The end of time: The Heidegger-Cassirer debate and the passage from trade to war

First published in August 2022. Philosopher Immanuel Kant is often referred to as the god of modern philosophy. A recent work of intellectual history by Professor Michael Rosen, entitled The Shadow of God: Kant, Hegel, and the passage from heaven to history, considers the end of Christendom and the replacement of its accompanying hegemony of … Continue reading The end of time: The Heidegger-Cassirer debate and the passage from trade to war →

The realist school: An emerging paradigm

First published on 14 June 2022. Sometimes, intellectual thought undergoes a rupture that cannot be stopped. It does not matter how much you resist the conceptual tsunami, or how far you run. It will tear down what you know, and force any remaining ideas to cluster around the victorious Noah’s ark of the God-given intellectual … Continue reading The realist school: An emerging paradigm →

The realist manifesto

First published in June 2022. What is reality? This question is of great importance for all areas of life — including three I take great interest in: philosophy, history, and politics. I’d like to consider each area of study in turn, considering how what we consider to be ‘real’ is influenced by our vantage point, … Continue reading The realist manifesto →

Grounding for the metaphysics of politics and morals

Written in summer 2020. In 1785, Immanuel Kant wrote a treatise entitled Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, wherein Kant made the case for an ethic of "autonomy", or the individual's responsibility for their own actions as the ultimate moral good. Kant didn't think the physical separation between individuals in the world of experiences, or … Continue reading Grounding for the metaphysics of politics and morals →

On power: Tech, the state, and class

Power comes in many forms. Productive power is a relationship between society and nature, whereby people transform nature through technologies (or ‘forces of production’, as Marx called them). Social power is a relationship between people, involving both coercion (the use of threats and rewards, most often to maximise power over production) and legitimation (the use … Continue reading On power: Tech, the state, and class →