Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility: Lord Acton

Lord Acton writes to Bishop Creighton in a series of letters (1887) concerning the moral problem of writing history about the Inquisition. Acton believes that the same moral standards should be applied to all men, political and religious leaders included, especially since, in his famous phrase, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”: I… Read More Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility: Lord Acton

12th March 202412th March 2024 Dilip

The Battle for the Soul of Judaism: Tribalism, Amalek and Axial Age Universalism of Isaiah

A struggle within Judaism between universalism and tribalism can be traced much, much further back… This is the time of the author(s) of Second Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament… Second Isaiah teaches the universal existence of God, i.e., not just the God of the Jews but of the whole world. It… Read More The Battle for the Soul of Judaism: Tribalism, Amalek and Axial Age Universalism of Isaiah

27th February 202426th February 2024 Dilip

Seeds of What Ought to Be: Hegel’s World Revolutions

Hegel’s World Revolutions; Richard Bourke An absolute will is bound to be an arbitrary one, since it would cease to be absolute if it respected laws and moral imperatives. The mere existence of something other than itself poses a mortal threat to it, and it ends up crushing everything that moves. Hegel sees the revolution… Read More Seeds of What Ought to Be: Hegel’s World Revolutions

20th February 202411th March 2024 Dilip

Like a Top Hat

Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Émile Perreau-Saussine Reviewed by Jonathan Rée Marx’s optimism proved to be ill-founded. The proletariat did not live up to expectations, leaving latter-day Marxists scrambling to find alternative superheroes. Hence, according to MacIntyre, the multitudes of ‘conflicting … political allegiances which now carry Marxist banners’, all expressing a well-founded hatred of capitalism but none offering… Read More Like a Top Hat

19th February 202419th February 2024 Dilip

Javed Akhtar recites Waqt, his poem on Time

NB: This is the simplest and most brilliant philosophical reflection on time I have heard. Here is Javed Akhtar’s own explanation of it at the Kolkata Literary Festival, 2022; and here is one of his recent recitals, at the Faiz Festival in 2018. It begins around 4.30 minutes into the video. Javed sahib shukriya. DS… Read More Javed Akhtar recites Waqt, his poem on Time

4th February 20244th February 2024 Dilip

Kojin Karatani Wins Berggruen Prize (2022)

By Dan Bilefsky The Japanese philosopher was the recipient of the $1 Million award for 2022, which is given to thinkers whose ideas have “provided wisdom and self-understanding in a rapidly changing world.”.. Mr. Karatani had promoted a modern form of “reciprocity” he had observed in ancient Ionian culture and that he had sought to apply… Read More Kojin Karatani Wins Berggruen Prize (2022)

28th January 202428th January 2024 Dilip

The Peacock’s Graveyard

Myth taken symbolically is the glass through which we darkly see: Hans Jonas Amar Kanwar: The Peacock’s Graveyard. Reviewed by Aruna D’Souza Marian Goodman Gallery; New York City, through February 24, 2024 Five poetic stories in image and text reveal the ever-present power of nature, greed, friendship, and philosophical inquiry Amar Kanwar: The Peacock’s Graveyard,… Read More The Peacock’s Graveyard

27th January 2024 Dilip

Albert Camus: Letters to a German Friend (1943)

NB: During World War II, Albert Camus joined the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation; and worked as editor of the underground resistance journal Combat. In 1943, he began writing a series of letters to a hypothetical German friend. In a time when justice and truth seem helpless before ideology and hatred, Camus’ 81 year… Read More Albert Camus: Letters to a German Friend (1943)

26th January 2024 Dilip

Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

First posted August 15, 2013 “Yes, I know all that. I should be modern” – begins Ramanujan’s ‘Conventions of Despair’. Others in India have felt this impulse, and it has pulled them in different directions. In politics, it has drawn them towards nationalism, socialism and fascism. In religion, it has had similarly contradictory effects: either… Read More Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

25th January 202425th January 2024 Dilip

Against homogenisation: Advancing diversity through Democratic Confederalism

The homogenic national society is the most artificial society to have ever been created and is the result of the “social engineering project… Due to its bureaucratic nature, Statism needs the homogenisation of space and time to function. It requires that within its borders, cultures and ways of life are melted into one singular artificial… Read More Against homogenisation: Advancing diversity through Democratic Confederalism

24th January 202424th January 2024 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: philosophy