Machiavelli Would've Used the N' Word (if It Would've Advanced the Prince)
Machiavelli was probably the first person to advocate a rationalist system in contradiction to irrationalist norms.
Eric Scheske
How Do We Account for Thomas Merton?
Thomas Merton started as a writer, became a Trappist monk with genuine insight into the spiritual life, and then wrapped himself in worldly activism. What happened?
Neil Young Never Hated the Man
He just hated THAT man
Montaigne: The Godfather of 4Chan?
💡Montaigne was the godfather of modern skepticism. His was a “negative skepticism,” which disturbed Descartes enough to prompt him to come up with a positive response, which in turn gave us modernity, its fierce subjectivism, and the parade of “little gods” that have marred the last 200+ years.
"In
Why David Hume is Important
đź’ˇWithin 100 years, the Cartesians used impeccable logic derived from Descartes' I think there I am to reach two conclusions: there is no earthly agent of movement and there is no matter. There is only God and mind. Hume yanked God and mind out of these conclusions and the
The Gnostic is a Believer
Part III of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits
150 Years that Shook Europe
The years 1309 through 1453 made Europe redefine itself.
If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him
J.D. Salinger hit the jackpot in 1951. At age 32, he published The Catcher in the Rye, a novel about an alienated teenager named “Holden Caulfield,” and it became an immediate bestseller. He was a success.
But the novel met with considerable resistance from parents who thought it was
Do You Have a Totalitarian Impulse?
Drinking with friends and the Diocletian Test
Do you have a totalitarian impulse?
Ask yourself: "Do I think the government's goals or aims should take priority over human nature?" Put another way: "Do I think the government's noble end justifies a bad means?
When Western Civilization Submitted Itself to a Lobotomy
Descartes' dualism was obviously wrong, but it won over western civilization.