Wright's Writing

You may have noticed that the question of immigration is on people’s minds lately (as it has been, almost without interruption, since the...

[Here are notes I took many years ago while reading Richard Rorty’s famous book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. As you’ll see from...

Anarchism (anti-authoritarianism, love of freedom) is an essential thing, an essential guide for our thinking and action, but I have to...

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...

[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...

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

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

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...

[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...

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

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...

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...

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"...

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

Years later, I still reproach myself for self-publishing my book on cooperatives, because that ensured it would have a limited...

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

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

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

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...

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