Philosophy
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It is not common for me to begin an essay this way. But the latest edition of New Scientist was released – “the ethics issue” – and it raised a few points of reflection, however informal and searching. New Scientist is generally known for its unique combination of science reporting and communication, critical thinking and…
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R.C. Smith Over the course of the last few years, I’ve been re-reading a lot of books on the enlightenment (mostly in my spare time), including many notable texts by such prominent enlightenment thinkers as Kant, Hume, Descartes and so on. My interest in the philosophes dates back to when I was a teenager, where…
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R.C. Smith Ethics of Experience In think, ultimately, what we read in The Gods in Whom They Trusted is a set of philosophical formulations that take the human tendency to formulate faith-based constructs, fundamental principles of “life direction”, “core or ultimate convictions”, or “visions of life” – very much in the philosophical sense of absolute first principles – as universal.…
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R.C. Smith Introduction I recently read through and had time to consider Arnold De Graaff’s The Gods in Whom They Trusted: The Disintegrative Effects of Capitalism – A Foundation for Transitioning to a New Social World (2016). This book in particular is one, I think, that can best described as being part of the broader…
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[An earlier unedited draft of this article was written with contributions by Arnold De Graaff. It has since become single authored and has been revised, updated and shortened.] “The Enlightenment”, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer famously wrote, “understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings” (Adorno…
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Paul Mason’s new book Postcapitalism is an interesting read. It’s not that it presents any breathtakingly new arguments – it should ultimately be read as another contribution in what is termed the Autonomist Marxist tradition. I see a lot of problems with Marxism, and with the autonomous Marxist tradition; but the one thing this book does…
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Charles Baudelaire once wrote that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. As the master of cunning and deception, passing from shadow to shadow, the Devil is said to be the supreme manipulator of human beings. But if we were to permit ourselves to be serious for a…
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Introduction In spite of the fact that one of the primary aims of Dialectic of Enlightenment (1964/2002) is not to do away with the liberating force of the Enlightenment,[1] it nevertheless remains important that we address concerns about the totalizing propensity of Horkheimer and Adorno’s “domination of nature” (Naturbeherrschung) thesis,[2] which threatens to undermine whatever…
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Introduction There has been a noticeable increase in writing on the Frankfurt School in recent years. With a steady stream of formerly unpublished writings, new translations, and secondary literature being made available (especially in English), the Frankfurt School has undergone a bit of a revival. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the backdrop to…
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My first book, Consciousness and Revolt, which is long extinct now, fated to reside on but a few dusty shelves, was written almost like an existential treatise. It sought to analyse patterns and trends in relation to human behaviour throughout history, focusing in particular on the reoccurrence of popular forms of orthodoxy and the epistemology…