In Praise of My Good Self
I have worked alone, outside of Academia and with no financial support, for a quarter of a century now. I don’t have an academic position. I earned my spurs within the academic world, of course, meeting the highest standards from undergraduate to PhD level. I maintain those academic standards. I read well, widely and deeply; I don’t just make things up to grind an axe. I use my savings to support myself, along with a little distribution job. It pays my bills and gives me the time to write. It’s a precarious existence, with no pension to look forward to. But it has its rewards. I am free and independent, and I can develop the arguments wherever I may. My first academic referee, Liverpool JMU historian Prof. Ron Noon, described me as an ‘intellectual range rider.’ He also described me as ‘a very likeable and very popular person with fellow students and staff.’ I’m putting that comment in here because I have been getting hammered for being a thoroughly nasty and aggressive person for daring to persist in my long-standing critique of liberal modes of thought, action, and organisation. It seems I have to join the liberals in order to persuade them from the inside as to my position on ‘rational freedom.’ I counter with a list of the abuse I have suffered at the hands of others, but to no avail. So I move on. I’m likeable, I’m popular – or was – and most importantly of all, I’ve pretty much got the main points and overall direction right. If that makes me unpopular with those who prefer wishful thinking and fantasy to the hard yards in thought and politic, then so be it. I have no option but to leave them behind. So I took time out after work today to entertain and reassure myself by copying and pasting some of the comments and recommendations I have received on my Academia site. There is a remarkable contrast here. On Facebook, I encounter a mixture of indifference and abuse. Indifference in the main. I am pretty robust with abusers. But I note the confusions and superficialities of those most passionate about changing the world. I despair of Facebook politics, I really do. At least here on Academia, people do actually take time to read what I have written, and don’t expect complicated thoughts to be reduced to a catchy couple of lines that confirm what people already know and want to believe. “If only people would read,” Marx once lamented. “Ignorance has never helped anyone yet!” he raged in another meeting, confronted by people who meant well when it came to changing the world, but were utterly clueless as to the nature of the system to be changed and the future society to come. “I am not a Marxist,” he famously said. Marx as an old man witnessed the birth of the new socialist parties. He was deeply worried. Their understanding of socialism was superficial, their understanding of his doctrines were often plain wrong. He tried his best to correct them, in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, for instance. Marx’s understanding of socialism went one way, the socialists who came after him went the other. Max Weber sardonically noted that Marx’s ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ would be realized as the ‘dictatorship of the officials’ over the proletariat. I don’t like wishful thinking in politics. And I don’t withhold criticism when things are wrong or misguided. To those who claim that my criticism of certain positions in politics weaken one’s own side and strengthens the position of one’s opponents I say, nothing strengthens the opposition more than a bad practice that turns ideals into their opposites, traduces essential values and principles, compromises reputations, and confirms the impression that each, any, and every attempt to transcend the prevailing order is doomed to failure. If things are amiss I will say so. I have no intentions of being a fellow-traveller on the road to Stalinism, whether of socialist or environmentalist bent. I say this as a lifelong eco-socialist.
If I may, after suffering all manner of dreary nonsense on the hell that is Facebook, I think it worthwhile to sing my praises, or cite others’ singing it in recent weeks. I’ve been receiving a lot of words of thanks and praise on Academia. Given the general misery that surrounds and occasionally engulfs me on FB, I decided to flatter myself and round up some good notices and comments with regard to my work. I put this here as a little – or large – reminder to myself that I am a pretty OK person who has worked hard and selflessly for the past couple of decades, my reward being the thanks I have received from individuals themselves working away in the world of ideas. It may not amount to a million likes on FB, but it is all the more valuable for that.
Here is the link to my Academia site. And here is the link to my work on the Humanities Commons.
Downloading LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HARMONIOUS CITY
“Hello Sir
In every line and paragraph, you grasp our attention. I was only looking for Mumford’s theory, but your book made me curious to read in more depth. I downloaded the book for future use. It's one to keep returning to.
Thank you.”
Downloading Being and Knowing: A Thomist Reading of Immanuel Kant
“Aquinas meets Kant! What could be more fascinating? Peter Critchley has tapped into an under-explored area of philosophy. I'm amazed to see what you have come up with.”
This was for Harvard Divinity School. It made the final reading list but missed out. I think the view was that Thomist critiques of Kant had been done before, and the modern age is more preoccupied with fashionable issues in the ‘post’ whatever world. I think St Thomas will survive.
I shall avoid naming names in the main, because it isn’t appropriate with private messages. But I think I can give a name to the message below, because it involves reference to a book that the author had written and was bringing to my attention:
downloading Aristotle and the Public Good
Interest in arguments against the "false idea of Freedom" (Politics 1310a)
From: ANGUS SIBLEY, actuary and writer on economics, author of
The 'poisoned spring' of Economic Libertarianism (Pax Romana, 2011) and of Catholic Economics: Alternatives to the Jungle (Liturgical Press, 2015).
“Dear Dr Critchley,
I was delighted to read your paper 'Plato and Rational Freedom'. The dominance of the libertarian tradition in recent decades has indeed had disastrous consequences: neglect of public services, tolerance of destructive "free trade" and excessive automation, refusal to tackle exorbitant inequalities in the distribution of income and capital . . . Moreover, the libertarian economists propound an amoral conception of freedom; as Milton Friedman wrote, 'freedom has nothing to say about what an individual does with his freedom'. I am, as you can guess from the titles of my books, an adversary of the tradition that 'conceives any collective purpose as an infringement upon liberty.’ You expatiate well on Aristotle's remark that 'men should not think it slavery to live πρóς την πολιτείαν', which might perhaps be translated as 'according to the way of life of a good citizen'. The Roman Catholic catechism states that 'there is no true freedom except in the pursuit of that which is good and just'.
It seems that the increasingly urgent need, to act decisively against malpractices that are destroying our environment and climate, will force us to abandon libertarian policies, since there is little or no chance that free markets will impose the necessary changes before it is too late.
I look forward to reading more of your work.
With kind regards,
Angus Sibley"
Praise be! It’s always gratifying when someone actually reads in depth, can handle the nuances in the argument, and understands clearly the key points at issue. It is extremely annoying to argue at cross-purposes with people who make basic category mistakes.
downloading Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
“Reading your Rousseau and am finding strong arguments to read 'social cognition' in opposition to the Ayn Rand/Max Stirner versions of the selfish individual .... the modern Hero figures that have never spoken to Socrates.”
That’s precisely what I do. Marx openly challenged Stirner. Adherents of Stirner consider Marx’s criticisms in The German Ideology to be mere polemics. Marx was bad tempered and dismissed, it has to be admitted. I set his critical remarks within a reconstruction of ‘rational freedom.’ In doing that, I demonstrate the cogency of Marx’s critique of the abstractions of liberal thought. (see my two most recent works on Marx from 2018). Rational freedom vs libertarian freedom is central to my view. It entails a forensic examination of liberalism, going deeper than its various forms, metaphysical and political, to its ontological roots.
downloading Rousseau on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
“You were recommended to me for your take on Spinoza by a reader of my papers....and I have come to find that I can look to you as an excellent foil for my other arguments. Your book has put me onto a different take on Spinoza and the emotions than I had realized.”
I get recommended. Excellent.
downloading INDUSTRY AND EUROPE Pt 4 The Economics of Peace, Freedom and Justice
“I am very impressed by your 'Marxian'/vs/Capital take on things. I have gravitated around a Mengerian notion of "GOOD" (goods) which is information-based instead of the Land/Labor/Capital ... my current book leaps over the TNCs to concentrate on the massive black market natural resource rape economy that Cedrescu used to warn us about in the 1980's. I need to see how your take (as the most intellectually-competent argument I have come across) jives with the reality of oligarchs. Your logic holds up well to the structural issues, but I believe we shall need to join the game in an entirely new way. I am reading closely.”
