In this paper I will claim that the savage man that Rousseau describes is not a noble creature as in other works of the Enlightenment period as there is nothing noble or virtuous to be found in the life of a savage. Within the story of the ‘Savage’ state one finds the idea that Non-European peoples are simpler and thus reflect an earlier history of humanity. As natural goodness, here, is equated with ignorance or innocence the individual savage is inferior to the civilized man however the human species is in a better stage. And it is for this reason that it is the most durable period.

The state of nature as the most durable period of mankind is not only to be understood historically but also ethically. For Rousseau the state of nature is the foundation for ethics and political philosophy as it gives us guidelines which are functional to our personal development. Morality, on the other hand, incorporates the general idea of being mutual advantageous for rational beings and thus, the savage finds himself in a pre-moral stage yet with an ethical implication.

I will commence by describing the epoch of nascent society and the characteristics of the savage whilst disclosing the separations between what is natural in the state of nature and what Rousseau says is natural in the civil state even though civil and savage man differ so much. Hereby, I will differentiate between the physical dimension and the moral dimension of this savage creature which is an exercise in conjecture and reconstruction. Following from the moral dimension of the savage the concepts of pity, perfectibility and armour de soi will be examined in brief in allusion to what it means for natural goodness.

Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality first becomes a powerful critique of modernity when one analyzes the concept of natural goodness in the way replaces the doctrine of original sin and runs contrary to the picture of pre-political society in Hobbes’ Leviathan.

When describing the ‘Savage’ state one must bear in mind that this epoch is that of youth within human history. Rousseau believed that humans were actually made to live in that state[1] in which in which humans are essentially peaceful, content, and equal. Here, human nature is and remains unaltered. The savage does not prey fall to socialization processes which produce inequality, competition and an egoistic mentality as we will see in the course of the characterization. With no idea of the future the savage man’s concern is that of self-preservation and the avoidance of evils that he fears such as pain and hunger. His faculties are useful for defence and attack.

On the other hand, the noble savage is described as a being which lives in harmony with nature, is generous and selfless, innocent, is incapable to lie, owns enormous physical health and moral courage, has a disdain for luxury, and untutored wisdom. These virtuous character traits are not affirmed in Rousseau’s work as we will see. Some of these qualities however apply to Rousseau’s savage state whereas some are unthinkable. Through describing the physical and moral dimensions of Rousseau’s savage one will obtain a clearer picture.

The physical dimension of the savage resembles that of an animal as they are toughened by the exposure to the elements. Man is in the stage is like yet unlike animal. There is one crucial difference between man and animal: animal is led by instincts whereas man is free to choose. “I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all. I see him satisfying his hunger under an oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and thus all his needs are satisfied.”[2]

In other words, man is wild, undomesticated and untamed in this state. If you strip man of all artificial faculties endowed by society Rousseau argues that one will see an animal that is less strong and agile than other wild animals with his only tool being his body which is stronger than the one of a civilized man.[3] An analogy that should be drawn at this place is to that of a feral child. A feral child is a human child who lies isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no experience of human care, loving or social behaviour, and crucially of human language. When completely brought up by animals, the feral child exhibits behaviour (within physical limits almost entirely like those of the particular care-animal, such as its variety of instincts, fear of or indifference to humans.

Thus, without any contact to other human beings the savage does not resemble a human but an animal. “Alone, idle, and always near danger, savage man must like to sleep and be a light sleeper like animals which do little thinking and, as it were, sleep the entire time they are not thinking. Since his self-preservation was practically his sole concern, his best trained faculties ought to be those of that have attack and defence as their principle object, either to subjugate his prey or to prevent his becoming prey of another animal.”[4]

As we see self-preservation was his only concern. Food, sleep and sex sufficed to fulfil his basic needs and were readily available to him.[5] Sex is mentioned as a basic need as mankind cannot exist in solitude as the union of the two sexes is necessary for the propagation of the human race. Yet, this must be understood independent of love or any kind of feeling of affection. It is merely carnal as even the two evils he fears – pain and hunger – do not have a metaphysical or moral dimension.

Rousseau’s description of the savage as non-communal being living with himself [6] runs contrary to Aristotles conception of the political or social animal for whom it is part of nature to belong to a community. As the solitary savage though shows quarrels did not arise as there were no notion of property or vengeance.

The idea that this period of humanity in which the human being is lazy, sleeps a lot and thinks little is the happiest and most durable period also runs opposed to Locke’s notion of what society ideally should look. For Locke, nature was there to till and plough, and man’s body was an instrument to work and appropriate property. But for Rousseau, as we see it is more important that mankind is healthy. “And since savage life shields them from gout and rheumatism, and since old age is, of all ills, the one that human assistance can least alleviate, they eventually die without being aware that they are ceasing to exist, and almost without being aware of it themselves.”[7]

The only operations of his soul are those of, firstly, to will or not to will or, secondly, to desire and to fear.[8] In the savage state he is amoral and indifferent to good and evil. [9] Thus, the moral dimension of the savage as described in the Second Discourse will show that the savage is not noble but merely endowed with certain qualities and found in certain material circumstances that are prior to the age of reason and thus, no value is attached to them. “[…] nature alone does everything in the operations of an animal, whereas man contributes, as a free agent, to his own operations. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the later by an act of freedom.”[10]

I cannot see anything noble in a savage man who sells his hammock in the morning because he has no idea of the future. In the most durable and happiest state of mankind “savage man breathes only tranquillity and liberty; he wants simply to live and rest easy”[11] The point here is that he simply is not conscious of himself in his state of liberty though in retrospective Rousseau is conscious of the fetters and shackles that were laid upon mankind and assumes that prior to reason mankind was free. When reading the above quoted lines in the Discourse of the Origin of Inequality J.S. Mill’s words echo loudly: “rather a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Is mankind meant to be a thinker? Rousseau does not directly address this problem but the fact that Rousseau ascribes pity a central role in the pre-communal stage is crucial to understand the why Rousseau does not believe that reason makes mankind better. “[…] they benefit from not being sophisticate thinkers. They remain close to nature because they have not allowed anything to obscure the principles that nature has engraved in all human hearts.”[12] Without the language or the ability to reason it never occurs to the savage to be evil. “[…] nothing would have been so miserable as savage man, dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own.” [13]

All social virtues generosity, mercy, humanity and even benevolence and friendship stem from pity. It is the strongest feeling in the savage man and is very weak within civilized man. Thus, pity is the origin of natural goodness for Rousseau. “It is therefore quite certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in each individual the activity of the love of oneself, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species.”[14]

To draw a picture like that of the savage does not only amplify his claim that inequalities are produced by society but moreover also reason. Thus, reason and inequalities are artificial. Reason is socially constructed and superstructural whereas self-preservation of and that of the species is the foundation. Reason re-enforces the existing inequalities. Pity, compassion or empathy does not have any value of superiority or inferiority attached to them.

