Sitemap - 2023 - digressionsimpressions’s Substack
Long Covid Diaries: yes the glass is more than half full.
Constant, Spinoza, Progress and a once familiar trope of prosperous federalism.
Why conservative political philosophy and theory is so marginal in the discipline.
Benjamin Constant, The Road to Bonapartism, some Cromwell and some Marx
Schmitt and the Myth about Mill and Free Speech, Benjamin Constant, and even some Spinozism
Magill's resignation, academic freedom, and honor
On Scholar-Activists, Objectivity and Engagement with inconvenient evidence (Via Michael L. Frazer)
Bonapartist Democracy, Self-Government, and Burnham
Burnham, Machiavelli, and Republican Freedom
On Persistent Scholarly Pet-Peeves; in which our hero is further vindicated.
Peirce, Spinozism, Cosmic evolution, and a Universal Turing Machine
Huxley, Cosmic Evolution, and Gaukroger
Okay, so I got the Dutch election results right, what next?
Conservatism and the Modern Academy
Anscombe, Suetonius, Schmitt, and common good Humanitarian Intervention.
Leo Strauss contra Schmitt (II), on the nature of Civilisation, and Empire
A Digression on Strauss' notes on Schmitt's The Political
Schmitt, Christianity, and Schmittians
The Analysis of Crises in Oakeshott and Foucault
“No Nation is liberated without sacrifices.” Hamas' strategic Cul-de-Sac
A link to a post on Hume and Glory, not usury.
Oakeshott on Hayek and the Machiavellians (with some Orwell)
Oakeshott on War and Mass Democracy
On Anscombe, expansive war aims, and lurking evil.
Re-Politicizing Inferior Prudence in Adam Smith. On Hanley
Anscombe, Stebbing, and Comic Spectacles in public philosophy
Long covid diary: Cancer edition
Fanon, Schmitt, Violence (and, yes, a bit of Zionism at the end).
Bright, Psychodrama, and the Culture Wars
More's Utopia, The Art of Government, and the Punishment of Slave Rebellion
Max Weber, Foucault, Legitimacy, and the rewriting of the past: with a cameo by Ludwig Erhard.
Civilization, Colonialism, and Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty
French radical Secularism, the closed society, and unreasonable views.
Socrates and the Transition problem.
The pure institution of democratic control in The Commune (yes and Marx), and the Levelers.
Zionism and Democratic Majoritarianism
The Cognitive Division of Labor, Socrates, and Damon, and some Plutarch
Spinoza, Rousseau, and Adam Smith on Rotating Federal Capitals.
Locke on Sovereignty in the Second Treatise.
Systemic Contagion, Kant, Smith, and Perpetual Peace
On Cephalus and Socrates, and the Ideology of the Wealthy (with passing mention of Madoff and Trump)
On Socrates, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Madison on the necessitating rationale for government
Ostracism, again, in Hobbes and Hume (some spinoza and plutarch)
Public Reason and Unreasonable Pluralism
Long Covid Diaries: On Gaukroger (RIP), Jongbloed (RIP), and Margaritaville
On Ostracism and proto-mechanism design. With Hume, Spinoza, and Toland showing up.
On Hobbes (and Schmitt) on Enemies and friends/confederates.
More on the balance of power and ostracism, with Hume and Kant, but illuminated by Hobbes, and Plato
On the Balance of Power in Hume, and especially Kant
On Hume on toleration, and explanation.
Schmitt, Vermeule, and all that (again)
Hume, Bentham, and Magnanimity
Vermeule, Calleja, Proper Paternalism, and the Restoration of the Common Good
Locke, the Carolinas, slavery, Voltaire, and...Penn
Vermeule, the Popper-Shklar objection and political morality
On Schmitt, Vermeule, and Liberal Faith
On the Pre-history of Parliamentarism and Constitutional Monarchy, Hume, Smith and Spinoza
Ecotopia, Maria Farrell, and Emotional self-regulation
Mary Harrington on sex and the Pill, part II.
On Foucault on Hume and Hegel, again.