This work was from 1995 when I studied economics at Keele University. I am glad that someone is reading it, because I always thought it solid and, in parts, prophetic. There is nothing in the argument that I would change.
downloading Politics, Planetary Engineering, and Environmentalism: The Politics of Gaia
“Your stuff is just what I will need to press my current arguments ... and I shall be pressing yours while I do..... ah, the joys of dialectic! I am arguing that we are at a watershed in which we may choose to continue traditional history, or move to a new epoch...with Gaia. But to do so we must shed the notion of the individual consciousness, and ego, as we currently argue it. I am excited to see that your argument goes in the same direction, much further, even.”
downloading SPINOZA AND THE RULE OF REASON
“Dear Peter, this is the article that led me to your voluminous output, which I am downloading to read....my goodness, when? I'm looking forward to your positions and erudition. Harry”
Erudite and voluminous. That makes me smile.
downloading Being and Place: Reason, Nature and Society
“Darn, your list is like shopping at a tax-free shop!!! I guess I'm planning to get drunk.”
Yup, strong drinking is recommended. I’ve been giving my work away for free for years now, millions of words for students and academics to access, read, borrow, develop, take on board. It’s a commitment to the republic of letters, what Dante in Il Convivio called a banquet of learning, passing knowledge and ideas on to those who have not yet had the opportunity to eat ‘the bread of angels,’ but who yet have the hunger. I feed my own hunger, and hopelly that of others in the process. It’s been an intellectual commitment, certainly. Along the way, I have done my best to maintain academic standards. There has been a political commitment to with respect to addressing the growing crisis in the climate system. And maybe, as with Dante, it has been an act of love. I’m not sure. I certainly feel affinities with Dante, the man of politics and affairs, sent into exile to observe the ills of the world alone. Exile brought objectivity. The distance from the fray allowed Dante to see the issues and interests clearly, with an eye on an objective good. Those with a dog in the fight may not appreciate that objectivity. But in exile, you work alone and have no need to solicit the windy applause and facile support of the protagonists, those who see but a little part of the truth, mistaking it for the whole. And I despite wishful-thinking as the corruption of hope.
downloading THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX
“Dear Dr. Critchley,
It is most interesting for me to see what guided you through your work. I am a mature PhD student (sociology and political economy) doing my thesis on Marxian alienation. I am reading your paper with great interest, and am thrilled to see the way the argument unfolds from the simple to the complex.”
This is really a synopsis of my research programme for Marx. It exists in the form of single lines with occasional elaboration. Reading this, I feel like writing my thesis again. This time just focusing on Marx. That was my initial plan. Instead, I ended up reaching into the philosophical roots of Marx’s emancipatory commitment.
downloading Marx, Praxis and Socialism from Below
“I am engrossed in this book of yours. Thanks for sharing it.”
It’s about 1400 pages long as a I remember, so if you get engrossed in there you may never come out and see the stars again.
“I am gratified to see you identify the prime causes that are dragging our society into downfall to ugly peril. Successful application of abilities in unethical ways and means to secure a favorable exchange ratio could be realized only with the help of government brasses and public servants and ruling politicians. The application of abilities on unethical ways during the process of exchange returns with an advantageous exchange ratio on either side party who is more unethical. The wealth/resources accumulated with unethical part of exchange process become a special influencing parameter (Capitalistic parameter) to undermine opposite party in future exchange. Ultimately, it turns into a race to hold maximum unethical resources to dictate most advantageous exchange ratio in all future exchange processes. I look forward to reading your work more closely.”
I think I understand that. I’m less than sure that I argue things precisely that way.
This from Spinozist philosopher Charles M Saunders
“After reading your abstract on 'Spinoza and the Man of Reason' it came to me that our takes on Spinoza's 'intended meanings' in his work share commonalities. When you noted Foucault's misinterpretation (my words, not yours), which I typically extend to most of the French so-called Spinoza 'scholars', I decided to discover more about you and your profile. Cheers to your pedagogical inclusion. Once Spinoza remarks, in the TIE, "For we have an adequate idea", he announces, as far as I'm concerned, that the chain of adequacy that virtually anyone can build for themselves, marks a new potential for assigning genius, in potential, to all people, everywhere.
Following what I believe is Baruch's lead, my system revolves around something I call, 'doing philosophy'. This involves going directly to the author's words and without reference to any outside authority, offering a line-by-line interpretation of the author's intent. This makes the reader the final arbiter of the worth of any given document.
At any rate, I have already shared the aforementioned work of yours with my like minded souls.
All the very best!
Semper, Sapere, Aude,
Charles M. Saunders
Indeed! I like the approach of St Thomas Aquinas College in California, where students go directly to ‘good books,’ rather than secondary commentaries. I have always been averse to the war of the footnotes. You have to do it on the way to earning a PhD, but I loathed it. I wanted to go directly to the work of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Weber, and Habermas and, as it happened, taking that broad sweep served me well. It was simply impossible to include too much commentary on the secondary sources when I was addressing the works of the best philosophers directly. Read in the raw, the ideas of the great philosophers come back to life and invite us to philosophize.
downloading BEYOND MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY Pt 5 The Critique of Alien Politics
“Dear Peter, What sparked my interest was the choice of your topics and the great consistency and depth with which you deal with them.”
Rational Freedom is the unifying theme running throughout my work.
downloading REASON AS THE REALISATION OF NATURE
“Dear Peter,
My interest is in the relationship of Natural Law to the Constructal Law, the symmetry of the great philosophers relative to the physical constructal law.”
OK, but even if such a law exists in nature, there is still a need for ethics as something that cannot simply be read from nature. Natural Law is not the law of nature, it is nature seen through the eyes of critical, moral reason. I’m not that interested, nor that persuaded, by proofs for the existence of some law and order built into nature. I presume the existence of some such thing. The Scholastics were wise to presume the existence of truths that were incapable of proof and demonstration; they built an entire civilization on such things. The test for me is whether the ideas we have on law and order are sufficient to motivate effort and inspire action, are they sufficient to sustain the practices that build and maintain a civilization. It intrigues me that it is so difficult to demonstrate or prove the existence of such law and order, and yet people persist in the effort, making all manner of incredible discoveries along the way. Read on Kepler, Faraday, all of them. If we go by facts, it seems easier to accept meaningless, chaos, and disorder. Look at the Cathedral at Chartres and consider the school of mathematicians who informed the cathedral building. Belief and confidence matter far more than proof. Pythagoras, are you out there?
“Dear Dr Critchley, academia.edu sent me a recent syllabus of your "philosophy" for non-philosophers. You are the most rigorous and at the same time the most imaginative of philosophers. Over the last 5 years I have become interested (fascinated would be a better word) with the philosophy of J.G. Fichte. As you know, he came from nowhere and vanished into nowhere. You too seem to have come from nowhere, but the more I look, the more I see you everywhere.”
The Nowhere Man who is everywhere at once. No wonder I am so tired. Dw i wedi blino. Said correspondent claimed to be disappointed to find that I have not written on Fichte. There is a section on Fichte on The City of Reason. But, agreed, he’s an omission. He should have been in my PhD thesis, but had to be cut. Here is why. I was examining the critical appropriate and reconfiguration of ancient Greek essentialist philosophy in early modern German philosophy. Rousseau, an ancient among the moderns, was my route into the Germans. I selected three philosophers I did for a couple of reasons. I consider Kant, Hegel, and Marx to be the best and the most important of German ‘rational’ philosopher, and giving three divergent versions – liberal, conservative, and radical/socialist respectively. So Fichte went missing.
Dear Peter Critchley,
“I am very much excited to read your books and benefit from your knowledge.
Thanks a lot Sir.”
More than knowledge, understanding; and more than understanding, wisdom.
Paul Werner left a reason for downloading THE PROLETARIAN PUBLIC
“I'm the editor of The Red Vienna Reader [roteswien.com], so naturally your material and argument here is useful.
