words

Author’s Note:

This is a substantially edited transcript of a 1998 lecture on Plato’s Apology of Socrates. The translation is from Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes’ Clouds, trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). Paraphrases are placed in ‘single quotes,’ whereas actual quotes appear in “quotation marks.” (more…)

Richard M. Weaver

681 words

America wasn’t always a liberal country. The founders drew more upon classical republicanism than liberalism. In the nineteenth century, the populist movement was decidedly anti-liberal. But the founders and the populists were never consistently anti-liberal, because consistency is the province of intellectuals, not statesmen.

America never had a genuinely anti-liberal intellectual movement until the Southern Agrarians of the 1920s and 1930s. (The North American New Right is America’s second anti-liberal intellectual movement.) (more…)

28 words / 9:34

Counter-Currents presents a new video of Greg Johnson’s essay “Blaming Your Parents,” about why it’s a bad idea to blame your misfortunes on your upbringing or genetic heritage. (more…)

458 words

Anthony Mario Ludovici was born on January 8, 1882.

Ludovici was one of the first and most accomplished translators of Nietzsche into English and a leading exponent of Nietzsche’s thought. Ludovici was also an original philosopher in his own right. In nearly forty books, including eight novels, and hundreds of shorter works, Ludovici set forth his views on metaphysics, religion, ethics, politics, economics, the sexes, health, eugenics, art, modern culture, and current events (more…)

1,632 words

The man . . . has equipped himself with many things for his journey. — Franz Kafka, “Before the Law”

While I have life and strength I shall never cease from the teaching and practice of philosophy. — Socrates, Plato’s Apology (more…)

2,058 words

This is my art. This is the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. — Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

The wheel also appears in alchemical texts as a symbol of spiritual ascent and descent. — Richard Cavendish, The Tarot (more…)

390 words

René Guénon was born on November 15, 1886. Along with Julius Evola, Guénon was one of the leading figures in the Traditionalist school, which has deeply influenced my own outlook and the metapolitical mission and editorial agenda of Counter-Currents Publishing and North American New Right. (For a sense of my differences with Guénon, see my lecture on “Vico and the New Right.”)

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Georges Sorel

298 words

Georges Eugène Sorel was born 175 years ago today, and died at the age of 74. Born in Normandy and educated in Paris, Sorel was an engineer by training who took an early retirement to devote himself to philosophy and politics. Although conservative by temperament (he defended the patriarchal family and martial virtues), Sorel became a Marxist, albeit an increasingly heterodox one, and a revolutionary syndicalist.

Although Sorel had an elite education, on all essential matters he was an autodidact. (more…)

8,770 words

The following essay on Plato’s Theages is based on a transcript of a taped lecture, which I revised based on notes for two later lectures on the same dialogue that offered a more complete interpretation. I want to thank V.S. for the original transcript.

The Theages is a short Platonic dialogue that can be read as a response to Aristophanes’ Clouds. In both texts, Socrates is approached by a country gentleman to educate his son. In the Clouds, the father is insistent, the son reluctant. (more…)

7,590 words

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…)