This is my first time reading Marx and Engels. I’m amazed by their prescient predictions of world capitalist development, penetrating descriptions of the Bourgeoisie and criticisms of capitalism. However, I find their economic theory of property, capital and wage-labor perplexing and far less persuasive. It is a diagnosis without cure. Portrait of a Bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has left no […]
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“Provincial Letters” By Blaise Pascal
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes. –Proverbs 26:4,5 Blaise Pascal, a Catholic theologian, scientist and brilliant thinker, wrote these letters to defend his Jansenist friends against charges of heresy by the Jesuits. I tend to think that Pascal and Kierkegaard are kindred spirits. First, they both […]
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Antonin Scalia: The Socrates of the SCOTUS
The important thing in Democracy is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not to have conquered but to have fought well. –The Olympian Socrates v. Scalia About four years ago, I had an interesting group discussion about the trial and death of Socrates. Someone said that the Athenians were good at sophistry, not sound reasoning, whereas the judicial system in the US was […]
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John Locke: Two Treatises of Government
Locke criticizes, Sir Robert Filmer, a proponent of divine right of kings, for not defining terms clearly and building an edifice of political theory on a dubious foundation. I find it ironic that he makes the same mistake. Consequently, “there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English”. In this review, I’ll first summarize Locke’s ideas in his own words, and then present my objections. Right to […]
Read more“The Pathway Of Life” by Leo Tolstoy
[Posted to commemorate the 106th anniversary of Tolstoy’s death] Who Am I? A man who has attained old age has passed through many vicissitudes : he was first an infant, then a child, an adult, an old man. But no matter how he has changed, he always calls himself “I”. This “I” was the same in his infancy, in his period of maturity, in his old age. This unchanging “I” we […]
Read more“The Invisible Collection” by Stefan Zweig
Conciseness has always seemed to me to be the most essential problem in art. To fit his destiny to a man so nicely as to leave no vacuum, to inclose him as radiantly as the ember does the fly and yet the while preserve every detail of his being has, of all tasks, ever been the dearest to me. –Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig was an Austrian journalist and playwright, with […]
Read moreThe Brothers Karamazov: III. The Foundation of Morality
In a previous post, I formulated Dostoevsky’s argument that belief in God is necessary for morality from an ontological perspective. In this post, I’ll formulate it from an epistemological perspective. I’ll demonstrate that knowledge of God is the foundation of morality, following the method of René Descartes. Foundation of Knowledge In his Meditations, Descartes reasoned that ideas formed within our mind have their origin beyond our mind, that is, our ideas are […]
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