Cordially,”
I wonder if he would be interested in publishing that book from 1996. I was always very proud of it. It’s one of my favourite books of all those I have written. This was written from notes I took in writing my thesis. My thesis proposal initially concerned Marx’s principle of proletarian self-emancipation. I made extensive notes on working class politics and history, the industrial unionists, revolutionary syndicalists, council communists, Gramsci, Luxemburg, James Connolly, Tom Mann and such like. The book concerns the tradition of socialism from below before the Bolshevik Revolution. I consider it as containing the germs of a genuine socialism, ruined by the First World War and the travesties of politics that followed in its aftermath.
downloading BEYOND MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY Pt 6 Associational Socialism
“Dear Peter,
I am very much fascinated by your ideas, which I have just become acquainted with. I think your ideas have great implications in left politics, if they are disseminated properly.
With thanks and regards”
I wonder if this implies that, in present form, spread over seventy books and four million words, the ideas are not properly disseminated. Somebody somewhere needs to distil the essence and provide a condensed version that integrates all the main parts and concepts. Let’s be honest, the only person who can do that is me. But I am always busy with the next work.
downloading WHY PHILOSOPHY
“I am fascinated by the way you analyse and develop the topics you write about.”
downloading Marx, Praxis and Socialism from Below
“To Peter,
I greatly appreciate your effort in writing Marx, Praxis and Socialism from Below. I am organising a public meeting on Marxism being a philosophy of praxis in London UK and will be getting an understanding of if from your article and argument.
Thanks”
downloading Rousseau and the Quest for Human Happiness
“I have an assignment on Rousseau. It is not like I actively sought out information on Rousseau for fun.”
Charming! I am sure Rousseau would be pleased to know that his quest for happiness is spreading such gloom and misery in the student world. Get reading!
downloading Immanence, Transcendence and Essence
“Hi Peter,
I can't believe how much you write, and so interesting...”
I can’t believe it either, but it’s nice to be appreciated. Beats being ignored and abused on FB.
downloading LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HARMONIOUS CITY
“Dear Peter,
I'm studying Mumford's work, especially with regards to his interest in history and how his books reached outside of America. Your book is so informed and pertinent.”
downloading Martin Heidegger : Ontology and Ecology
“I am very interested in the interconnections your article elaborates. I look forward to reading more of your work. Thanks for making it available.
Best Regards”
downloading Pythagoras and the Harmony in All Things
“Dear Peter,
I am reading your paper because I'm working on a book on art and science. Major advances in science are made when seemingly disparate phenomena (e.g., electricity and magnetism) are unified. Pythagoras proposed a grand unification, between sound and the "spheres," positing that mathematical harmony applied everywhere. Make sense?”
That makes some kind of sense. But it’s only the beginning. Nature is the easy stuff. Wait till you get to ethics and politics and the motivational economy of human beings. Then things get really difficult. Human beings are not always, and not mainly, rational. How to get one part rational beings to do rational things? What is the moral and institutional infrastructure of what Habermas calls ‘the Rational Society.’
downloading Tolkien and the Fellowship of All Living Things
“I share your views ...”
It’s always nice to know that you are not alone.
This from someone at the Roman Catholic Major Seminary, dept of Philosophy
downloading THE LOVE OF WISDOM
“Sir, your idea is very interesting and brilliant. It thus helps me to understand more about philosophy, wisdom, and quest for truth.”
I think it was Pythagoras’ idea. But I’ll take credit where I can find it.
All over the world
downloading Reason and Rationalisation in Marx and Weber
“Dear Peter, thank for offering a very deep analysis paper. I hope I can make your method of analysis as an inspiration of mine in making a paper.
Dr. Syahganda Nainggolan
Jakarta
You’re very welcome. Intellectuals of all lands unite.
From the University of Chicago
downloading The Dialectic of First and Second Nature - Enlightenment and Exchange Value
“I am teaching Montesquieu right now and, reading your paper, I can see that there is something of Marx's concept of second nature in Montesquieu's understanding of law--but also of his discussion of the climate and works of men in book 18 of the EL. Thank you for making it available, you convey some deeply complicated and intricate issues with great clarity.”
From someone at the Divine Word Mission Seminary
downloading ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
“Dear Peter,
I'm a Philosophy student and I really appreciate this book. It is a big help for my thesis. Thank you sir!”
I wonder how many theses I have influenced and infiltrated. For the better. Without being cited.
“Bonjour Monsieur ;
Je veux bien intégrer une équipe de recherche , Pouvez vous me recruter en tant que Doctorant en Informatique ,
NB : je suis M2 informatique
Cordialement”
I think that’s a recommendation. I like the sound of that word ‘Cordialement.' Let me check Google.
From someone at the Universidad ORT Uruguay, Faculty Member, Facultad de Arquitectura
downloading The City of Symbols
“Dear Peter, I love cities and I found your writings truly inspirational, thanks.
As an urbanist I am enthused by your ideas of the good city.”
Charles University, Prague, researcher, Contextual Missiology
I know Tim, good fellow.
“This is just to say thank you, and to wish you all the best in your future work (which I enjoy reading).”
“Thanks, Peter. I will look forward to your work on Winstanley, someone whom I also like a lot.
best wishes.”
I need to get that Winstanley finished, I really do.
downloading Marx, Reason and Freedom: Communism, Rational Freedom and Socialised Humanity
“In science, anything Marx is on the right track. See www.scientificphilosophy.com.
Glenn”
What Marx understood by ‘science’ isn’t quite what we in the English speaking world understood by science.
downloading Martin Heidegger : Ontology and Ecology
“my background is on physics, I work as data manager in projects related mostly on marine environment. I've a good experience in physical oceanography data series, but your papers allow me to explore also the ecological point of view.”
OK
From a professor of history
downloading The Social Economy of Germany
“I would like to thank you for your excellent insights...
Best regards,
ChungAng University, Korea”
downloading Machiavelli and the Citizen Ideal
“I was looking though academic journals about the connection of Machiavelli and citizenship. Thankfully I found your document. It presents a view of Machiavelli that is very different to the conventional readings. One that is truer to Machiavelli’s thought than those views which focus on The Prince.”
downloading Green Principles and Green Politics
“I wanted to get an idea of our research topic about green politics. In reading your work, I am able to dig deep into the nature of green politics.”
“Dear Peter,
I have downloaded some of your papers on Rousseau and have found many useful interpretations of literal passages of the Social Contract which puzzle me.
In any case, it is a pleasure to go through your papers.
Thanks for making them available.
Regards,
Giorgio”
Downloading Marx and Rational Freedom
“Thank you for making this important book available.”
It is an important book. It’s my thesis. It is here where I make the case that class politics is insufficient and that Marx’s emancipatory commitment needs to be set firmly in an ethical framework. I argue that the concealed ethic in Marx needs to be made explicit and foregrounded.
downloading Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the State
“love it xx”
Succinct. An argument I can appreciate.
downloading Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy in the Thought of Norberto Bobbio
“I'm in a class thank u for making this free I need to study <3”
Students love me. That’s nice. I have disseminated my views this way for years now. I don’t care if students take little bits here and there, then take them in their own directions. I have done the same with the work of others. None of us are original, we just shuffle things around a little bit and make a few discoveries here and there. In the very least, they may in time come to remember me for the high marks my ideas earned them. I hope. It’s always possible they got marked down. But I doubt it. I’m pretty damned good.
downloading Machiavelli and the Citizen Ideal
“This was among other items of similar vein. I will surely benefit from your work, it is so good and so vast! I don’t know how you do it.”
Me neither. I guess I have had a lot of time to fill. Monks and prisoners could do something similar.
reason for downloading The Secret People: Liverpool Pop Music from 1980 Onwards
“Helping some folks in a Liverpool band write up some biographical materials. It’s all here!”
I know Liverpool pop music very well.
downloading The Social Economy of Germany
“I want to learn this chapter, because i want best marks for my exam.”