It is armour de soi which contributes to the preservation of the species. As seen mentioned before the innocence of the savage is not derived from moral categories or concepts but from his instincts – as he is compassionate and sensitive to suffering. “[…] it is the savage’s armour de soi that makes him feel repugnance at seeing another suffer and that makes him refrain from needlessly injuring others. And it is armour de soi that ultimately accounts for conscience as well.” So far we have seen that the natural man lives by the concept of amour de soi, a solitary life. All his life is centered around himself and the means to gratify his instant and essential wishes, mainly hunger, sleep and sex. He is not evil, not because he is not capable of being evil, but because there is no point for him to be evil. The savage who is motivated by armour de soi seeks self-preservation and well-being but has not interest in hurting or damaging others.

The faculty of self-perfection or perfectibility is inherent in the savage man and is the source of enlightenment as well as vice. It encompasses both good and bad qualities. In the state of nature, perfectibility has the potential for moral improvement as well as corruption. Perfectibility is the power to self-rule and moral progress. It is the chief characteristic that distinguishes him from other animals. The development of reason and language are both functions of perfectibility.Thus, mankind is the only creature which can make its own history which separates man from animal. “Perfectibility, the capacity that has made history possible, is thought to imply infinite plasticity.”[15]

In other words, the positive characteristics of the original man are still to be found in the modern man. As he is shaped and formed by society in one way he can be shaped and re-formed in another way as well. On this premise, reason develops itself foremost through the passions. “[…] it is the real youth of the world, and that all subsequent advances have been apparently so many steps towards the perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the decrepitude of the species’.”[16]

Even though Rousseau presumes that humanity is naturally non-communal the decay of the species as a whole is something that has a negative connotation. This is somewhat paradoxical.

Rousseau does not offer us the same picture of the noble savage as described in other Enlightenment works. The savage lives in the forests, between animals and occasional meets with other men, and his life does not provide him any of the known luxuries of civilization. His ignorance of them means that he does not feel deprived of anything, therefore he is happy in the state he is. And it is due to his ignorance that we cannot speak of a noble act as such. Rousseau’s complex way of explaining the state of nature may mislead one to believe that the savage acts in a moral fashion all the time. However, Rousseau does actually believe that wickedness, vice, hate, and so simply do not exist as ideas or concepts in a pre-political society.

The state of the savage is a state of indifference and innocence as even “the spectacle of nature becomes a matter of indifference to him by dint of its becoming familiar to him. It is always the same order, always the same succession of changes. He does not have a mind for marvelling at the greatest wonders.”[17]

Innocence and goodness are two notions which Rousseau seemingly uses interchangeably. This must be beard in mind when analyzing the concept of natural goodness in the second part of this paper.

For Rousseau, natural goodness is the cornerstone of his argument why inequality stems from society rather than originating in nature itself. The notion of natural goodness does not exclude a human acting with force or the ferocity of an animal as this is simply natural and does not entail a metaphysical or moral judgement. In fact, it is an amoral act. Thus, natural goodness is derived from the innocence of mankind which is prior to bad and good as well as the state of reason. The savages are naturally and essentially good as they are self-sufficient and not subject to the needs and restrains of civilization.

As we have discovered before natural goodness is derived from the notion of pity which we find in Rousseau’s work. “compassion, a disposition well suited to creatures as weak and subject to as many ills as we are, a virtue all the more universal, and all the more useful to man in that it comes before any kind of reflection, and is so natural a virtual that even beasts sometimes show perceptible signs of it”[18]

In other words, the savage is not naturally good due to his good qualities but rather the absence of reason in his life. And from the discussion of the passages of the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality we moreover learn that there are three elements which make up the concept of ‘natural goodness’: by nature man is good for himself and others; a misanthropic characterization of the evil or civilised man; and, man’s present evil derives wholly from the corrupting effects of society.

Thus, natural goodness is not only a statement about man but it also entails a subjective view on nature and how man stands in relation to a deity and nature itself. “Goodness can be ascribed to nothing but the universe of non-moral things, and what it means, simply, is harmonious order.”[19]

When analyzing Rousseau in respect to the doctrine of original sin we will see man born as a sinner. When analyzing Rousseau’s natural goodness in respect to Hobbes we will see men born as enemies. Analyzing the concept of natural goodness in these two ways will ascribe the concept a negative as well as positive content.

According to Rousseau humanity is amoral species which hypothetically lived in an Edenic culture with plenty of resources able to satisfy everyone. In the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Rousseau offers an alternative to the biblical account. Rousseau tries to find out what man would look like if God had not drawn him out of nature.

Christians who believe in original sin consider mankind to be universally degenerate and sinful at heart, regardless of whatever people, group or civilization they are associated with. Rousseau’s ethical doctrine is the exact opposite to the one of the less appealing one of original sin. By saying “resume your original innocence” he fortifies his claim that man is naturally good.

He sees original sin to be dangerous concept as it condemns are spontaneous inclinations to be sinful. “Human beings are fairly sceptical, intractable, and resistant to morality, in Rousseau’s view, and therefore this extreme antinatural morality most often simply fails to take hold. And in failing, it casts all moral restraint into discipline.”[20] From original sin we derive an anti-natural morality which constraints us and demands compliance where compliance to nature seems more obvious. This causes humanity to be full of self-hatred, guilt and be accompanied by the feeling of failure. This in turn weakens morality and corrupts people even more. For him, this idea that we have plenty to be ashamed about simply through being alive and of a morality which demands too much of humanity and aims too high only constraints the human being which is free to choose. Thus, morality based on original sin rather produced sinfulness as it opposes natural sentiments. “There is also, however, a positive content to this goodness. By ‘identifying’ with others, natural man experiences rudimentary feelings of compassion which discourage him from engaging in unnecessary violence.” [21] Savage man does not actively attempt to do good towards others, but is rather restrained by the principle of pity from harming them.

Rousseau has a valuable lesson which is that evil can be avoided and that we are descendants from innocent people rather than betrayers and that moreover the see of wickedness is implanted within us.

