[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]
Author Archives: Robert Hanna
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]
Identity Ad Absurdum: A Critique of the Cultural Appropriation Argument.
THINKING FOR A LIVING: A PHILOSOPHER’S NOTEBOOK (SECOND SERIES, INSTALLMENT 13) PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS IN THE SECOND SERIES #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: The crisis in higher education–what is to be done? #9: Philosophy … [continue reading]