We all did it. Students learn to go to the best sources.
downloading The Globalisation of Place and Space
“Your paper is so insightful about globalisation and how it links in with place.”
downloading Being and Knowing: A Thomist Reading of Immanuel Kant
“Thank you for making your book available. Your argument is sharp and incisive, a brilliant exegesis of the enduring importance of Aquinas in light of the failures of Enlightenment rationalism.”
You have to be careful when talking of these ‘failures.’ I’m part with MacIntyre but also part with Jurgen Habermas. The Enlightenment has great achievements to its name, and I think we have yet to develop the full emancipatory potential of modernity. That depends on emancipating reason from the capitalist social forms within which it is currently encased.
downloading RATIONALISTS AND EMPIRICISTS
“I am impressed by what you have to say about rationalists and empiricists. I'm particularly interested in these doctrines as they apply to knowledge of identities.”
“Peter, I am beginning to read with increasing enthusiasm your ‘Tolkien and the Fellowship of All Living Things’. I picked up on it through Academia.edu.
I am sure you are right on this. Tolkien represents a very traditional ‘lost worlds’ response to the corrosive threats of late modernism. But then conservatism (hesitant long termism) is built into his implied environmentalism, because environmentalism is a conservative instinct.
One of the tragedies of our inaction over say the climate issue is that the environmental movement that opposes the destruction of the ecological commons has been hijacked by a petty bourgeois ideological clique whose agenda is the same lamentable privatization, laissez-faire deregulation and libertarian disinhibition of the existential and social commons, as the corporate one is with the economic and natural ones.
Our ‘Churchy’ Establishment is just as much into orthodoxy, ideological conformity and heresy witch hunting as its predecessors. Neither The Libertarchy nor The Corporate Kingship is even remotely ‘progressive’ in any measurable sense. Both of them ravish their respective constituencies with cloying indulgences that force marches all of them towards the cliff of the valley of the shadow of marginalization and death.
I don’t know about you Peter, but I am having to invent new language to circumvent the treacly cliches, oracular declamation, soundbite sloganeering and language of condemnation that now obfuscates and paralyses political discourse.
I shall continue to read your work and if I can offer any constructive suggestions, I will.
Regards, Christopher N.”
Good comment on the hijacking of the environmental question by those committed not to ecological transformation but to green adaptation. I’m onto this. It doesn’t make me popular. It makes me a Marxist trusting to the creative, knowledgeable agency of those involved to see through and breakthrough the capitalist constraints currently seeking to narrow the environmental vision.
downloading An Introduction to the Philosophy of Aristotle
"I came here in search for wisdom. I found it. Your work sparks my curiosity to know philosophy more.”
I seek to turn people on rather than off. Those who make philosophy boring are a menace. I did think of writing a book on logical fallacies. Good reasoning sometimes appeals to me. But it doesn’t necessarily lead to a good world. Good character and good will does that. And Good faith.
downloading Machiavelli and the Citizen Ideal
“This is so good.”
I know. I present a view of Machiavelli the Republican, even the Citizen Democrat. I downgrade the significance of The Prince, which is the book people tend to focus on. The Prince is easy and obvious. The only remarkable thing about The Prince is that it makes the power politics that rulers and their apologists always seek to cover with morals explicit. Aristotle covers all of this in Book 5 of his Politics. Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy is much more important.
downloading ETHICAL AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM
“This paper was assigned as a weekly reading resource in a philosophy class at UMUC.”
That’s good to know. I am a critic of ethical and cultural relativism and the damage it has done to modern society.
downloading Aristotle and the Public Good
“I love your elaboration of the term “Public Space” and its contemporary meaning with historical context and examples.”
Note well my commitment to a genuine public realm. This is so much more than protest and pressure politics. An aggregate is not a public. Here is the source of my criticism of the environmental movement which seems to see demands pressed on government as the height of its political ambitions. I remain committed to a Green Republicanism. In truth, we don’t need any prefixes. It’s called a Republic. Or a Commonwealth.
PhD student
downloading Individualism and Individuality
“Hello,
This is a good introduction to individualism and Marxism. Thanks”
Mike McDermott
University of Technology Sydney
downloading The Common Ground vol 3 Moral Ecology
“Dear Peter,
I have long followed your extensive studies of Lewis Mumford, but chatting with Tim Flannery earlier this week and just seeing you are interested in him as well spurred this download. Furthermore, the title of your blog is largely what my PhD was about. Your work is wide-ranging and most pertinent, of great value to the times we are living in.
Many Thanks,
Mike McDermott”
Good company.
downloading THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS – THE DEMOCRATISATION OF PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS AND POWER
“Dear Peter
I am working on the issue: City as poiesis and praxis, educational contexts and was searching stuff on praxis. Your work is incredible, and so much of it too! I am taking Heidegger in the understanding of poieis. I am not a philosopher but social scientist doing research on urban pedagogy. You make complicated philosophy more easy to follow. So thank you for the paper. Warmest regards from snowy (YES!!! in May) Poland.”
downloading ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
“Dear Peter I find your analysis of Rousseau incredibly illuminating.”
Rousseau is wonderful. I'm in the process of preparing to write a book on Rousseau. He's a many layered, highly nuanced writer standing in ambiguous relation to many different strands of thinking, reducible to none. The main thing to say about Rousseau is that he believed in freedom as so much more than the individualist liberal principle of non-interference. People read his statement that "Man was born free but is everywhere in chains" as Rousseau demanding an end to all chains. This is a mistake. Rousseau was seeking to exchange the illegitimate chains or constraints which entail the personal dependence of some on others for the legitimate constraints we place on ourselves through conscious agreement on the form of the common life. A moral freedom - reason in control of desires that enchain us to empirical necessity - that translates into a rational freedom of the social contract. And point worth emphasizing, in my view, is that Rousseau's concept of 'the general will' is an attempt to integrate the two principal traditions of western philosophy - reason and nature on the one hand (Plato, natural law, the rationalists, Leibniz etc) and artifice and will (modern praxis philosophy, leading to Kant and Marx and notions of human beings governing themselves as colegislators through a self-legislative reason). My mature view will come out in the new book. I think Rousseau stands between the ancients and the moderns and beyond both - somewhere between natural law and positivism/historicism. Rousseau’s attempt to reconcile the two greatest traditions in political philosophy – will and artifice (imposure, praxis) and reason and nature (disclosure) – making the transition from contemplation to action (upon which Plato stalled), combining objectivism and subjectivism, innatism and culturism. He gives us a nature via nurture, not returning to some lost natural state but moving forwards to the realisation of human nature. And the thing to say about the general will is that it combines notions of objective reality and transcendent truths with notions of subjective will - the true and the good are not just given, they must be willed, and in coming to recognise and will the true and the good, and come together in agreement to live by laws in which we have had a hand in making, conforming ourselves to the true and the good, we come to be free. Rousseau is an incredibly rich and fertile thinker. I rate him very highly indeed as the greatest of the moderns. I wish you well with your studies. (An excellent book to investigate in David Lay Williams' "Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment).
downloading Why there is famine in the midst of abundance
“I'm helping my son with a paper for his food and culture class.”
Incredible where my work turns up and how it is put to use.
downloading The Globalisation of Place and Space
“Exams”
Fair enough. Students used to copy me when I was a student. I used to have my essays pinched.
downloading Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
“Your work gives me a better understanding of how Rousseau was using his paper to commentate on how the progression of science and art led humans further away from their true nature and what they should strive to be.”
downloading PHILOSOPHISING THROUGH THE EYE OF THE MIND Philosophy as Ethos and Praxis
“Great paper sir.”
You’re very welcome. This was written from a series of talks on philosophy in Liverpool. Those talks were not particularly appreciated. Many absented themselves, and those that remained were somewhat sullen. Open revolt broke out in one talk. The scientist folk didn’t care for them. I wrote them up, and people all over the world have raved about them. This remains my most popular work. I wrote the talks on hoof. With re-writing and polishing it was maybe six months work tops.
downloading ADORNO AND THE IRRATIONAL USE OF REASON
“I particularly like your summarized connection of instrumental meaning and fascism.”
