Tag: rationalism

6,367 words

Introduction here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here, Chapter 7 here

Translated by F. Roger Devlin

In the eighteenth century, in order to put a definitive end to the wars of religion, liberalism attempted to “pacify” society politically and ideologically. (more…)

Wolfgang Lettl, The Candidate, 1996.

2,116 words

When the Soviet Union was new, there were those of us Stalin turned to for our particular skills. We were trained to turn men’s minds to our will. This is Stalin’s psychic legacy.
(more…)

Giacomo Balla, Science Against Obscurantism, 1920

6,034 words

Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here

1. Metaphysics, Natural Science, and Nihilism

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

5,568 words

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…)

Frans Hals, Portrait of René Descartes, 1649-1700.

6,518 words

1. To Be Is to Be “Set Before”

In the previous installment of this series, we saw Heidegger contrasting modernity to the Middle Ages in the following terms:

For the Middle Ages . . . the being is the ens creatum, that which is created by the personal creator-God, who is considered to be the highest cause. (more…)

White students pondering over a Herbert Marcuse lecture on the “one-dimensional mind” of the white race.

1,364 words

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…)

5,456 words

Paul Gottfried, editor
The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism
DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2020

The Vanishing Tradition is an anthology edited by Paul Gottfried, and owing to its structure, a proper review is not really possible. Rather, I will individually summarize and comment on each contribution to the anthology. (more…)

1,729 words

If you’re looking for a film to get you good and spooked for Halloween, you can’t go wrong with Event Horizon, the 1996 sci-fi horror directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The spooky atmosphere, the gore, the violence, the senselessness of the horror, the simultaneous claustrophobia and agoraphobia of a vast, cavernous spaceship in Neptune’s upper atmosphere all add up to provide a unique experience. But more important to us is the existential meaning of such horrors as the movie has to offer. (more…)