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Sep 13
6 min

On how to live

When I was younger, I used to wonder: should I care what people think of me? I saw arguments on both sides of the question. And I still d...

Sep 8
21 min

"Revolution in the Twenty-First Century: A Reconsideration of Marxism"

[An article from several months ago.] In the age of COVID-19, it’s even more obvious than it’s been for at least a couple of decades that...

Sep 4
2 min

I was feeling rather metaphysical last night

David Graeber died. At 59. Tomorrow, you or I might die. At any moment. Meanwhile, we pretend life has meaning. Eventually, we will die. ...

Aug 31
10 min

On Wittgenstein and Quine

Wittgenstein is an odd case. I've always had the impression that his early work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is genius—and not on...

Aug 30
37 min

Critical remarks on academia and philosophy

I was recently skimming old notes of mine and came across the following thoughts from a two-volume book on "humanism" I wanted to write i...

Aug 29
3 min

"Government in the Future"

[From 2008.] Reading Chomsky’s pamphlet Government in the Future, which sets out to answer the question “What is the role of the state in...

Aug 29
19 min

Thoughts on the analytic/synthetic distinction

Here's a paper I wrote long ago in which I tried to clarify some issues around the philosophical distinction between analytic and synthet...

Aug 28
17 min

A critique and defense of Plato’s “just state”

In case anyone out there has an interest in Plato, here's a paper from my student days in which I did the shamelessly anachronistic and a...

Aug 27
21 min

The remarkable perversity of idealism

Many years ago, when I was a simple boy who thought he ought to know a lot about Hegel, I took masses of notes on his philosophy. Below i...

Aug 26
16 min

Methodological individualism vs. holism

If you're like me and are dumb enough to take an interest in abstruse debates among social scientists, you may have heard of the "debate"...

Aug 26
6 min

"A refutation of Kantian and Benthamite ethics"

Here's a paper from my undergraduate days, which you might find mildly interesting in its outline (and critique) of both Kantian and Bent...

Aug 24
25 min

Why I am not a Leninist (nor an anarchist)

I'll probably never forgive myself for self-publishing my book on cooperatives, because that ensured it would have a limited readership. ...

Aug 22
23 min

The definition of knowledge

Philosophers have a tendency to treat questions that revolve around the meaning of a particular concept as if they are more substantive t...

Aug 17
7 min

Fragments on Marxism and anarchism

April 2010.— One of the advantages of Marx’s equation of progress with the expansion of productive capacity is that it provides a clear c...

Aug 16
4 min

A short critique of Albert Camus

June 2007.— Reading The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (by Camus). Impressive book. Tries to answer the question I was preoccupied wit...

Aug 11
59 min

The relativity of values

Back in my twenties I had an intellectual and creative energy I don't have anymore. I was consumed by philosophy, jumping from topic to t...

Jun 28
7 min

Old student notes on random philosophy articles

Sometimes I like to return to philosophy in order to get the sort of intellectual stimulation that reading history doesn't provide. E.g.,...

Jun 14
19 min

Critical remarks on Thomas Nagel

[From 2009.] I’m reading Thomas Nagel’s famous book The View From Nowhere (1986). Nagel seems more sensible than most contemporary philos...

Jun 9
8 min

Old syllabus and lecture notes

[Here are some notes from the first syllabus I wrote for the U.S. History After 1865 survey course. Below them are overly ambitious notes...

Jul 24, 2019
20 min

A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing

This is from a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his pastor friend Oskar Pfister: I do not break my head very much about good and evil, but I...

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