The overextension of reason into non-rational or arational areas issues in an irrational reaction. I put it better in the paper. Please read it. Read them all, if you like. I still have plenty in reserve, ready to be published, or in my head, ready to be written.
downloading Marx's Active Materialism
“The title of the paper sparked my interest.”
My Director of Studies Jules Townshend loved that phrase ‘active materialism,’ so I developed it all the more. It’s also an affirmative materialism.
downloading The Dual City
“For the assignment, and my own benefit and society at large.”
That’s a wonderful reason.
downloading Rousseau on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
“I am writing a paper on the subject of political philosophy.”
downloading The Rational Freedom of Plato and Aristotle
“I am writing a research paper.”
I have lots of messages like this. I put these here as a couple of examples.
downloading The Politics of Difference and Community and the Ethic of Universalism
“I am required to read this article for my degree.”
My work gets in some good places. The word ‘required’ doesn’t suggest too much by way of enthusiasm, though. I was ‘required’ to read Moliere for my French A level. I hated it with a passion. If I ever meet that malingering wretch Argan I shall give him something to complain to Toinette about. I’ll make him limp, the whingeing toe-rag.
downloading Individualism and Individuality
“Your paper is an excellent exegesis on the role of the individual in Marxist theory.”
downloading SPINOZA AND THE RULE OF REASON
“Doing some fact checking, thank you very much for all of your help on this topic!”
It seems I have a reputation as something of a Spinoza scholar. People like Spinoza. He is an incredibly important philosopher. Bertrand Russell described him as ‘ethically supreme.’ My short book of one hundred pages serves a very good introduction to the man’s work.
downloading Rousseau : Autonomy and Authority
“I am impressed by the way that you unravel the paradox of being 'forced to be free.'”
It’s not actually a paradox. It’s a very clear and cogent idea. It’s only a paradox for those who work within a liberal paradigm. I get into the nooks and crannies. I reason in a dialogic way, which means I am often arguing against one position as I develop another. It can be tough to read. You need to think and philosophize as you go. You develop the capacity to do so as you read.
downloading Green Principles and Green Politics
“Our current book does not do a good job explaining. Yours does.”
I should be the set book on courses.
downloading Citizenship in the Renaissance
“I like this paper very much and it is not the stupid.”
Language difficulties. I think the paper is much appreciated.
downloading Green Principles and Green Politics
“Dear Peter,
I´m a political science student from Madrid (Spain). I´m working on a project about how green politics could be an alternative to the global crisis; and your paper is very informative and useful.”
I am of some use.
downloading ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
Dear Peter,
I teach medical ethics. I'm working on an article which examines the historical origins of the concept of autonomy so widely used in bioethics discourse. Your book is so good to read!
Thank you!
Best wishes”
“Hi Peter, I greatly enjoy looking at your work. Excellent contributions! Like you, I am interested in the spiritual awakening which must accompany the sustainability revolution, and am developing a religious naturalism to that end.”
Yes, I do think this spiritual awakening is key. Most of all, we need to answer the 'big questions' of 'who' we are in relation to 'where' we are - hence the title of the book I am working on: "Being and Place". I certainly work from a tradition of ethical naturalism, which certainly can take a religious form as in St Thomas Aquinas. Establishing right relationships within an overarching ethic of Earthcare (Carolyn Merchant) or Creation Care (Pope Francis) is key to ensure that our scientific knowledge and technical know-how does not misfire.
I am currently writing my 'big' book "Being and Place" and these questions will certainly be central. All my other work has been preparatory, really. I hope to be finished in a year, but I have such a mass of notes to work through that it is difficult to give a timetable.
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts and scholarship!”
“Dear Peter,
Thank you very much! Your work looks very interesting! I also share a significant interest in the topic of place and would like to write on that more in the future.
All good wishes,
David”
This work is very pertinent, addresses all the right themes in my view, and has similarities with my own work on Being and Place, searching for values and grounds under the shadow of Weberian disenchantment, trying to put the worlds of fact and value together.
I've been struggling to define my own work, originally a 'rational freedom' grounded in Plato and Aristotle and German philosophy since Kant, but have come to find that the answers I am seeking are to be sought in the natural law tradition and virtue ethics. I like what I am reading in your work, very pertinent.
have grounded myself in Aristotelian ethical naturalism for years and years now, holding my Thomist blessedness in reserve for no other reason than fear of losing some kind of intellectual or academic reputation. And yet that cosmic longing for meaning is every bit as real as any scientific or quasi-scientific explanation. Your work makes complete sense of the questions I've been asking, and only inadequately answering through modern philosophers, even the very great ones like Kant.
PS, I have posted this text on my Facebook page, in the hope that my ecology friends may read and start to look at climate change as something more than just an issue of natural science, hope you don't mind. Best wishes.
“Hi Peter, Many thanks for your very encouraging note! I am glad also that my work can be a source of encouragement to you in your own pursuit of questions of ultimate significance. There is unfortunately so much flattening and narrowing that in the academy. We must always fight against reductionism and also for a widening and deepening of our vision of the world. At least this is what I am always trying to do in my work. I think you are right about ecology: we really need to recover a deeper sense of the meaning of the natural world, including a sense of the sacred. Best wishes with all your good work! Peace, David”
Thoroughly decent chap, David Mc, and an incredibly good philosopher. I note that he does precious little on FB.
downloading THE BRAIN IN A VAT
“I need it for homework.”
I did little homework, went out playing football instead. Did it do me any harm? I’m here doing philosophy.
downloading THE CITY OF REASON
“Professional interest. We're about to apply for funding for a project with the work-title "the city as a learning arena". This book is highly relevant and interesting.”
Olav, a fine Aristotelian philosopher.
My 1200 page books gets funding for others. It took me two years to write. It earned me no money at all. That’s fine. It earns me thanks and praise of scholars.
downloading Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy in the Thought of Norberto Bobbio
“I am currently writing a critical review on Norberto Bobbio's "Democracy as it Relates to Socialism" and am encouraged to see how well you have already covered this area.”
Mark my words, I know liberalism well.
downloading Lewis Mumford, Civic Environmentalism and Ecological Regionalism
“Hello, Peter, ! am in a grad seminar course on economic development in a School of Environment program at University of Waterloo... .we are looking this week at Mumford in the context of alternative modernities and paths not (yet) taken... Your book is excellent, ideal for our purposes.
For your interest, our mentor's "thesis" and exploration for the week, and the context in which I am introducing your paper, is the following:
Through the 20th century socialism and capitalism vied to become the default political-economic models of modernity. Social democracy and the Keynesian welfare state represented some kind of compromise. Across Left and Right, it was assumed that this binary opposition between state and market was the whole story. Socialists might have disagreed vehemently with the diagnosis in Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) but they accepted the underlying notion that there were only two ways of organizing production and consumption in modern societies.
However, this binary discourse excluded, and indeed made invisible, any consideration of the metabolism of modernity. The dominant forms of socialism and social democracy, relying as they did on the expansion of the state, shared with liberal capitalism a high-throughput version of industrial modernity, which depended on continual growth and an expanding throughput of energy and materials.
At the same time, the emergence of modern welfare state squeezed out a range of alternative visions for a much more decentralized process of modernization. Rather than yoking the worker to the machine, these radical visions of local, community development involved harnessing new technologies to the skills of empowered artisans. Such a trajectory would have involved more self-sufficient communities, polyvalent and multi-skilled workers, small-scale and multi-functional machinery and a reMaker rather than consumer society.
This vision was shared variously by anarchists such as Kropotkin & Reclus, Guild Socialists in the tradition of William Morris and G.D.H. Cole, and decentrist planners such as Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford. The attractions of this ‘path not taken’ are self-evident: empowered community, self-sufficiency, ‘appropriate technology’ and less alienated workers involved in more diverse and fulfilling creative activity.
