NM's blog

The modern age began in earnest when ideas ceased to matter. Immanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest of all modern philosophers, made a rigorous distinction between what he called pure and practical reason. Pure reason investigated the world, while practical reason was a matter of moral and political action, but there was no longer any internal relation between the two. Some previous thinkers had assumed that there was a way of theorising about the world which impelled you to choose a way of acting upon it. To say "This is torture!" seemed to imply "Stop it". Now, however, theory was one thing and practice another. No doubt we shouldn't torture, but there was nothing we could glean from analysing the act of torture which told us that it was a bad thing. We were going to have to get our moral and political values from somewhere else. By no means every modern philosopher signed up to this crippling division. Kant's argument was challenged by his mighty contemporar...

Many a ruling class has sought to erase from historical memory the blood and squalor in which it was born. As Blaise Pascal admonishes with arresting candour in his  Pensées , ‘The truth about the [original] usurpation must not be made apparent; it came about originally without reason and has become reasonable. We must see that it is regarded as authentic and eternal, and its origins must be hidden if we do not want it soon to end.’   Kant, too, was wary of speculation on the origins of political power, which he thought a menace to the state.   It is not just that these are bloody and arbitrary; it is also the sheer scandal of an origin as such, for what was born can also die. It is certain, Hume writes in his  Treatise of Human Nature , that at the origin of every nation we will find rebellion and usurpation; it is time alone which ‘reconciles men to an authority, and makes it seem just and reasonable’.   Political legitimacy, in short, is founded on fading mem...

An interview with Vanessa Wills, author of Marx’s Ethical Vision

Old, but very interesting and not a difficult read. It is in English and translated to Arabic . Today we speak about universes, not a universe, though. According to Paul Thagard, Stephen Hawking was wrong

What happens with thinkers who operate outside the European philosophical ‘pedigree’?

During my trip in China, I was reading The Shorter Science and Civilization in China , one of the five volumes which abridge Joseph Needhem's 12 volumes written by himself, later expanded to 27. It was a fantastic read. Western philosophy is racist

Many a ruling class has sought to erase from historical memory the blood and squalor in which it was born. As Blaise Pascal admonishes with arresting candour in his  Pensées , ‘The truth about the [original] usurpation must not be made apparent; it came about originally without reason and has become reasonable. We must see that it is regarded as authentic and eternal, and its origins must be hidden if we do not want it soon to end.’   Kant, too, was wary of speculation on the origins of political power, which he thought a menace to the state.   It is not just that these are bloody and arbitrary; it is also the sheer scandal of an origin as such, for what was born can also die. It is certain, Hume writes in his  Treatise of Human Nature , that at the origin of every nation we will find rebellion and usurpation; it is time alone which ‘reconciles men to an authority, and makes it seem just and reasonable’.   Political legitimacy, in short, is founded on fading me...