TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. What I Mean By “Philosophy,” “Politics,” and “Rational” 3. Philosophical Quietism and Philosophical Activism 4. Seven Varieties of Philosophical Quietism 5. How and Why All Seven Varieties of Philosophical Quietism are Rationally Unjustified and Morally Unacceptable 6. Eight Varieties of Philosophical Activism 7. How and Why the First Eight … [continue reading]
Author Archives: Robert Hanna
THE LIMITS OF SENSE AND REASON: A Line-By-Line Critical Commentary on Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” #2.
[I] was then making plans for a work that might perhaps have the title, “The Limits of Sense and Reason.” I planned to have it consist of two parts, a theoretical and a practical. The first part would have two sections, (1) general phenomenology and (2) metaphysics, but this only with regard to its method. … [continue reading]
The Sleep of Reason: Philosophy’s Crisis, Humanity’s Crisis, and What Should Be Done.
You can also read or download a .pdf version of this essay HERE. 1. What do Thoreau’s Walden (written during the mid-1840s, published in 1854), Schopenhauer’s “On University Philosophy” (1851), Dewey’s “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy” (1917) and Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920/1948), Spengler’s Decline of the West (1918/1922), Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences … [continue reading]
THE LIMITS OF SENSE AND REASON: A Line-By-Line Critical Commentary on Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” #1.
[I] was then making plans for a work that might perhaps have the title, “The Limits of Sense and Reason.” I planned to have it consist of two parts, a theoretical and a practical. The first part would have two sections, (1) general phenomenology and (2) metaphysics, but this only with regard to its method. … [continue reading]
How To Win The Kant Wars.
You can download a .pdf version of this essay HERE. [F]or … non-Kantian philosophers, there are no persistent problems — save perhaps the existence of Kantians.[i] 1. Kant in the Twentieth Century More than a decade ago, I wrote this: Alfred North Whitehead … quotably wrote in 1929 that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical … [continue reading]
On Sebastian Rödl’s “Self-Consciousness and Objectivity,” Or,The Refutation of Absolute Idealism.
Author’s Note: The following essay has a little back-story. Eight months ago, I was invited by the journal Idealistic Studies to do a review of Sebastian Rödl’s 2018 book, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, with a due date for submitting my review of 25 July 2019. As I worked my way through the book, I decided it … [continue reading]
On Leonard Nelson’s “The Socratic Method.”
You can also download a .pdf version of this essay, HERE. The Socratic method … is the art of teaching not philosophy but philosophizing, the art of teaching not about philosophers but of making philosophers of the students…. If there is such a thing at all as instruction in philosophy, it can only be instruction … [continue reading]
Statism, Capitalism, and Beyond.
THINKING FOR A LIVING: A PHILOSOPHER’S NOTEBOOK (SECOND SERIES, INSTALLMENT 14) PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS IN THE SECOND SERIES #13: Identity ad absurdum: a critique of the cultural appropriation argument. #12: Neo-Kantianism and anti-Kantianism: a primer for contemporary philosophers. #11: From Bertrand Russell to Brazilian carnaval: how to make the world as it could be made. #10: … [continue reading]
The Fantasyland of Contemporary Absolute Idealism.
MA: I had some follow-up thoughts on your recent critical study, “On Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, Or, The Refutation of Absolute Idealism,” that I wanted to run by you. But first, a prefatory remark. I consider absolute idealism, and the various resultant constellations of self-consciousness, objectivity, knowledge and judgment, to be neither unintelligible nor … [continue reading]
The Mind-Body Politic: Born On The Fourth Of July.
The Mind-Body Politic, by Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna, is now available from Palgrave Macmillan, HERE. And a preview is also available, HERE. PREFACE A few months ago, Michelle asked her students, on the first day of their Fall Semester class on “Theories of Human Nature,” to consider their level of agreement with respect … [continue reading]