Important to note is that it was the tree of knowledge that corrupted mankind in the biblical account. Thus, Rousseau does not detach himself totally from this story. Throughout the discussion we have seen that it was reason which Rousseau made responsible for the decay of the human species as a whole. “Reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him.”

Rousseau suggests that the savage man was not a social being or political animal as Aristotle put forward. In this respect he agreed to Hobbes’ notion of the Savage. Nevertheless, Rousseau runs contradictory to Hobbes as the savages life is not ‘poor, nasty, brutish and short’ but rather extremely healthy, happy, good and free. Hobbes claims that savage man is intrepid and only wishes to fight other men

In Rousseau we find disagreement with Hobbes’ ethical implications of the state of nature as the savage man who is unable to speak and is solely concerned with his self-preservation is seemingly uncapable of creating a ‘war of all against all’. “The primary meaning of this goodness is negative. By nature, man lacks all the needs, passions, and prejudices that now put his interests in essential and systematic conflict with others.”[22]

In this pre-rational state the savage man does not have any morals but this does not make him wicked as Hobbes describes the pre-political stage in human development. “men were not subject to very dangerous conflicts […] since they had not the slightest notion of mine and thine, nor any true idea of justice; since they regarded the acts of violence that could befall them as an easily redressed evil and not as an offense that must be punished.”[23]

As we have seen Rousseau’s picture of the savage and the state of nature as well as his concept of natural goodness echoes in the first line of the Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One believes himself the others’ master, and yet is more slave than they.”[24]

The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality is a powerful critique of modernity as it discloses how vain the morality of developed societies is and that the state of nature has ethical implications which are nobler than the state we find ourselves in today. The Fall of Man happened with the beginning of society and reasoning. “Now I would very much like someone to explain to me what kind of misery can there be for a free being whose heart is at peace and whose body is in good health?”[25]

Natural goodness and perfectibility has a positive effects upon human beings. It gives human beings a sense of freedom and moral self-determination. If evilness is rooted in the socialization processes which we all undergo our sinfulness is put into a context of weighing our lives up to those within our political community. We can improve our lives and those of others if we desire to do so. Here, pity and self-preservation serve as a basis for our actions even within the civil state.

“In principle, then Rousseau opens up radical new hopes for politics, utopian, messianic, and also potentially totalitarian, hopes that it can transform the human condition, bring secular salvation, make all men healthy and happy.”[26]

The discussion of the savage and the concept of natural goodness open up further questions in the philosophy of speculative history. Is the savage something like Marx’s proletariat in the sense of holding the key to solve the riddle of human history for an equal society?

Bibliography

Cooper, Laurence D. (1962) – Rousseau, Nature & The Problem of a Good Life

Garrard, Graeme (2003) – Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment: A Republican Critique of the Philosophes

Hobbes, Thomas (1644) - Leviathan

Meek, Ronald L. (1976) – Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (London and New York)

Melzer, Artur M. (1990) – The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought (Chicago and London)

Ogrodnick, Margaret (1999) – Instinct and Intimacy: Political Philosophy and Autobiography in Rousseau (Toronto, Buffalo, London)

Ed. O’Hagan, Timothy (1997) – Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Sources of the Self (Avebury)

Rousseau, J.J. (2007) – The Social Contract and other later political writings (Cambridge)

Rousseau, J.J (1992) – Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Cambridge, Indianpolis)

To help prepare us for talking about the roots of American government and the Constitution, we looked at four major Enlightenment thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu. A lot of our classes were interrupted by class meetings, so if you need a brief refresher course about these philosophers (or some of their associated vocabulary words), keep reading after the jump...

• Hobbes: Our eternal pessimist of the bunch. He believed that, without the protection of government, people lived in a state of nature - where life was 'nasty, brutish, and short.' To escape this perpetual state of war, people establish civil society, ruled by an absolute monarch.
• Locke: He's a political optimist who believes that people naturally have reason and tolerance. However, like Montesquieu, Locke believes in separation of powers.
• Rousseau: The wildest philsopher (at least of the ones we read today), Rousseau's biggest influence is the idea of the social contract, or the idea that people give up some rights to a government in order to preserve social order.
• Montesquieu: Believed that limited government and separation of powers could save government from corruption. He 'argued that [despotism] could best be prevented by a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law' (SEP). Unlike some of the other philosophers we studied today, he also believes in a republic, not a pure democracy.

But in the end it must be conceded that this sheds very little light on anything, and least of all on what it is to be a human being. It reduces meaningful thought to little more than "news."

Why is Putin really interested in Georgia, Poland, and the Ukraine? He offered a powerful clue not long ago when he let someone photograph him barechested. What did we see? Muscle, of course. We saw a man who clearly wants one thing more than anything else, namely respect.

Though it goes against the grain of materialist, reductionist thought, human beings really do want respect, and it isn't reducible to material gain. It may take one further against the grain of reductionist thought to understand exactly what "respect" is and means. Psychologists have recognized for some time that the affirmation of the individual is indispensable for psychological well being. But some psychologists have seen further still, understanding that the psychological necessity of human affirmation really leads back to theology.

Affirmation is a counterpart, an aspect, of love. Human beings come into existence (excluding aberrations) through an act of love, and the best of psychology has recognized that the act of love is meant to be neither exclusively physical nor of a mere moment's duration. The child who is to become an adult must be born emotionally as well as physically, and both take place through love.

And so there is a continuity of thought between Revelation, anthropology, and psychology. Christian Revelation holds that man is in the image of God via the natural order of the family, because the latter is the medium of love in which men and women are born and raised up to maturity.

But this theological anthropology has an important practical corollary as well, namely that affirmation cannot be replaced with self-affirmation. The substitution cannot be made because affirmation and love are fecund, capable of begetting, and this truth is inscribed in the very being of the human person. But one does not beget oneself.

And yet there is many an attempt to do just that. The endeavor to beget self-respect through self-affirmation is inherently anti-communal, and therefore frequently begets violence. The history of this unhappy fact can be traced to a very precise moment, in the relation between Cain and Abel, shortly after man's first rejection of God.

An anthropology which refuses to acknowledge the truth of God's existence will ultimately be incapable of understanding this. Hence one must suspect it is no accident that a culture steeped for the last century in radical and violent atheism produces, in the person of its leader, profoundly unhealthy -- not to mention dangerous -- psychological dispositions.

Os órgãos genitais feminino e masculino podem ser mostrados em revistas, no cinema e em galerias. Pode ser arte? Sim, pode. E se esses órgãos estiverem em funcionamento, no ato sexual? Isso é arte? Pode ser. A pornografia pode ser arte. Não é exclusividade do que é erótico ter o direito de ser arte, jogando o pornográfico para fora dessa área.

