The Logos of Western Civilization: A Conversation with Sam Gregg
Alasdair MacIntyre’s Marxist Sweet Spot
Alasdair MacIntyre presents Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative as a summation and restatement of central ideas in his moral philosophy, ideas that will be familiar to readers of his earlier major works. He says he wants to minimize technical discussion of the writings of professional philosophers. Instead, he aims to make his arguments accessible to non-professionals. Those who will read this book, however, are most likely to be already familiar with his work and want to see how he now formulates his arguments. Those who have not previously entered this world…
The Real John Locke—and Why He Matters
Scores of textbooks attest that John Locke is the most important intellectual influence on America’s Founding. No other first-tier philosopher can provide a moral and theoretical justification for the United States, its traditional culture, and its form of government. Even the skeptics who question Locke being the only influence concede he was the most significant. The practical problem is that modern experts are confused about what Locke actually thought.
“The god of this lower world”
Edmund Burke, mobilizer of theoretical resistance to the French Revolution in the face of all odds, pursuer of Warren Hastings in the face of certain defeat, lived a political life so seemingly incautious that by its end he had to ask to be buried in an anonymous grave lest the Jacobins, on their inevitable march across his beloved island, exhume and violate his bones. Yet he described prudence as “the first of all virtues.”
Rediscovering the Missing Element of the ‘Dismal Science’
This next Liberty Law Talk is with John Mueller, author of Redeeming Economics. Modern economic thought focuses on production, exchange, and consumption. Much of Mueller's focus, however, is on final distribution, or the notion that a great deal of our economic activity is really about providing benefits or gifts to those we love. Mueller returns to Aristotle to articulate why this missing element is so important for understanding economics. In his Politics, Aristotle described the economy by using a household model oikos, the root of our word economics, where agents distribute goods to increase the flourishing of family members and…