What about the downsides? Are technological innovation or liberal cosmopolitan values compatible with a more rooted, reciprocative and place-bound form of society?”
I love this communication. Here was my response:
Hi Jodi,
Very thoughtful and pertinent commentary, and I certainly agree with your approach. It staggers me that I still have to deal with false antitheses between central plan and free market, state and society etc in a lot of theoretical work, oblivious to the traditions of associative democracy you so eloquently adumbrate above.
These are the paths between the old and sterile debates, there is no excuse not to be exploring them now. This reminds me of a couple of books that were published just as I was formulating my own PhD proposal way back in 1994, Darrow Schecter's "Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy" and Paul Hirst's "Associative Democracy". In the end, my work was about an ethic affirming the unity of each and all, the critical reappropriation of Plato and Aristotle on the modern terrain prepared by Rousseau, Kant and Hegel, focusing on a reworking of Marx. But that 'subterranean' vision social self-mediation and government came out in my research papers and notes.
The questions you ask are key. I addressed these to avoid a nostalgic frame centred on the recovery of "community." The problem is how to repersonalise bonds and ties without losing the undoubted achievements of modernity - how to combine autonomy and solidarity.
In terms of my own work, it's sprawling, but you may find something on these lines in
https://www.academia.edu/10118948/Marx_Praxis_and_Socialism_from_Below
https://www.academia.edu/10006922/Marx_Reason_and_Freedom_Communism_Rational_Freedom_and_Socialised_Humanity
which express these ideas expressing diversity and universality, the many and the one, in the marxist idiom
Something similar, but without the marxist framing, is The City of Reason, which seeks to balance unity and diversity within the ecological concept of the city.
https://www.academia.edu/29454275/THE_CITY_OF_REASON
There's a lot of material there, too much to read, but the question of how to address the diremption of modernity and recover warm and affective bonds and create new solidarities without losing diversity, autonomy and the other achievements of modernity is crucial.
You are asking the important questions, and have the right approach.
All the best with your work!
Best, Peter
downloading Marx and the Liberal Discourse of Rights
“I love your take on Marx.”
Liberals don’t. Liberals abuse Marx and Marxism on account of a thickly-textured collectivism that is repressive of liberty. Dare counter with arguments exposing liberalism’s false notions of freedom and you stand condemned for being a thoroughly nasty person upsetting gentle and sensitive souls. Spare me. My critique is very much focused on political, philosophical, and ontological questions. I don’t accuse liberals of being insipid, weak, craven, cowardly, hypocritical, self-righteous, pious prigs and poltroons at all. I would never do that. I stick firmly to reasoned argument and critique.
downloading Erasmus: Citizen of the World
“Dear Peter
I am interested in this article as I have read previous ones of yours and found them to be marvellously inspiring. I am interested in ecology. I know nothing of Erasmus so it will be a learning experience!
Best wishes
Robert B”
Well thank you Robert. That is very nice to hear! It's really a quick appreciation on my part, written in a couple of weeks upon my return from following in the footsteps of Erasmus in France/Germany/Switzerland. It is a rough first draft rather than a polished piece of work, a short break from my current research project, Being and Place. But if it encourages people to investigate Erasmus for themselves, it will have served its purpose. He is a very sane voice in the world, and he points to an innate love, peace and concord which inspired me to take the direction in developing a moral ecology all those years ago.
I like this one from Ruth D. dept of English at Western University Canada
downloading Erasmus: Citizen of the World
“I knew nothing about Erasmus except his quotes on books/reading before coming to your paper. The introduction read like an exercise in creating one's ideal obituary. I downloaded it because I wanted it on my hard drive. I can clearly see how important Erasmus is to you and I am assuming as I take my time reading through this draft that you will lead me to valuing Erasmus as much as you so obviously do. So far, it's my favorite paper of the hundreds of papers I've read on this site.”
This was very nice to hear! I was reluctant to make it available, because it is quick appreciation on my part, written in a couple of weeks upon my return from France/Germany/Switzerland following in the footsteps of Erasmus. It is a rough first draft on my part, a break from my work on Being and Place, my current research project. I've not actually had time to re-read, polish and re-write, but if it encourages people to investigate Erasmus further for themselves, it will have served its purpose. Erasmus remains today what he was when he lived, a very sane voice in the world. Just a little thank you on my part to Erasmus, a beautiful writer who inspired me to read and write all those years ago.
downloading Rousseau and the Quest for Human Happiness
“thank you for helping with my essay”
downloading Augustine or Pelagius?
“Good afternoon Sir Critchley. I am a student at Continental Theological Seminary in Belgium. The topic of one of the essays I chose in my Church History 1 class is about Pelagius. I am looking for good material sources and the arguments presented in your paper can help me. Sincerely yours,
Quentin H”
Sir! I sound like one of the Knights of the Round Table. Sir Lurkalot. Or was it Lancelot? I forget now.
I’m not a perfectionist, though. Pelagius the Welsh monk who believed in human perfectibility is often the hero presented against the thoroughly nasty St Augustine, who believed in the fallen nature of human beings. Check the history on this, the Pelagians were really the most arrogant, conceited, insufferable prigs imaginable, with no time for those who fell short of their high standards. That’s nearly all of us. There is no mercy and no forgiveness in this tradition of humanist perfectionism. There is no need for redemption, seeing as we should all be so rational and perfect in the first place. Being somewhat imperfect, but also contrite, I’m with St Augustine on this question. Perfectionism is not a humanism at all, it is an inhumanism that prepares human beings for a push-button machine order. I will go with the tradition of Christian humanism.
downloading The European Union and the Principle of Subsidiarity
“to pass my religion class”
Well, subsidiarity is central to Catholic social ethics, and I do have a good section on the Pope’s contribution here in the 1930s, as I remember.
downloading Being and Knowing: A Thomist Reading of Immanuel Kant
“I am seeking to ever increase my philosophical understanding. I have read how Kant had undermined the possibility of metaphysics but am impressed by the Thomistic response you present here. Thanks.”
This was a turning point in my work. My background is German philosophy. This was the point at which I came realized that the Rational Freedom I advance requires God and theology, since reason is incapable of constituting its own grounds.
downloading Green Principles and Green Politics
“I am doing research on this topic and have been captured by your reasoning and logic.”
downloading LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HARMONIOUS CITY
“I am currently studying Mumford's theories on the Utopian City. Thank you so much for sharing this book with me. It is fascinating, and so helpful for the assignment.”
downloading Dante's Enamoured Mind
I have to give a name here, I am sure she won’t mind. This is from the great Dante scholar Teodolinda Barolini
“What a great message! Thank you so much. And, yes, Dante remains a live thinker.”
Love Dante, love Teodolinda’s work on Dante. Dante is pertinent.
downloading The Institutions of an Ecological Society
“Hi Peter, I just discovered this paper from you that could be interesting for my green republicanism, all the best.”
Green Republicanism is a great idea indeed, this is the politics I am committed to.
This paper is a bit weak and flabby, mind. It is really part of a bigger book (The Coming Ecological Revolution, that I never got round to properly editing and re-writing, tightening up the structure, throwing out the sections on Green Party politics). Really, all these scattered writings, Of Gods and Gaia is another, are preparatory to the main work to come on "Being and Place." This is the book I have been working hard on since 2007, constantly researching materials and arguments. I have the structure now, and the strong spinal assumption upon which to hang the materials. It will be properly written and sourced, not one of the hasty efforts I have been putting out these past few years. I'll be posting details on FB in the next few days. Then spending the next year writing, keeping the focus tight. One chapter will simply be called "The Republic". The hard work is to come! Best wishes, Peter.
It's all in the process of being written. I've just posted the details on FB. I've given myself this year, but it may take longer. I need to cut back on a lot of the climate campaigning I do and get back to writing. Finally deliver the work I've been promising.