Mas, e se a mostra dos órgãos sexuais forem algo que foge do que todos, todos mesmo, consideram belo, ainda assim é arte? Sim, pode ser arte. Como Arthur Danto tem enfatizado: no mundo contemporâneo a beleza foi para um lado, a arte para o outro. Não é pelo que é “belo”, com consenso ou não, que se diz que algo é arte após Warhol e Duchamp.[1]

Mas, se é assim, se não é pela ligação ou não com a arte, ainda não há a diferença entre ambos – o erótico e o pornográfico –, a partir da mostra ou não dos órgãos genitais, então, o que os distingue na medida em que se está falando em arte erótica? Qual a razão de Roger Scruton distinguir o erótico do pornográfico a partir da idéia de que no segundo caso há a presença clara dos órgãos sexuais à mostra, enquanto que no primeiro caso isso não ocorreria? Bem, no livro Sexual Desire, Scruton fala isso, mas atenua tal colocação dizendo que no segundo caso, a mostra dos órgãos sexuais aparece para induzir à atividade masturbatória. No limite, não é algo para o compartilhamento.[2] É algo que se sustenta para uma finalidade pouco estética – no sentido kantiano do termo estética, isto é, o que é admirado e causa prazer sem causar interesse.

Mas, então, diante dessas colocações, como é que distinguimos filosoficamente a arte erótica da pornografia? E para que fazemos isso?

Que a filosofia bote o bico nisso e ajude a encontrar distinções atinentes à filosofia  entre o que é o erótico e o que é o pornográfico não é perda de tempo. Fazemos isso para evitarmos que tais distinções se realizem de modo grosseiro, antes pela política e pela polícia do que pelo exercício de nossos poderes racionais melhores. E depois de feito isso, no meu caso, tenho também de aproveitar da distinção para exigir que ambos – o erótico e o pornográfico – tenham espaço e liberdade na sociedade, ainda que possam ocupar lugares distintos. Digo “no meu caso” porque estou convencido que não gostaria de morar em uma sociedade com censura.

O critério da aparência ou não dos órgãos sexuais não me parece bom para distinguir o que é o erótico e o que é o pornográfico. Eu preferiria lançar mão de algo mais útil e menos policialesco. Imagino que a literatura tem dado uma pista.

No campo literário, quando uma história é maniqueísta demais, sem qualquer autocrítica implícita neste maniqueísmo, temos a literatura simplista, e então dizemos que se trata de má literatura. Quando a narrativa se sofistica e tem o dom de surpreender o leitor, então dizemos que estamos diante de um autor inteligente, e que há ali os ingredientes básicos para a boa literatura (pode haver outros, para tornar a história melhor ainda). Assim, a previsibilidade (do maniqueísmo) é o elemento ruim. A imprevisibilidade de acontecimentos da narrativa é o seu elemento potencialmente virtuoso.

Quando lançamos mão dessas idéias da literatura e a jogamos para os campos vistos como limites – sempre os mais difíceis de avaliar – entre o pornográfico e o erótico, tudo indica que damos um salto de qualidade no nosso entendimento.

O que é previsível cansa, é enfadonho, não causa prazer e, se causa, é um prazer muito momentâneo e logo se torna algo dispensável. Podemos ficar horas diante de uma novela onde o bem e o mal lutam e os episódios se repetem, apenas mudando o figurino e, às vezes, os personagens. Mas o fato de ficarmos horas presos nisso não significa que estamos gostando. Não significa que se nos derem coisa melhor, não vamos gostar mais. E também não significa que, nós mesmos, escolarizados, quando estamos assistindo, estamos achando que estamos diante de algo artístico.

Do mesmo modo, podemos ficar horas, todos os dias assistindo filmes que passam, repetidamente, ângulos de pessoas fazendo sexo. Podemos, inclusive, ter algum prazer nisso. Um prazer visual ou mesmo uma motivação para a masturbação ou para o sexo mais tarde, com a parceira ou parceiro. Todavia, isso não significa que estamos gostando disso a ponto de não gostarmos de algo parecido, mas mais sofisticado e melhor. E o “sofisticado”, nesse caso, não quer dizer “sem a aparência dos órgãos sexuais”. Quer dizer apenas “o que pode nos dar asas”.

A arte erótica pode ser erótica na medida em que for algo que clame por Eros, o deus. Clamar pelo deus é clamar pelo mistério, pela imaginação, não pelo cacoete. E vou fazer uma brincadeira com as palavras, para que se entenda o que quero dizer. O “por no gráfico” é o colocar no gráfico – é o que se coloca em algo que é um gráfico, algo que é desenhado para que possamos avaliar e predizer eventos. Assim, “pornográfico”, nessa etimologia tosca e falsa, lembra a idéia de repetição ou de busca do que é repetido e, assim, o que pode destituir de função a imaginação. Essa associações que faço, em tom de brincadeira, tem lá sua razão: “pornográfico” nos lembra “por no gráfico” – essa lembrança não é à toa. Há algo subconsciente nisso, e a associação entre pornográfico e “por no gráfico” surge de ficarmos de certo modo impressionados com a distinção entre novidade e repetição.

Se pensarmos nesses termos, veremos que o erótico pertence ao espírito do Renascimento, enquanto que o pornográfico é próprio do espírito da Modernidade. O Renascimento cultua a imaginação. A modernidade cultua o entendimento e tem pavor da imaginação. O Renascimento clama pela imaginação e sua ciência ainda é a alquimia. A modernidade toma a imaginação como o que pode produzir as imprevisibilidades do que já não pode mais ser chamado de ciência, a alquimia, pois a ciência, agora, é só o que mostra a repetição – alquímia toma o lugar da alquimia.

Hobbes e Descartes tinham pavor da imaginação – e eles são os pais dos tempos modernos, na metafísica e na filosofia política. Isso deve ser bem lembrado!

A modernidade segue a idéia de que não podemos “ser pegos de surpresa”, como não somos pegos na pornografia. O Renascimento seguia a idéia de que a surpresa era o elemento essencial da vida, como o que ocorre com o erótico. O erótico, vindo de Eros, é a atividade daquele deus com sua seta: espeta-nos na hora que não esperamos. Somos surpreendidos pela flechada e ficamos inflamados, doidos para agir. A última coisa que o apaixonado quer fazer é dormir. A não ser que seja para sonhar com sua paixão. O pornográfico é o que não surpreende e, enfim, não nos espeta, mas nos empurra para o gozo rápido e para o sono, para a letargia. A alquimia nos leva para o esfuziante “ócus pócus”, a química nos leva para a horrorosa atividade de “balancear coeficientes”. A imaginação do químico industrial é como a imaginação de uma ameba, ainda que seja uma ameba de grande cérebro. A imaginação do alquimista é a imaginação de deuses, ainda que seja um que cometa tolices – e qual deus não comete?

