Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Enlightenment

  • Beyond Polarization

    by Bharath Vallabha___ Our society is becoming more polarized. Nuance and subtlety are marginalized as things are reduced to all-encompassing binaries such as red vs. blue. This is as absurd as sorting items in a house in terms of their color instead of their function. Who in their right mind would give up categories such […]

  • on authority [and rousseau’s fork]

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Hannah Arendt maintained that one has authority, when one commands obedience from others, not by exercising power over them, but because they recognize and respect one’s right to do so. [1] To accept authority, then, is to accept hierarchy, which, in turn, is to accept a substantial if not formal […]

  • Course Notes – Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”

    by Daniel A. Kaufman https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/What_is_Enlightenment.pdf Another semester at Missouri State and another edition of Course Notes.  Up for consideration this time is Immanuel Kant’s “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’ ” Having taught Introduction to Philosophy from a topical perspective for a substantial period of time, in recent years I have been teaching […]

  • More on Russell and Lawrence

    by Mark English In his autobiography, Bertrand Russell wrote of the “devastating effect” certain criticisms which D.H. Lawrence once made of his social and political views had on him. These events occurred in 1915. “I was inclined to believe that he had some insight denied to me,” Russell wrote, “and when he said that my […]

  • The Enlightenment Wars

    by David Ottlinger There was a time, I remember it distinctly, when I felt that having opinions on the Enlightenment put me very much in the minority. As an undergrad, in the late aughts, I read a great deal of Locke, Rousseau, Tocqueville and especially Kant. I and my fellow students in the philosophy department […]