On Burke, Price, and antisemitism
The Right, the Family, and Mary Harrington, Part 1
Madison on Ordinary Heuristics
Oakeshott, the Masai, and Resilience under conditions of Social Extinction
SMITH, TOCQUEVILLE, AND FOUCAULT ON WHAT IS WRONG WITH ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM
The Harmony of Interests, and a paper on Analytic responses to Leo Strauss
(Schmittian) Political Theology today, the case of Pierre Manent.
Oakeshott, the cognitive division of labor, and the art of government
European culture wars, a meta-perspective.
On Play, dialectic, and the liberalism of Condorcet and Smith
Felix Oppenheim, Ernest Nagel, Anna Alexandrova, and Leo Strauss, part 3.
Lamprecht, Cambridge Historiography, and a prelude to the philosophy of philosophy:
A Liberal perspective on the Culture Wars over Transidentities
On Meaningful Choices and Unchosen Obligations in the Liberal Art of Government
An Unknown-ish Translation of Ibn Tufayl's Self-Taught Philosopher
Long Covid Diaries: Miracle Cure (well not completely.)
Stebbing on the Harm(s) of Social Hierarchy
On How to Teach Old Books, Burnyeat vs Strauss, Part II
Burnyeat on Leo Strauss, again.
The Conservative Mind's Criticism of Imperial Liberal Humanitarianism
Hume's Odd Footnote to Grotius, and Pufendorf
Dennett and Harari, The Intentional Stance, and the Road to Serfdom through AI faking Personhood
A Mysterious Translator, Fontenelle Hybridized, Human extinction, oh and the PSR
Long Covid Diaries: new Medical Treatment (and some blog house-keeping).
Quining Quine and Spinosizing Spinoza; reflections on Dennett and Tocqueville
Stebbing on Clarity with nods to Kuhn, Sellars, and Quine
On Clarity from the early Moderns to Early Analytic Philosophy, especially Stebbing.
On Hazony and Bourke on Burke and Frank S. Meyer, and the risks of Freedom
On the functional role of 'Woke;' Huntington, and Abstract, Imaginary Threats.
On the Origins of Liberalism: The Swedish Revolution of 1809 and Adam Smith
Hume, Husserl's Digression, and Foucault's The Order of Things
On toleration as the origin story of liberalism
On Stebbing, Spinoza, and the Cognitive Demands of Political Freedom, Part 2
On Clarity, Philosophical Preaching (and a hint of culture war issues)
On Susan Stebbing and Clarity (with some nods to Carnap, Quine, and Ernest Nagel), Part I
On Arthur C. Clarke's Criticism Of White Settler Colonialism, and Secular Theodicy
On Borges, John Perry, Spinoza, and Identity
On JPP, Wiley, Prestige Production, and Modeling Quality:
Mass extinction; on Darwin, Adam Smith, Newton (and Parfit)
On The End of History and the Displacement of Logic
On Information and the State: from Justin Smith to George Stigler
Monopoly Capitalism Thesis, Chicago Economics, and MIT
On the controversy in the philosophical blogosphere.
Hayek on Liberal Utopia, the Long Game, and Weberian Politics
On Art & Value in Use (or exchange) and Merit in Adam Smith
On Tasioulas, Conceptual Inflation, and Public Reas
On Humean sovereignty; Dicey, Hayek, Foucault, Schmitt, and (darn) Trump
Milton Friedman on Marx and Mill (pt 1): The Road to Serfdom and the Art of Government
Some Pre-History on the History and Sociology of Multiple Discovery: Merton, Dicey, Stigler- (etc.)
On Knowing that Imperialism is Bad, Grotius and Plutarch
On Kukathas' Liberalism and elite (capture) Theory
Mostly good news: Covid Diaries
Again, Foucault, Kuhn, Carnap and Incommensurability
On Newton's Refutation of the Mechanical Philosophy
The Delirium of LLMs; with some help of Hume and Foucault
On Olaf Stapledon, Technology induced Extinction Risk, and the Awesome new Atomic and AGI power
Covid Diaries: Substack and Life plans
Covid Diaries: Substack and Life plans