Nikole Hannah-Jones, Frederick Douglass, and the Left
[Published at Dissident Voice and other places.] Twitter conversations with public intellectuals are rarely worthy of note, but a recent...
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May 18, 20239 min
Love of freedom defines the political left, not the right
[This article was published at Sublation and other venues.] Political discourse in the United States consists largely of lies and...
Jan 31, 202355 min
The Book of Joe: A Satire of Capitalist Society
Here's an insanely long post. It's actually a "literary experiment" I wrote almost twenty years ago (as the following preface says, which...
Jul 30, 20227 min
Classical music vs. mediocrity
On one side is the mediocrity of all functionaries. All bureaucrats. There’s no point in my writing about bureaucrats in the ordinary...
May 25, 202112 min
Critiques of Richard Rorty (and postmodernism)
[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...
Sep 13, 20206 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...
Sep 4, 20202 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 29, 20203 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 26, 20206 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...
Aug 16, 20204 min
A short critique of Albert Camus
Journal entry from 2007.— Reading The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (by Camus). Impressive book. Tries to answer the question I was...
Aug 11, 202059 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...
Jul 16, 20197 min
Thoughts from the dark
Lugubrious. That's the word for how I'm feeling tonight. That and self-indulgent. So I thought I'd write a blog post. These midnight...
Dec 27, 20183 min
The meaning of life
[Excerpts from this book. See also this blog post, "Excerpts on happiness."] The meaning of life?— Life is not totally “meaningless.”...
Dec 12, 20184 min
Against "the postmodern novel"
[Here's an excerpt from a book on 'humanism' I wanted to write back in 2006. It's from a passage in which I was arguing against...
Jul 30, 20184 min
Old notes on etymology
The profundity of language.— You can gain great insight into the human condition, into the nature of the mind, by studying the evolution...
Mar 21, 201812 min
Notes on Marxism and empiricism
(Also see these notes.) Reading Maurice Cornforth’s Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy (1965). A good book, not dogmatic or...
Jun 21, 20164 min
Notes on Theodor Adorno
[Old notes.] Reading Adorno: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Alex Thomson. I’m not very impressed with Adorno. Continental thinkers...
May 26, 20161 min
Various notes and excerpts
Over the years I've taken copious notes on various topics of philosophy. In case anyone is interested, I'll link to several sets of such...
May 21, 20163 min
Old notes on the Enlightenment
In Margaret Jacob's The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (2001), the selections from Locke’s Thoughts Concerning Education...
May 19, 201612 min
Bertrand Russell, and David Hume, on philosophy
[Old notes.] Reading The Problems of Philosophy (1912) by Bertrand Russell. I’m inclined to agree with most of it. (In a lot of ways I’m...
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