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Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

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Immanuel Kant

Source: Translator's Biography in Kant’s Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans. with a Biography and Introduction by Ernest Belfort Bax (2nd revised edition) (London:…

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Locke: A Life

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John Locke

Source: Editor's Introduction to The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, (London: Rivington, 1824 12th ed.). Vol. 1.

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

Mr. John Locke was the son of John Locke, of Pensford,…

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Mahabharata

Source: Translator's Epilogue to the Maha-bharata, The Ramayana and the Mahabharata condensed into English Verse by Romesh C. Dutt (London: J.M. Dent, 1917).

TRANSLATOR’S EPILOGUE

ANCIENT India, like ancient Greece, boasts of…

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Montaigne: A Sketch

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Montaigne

Source: Life and Letters of Montaigne with Notes and Index, vol. 10, trans. Charles Cotton, revised by William Carew Hazlett (New York: Edwin C. Hill, 1910).

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE BY WILLIAM…
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Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536)

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Erasmus

Source: Introduction to Erasmus in Praise of Folly, illustrated with many curious cuts, designed, drawn, and etched by Hans Holbein, with portrait, life of Erasmus, and his epistle to Sir Thomas More…

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Cicero’s Life and Politics

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Cicero

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Cicero

Source: Introduction to The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Comprising his Treatise on the Commonwealth; and his Treatise on the Laws.…

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Mencius: A Life

Source: Mencius, The Chinese Classics: Translated into English with Preliminary Essays and Explanatory Notes by James Legge. Vol. 2 The Life and Teachings of Mencius. (London: N. Trübner, 1875). Chapter: SECTION I.: LIFE OF…

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Chronology of John Locke’s Life

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John Locke Goodrich Seminar Room:John Locke John Locke in theConcise Encyclopedia of Economicsat Econlib Biography: John Locke Collections: Religious Toleration

Source: John Locke, A Letter concerning Toleration…

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Works of Jeremy Bentham: Table of Contents

Jeremy Bentham (author)

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Jeremy Bentham,The Works of Jeremy Bentham,published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols.

Vol. 1.…

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On Being a Conservative Philosopher: Tensions in the Work of Michael Oakeshott

Elaine Sternberg (author)

Michael Oakeshott has often been considered to be a conservative philosopher. This essay will explore what that might mean and highlight some of the tensions between conservatism and philosophy in Oakeshott’s writings.*

October 3,…

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Utilitarianism: Pleasure or Preference?

Spend much time in discussion of ethics and you’ll likely hear standard objections to various utilitarian theories. In their single-minded drive to maximize some version of the good (e.g., desirable conscious states like pleasure),…

A Critique of Preferentism

A previous essay suggested ways in which preference-satisfaction utilitarianism (“preferentism”) is superior to forms of utilitarianism that focus on promoting or maximizing desirable states of consciousness (such as pleasure).…

Joseph Priestley: “Enlightenment Man”

If anyone does, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) warrants the description “Renaissance man.” But, to avoid confusion, since Priestley lived a couple of centuries after the Renaissance, let me argue here that this “Enlightenment man,” as…

The Market for Liberty in Ancient China

In his 1956 book The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, free-market economist Ludwig von Mises wrote:
“The idea of liberty is and has always been peculiar to the West. What separates East and West is first of all the fact that the peoples…

Shaftesbury’s Theory of a “Moral Sense” Sets the Direction of the British Enlightenment (Part 2)

“T’was Mr. Locke that struck all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world...” Lord Shaftesbury

Shaftesbury’s Theory of a “Moral Sense” Sets the Direction of the British Enlightenment (Part 1)

The moral sense is “predominant...inwardly joined to us, and implanted in our nature...a first principle in our constitution...” Lord Shaftesbury

Bayle’s Dictionary: #1 Bestseller in the 18th Century

“In matters of religion, it is very easy to deceive a man and very hard to undeceive him.” --Pierre Bayle

Decent People, Bad Institutions

Consider the following: a major United States city has witnessed a recent upswing in violent crime. Generally, U.S. crime levels are still much lower than their peak in the early 90’s, but many residents perceive their city has…

If You Like It, (Don’t) Put a Ring on It

In The Republic, the interlocutor Glaucon asks Plato’s Socrates why we should be just. He relates a story of the shepherd Gyges, who discovers a magic ring that allows him invisibility and anonymity. The formerly decent man becomes…

Justice and Truth

Montaigne wrote that “we owe justice to men, and mercy and kindness to other creatures that may be capable of receiving it”. But why is justice so important? What is it about justice that Montaigne considers it among the most…

Epictetus and Psychological Freedom

Critics sometimes accuse Stoic philosophy of defending an inflexible rationalism calling for single-minded pursuit of virtue for its own sake, at the expense of other commonly recognized goods like love and accomplishment, which are…

Free Will Hiding In Plain Sight

1qq`Some authors tend to deny the existence of free will because we are not Epicurean atoms or Nietzschean Ubermen with unconstrained freedom. We’re unable to defy the physical and social world in which we’re indelibly embedded. We…

Acceptance, Rejection, and Otters

In Chapter 4 of my book, I explore a subtle but important distinction between a person having decisive reason to accept or endorse some view (“acceptability”) versus lacking decisive reason to reject it (“rejectability”). I have in…

The Self & Sympathy: David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

David Hume conceives the mind in metaphors. The mind is a theater, a republic, a stringed instrument. These metaphors suggest that an individual has multiple selves, whose relations resemble social interactions.

Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning

It may seem strange to those this side of the Enlightenment that “the advancement of learning” should need any defense. If anything, we today are plagued with fears of misunderstanding rapidly advancing science, or of standing on…

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Montaigne: A Sketch

Related Links:

Montaigne

Source: Life and Letters of Montaigne with Notes and Index, vol. 10, trans. Charles Cotton, revised by William Carew Hazlett (New York: Edwin C. Hill, 1910).

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE BY WILLIAM…
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