There is a strange thing that happens when you read John Locke today. You expect a dusty seventeenth century philosopher in a powdered wig, mumbling about property and government. Instead, you find a man who sounds suspiciously like he is live tweeting our current culture wars from beyond the grave. Locke is the patron saint […]
Could Locke Defend Cancel Culture? Re-Examining the Limits of Free Thought Read More »
There is a particular genre of internet content that promises you the secret schedule of a genius. Wake at 5am like this CEO. Cold plunge like that founder. Read for an hour before touching your phone. The implication is always the same: copy the routine, inherit the results. Voltaire would have found this funny. Not
The Voltaire Morning Routine: Coffee, Spite, and 18 Hours of Work Read More »
In 1748, a French aristocrat published a book that would quietly reshape how Europeans thought about why some nations grew rich while others stayed poor. His name was Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, and his book, The Spirit of the Laws, attempted something audacious. He wanted to explain human civilization itself. Not through divine
In 1790, a French mathematician named Nicolas de Condorcet wrote something that should have ended several debates before they even began. He argued that rights were not gifts handed down by kings or granted by tradition. They were the logical consequence of being a thinking creature capable of suffering, reasoning, and forming preferences about its
Why AI Needs Human Rights: Condorcet’s Framework for Defining Sentience and Agency Read More »
Picture Immanuel Kant, the eighteenth century German philosopher, sitting on a couch in Königsberg with a bowl of popcorn. On the screen, twenty five women in evening gowns are competing for roses from a man named Brad who works in pharmaceutical sales. One of them is crying in a limousine. Another is calling herself the
Why Kant Would Hate “The Bachelor” (And Most Reality TV) Read More »
There is a famous line attributed to Voltaire that goes something like this: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The quote is everywhere. It is printed on mugs, sprayed on protest signs, quoted by politicians, and dropped into Twitter threads by people who
European vs. American Free Speech: Competing Interpretations of Voltaire’s Legacy Read More »
There is a quiet scandal at the heart of modern thinking about money. We have somehow arrived at a moment in history where earning a profit is treated as morally suspicious, while losing money is seen as evidence of pure intentions. A nonprofit that burns through donations and produces nothing measurable gets a respectful nod.
Descartes sat by a fire in 1637 and tried to doubt everything. His clothes, his hands, the room itself. He stripped away every certainty until only one thing remained standing. Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Thought, the stubborn thing left over after the great demolition, became the foundation of selfhood for the
I Like, Therefore I Am: The Shallow Cartesianism of the Attention Economy Read More »
There is a popular story we tell about the Enlightenment. It goes something like this: a group of brilliant European thinkers finally decided that reason was better than superstition, that science was better than dogma, and that all men were created equal. Then they wrote some declarations, started some revolutions, and the modern world was
The eighteenth century had a project. It was ambitious, optimistic, and slightly drunk on its own confidence. The project was called the Enlightenment, and its promise was simple: human reason could figure out everything. God, morality, politics, the natural world. Give us enough time and enough thinking, and we will hand you the blueprint of
Hume vs. The Enlightenment: The Man Who Broke Reason Read More »