On The Normality Of Contradictions

The contradictions between “fact and value”, “is and ought”, “reason and emotion”, “thought and action”, and “judgement and commitment” cannot be resolved. The pursuit of unity is futile because our mind is a welter of contradictions which make it impossible for us to achieve ideal moral goals. When life pushes us into situations where our general moral principles come into conflict with our particular problems, then we tend to focus on our particular problems. There is nothing wrong in having contradictions in the mind because this is mankind’s natural state. There has never been a man whose mind is not rife with contradictions, and there has never been a philosophy that does not lead to contradictory conclusions.

On The Possibility of Knowledge

The particular things in the visible universe can be investigated by using logic, mathematics, science, and philosophy, but we cannot investigate the universe as a whole. It is a mark of hubris to expect the universe as a whole to be logical, mathematical, scientific, and philosophical. The universe as a whole cannot be investigated through the application of mankind’s systems of knowledge. It is possible that the universe as a whole is meant to be investigated through disciplines which lie beyond the pale of the present state of the human mind—these disciplines could be non-logical, non-mathematical, non-scientific, and non-philosophical.

On The Armed Prophets

Nations get mired in revolutionary upheavals when they face a confluence of dialectical forces which involve elements of both idealism and reality. The central characters in the revolutionary drama are the armed prophets: the brilliant philosophers who possess great political skill. They have the skill for arousing the masses, leading armies, and their political activity is fueled by a utopian vision of how society should be organized and humanity should live. The philosophers with an army or angry mob at their back can upend any nation—the politics of several nations in the last 200 years has been dominated by such armed prophets. People should be wary of politicians with strong philosophical opinions.

Civilizations as Anthologies: The Patchwork of Human Progress

The story of civilizations is not a single coherent novel—it is an anthology of short stories, many of them unrelated and fragmented. The rise and fall of civilizations are shaped by a complex interplay of human decisions, natural forces, and sheer chance. No philosopher or historian can fully unravel the intricate web of causes and consequences that define this process. To truly understand a civilization, one must look beyond its historical and philosophical texts. Its dominant language, political and economic systems, religious beliefs, rituals, myths, and artistic expressions all offer vital clues to the nature of its identity and evolution.

Philosophy and Science

Philosophy seeks certainty; science seeks empirical facts. The truths of philosophy are the rules of the mind; the truths of science are the rules of causality and materiality. The positions of philosophy are contextual; the facts of science are eternal. Philosophy is often historicist; science is free of the historical context.

On The Importance of Attacks and Refutations

To claim that a philosophy is not good because it has been refuted is like claiming that the soccer game was pointless because neither team scored a goal. The major philosophies have been attacked and refuted several times. But the attacks have actually strengthened these philosophies, enabling them to dominate our culture and politics. Philosophical criticism makes a philosophy relevant by placing it in the historical context. The worst thing that can happen to a philosophy is neglect by other schools. For instance, the twentieth century philosophy of Existentialism became popular in the 1960s when Jean-Paul Sartre was at the peak of his career and was being attacked by many other philosophers. But after the 1980s, the philosophers started ignoring Sartre and that pushed Existentialism into oblivion.

Free Will and Morality

Free will can be examined in two ways: first, we can examine the freedoms that a man requires to be free of all constraints; second, we can examine the freedoms he requires to be held morally responsible. The first criteria leads to a barbarian conception of man and the second to a civilized conception. There is no evidence of the existence of free will. If it exists, then it must be related to the flow of man’s moral principles. Freedom is good, but over-freedom—or freedom from all moral, social, and religious constraints—is the fountainhead of barbarism.

On The Theistic Hopes Of Atheism

Anyone can give up God and religion and become an atheist. But it is not possible for man to give up his theistic hopes. The nihilism, immoralism, libertinism, and utopianism that is often found in the leaders and members of the atheistic movements is an outcome of their unfulfilled desire for a theistic paradise in the material world. Atheism is not a rebellion against God and religion—it is a project to create new earthly religions and Gods, and to turn the earth into a theistic paradise. When this project fails, as it is bound to, since its ends are unachievable, the atheists react by discarding all values.

The Gap Between Libertarians And Real People

Real people battle with the real problems, which they confront in the real world. The libertarians dwell in an abstract reality where they contemplate an idealistic society. The gap between the political opinions of the real people and the libertarians is unbridgeable. The politics of the real people is focused on resolving short-term political concerns, because they fear that if these concerns are not addressed their life will become much harder. The libertarians, in their abstract world, tend to focus on long-term plans which are utopian: having a stateless society, a global free market, a world free of wars. These utopian plans are unachievable. Some libertarians might have good intentions, but the character of their intentions is irrelevant to the real people who want concrete and workable solutions to their problems.

On The Problem of Free Will

Free will can be described as free only if there is the possibility of it to be enslaved. If nature has created free will with the objective of it being free, then free will is not actually free because it is determined by nature to be free. Liberty means absence of external restraint; it does not mean that free will is uncaused. In a causally determined universe, free will can be caused by internal factors but this means that it is causally determined. However, if our choices are uncaused, then our actions will be unpredictable and that will imply that the impulses of free will are impossible to morally evaluate.

The Intellectual Infirmity Of Philosophical Movements

People join philosophical movements for the same reason for which they might join groups like Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. They are in need of group therapy. They have lost confidence in their own mind, they find themselves helpless against whatever vice they think they are plagued with. The vice can be irrational or immoral philosophy, alcohol, overweight, bad health, or something else. They want to belong to a group where they can find people who will influence them into transforming their thinking and psychology. Joining a philosophical movement is the sign of intellectual infirmity and collectivist psychology—it is not a sign of intellect and independent mind.

