Wednesday
September 13, 2006 |
 Revisiting the Intellectual Heritage of a Free Society
by Edward W. Younkins
This essay surveys and revisits the intellectual heritage of a free society. The origins of theoretical arguments for a free society make up a long and distinguished tradition which stretches back at least to the 6th Century B.C. and spans writers until the present day. Elements of the liberal outlook have been discove... (Read more...)
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Turgot on Progress and Political Economy
by Edward W. Younkins
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727-1781) was a major political and intellectual figure in pre- revolutionary France. He was a man of wide-ranging intellectual interests and is considered to be a symbol or exemplar of the Enlightenment. A.R.J. Turgot was a well-respected social philosopher and political economist despite... (Read more...)
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James M. Buchanan: Constitutional and Post-Constitutional Political Economy
by Edward W. Younkins
In 1986, James M. Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics for his efforts to study the public sector within the same microeconomic analytical framework that is used to study private economy. Buchanan applies economics to understanding how individuals interact in the public square to formulate collective deci... (Read more...)
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Lao Tzu's Naturalistic Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics
by Edward W. Younkins
Lao Tzu (Laozi), an older contemporary of Confucius, lived in the 6th century B.C., and is thought to be the founder of Taoism. The conjectured years of his life are 604-531 B.C. The legendary Taoist philosopher, whose name can be translated as the “Old Master,” wrote a manual of self-cultivation and governmen... (Read more...)
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Herbert Spencer on Liberty and Human Progress
by Edward W. Younkins
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), British philosopher and sociologist, was a prominent, late 19th century defender of individual freedom and critic of state violence and coercion. A Lamarckian, rather than a Darwinian, pioneer in evolutionary theory, Spencer believed in inevitable human progress that develops naturally when... (Read more...)
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Spinoza on Freedom, Ethics, and Politics
by Edward W. Younkins
If one mentions the name Spinoza, he is likely to get a response something like “Oh, wasn’t he the pantheist philosopher who lived around the time of Hobbes and Locke?” Of course, he was but he was also much more than that. Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza (1632-1677) promulgated a deductive, rational and monist philosophy... (Read more...)
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Milton Friedman's Pragmatic and Incremental Libertarianism
by Edward W. Younkins
Milton Friedman (1912 - ) is a consequentialist libertarian and one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. He has been able to create both academic and popular support of the idea of increasing individual freedom and reducing government controls. Friedman fervently believes in the power of a sort of se... (Read more...)
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John Locke's Limited State
by Edward W. Younkins
John Locke (1632-1704) connected with the long tradition of medieval political thought going back to Thomas Aquinas. His philosophical writings led to the great revolutions toward the end of the 18th century. Locke is America’s intellectual Founding Father. Especially in his A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Th... (Read more...)
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Thomas Aquinas' Christian Aristotelianism
by Edward W. Younkins
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the dominant thinker of the middle ages, combined the science and philosophy of Aristotle with the revealed truths of Christianity. Holding that Aristotelianism is true but is not the whole truth, he reconciled the philosophy of Aristotle with the truth of Christian revelation. Aquinas was a... (Read more...)
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Jean-Baptiste Say's Law of Markets: A Fundamental Conceptual Integration
by Edward W. Younkins
John-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) is one of the most important and insightful thinkers in the history of economic science. Say was a major proponent of Adam Smith’s self-directing economic system of competition, natural liberty, and limited government. He frequently praised the Scotsman’s work, publicized it, and described... (Read more...)
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Epicurus on Freedom and Happiness
by Edward W. Younkins
Epicurus (341-270 BC), a major philosopher of the Hellenistic period, largely relied upon Democritus for his materialistic and atomistic theory of nature. However, he does modify Democritus’ metaphysics because of its skeptical and deterministic implications. Epicurus founded his physics based upon Democritus but disco... (Read more...)
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 Ayn Rand: Philosopher of Unity and Integration
by Edward W. Younkins
Ayn Rand (1905-1982), the controversial American novelist and philosopher, has done more than anyone else in history to develop a moral case for capitalism. (Read more...)
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Hegel's Authoritarian State as the Divine Idea on Earth
by Edward W. Younkins
For Hegel, the State is the highest embodiment of the Divine Idea on earth and the chief means used by the Absolute in manifesting itself as it unfolds towards its perfect fulfillment. Hegel argued that the State is the highest form of social existence and the end product of the development of mankind, from family to civil society to lower forms of political groupings. (Read more...)