Essa distinção não é boa?

Agora, não é porque o erótico está enaltecido no meu texto acima que o pornográfico deve ser desprezado. Nem há qualquer justificativa para dizer que o primeiro deve ser colocado no pedestal e o segundo posto sob a bota dos conservadores morais (leia-se: os hipócritas). Não há aqui um juízo meu sobre o que deve ser apresentado ou não em uma sociedade. Uma boa sociedade liberal sabe conviver com ambas as coisas, até por uma razão simples, elas ocupam espaços e tempos diferentes. Além disso, as fronteiras entre elas não serão fechadas por esse meu texto. Ao contrário, minhas distinções aqui visam única e exclusivamente chegar ao final e dizer para vocês: o quadro da Carol Castro (Playboy) associado a este texto é exemplo de arte erótica. E nisso, usei de meus critérios acima. É só.

© 2008 Paulo Ghiraldelli Jr. “O filósofo da cidade de São Paulo”

Eamon didn't see as he had much of a choice--either die here or die there, probably. So he eagerly appended his X to a contract of indenture (which, seeing as he couldn't read, signed off quite a few of his rights) and sailed off with Mr. Fair____. (I see the name "Fairfax" but I'm not sure that is the right name or not. Fairfield or Fairleigh or Fearelynn for all I know... I just know the ironic prefix Fair- begins the name.)

At first when he arrived, it was the same as most any new start to a place. There was a lot of adventure, though not as much as if he had been a part of the initial onslaught. The plantation had already been set up and most of the "detritus" (in other words, both Indians and white riff-raff) had been well cleared of the area. And our boy was sort of hoping for some of that kind of action, but unfortunately that was for other plantations that were closer to the frontier. The days of this plantation being "frontier" were not that long in the past, and some of the overseers and other I.S.'s were well-cognizant of the "Injun contagion."

The work was quite hard, though. And it was unrelenting. And he had to suck up his helpless rage at the abuses that were heaped upon him. To his dismay, there were a couple of moments where he couldn't take it, and he lashed out and had instantly come to regret it.

Eamon Brian Andrew Tracy didn't live too long once he'd set foot on British colonial soil. He had been only 19 when he had arrived, and the difficult times and the gamed system whereby the "noble" idiot-son Fair-______, had basically not really indentured, but rather enslaved my past-life self and wrested additional time to attempt to meet the financial burden heaped upon him due to appending that dadblasted X to the upfucked contract, conspired to bring Eamon's life to a brisk and cruel end. He contracted an influenza that went around and that little mercy ended his life that Hobbes would identify as "nasty, brutish and short" (though the esteemed militantly-ignorant (evil) philo-ilith would not describe as civilized, even though it means roughly the same thing).

And for lo, these 4 centuries, poor Eamon has been anonymously carrying his helpless rage with him through various lifetimes. He/I was a fellow named Josiah Cotton who knew my esteemed guide Ben Franklin and who disgusted the same with craven fear. I can look at the former colonist-self and have compassion though, because Eamon's brutish life may have been foremost in Josiah's karmic memory. That same rage has floated through all of my subsequent past lives, and perhaps was even foreshadowed by one wherein I was an Italian courtier who had inadvertently exposed a beneficent conspiracy for humanity to malevolent machinic ones, and who, to save face for a well-placed countess had to be officially dispatched as a heretic and a traitor. (Pietro/I was beheaded in that lifetime, and it was quick and anonymous and hardly even a footnote in the Italian province in which I lived this life of chagrin and silent ignominy.)

Eamon has been an aspect of all these lives, and of the life I currently lead. As a 6-Death I need to honor my past-life ancestor, and in so doing heal his karma. As I type these keys into the ether, I send Eamon Brian Andrew Tracy's restless spirit healing reiki energy. I envelop his spirit with the violet light to cleanse and acknowledge that he was a valued member of the human race, that his horrific existence did serve a purpose, and that someone does remember him. That in this acknowledgment of his simple and hard life and the mercilessness of his environment, as unnecessary and capricious and maleficent and "maliferous" as THAT was, that he counted for something. Even if it's to spotlight the awareness that I need not play the same game as the Fair-_____s of the vEmpire.

In other words the Succubank's game.

I choose to walk the path of beauty, and Eamon I salute you and say to you in all lovingkindness that you need not suffer anymore. You can release that ball and chain. It no longer serves you, and it certainly no longer serves me. In love I command you now to let go of that rod or rope that you have clutched onto, the hatred and rage that has kept you tethered here. You did well enough and now it's time, my friend to stop the self-torture. To release that shame, that fear, that guilt, that expectation that you will be mistreated and abused. That is done, for the vEmpire is ending its clutches, and your message has gotten through.

Be that as it may, it's time for different options. I for one can not continue the insanity, and yes, you can freely acknowledge both the Fair___ family's insanity as well as your own. For you accepted it as if it was your own, and they had so securely sheltered you from Indian influences that how could you know there was any other way?

Perhaps there was some karma to pay, but as a descendant of yours, if not by blood then by future-life descent, I am here to remember you and to give you the respect and admiration you deserve.

It is time now. Let the pleroma, let Sophia take you into her arms and hold and love you. It's the reward for the life you lived, and you can now accept it. Please do so--just fall into it. That's all you have to do. Easy as 1-2-

3.

Blessings my friend.
Ache'.

I've decided that the thing to do with these pages is try to make them work for me. To that end I'll proceed through my planned summer reading and do what I can to apply that to Dickens (and vice versa).

So I'll begin where my reading begins: Steve Shapin and Simon Schaffer's Leviathan and the Air-Pump. I haven't actually cracked into this book yet, but it is one of those inescapable works about which you know a great deal before you pick it up. Everyone uses it. The concept I'm interested in presently is “virtual witnessing.” Shapin and Schaffer elaborate this “literary technology” as it was developed in the work and conversations between Boyle and Hobbes over the development of the air-pump. “The technology of virtual witnessing involves the production in a reader's mind of such an image of an experimental scene as obviates the necessity for either direct witness or replication. Through virtual witnessing the multiplication of witnesses could be, in principle, unlimited. It was therefore the most powerful technology for constituting matters of fact." [http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/VirtualWitnessDiscussion/TheVirtualWitness.html] The implications for non-scientific literature are many, including the construction of reliable narrators, epistemological questions of fact and the importance of truth, and so on.

