Tag Archives: Thomas Hobbes

Rights: nonsensical, empirical and hypothetical

by Aschwin de Wolf Posted on December 18, 2010

If there is one thing that characterizes contemporary political discourse, and contemporary political liberalism in particular, it is the obsession with “rights.” Individual rights are absolute, or “trumps,” that do not permit to be overridden by collective goals, and can … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Thomas Ligotti, Karl Popper and antinatalism

by Aschwin de Wolf Posted on July 16, 2010

In his recently published non-fiction work The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror the contemporary horror writer Thomas Ligotti takes Karl Popper’s “negative utilitarianism” to its ultimate conclusion: One who did not balk entirely was the Austrian-born … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Anything that’s peaceful

by Aschwin de Wolf Posted on May 28, 2010

Libertarians spend a non-trivial amount of time arguing for the obvious. At best, such arguments are redundant because there is no widespread believe that violence or threats of violence are a good thing. At worst, these debates hurt the prospects … Continue reading →

Posted in Anarchism, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Political classification and economic reductionism

by Aschwin de Wolf Posted on June 2, 2009

At Taki’s Magazine E. Christian Kopf writes: As conservatives and right-wingers like Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Whittaker Chambers and many others have pointed out for over a century, free marketeers (19th century liberals or modern libertarians) differ from Marxists and … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Classical liberalism without philosophy

by Aschwin de Wolf Posted on May 11, 2009

In a blog post for the New Republic Alan Wolfe writes: “What my critics call modern liberalism is instead the logical and sociological outcome of classical liberalism.” He further writes in another blog post that “A liberal society, I believe, … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off