BTW I greatly enjoyed your article, 'The return of nature in the Anthropocene', so right about the Earth engineers - 'men as gods' madness. I remember writing somewhere about this transition from God, who is in the world but not of it, to these planetary engineers, who are of the world but not in it - and will drive the rest of us and the biosphere off the planet.
And talking of republicanism ... have you ever come across the work of Philip Pettit? His writings are well worth investigating. In time, when I get to that chapter, I'll be applying these republican thoughts to develop the idea of the Ecopolis. I did call this chapter 'The Green Republic', but I've just called it the Republic now - republicanism for the age of ecology. Busy year ahead!
“Hi Peter, thanks for your answer. The only problem with Pettit is that his theory seems to be quite easily re-appropriated by liberals (Kymlicka, Patten and others find it very compatible with their own theory) I am looking for a conception of liberty which is even stronger (maybe I will come back to my old Rousseau 'if they do not want to be free, we will force them to be free'...)”
Rousseau! Indeed. Come back to Rousseau. Good answer. And I'd say another worry is how easily such republicanism is subverted and diverted by the capital system and the very private priorities undermining the public realm in the first place. As Pettit's experience with Spain came to show.
Pettit is good at rejecting the libertarian claim that 'the economy' is a natural entity with laws of its own. But, in truth, that's the easy target - reclaiming the economy as a public order does indeed need something stronger. Hegel is good on this, the idea that the public realm is not merely a condition of freedom, but a dimension of it. I like your direction on this. All the best!
“Many thanks for that, Peter! Indeed, I have the feeling that Pettit will become the next Giddens. I am more interested in a kind of Arendtian republicanism or Sandel's one ... I really find the definition of freedom as non-domination a bit short to satisfy my republican/communitarian ecological theory. .. Hegel's Sittlichkeit would be certainly interesting but too far away in my student's memory ;-)... All the best.”
downloading Rousseau on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
“I have been looking for insight on the question of self-love vs. selfishness. Your paper is a great help in answering that question! Thanks!”
downloading BEYOND MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY Pt 2 Active Materialism
“PhD class reading assignment.”
Amazing where I turn up. This is New Mexico State University.
downloading BEYOND MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY Pt 2 Active Materialism
“This is part of my doctorate readings.”
This is from Universidad Autonoma de Cd. Juarez
downloading JURGEN HABERMAS AND THE RATIONAL UTOPIA
“I am writing an essay on the text Gulliver's Travels... Your paper gives me a better understanding of the idea of rational utopianism.”
Habermas is a hugely important thinker. He seeks a via media between ideal and real, Between Facts and Norms, to give the title of one of his many books.
From the University of Toronto
downloading PHILOSOPHISING THROUGH THE EYE OF THE MIND Philosophy as Ethos and Praxis
“This is darned good writing on an interesting subject.”
downloading The Recovery of Aristotle and the New Science of Politics in Thirteenth Century Europe
“Your thoughts on the recovery of Aristotle during twelfth and thirteenth century are an incredible blend of history and philosophy.”
History was always my subject. Eventually I came to philosophy. If I could have taught anything, it would have been the History of Ideas. I have extensive notes all arranged in chronological order here.
downloading Spinoza on Politics and Religion
“I have to write a paper on Habermas, and would like to relate it to Spinoza's political theory. I am pleased to see that not only do you write on both of them, but write with such brilliance!”
Brilliance. I like that description. My DoS commented that I write with ‘panache and flair.’ But brilliance will do me fine.
downloading An Introduction to the Philosophy of Aristotle
“I like you most. And also your books.”
OK. There are some messages that one simply does not respond to.
downloading Marx and the Liberal Discourse of Rights
“I am a student of master international student. I am from Nepal. My inquiry is can you help me in research of liberal versus marxist discourses of human rights?”
My response is ‘yes,’ in the sense that I am a critic of liberalism from a Marxist perspective. Liberal critics of Marx and Marxism are legion. I proceed from Marx’s distinction between bourgeois and citoyen to expose the antinomies of the liberal discourse. It doesn’t make me popular among those who mistakenly consider liberalism an emancipatory alternative to conservativism. My conception of ‘rational freedom’ draws on both ancient and modern, conservative and socialist sources to develop a critique of liberalism and its association with atomistic capitalist society.
MRes Phil student
downloading ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
“I am currently writing my dissertation on the concept of 'natural liberty' as posed by Rousseau and am seeing how far it can be reconciled with contemporary politics. In essence, balancing 'autonomy with authority.’ Your book develops this balance in detail and in depth. Also, thank you for the free access to this.”
I work in the humanities commons. The Republic of Letters and Ideas. I take things from others, comment, add, pass them on, for others to do likewise.
PhD Researcher Social Work, University of Sussex
downloading Life World Versus System World
“Hello Peter. I found your paper Life world Vs Systems World very helpful. Am writing the discussion chapter of my thesis entitled 'Spaces after Modernity: A Systems Based Examination of Creativity and Narrative Formation’ and needed a thorough going explication of Habermasian ideas of systems vs lifeworlds. I feel I now have that after reading your paper. In this section of the chapter I propose that the discovery by the group that I worked with during fieldwork of a political narrative was able to counter an individualising conception that had been at work within it up until that point. Becoming aware of themselves as able to access other forms of agency than that of 'autonomous choosers' (consumerism as agency) was a significant finding and I wanted to elaborate on that theoretically. Do you have a full reference for the article? Thanks and best wishes, Bella”
I’m afraid to say that I am not quite academically legitimate. I am ‘grey.’ This is how it works. I make my work available in free access. Students, academics, and aspiring academics find my work, take what they can from it, adapt it to their own work. But when it comes to PhD theses and publications, they don’t – and maybe can’t – cite my work, no matter how much they have been inspired from it, how much they have taken from it. So that leaves me everywhere and nowhere, a core and bedrock that is always on the fringes, missing out on the academic recognition that I have long since earned.
There are reasons for this. I enjoy working in free access and in the intellectual commons. I am a member of the Republic of Letters. I also never worked well with academic protocols. The creativity disappears within a formal academic setting for me. So I have spent years being mined by academics who, when it comes to crediting my work in their publications, cannot do so. I am academically disreputable. Except that the work I do is generally excellent, and academics know it. So here I live, in Limbo, without hope of an academic career, but in desire. I didn’t respond to the message. I feel that if I tell the truth in response it would make me appear more odd than I actually am. So I remain clouded in mystery.
downloading Rousseau : Autonomy and Authority
“Thanks for this great work!”
downloading ROUSSEAU: AUTONOMY, AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORITY
“Essay was due. Also your Rousseau is the best.”
I wouldn’t go that far. It’s unfinished, for one thing. I need to add chapters on religion, education, and psychology, and maybe even something on Rousseau and music.
Rousseau is wonderful indeed, a beautiful writer with great psychological depth and insight, and a focus on a problem we have still yet to resolve - how to reconcile individual freedom/particular interests with the common good that benefits each and all.
downloading Dante's Enamoured Mind
“I am writing a literary analysis of Dante's Inferno in my English class. Your book is a great source of information and perspective.”
downloading ETHICAL AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM
“My philosophy professor recommended it for research purposes.
Thank you”
Interesting that I am being recommended by philosophy professors. This is not only a well written paper, it argues strongly against relativism as the scourge of the age. That said, we need to be careful in taking sides too easily between positions set in simple antithesis. I enjoy Montaigne’s ‘relativism’ precisely because he dehistoricizes and unfreezes ethical and cultural positions which dominant classes and traditions seek to eternalize and set in stone for all time. In doing this, we are forced to defend norms, values, and standards in real-life contexts and situations, rather than impose them as an ethical straightjacket on individuals. Montaigne’s gently subversive essays force us to examine the bases for ethical argument and present ethical positions in defensible, non-dogmatic, form.
downloading Lewis Mumford, Civic Environmentalism and Ecological Regionalism
“I am a teacher, researcher, activist, geographer, bioregionalist and artist. Your book satisfies all my requirements in each area. It’s a minor tour de force.”