I immediately begin to think of Sketches by Boz here. To begin with, what is Dickens's initial reason for cataloging his city? What does the “sketch” do and is it anything like virtual witnessing? I turned to David Seed's article “Touring the Metropolis: The Shifting Subjects in Dickens's London Sketches.” Seed quotes Carol Bernstein: “the urban sketch is at once the locus of memory and the attempt to fix objects and events in the memory” (157). Seed goes on to say “Dickens resituated exploration nearer to the reader's familiar territory and engaged in a kind of local tourism that ironically implies both the proximity to the reader of the places visited and the unfamiliarity of those places” (157). It seems to me that the Sketches' project, then, is quite anthropological. Dickens's artistic defamiliarization is in part a product of a need for objectivity. To highlight the reader's “unfamiliarity” the sketch mimics the practices of virtual witnessing. The writing witness must be modest and disinterested if he or she is to be believed by the virtual witness. This means language that posits and suggests but does not declare or command. More from Seed: “the sketch implies a distinction between the writer and the human figures he describes.” Seed quotes Audrey Jaffe: Organization and identity are external matters; characters are caught within structures the cannot perceive from outside” (156). We see in the sketch a reflective and thoughtful observer who is careful never to get so close to his subjects as to blur their division (and thereby blur accurate perception).

Furthermore, factual and scientific knowledge after Boyle is never the product of a single mind, but is instead socially constructed and agreed upon. (This is not to say that facts do not have an identifiable point of origin. Rather it is to say that ideas do not become facts until the social group voluntarily agrees to them (after virtual witnessing or actual replication of experiment/observation.)) Along this line it is certainly noteworthy that Dickens uses “we” in place of “I” throughout Sketches, and also that he generally provides the reader with the specifics of his route through the city, as Seed observes, making the trip repeatable by the reader (158). The present tense of all of 'our' observations places us always at the moment of discovery, standing alongside the witness as he writes. The sketch serves the literate populace, allowing them to 'see' all of London without actually visiting the sites documented. Dickens would fail to connect with his audience if his rhetoric were built purely on Aristotelian pathos or epideictic prose. Instead he is our friendly guide, a Virgil clinical enough to be believed but comical enough to be liked.

Another interesting item in Seed:

Dickens [writing in The Uncommercial Traveller] predicts the impossibility of future ages being able to infer the grotesque contradictions within Victorian society: “If this mud could petrify at this moment, and could lie here concealed for ten thousand years, I wonder whether the race of men then to be our successors on the earth could . . . deduce such an astounding inference as the existence of a polished state of society that bore with the public savagery of neglected children in the streets of its capital city. (162)

Seed then points out that this is an interesting use of palaeontology, a use of “Victorian science against its own age,” (163) which nicely contrasts the modern and the savage. To accurately perceive his surroundings one has to imagine reporting to a virtual witness ten thousand years outside of those surroundings, to think about what details it would be necessary for the firsthand witness to record in order to best communicate an environment. Dickens's work fills the gap between the petrified mud and the future student of history.

Karl Marx considerava l'ideologia una sorta di deformazione ottica, una vera e propria costruzione teorica volta a distorcere e falsificare i rapporti e la realtà sociale. La "verità" della classe al potere che naturalizza ciò che è socialmente determinato, eternizza ciò che è in divenire, universalizza ciò che è particolare: una straordinaria macchina retorico-filosofica volta a giustificare il potere e le ingiustizie sociali. Molti trovano che Karl Marx sia ormai passato di moda, ma io penso che la sua concezione dell'ideologia sia più valida oggi di quanto non lo fosse ai suoi tempi (un mio amico disse una volta che in Marx ci sono verità che saranno vere soltanto dopodomani, altre che lo erano già ieri, alcune che non lo saranno mai...).
Si provi, ad esempio, ad applicare il suo concetto di ideologia a quanto va accadendo oggi nelle società occidentali, e nella italiana in particolare: il rovesciamento interpretativo che ne verrebbe fuori è impressionante. Lascio per ora da parte il tema (scottantissimo) della bioetica/biopolitica e della relativa ideologia della vita, per concentrarmi sulla questione più generale dell'emergenza. Da alcuni anni il potere (locale, nazionale, globale), con la complicità dei media da esso controllati, si manifesta in prima istanza nella prassi emergenziale del suo esercizio: emergenza clandestini/immigrati, emergenza terrorismo, emergenza ambiente, emergenza inflazione, emergenza petrolio, emergenza rifiuti, fino alle emergenze spicciole o stagionali (caldo, maltempo, inquinamento delle città, bullismo, zanzare, guidatori ubriachi, ecc. ecc.).

Questo non vuol dire che buona parte delle cose elencate non sussistano o non siano dei problemi; vuol dire semmai che la classe politica al potere traduce tutte le questioni - attraverso il meccanismo dell'ideologia - nella nuova semantica dell'emergenza. Innanzitutto si tratta di "semplificare" e ridurre i problemi alla dinamica amico/nemico, noi/loro, interno/esterno (in ultima analisi a una logica di guerra: l'attuale governo italiano, ad esempio, nel proclamare lo "stato d'emergenza" sulla questione immigrati, ha utilizzato non a caso il termine "contrasto").
Credo che ciò sia tra l'altro funzionale ai diversi possibili sviluppi o scenari della situazione socioeconomica: lo stato d'emergenza può essere esteso e applicato in qualsiasi momento alle situazioni di conflitto che via via si presenteranno (è successo in Campania e presto succederà sul fronte sindacale e lavorativo). A maggior ragione qualora poi la crisi economica dovesse aggravarsi.
Ma la logica emergenziale non può reggere in uno stato moderno se non si fonda su un certo livello di consenso: credo che oggi questo vada ravvisato nella paura sociale diffusa. Anche qui nulla di nuovo, noi sappiamo che il potere - ce lo insegna Spinoza - ha bisogno del timore sociale. Ma ancor più, come sostiene Hobbes nel Leviatano, del "terrore":

"egli dispone di tanta potenza e di tanta forza a lui conferite, che col terrore da esse suscitato è in grado di modellare le volontà di tutti i singoli in funzione della pace, in patria, e dell'aiuto reciproco contro i nemici di fuori" (Lev. cap. XVII).

