Category:Philosophers
Most social scientists can’t predict the future. But this philosopher did.
July 20, 2017 | Post
How a “nasty little man” predicted the 2nd French Revolution and the Cold War.
The king is dead, long live chaos! Why Hobbes was wrong and Burke was right.
May 30, 2017 | Post
Early liberal theorists gave French revolutionaries the tools to overthrow oppressive kings, but also to unleash chaos and violence.
Happy birthday to René Descartes, father of methodological skepticism
March 31, 2017 | Post
Once he entered the intellectual fray, things would never be the same.
Elinor Ostrom, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and learning to see the women who have shaped the world
March 31, 2017 | Post
Well-behaved women seldom make history, but they should.
Mary Wollstonecraft: Libertarian Feminist
March 21, 2017 | Post
Almost two centuries before the women’s lib movement and a full century before the suffragettes, not all women were quiet subordinates to men. In this 1996 essay, historian Jim Powell provides us with an illuminating account of the brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century author and philosopher who never minced her words in defense of equal […]
3 women who inspired the modern libertarian movement
March 12, 2017 | Post
Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand together comprise the “founding mothers” of modern libertarianism.
Rawls the Irrelevant
February 21, 2017 | Post
My thesis is simple: If you want to square libertarianism with social justice, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is probably not a book you should reach for.
A (Revised) Theory of Justice
February 21, 2017 | Post
Although Rawls is part of the liberal tradition, he is arguably the pinnacle of the “high” liberal tradition, which is a far cry from the “classical” side I’m more comfortable with.
Was Jeremy Bentham a Classical Liberal at heart?
February 15, 2017 | Post
Jeremy Bentham was born on Feb. 15th, 1748, in Spitalfields, England. One of the main early advocates of utilitarianism — the ethical view that, roughly, an act is right insofar as it promotes happiness, and wrong insofar as it does not — he is best known for his view that “it is the greatest happiness […]
Immanuel Kant: Philosopher of Freedom
February 2, 2017 | Post
Kant was self-consciously an Enlightenment liberal who believed in limited government and maximum freedom.
Crony-in-Chief: Donald Trump epitomizes Ayn Rand’s “Aristocracy of Pull.”
February 2, 2017 | Post
A president who truly understood Rand’s philosophy would not be cozying up to Putin, bullying companies to keep manufacturing plants in the United States, or promising “insurance for everybody.”
Liberalism reconstructed for a world divided
December 31, 2016 | Post
So 2016 is limping to an end with an assassination of an ambassador, another “inspired” attack on innocents at a Christmas market, and the formal election of a master crony-capitalist to the office of the presidency of the United States.
Schools of thought in classical liberalism
November 23, 2016 | Post
Classical liberals all agree that government should be limited, but they disagree about how they get to that conclusion.
Getting Good Results vs Doing the Right Thing
November 17, 2016 | Post
Would you tell a lie to protect someone from harm?
Here are 7 lesser-known classical liberal thinkers for your World Philosophy Day
November 17, 2016 | Post
Here are seven criminally underrated philosophers to celebrate this World Philosophy Day.
Yet another comically bad caricature of libertarianism
October 15, 2016 | Post
Another day, another hilariously awful straw man argument against libertarianism.