I have a couple of much bigger works on Mumford that could possibly qualify as ‘major.’
downloading PHILOSOPHISING THROUGH THE EYE OF THE MIND Philosophy as Ethos and Praxis
“I like philosophy and your wide-ranging analysis strongly supports my evidence of personal philosophy being mainly ethos.”
Be careful, I did qualify that notion of philosophy as ethos. It’s more than that. There is a danger here of reducing philosophy to custom, practice, and tradition. It’s a criticism I would make of MacIntyre.
downloading Rousseau and the Quest for Human Happiness
“I’m in need of good arguments about Rousseau and your documents are incredibly useful, thanks.”
downloading Aristotle and the Public Good
“I love your work.”
Me too. It was good to write. When I occasionally read what I have written, I tend to be most impressed.
downloading Rousseau on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind
“My only interest is to get some information for an essay that I am writing.”
Rousseau would be so touched by your interest. I do hope you get the marks that your intellectual curiosity and academic concern deserve.
downloading Aristotle and the Public Good
“The term "idiot" in Aristotle.”
It’s the antonym of ‘polites,’ those interested in public affairs.
downloading The Social Market Model
“Excellent critical comparison between the social market economy and the liberal market economy.”
downloading LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HARMONIOUS CITY
“Interesting book.”
It’s one of the ‘major’ ones.
downloading Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
“The paper is recommended reading for an online course from Wesleyan University.”
I keep being recommended and turning up on reading lists in colleges the world over. I wonder how many students I have influenced. The Nowhere Man is everywhere. If we are lucky, the future may be one of Rational Freedom after all.
downloading ADORNO AND THE IRRATIONAL USE OF REASON
“I am a current student at USP and this paper has excellent examples into Adorno's insight into rationality becoming irrational.”
I seem to remember Kant criticizing Fichte for the lawless use of reason.
downloading Pythagoras and the Harmony in All Things
“As I stated I'm a Christian interested in all research. During meditation one morning, I received a strong vision of orange Pythagorean, under it was the name Peter.”
I felt it best not to respond to this one. I'm not keen on the colour orange, either.
downloading Individualism and Individuality
“I am currently writing a paper on the threats to individuality posed by technology and communism.”
The threats to individuality come from the dominant form of individualism within techno-bureaucratic capital system. Capitalist atomisation and rationalistic desolidarisation is fertile soil for bureaucratisation, incarcerating the individual in the administered society. I should try harder to avoid jargon, though.
From the University of California, LA
downloading Dante's Enamoured Mind
“This is helping me with reading Dante.”
I am the Virgil of Academia
“Good day Sir,
I am a student of Philosophy and is currently discerning for a good thesis title. Can you help me by proposing a good thesis title about the concepts of Alasdair MacIntyre? Thank you.”
How about this for a good title for a book on MacIntyre:
“Goodbye and good riddance to liberalism, the most pernicious doctrine that is corrosive of public good and social harmony that human beings, thinking themselves gods in their convulsive self-importance, were stupid enough to invent.”
University of Alberta
“Your books are fantastic. I am very impressed.
Kind regards,”
“Prof Critchley -- Pls check out my new post here on Academia -- Formal Axiology and Karl Marx. It shows that the interpretation of Marx's Marxism as being Person Centered can be persuasively demonstrated. I'd love to hear what you think of it.”
Hi William. I've only just picked this message up. What you are proposing makes perfect sense to me, and I have constantly emphasised Marx's project as one of recovering subjectivity from within the alien forms in which it is encased, Marx as an advocate of individuality within self-mediated social forms as against individualism subject to external mediation. I shall check your piece out. I can't promise to read. I am currently working on two substantial books, Being and Place and Being at One, and these are absorbing all my energies. But I shall certainly check your work out. I think you are right. When I worked on this I had to defend Marx against liberal criticisms that Marx did not respect the moral and ontological ultimacy of the individual (Joseph Femia's criticism here in Liverpool). I challenged that view by showing how Marx's social and relational conception of the individual is more nuanced than the atomistic and abstract liberal conception.
Just to add, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain is excellent on community and personality.
“Hello,
You have good papers. Thank you they have been very useful to me.
https://www.academia.edu/10006922/Marx_Reason_and_Freedom_Communism_Rational_Freedom_and_Socialised_Humanity
How can we order the book copy of this thesis?”
You can neither order nor buy my books. I have offered them all this for free. I could have made a small fortune over the years. My reward has been health problems, constant uncertainty, and material poverty. I live a life that is simple in means but rich in ends. Here on Academia I have found students, academics, scholars, and truth-seekers who have been forthcoming in singing my praises. On Facebook, the same works have met largely with indifference, sometimes opposition and contempt.
Hello Alper and thanks for the interest.
The following are all from my PhD research.
Critical Studies in Rational Freedom
https://www.academia.edu/657125/CRITICAL_STUDIES_IN_RATIONAL_FREEDOM
Marx, Praxis and Socialism from Below
https://www.academia.edu/10118948/Marx_Praxis_and_Socialism_from_Below
Marx, Reason and Freedom: Communism, Rational Freedom and Socialised Humanity
https://www.academia.edu/10006922/Marx_Reason_and_Freedom_Communism_Rational_Freedom_and_Socialised_Humanity
I am afraid they are all only available in electronic form. I did have chance to publish through the academic press, but I had to move on to other projects. I am currently writing two books with a view to publishing in the form of books, and that is now taking up my time. So my previous research and writings will remain as they are for the foreseeable future.
I am glad my writing have been of use. That was what motivated me to make them available on Academia, the hope that others may read them and take up the ideas further and develop them. It is always good to hear that all those years reading and writing have had an impact for the good around the world.
All the best with your studies
I shall end with the first message I ever received. I had made my works available for free on Academia having given up hope and ambition with respect to embarking on an academic career. I had a place on the MA Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at Liverpool Hope University. I needed teaching hours to finalize the degree, but could never get them (except by volunteering – incredibly hard work, involving me travelling far and wide, Lancaster University and the University of Central Lancashire, about 100 miles away). So, despondent, I posted everything up and prepared to say goodbye. The next thing, I took off! This was the first message. It cheered me up.
Sharon, PhD candidate and philosophy teacher.
"I'm presently a PhD student in philosophy. I wanted to write you and thank you, as I just discovered your site, via the "Introduction to Aristotle".
For years I have wondered what was at stake with the forms, and recently tried to explain it to my own students (quite inadequately). Your explanation was so concise and powerful that I actually got chills. Finally, someone answers what is for me the ultimate philosophical question: so what?
And I'm also floored by the generosity with which you shared the rest of your work. So many thinkers and topics I find so important are there: Hegel, ecology, the city, and more. It's a minor miracle. My most heartfelt thanks. I'll be returning this site for years to come.
Sharon”
I liked this message. Like the others, it’s proof that I have been of some academic use, my arguments and ideas playing some role somewhere, even if it’s just boosting grades and passing exams. It’s been a lot more than that, though. I was once accused of being non-cooperative, all because I insisted on working and writing, rather than constantly stopping and checking back with said “co-operator/interferer/nuisance.” I know what I’m doing and need no ‘help.’ Sharon notes the ‘generosity’ of my work in the intellectual commons. I have cooperated, in the sense that I have made my work available in free access, for students and academics and scholars to read and develop and appropriate as they choose.
All we do is but a drop in the ocean. As St Thomas Aquinas wrote with respect to the eight million words he wrote – or dictated to others to write – in his lifetime: “Everything I have written seems to me like straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.”
Aquinas’ writings still seem pretty major to me. There may well be something greater, but words navigate the journey to our true native land. It’s a major achievement born of hard work, inspiration, commitment, and a little insight and intelligence here and there. I’m fairly happy with it. I shan’t fall into silence like St Thomas, though. I already have a million plus words to be edited and polished and published. And other plans.
If I may, it’s a major achievement born of hard work, inspiration, commitment, and, here and there, a little insight and intelligence.