Coesione interna, pace sociale, scarica esterna delle tensioni (un "esterno" che, come ho già scritto più volte, in epoca globale è paradossalmente un "interno"). Paura ed emergenza vanno qui di pari passo, si tengono, alimentandosi a vicenda. Ma paura di che cosa? Forse di perdere i privilegi, il lavoro, la casa, la famiglia, la vita, le ricchezze, anche se si abita una fortezza blindata? Dove si annidano i pericoli?
Poco importa, o meglio importa che siano disseminati un po' ovunque. E' cruciale innanzitutto che il pericolo e l'insicurezza siano "percepiti", avvertiti, e che si insinuino quotidianamente nella vita sociale, goccia a goccia, a piccole dosi omeopatiche. Lo si deve credere. La risposta a questa credenza sarà sempre lo stato di emergenza, ed ecco che il gioco è fatto e l'ideologia trionfa sul reale, il simbolico sul materiale. Un ideologico e un simbolico che con quel materiale possono anche non avere niente da spartire. Meglio quindi che tutto stia fermo, immobile, così com'è e che gli eventuali disagi vengano deviati all'esterno e fatti pagare agli "altri": pace in patria e guerra all'esterno, come ci avverte Hobbes.

Vi sono poi due risvolti della logica emergenziale che vanno sottolineati: la sistematica non-risoluzione dei problemi e l'incombenza di percorsi politici autoritari. Gestire le questioni solo in termini emergenziali significa cioè non affrontarle mai in maniera razionale e ponderata, con la discussione pubblica e l'elaborazione dei progetti risolutivi che il metodo democratico di governare (e di autogovernarsi) richiederebbe. C'è poi la questione temporale: i tempi dei governi e quelli della complessità sociale sono spesso divergenti; la politica in senso alto che richiede lungimiranza e periodi lunghi deve fare i conti con l'affarismo bottegaio della classe (pseudo)politica al potere (su questo tema tornerò presto).
E da ultimo, ma primo per gravità e importanza: quel che in verità vedo "emergere" all'orizzonte giorno dopo giorno, decreto dopo decreto, emergenza dopo emergenza, è il profilo di una nuova possibile dittatura che sguazzerà nel marasma dovuto alla non-risoluzione dei problemi, che invocherà la logica del "ci penso io, basta che mi lasciate lavorare" e che ci porterà a nuovi disastri. Dopotutto sia Mussolini che Hitler sono stati eletti democraticamente...

Da da da daa, da da daa. Da da da daa, da da daa daa daa.

Here's some outtakes so you can see JUST how thrilled Hobbes was with our antics.

Tocqueville dagegen sah, nach seinen Reisen nach Amerika, Gefahr in der Gleichheit, der Gleichschaltung und differenzierte den Freiheitsbegriff wesentlich stärker als Rousseau.

Hier nun eine Analyse der Auffassungen beider Autoren im Vergleich.

Quinta-feira. Segundo post. Dia de falar da edição.

Na edição 23 do ALT, tem uma matéria especial sobre o tão falado novo Batman, e também uma entrevista com a cineasta Heloísa Passos, que participará do Festival de Cinema de Cascavel. Também tem a contribuição do filósofo Ivanor Guarnieri, com um texto sobre Rosseau; e do filósofo José Luiz Ames, com um texto sobre Hobbes. E, claro, os sebos e os blogues têm lugares garantidos. A nova seção do ALT sobre música, que provisoriamente leva o título de Disco Compacto, traz uma nova empreitada de Anderson e Julliane, dessa vez descendo a lenha nos elogios e humilhações sobre a cantora pop Christina Aguilera. Imperdível.

Hoje não vamos colocar aqui os fatos do dia por livre e espontânea preguiça. Na verdade, por que tínhamos colocado e por um desastre no manuseio do computador, se foram, então, o de hoje, só amanhã.

- E não deixem de participar do encontro que estamos promovendo. Mais informações, no post anterior. Lembrem-se que têm de confirmar presença pelo e-mail alt@gazetadoparana.com.br.

Até

ALT

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Compared to Hobbes' Leviathan borne out of his own sense of awe to power and Rousseau's pseudo-religious extension of rights being inalienable from all penitent souls, Locke would have best fit with most bloggers presently.

Neither an angel nor a man driven to salving the souls of many, he operated on the principle of me. That man had the right of property, and that right has to be respected irrespective. Without that respect society's cannot be built, and laws will collapse for the lack those abiding it.

From that vastly complex rationale structure, one idea comes searing through - man has rights of privacy.No point having property without privacy.

Surprisingly I'm going to have much agreement with many Islamic scholars.

In Malaysia, privacy is paid scant respect.

This might be partially accentuated by the nation gaining independence in the middle of a long communist insurgency. It was the passport to various privacy relegating policies.

Taken away

Those residing near jungles and potentially provide supply lines to the Communist were forcibly evacuated to new villages under the Briggs Plan. Just like that.

As you can see, our political masters have got used to moving us about and prying into our lives without prior permission.

Property is not absolute, just temporarily under your care. The state can alter laws to change the status of land from reserve land to industrial land, on a whim.

And if property is temporal, than people and their lives are too.

As seen by enforcement agencies and even local councils raiding and hurtling themselves into establishments they feel are immoral.

For me, you have to show the harm first, before you act.

If you are about to go chasing after illegal karaokes, then you will spend a lifetime looking for them. They will always mushroom, because your people need them.

It is amazing to see the various TM signboards asking Malaysians not to surf porn. It is the surest and fastest way to tell tourists that Malaysians are porn-addicts.

Respect space

In the modern world, countries don't choose people, people choose countries.

Malaysia should pay heed to that advice. The great tropics, fruits, seas and jungles will not entice people, if widespread rape of privacy occurs in Malaysia.

People like their space, and we should give them their space.

Hotels do not need to deal with religious department enforcers, who want to make spot-checks. It is horrendous.

People pay for space, and quite a price for it, and even then have to contend with the fear of religious authorities bugging them. Where is the respect there?

But we are trying to help

That is the classic condition. We need to pry to help you. If you can pry into everyone's space to help them, are you willing to trade your own space in order for other people to help you?

Are we all willing to live without private space?

All societies are faced by this debate, and they debate it. But here, like most things - the powers that be are deciding for us.

And that's what so exasperating about Malaysia. That there is a ruling class that thinks they can rule indefinitely without the input of people. I mean real input.

No more.

