by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ I shouldn’t need to tell anyone that there are people. You’re a person, as am I. There likely are others in your house. Certainly, there are more down on the street. I understand from a not entirely reliable authority that Hell consists of them. Clearly, uncontroversially, obviously, people exist. They aren’t illusions. They aren’t like […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ The editors have invited us to “examine a single philosopher or school, maybe a movement,” so that we might “consider how what passed for wisdom then may or may not help us now.”† Undoubtedly, there are many areas in which we have surpassed the wisdom of our predecessors, but one in which we decidedly have […]
by E. John Winner ____ This is first of two essays, concerning the events of the English Revolution of the 17th century. Why should these events concern an audience primarily interested in philosophy and philosophy’s concrete relations with contemporary culture and politics? The immediate answer to this is quite easily pronounced in two names: Hobbes and Locke. We should all […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ It is to be counted as a blessing that two of our most fundamental political terms, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, wear their meanings on their sleeves, if only because, as George Orwell has observed, confusion in language is typically accompanied by a corresponding disarray in thought. (1) We must deem it somewhat of a scandal, then, […]
by Dwayne Holmes A recent video discussion posted at The Electric Agora tried to pin down the history and definition of “classical liberalism.” [1] This largely agreed with my own understanding. However, at one point Dan and David addressed Social Contract theory, particularly as derived from John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. There, Locke contrasted life in the state of […]
by Daniel A. Kaufman The first of two conversations with our own David Ottlinger on Classical Liberalism and American Society. Here, we go into some depth on what Classical Liberalism is and how it is expressed in the work of its two most foundational thinkers: John Locke and John Stuart Mill. In our second conversation, we focus on Classical Liberalism […]
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