"Journal of a Dissenter," 1996-2024
Probably unwisely, I've posted my lifelong "intellectual journal" online, here . It's a very long document that no one could or would...
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Wright's Writing
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Oct 16, 202325 min read
Postliberalism: a dangerous “new” conservatism
[This article was published in The Philosophical Salon.] In Wilhelm von Humboldt’s book The Limits of State Action (1792), one of the...
May 18, 20239 min read
Love of freedom defines the political left, not the right
[This article was published at Sublation and other venues.] Political discourse in the United States consists largely of lies and...
May 29, 20228 min read
Vivek Chibber's defense of materialism
[This is a review published at H-Socialisms.] Vivek Chibber. The Class Matrix: Social Theory after the Cultural Turn. Harvard University...
Jun 6, 20218 min read
Closed borders and democratic theory
You may have noticed that the question of immigration is on people’s minds lately (as it has been, almost without interruption, since the...
May 25, 202112 min read
Critiques of Richard Rorty (and postmodernism)
[Here are notes I took many years ago while reading Richard Rorty’s famous book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. As you’ll see from...
Mar 4, 20219 min read
Personal reflections on anarchism
Anarchism (anti-authoritarianism, love of freedom) is an essential thing, an essential guide for our thinking and action, but I have to...
Sep 13, 20206 min read
On how to live
When I was younger, I used to wonder: should I care what people think of me? I saw arguments on both sides of the question. And I still...
Sep 8, 202021 min read
"Revolution in the Twenty-First Century: A Reconsideration of Marxism"
[An article from several months ago.] In the age of COVID-19, it’s even more obvious than it’s been for at least a couple of decades that...
Sep 4, 20202 min read
I was feeling rather metaphysical last night
David Graeber died. At 59. Tomorrow, you or I might die. At any moment. Meanwhile, we pretend life has meaning. Eventually, we will die....
Aug 31, 202010 min read
On Wittgenstein and Quine
Wittgenstein is an odd case. I've always had the impression that his early work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is genius—and not...
Aug 30, 202037 min read
Critical remarks on academia and philosophy
I was recently skimming old notes of mine and came across the following thoughts from a two-volume book on "humanism" I wanted to write...
Aug 29, 20203 min read
"Government in the Future"
[From 2008.] Reading Chomsky’s pamphlet Government in the Future, which sets out to answer the question “What is the role of the state in...
Aug 29, 202019 min read
Thoughts on the analytic/synthetic distinction
Here's a paper I wrote long ago in which I tried to clarify some issues around the philosophical distinction between analytic and...
Aug 28, 202017 min read
A critique and defense of Plato’s “just state”
In case anyone out there has an interest in Plato, here's a paper from my student days in which I did the shamelessly anachronistic and...
Aug 27, 202021 min read
The remarkable perversity of idealism
Many years ago, when I was a simple boy who thought he ought to know a lot about Hegel, I took masses of notes on his philosophy. Below...
Aug 26, 202016 min read
Methodological individualism vs. holism
If you're like me and are dumb enough to take an interest in abstruse debates among social scientists, you may have heard of the "debate"...
Aug 26, 20206 min read
"A refutation of Kantian and Benthamite ethics"
Here's a paper from my undergraduate days, which you might find mildly interesting in its outline (and critique) of both Kantian and...
Aug 24, 202025 min read
Why I am not a Leninist (nor an anarchist)
Years later, I still reproach myself for self-publishing my book on cooperatives, because that ensured it would have a limited...
Aug 22, 202020 min read
The definition of knowledge
This student paper, from 2006, argues that knowledge in the strictest sense is impossible. No one ever has “absolute” knowledge,...
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