It is time we start to defend private space and not give in. Our homes is where we live, and our right to the home is absolute. What we do in it, is only for us to know - unless we break just laws or disturb the peace of others.

Otherwise, bugger-off.

Traduzindo:

Quadrinho 1: "Uau, você já está trabalhando no seu relatório? Mas ele não precisa estar pronto antes de terça!", "É, eu sei........ Mamãe diz que as pírulas devem estar funcionando."

Quadrinho 2: "Bem, está nevando lá fora. Eu pensei que talvez pudéssemos... Não sei, você que manda."

Quadrinho 3: "Desculpe, eu não estava ouvindo. Eu tenho mesmo que terminar isso."

Quadrinho 4: -

.

Eu, assim como muitas pessoas, nunca dei a mínima para Calvin & Haroldo, até descobrir que o tigre na verdade é de pelúcia. E ver essa tirinha me deixou deprê! Não é oficial, ok? É feita por fã! Autor desconhecido. Mas é muito triste :(
As pírulas às quais Calvin se refere provavelmente são aquelas pírulas que alguns pais (principalmente nos EUA) fazem as crianças tomarem, quando sentem que elas são problemáticas.

Você pode ver uma discussão enorme sobre essa tirinha neste forum: The final Calvin and Hobbes (em inglês)
Eu peguei essa tira no antigo blog do Doni, que recebeu ela do Inagaki, que  encontrou ela neste forum. Não sei quem é o autor.
Falando em Doni... Conheci o blog dele esses dias, o Hedonismos (trocadinho infame rlz), muito legal. Para conhecer, clique aqui.

PS: Já faz uns dias que escrevi esse post, mas só publiquei agora ^^

To Calvin, and the reader, Hobbes is a friendly, and playful, intelligent
companion to share his many adventures with!

This collection of cartoons is from the comic strip - "Calvin and Hobbes." A little history about the strip - Calvin is a 6-year-old kid with a profound perspective on life, sharing opinions on everyday happenings, with a sense of mischief and innocence we can only remember and yearn for. His adventures revolve around himself, Hobbes, his fantasy friend, (a tiger doll that comes to life in  his private musings), his parents, and his classmate Susie, on whom he has a crush, but, is too  proud to admit. Enough said - enjoy.

Visit This Link!

Che fa rima con Alfano. Il Lodo Alfano.

Not another post about nemesis, but he did take a nice picture to go along with my title. Why are women catty? I'm trying to understand this behavior in which most women engage. I am guilty as well. I try to be direct about my emotions, my life, and my thoughts. I strive every day to just tell someone how I feel about what they have said, how they have treated me, or how I feel about them. But I often don't.  I have come to believe it is out of fear. Fear of the reaction I will get. Fear of being rejected.

Is this why most women gossip? Is it really about being mean and "catty" or is it because we are afraid of truly saying how we feel? I hope its fear. I know with this blog, I am finding even more of my voice. I become less afraid every time I put my self and my life out there. Its like saying, "Accept me for who I am and what I have experienced or back off."

I snapped this yesterday at Petsmart. Poor guy.

1. Editorial Introduction (Paul Franco & Leslie Marsh)

The editors will give an overview of the importance of Oakeshott to 20th Century philosophy and account for the abiding interest in Oakeshott’s work.

2. Biographical Essay (Robert Grant)

A brief account of Oakeshott’s life and times designed to introduce readers to the flesh and blood man.

3. Idealism (David Boucher)

A discussion of Oakeshott’s idealist theory of knowledge and metaphysics in relation to Hegel, British Idealism (F.H. Bradley, et. al), and possibly R.G. Collingwood.

4. Experience and Its Modes and Theory of Knowledge (John Liddington)

A critical analysis of Oakeshott’s idealist theory of knowledge and coherence theory of truth as articulated in his first and foundational work, Experience and Its Modes.

5. Philosophy of History (Geoffrey Thomas)

A critical exposition of Oakeshott’s philosophy of history, one of the most important aspects of Oakeshott’s philosophy and often considered to be one of the most profound treatments of historical knowledge in the 20th century.

6. Philosophical Method (Timothy Fuller)

An analysis of Oakeshott’s concept of philosophy as it developed over the course of his career and especially as it relates to political philosophy.

7. Aesthetics (Corey Abel)

A discussion of Oakeshott’s philosophy of art, especially in connection with his important essay “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind”.

8. Religion (Elizabeth Corey)

Oakeshott wrote extensively on religion and theology from the 1920s right through to the 1970s. Only now is this aspect of Oakeshott attracting attention.

9. Philosophy of Education (Paul Franco)

Oakeshott’s philosophy of education is gaining more and more prominence as a classic defence of a liberal arts education while simultaneously being a critique of instrumentalist education.

10. History Political Thought (Martyn Thompson)

Oakeshott’s legendary lectures on the history of political thought, delivered at the LSE in the 1950s and ‘60s, have recently been published. The question of how to write the history of political thought was an abiding concern of Oakeshott’s and links him to other contemporaries such as Leo Strauss, J.G.A. Pocock, and Quentin Skinner.

11. Hobbes (Noël Malcolm)

Oakeshott’s interpretation of Hobbes as the preeminent philosopher of the political theory of individuality is generally regarded as one of the most important contributions to Hobbes scholarship in the 20th century.

12. Critique of Rationalism (Kenneth Minogue)

A critical analysis of this best-known aspect of Oakeshott’s political philosophy, which bears comparison with other postwar critiques of central planning and utopian thinking by Berlin, Hayek, Popper, and Polanyi.

13. Oakeshott and Hayek (Leslie Marsh)

Oakeshott and Hayek contemporaneously presented the two major and most sustained critiques of rationalism. Conceived as social epistemologists, a contrastive picture is drawn.

14. Conservatism (Robert Devigne)

Oakeshott is generally regarded as one of the most important conservative thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. This essay will present a critical analysis of his distinctive and skeptical brand of conservatism with comparisons to other 20th-century conservatisms.

15. Civil Association (Noël O’Sullivan)

Civil association, defined in opposition to purposive or enterprise association, is the central concept of Oakeshott’s most highly developed statement of his political philosophy set out in his magnum opus On Human Conduct.

16. Philosophical Jurisprudence (Terry Nardin)

This is one of the most neglected aspects of Oakeshott. The rule of law is a vital to Oakeshott’s conception of the liberal (civil) state.

17. Contemporary Political Philosophy (John Coats)

This chapter will locate Oakeshott’s work within post-war political philosophy.