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Saturday
November 12, 2005 |
Austrian Economics and Objectivism
by Edward W. Younkins
By combining and synthesizing elements found in Austrian economics, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, and the closely related philosophy of human flourishing that originated with Aristotle, we have the potential to reframe the argument for a free society into a consistent, reality-based whole whose integrated sum of knowledge and explanatory power is greater than that of its parts. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 2, 2005 |
Robert Nozick's Libertarian Framework for Utopia
by Edward W. Younkins
Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia made libertarianism’s views on the nature and legitimacy of the minimal state respectable in academic circles. Nozick revived the classical liberal tradition with his abstract, clever, and often obscure explanation of how a minimal state might arise legitimately in the form of an all-inclusive, rights-respecting protection agency. He was instrumental in creating the intellectual and philosophical foundation that has allowed the creation and flourishing of today’s numerous libertarian organizations. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
October 26, 2005 |
A Review of Virginia Postrel's "The Future and Its Enemies"
by Edward W. Younkins
This well-written, readable, and insightful work defies conventional political boundaries by arguing that a more politically relevant categorization is achieved by defining the ways individuals and groups view the future. Ms. Postrel's book is a must-read for anyone interested in commerce, technology, public policy, and the search for truth in a dynamic world. (Read more...)
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Toward the Unity and Integration of Knowledge: The Study of Political and Economic Philosophy
by Edward W. Younkins
Because no field is totally independent of any other field, there are really no discrete branches of knowledge. There is only cognition in which subjects are separated out for purposes of study. That is fine for purposes of specialization, but in the end, we need to reintegrate by connecting one’s specialized knowledge back into the total knowledge of reality. (Read more...)
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Thomas Sowell's Vision of Reality
by Edward W. Younkins
In his various writings, Thomas Sowell has presented a unified theoretical perspective and potent intellectual framework for analyzing the social order. Sowell’s systematic approach derives mainly from free-market economics, is methodological rather than philosophical or political, and is consistent with the views of intellectuals such as Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, Alexander Hamilton, Edmund Burke, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman. (Read more...)
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Thursday
September 29, 2005 |
 Dewey's Pragmatism and the Decline of Education
by Edward W. Younkins
Dewey and other members of the Progressive movement wanted a predictable method for providing a common culture and of instilling Americans with democratic values. As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, a centrally controlled, monopolistic, comprehensive, and bureaucratic public education system was deemed to be essential for America’s future. (Read more...)
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Aristotle and Economics
by Edward W. Younkins
Aristotle saw so much even in the field of economics. He anticipated significant elements of Austrian value theory. For example, he glimpsed the concept of diminishing utility and its application to exchange value (i.e., price) determination. Aristotle is one of the great thinkers in the history of economic thought. (Read more...)
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A Review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra's "Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism"
by Edward W. Younkins
The goals of Total Freedom are to defend the need for a dialectical libertarianism that synthesizes multiple disciplines, and to reclaim dialectics as a viable methodology for libertarian social theory. The author accomplishes this in his well-documented, innovative, and academic treatise. He offers libertarianism as a valid and valuable perspective that is preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. (Read more...)
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Social Cooperation, Flourishing, and Happiness
by Edward W. Younkins
Praxeological economics and a natural-law-based philosophy of human flourishing and happiness such as Objectivism are complementary and compatible disciplines. Economics teaches us that social cooperation through the private property system and division of labor enables most individuals to prosper and to pursue their flourishing and happiness. In turn, the worldview of human flourishing informs men how to act. (Read more...)
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A Review of Andrew Bernstein's "The Capitalist Manifesto"
by Edward W. Younkins
This solid work is a real contribution to understanding the philosophical, moral, and economic underpinnings of capitalism. Its underlying theme is that the mind is man’s tool of survival and that the mind requires freedom. Bernstein’s well-written book persuasively argues that capitalism rests on a sound moral foundation. (Read more...)
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Rousseau's "General Will" and Well-Ordered Society
by Edward W. Younkins
The idea of the general will is at the heart of Rousseau’s philosophy. The general will is not the will of the majority. Rather, it is the will of the political organism that he sees as an entity with a life of its own. The general will is an additional will, somehow distinct from and other than any individual will or group of individual wills. The general will is, by some means, endowed with goodness and wisdom surpassing the beneficence and wisdom of any person or collection of persons. (Read more...)
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 Dagny Taggart: Exemplar of Independence and Mind-Body Integration
by Edward W. Younkins
Dagny, like Hank Rearden, is a self-initiator who goes by her own judgments and is the motive power of her own happiness. Unlike Rearden, she does not feel guilty for her achievements. Dagny is a purposeful, strong, and passionately creative embodiment of mind-body unity. (Read more...)
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