On The Non-Eternality Of The Universe

If the universe is eternal, then there is no necessity for an ultimate mover or a creator demiurge because everything in the universe has always existed and is transforming and moving in accordance with the laws of physics. But the universe cannot be eternal because it does not contain any component that does not undergo transformation. From common sense experience we know that all things which undergo transformation are either material or mental—they have a beginning and an end. If everything in the universe is undergoing transformation, then eternality cannot be attributed to the universe as a whole. The universe must have a beginning. If it has a beginning, then it implies that there is a creator.

The Democratic Life of Socrates

There is a contradiction between the political views of Socrates and his way of life. In Plato’s Republic, he talks about five types of states: first, Aristocracy, or a state ruled by the best man or best men; second, timocracy, or a state ruled by men of honor and ambition; third, oligarchy, or a state ruled by the moneyed class; fourth, democracy, or a state ruled by free people; fifth, tyranny or a state ruled by an unjust ruler. 

Socrates places democracy at the fourth position. But in his life, he showed a preference for democracy. Unlike Plato and Aristotle, he never left democratic Athens. His life was spent in the city-state. He fought for Athens in wars, and when an Athenian jury sentenced him to death, he did not oppose the verdict. His pupils advised him to flee and save his life. But in deference to the Athenian laws, Socrates quietly accepted his fate.

On Metaphysical Propositions

Philosophy, unlike science and mathematics, is not fully rational and cannot be developed on purely empirical evidence. All philosophies begin with the assumption of certain basic facts which cannot be proved or disproved. These basic facts are mostly the metaphysical presuppositions (also known as axioms) which can be based on theological or atheistic rationalizations. Without such presuppositions or axioms, no philosophy is possible.

Good Times are Bad Teachers

Prosperity, peace, and liberty are lousy teachers. They delude the masses into believing that the good times will last forever and that the progress of their nation is inevitable because “God wills it,” or because of “dialectical materialism”. Progress is not inevitable, good times never last, and there is no direction to history.

On Human Nature And Culture

You cannot break the human spirit through political coercion. The human spirit is inspired by culture, which is a product of centuries of intellectual and materialistic endeavors. It might bend when political coercion is applied but when political coercion is removed, the human spirit will, like a spring, revert back to its original shape. However, the human spirit can be broken by attacking and transforming culture. That is why the philosophies and political movements, which aim to create a different kind of human being, focus on culture.

On Nietzsche’s Theistic Hopes

Nietzsche said, “God is dead,” but he was not an atheist. Hegel, a pious man, had used the phrase, “God is dead,” to describe a situation in which consciousness senses that there is no hope and feels unhappy. For Nietzsche too, the death of God is unrelated to the religious notion of God, though he does not accept the Hegelian notion that unhappiness is humankind’s fate. 

According to Nietzsche, the idea of “God’s eye view” is dead. There is no single view of the world, there is no single truth, and there is no divine plan for mankind. A privileged perspective from philosophy, religion, and metaphysics is no longer available. He attacks the idea of morality that is valid for everyone, everywhere. He insists on a multiplicity of perspectives, noting that values are relative to a time, a place, and a set of circumstances and customs. 

In every age, humanity endeavors to construct its own destiny by creating a new set of values. People define who they are and what they can be. Thus, Nietzsche’s statement, “God is dead,” must not be taken as a denial of theism. The statement gives rise to new theistic hopes of creative values which drive the secular and technological world.

On Philosophical Battles

A philosophical position developed by a set of sensible men could collapse when another set of equally sensible men refute it. There are no major philosophers whose ideas have not been refuted several times. Greater the philosopher, more multifarious and intense are the refutations. To establish a philosophical position, the philosopher or his followers and sympathizers have to defend their position again and again with ever increasing vigor. The side that engages in more vigorous argumentation usually wins the philosophical debate irrespective of whether their ideas are based on rational and moral considerations.

On Man’s Idealism and Materialism

If idealism is right, there is no difference between man and an omnipotent god. If materialism is right, there is no difference between man and a mindless animal. Man is man because he exists in the narrow stretch in which idealism and materialism intersect.

On Four Types of Rules

The rules of science are discovered; the rules of philosophy are devised; the rules of religion are divined; the rules of politics are developed.

On The Philosophical Bulls In The China Shop

The twentieth century was the age of philosophy movements. It saw the rise of a number of movements which were founded by intellectuals who had too much confidence in their own abilities. They were convinced that they were the raging bulls of philosophy, that they would demolish the china shop of all the dominant philosophies and make people accept a new worldview. But in the arena of philosophy, there is a matador for every bull. The philosophical bulls were quickly cut down to size by the matadors of philosophy and every philosophy movement founded in the twentieth century was ripped apart (became irrelevant). Philosophy needs wisdom; it needs knowledge of history and human psychology; it needs a sympathetic attitude. It is not a sport for bullheaded people.

On Dreaming The Philosophical Truth

In the philosopher’s dream the philosopher was refuting his own philosophy. When he woke up he discovered that he was convinced by the refutations that he had offered while he was dreaming. He realized that the philosophy that he had thus far been preaching to his followers was full of flaws. It was in his sleep, while he was dreaming, that the philosopher awoke—that’s the irony.

Achievements Are Not Natural

To be born free is meaningless; to become free is an achievement. That man has natural rights is meaningless; that he has created nations in which rights are possible is an achievement.

The Truth About The Enlightenment

Thanks to the wrongful categorizing of the 18th century as the Enlightenment — an incredibly jejune and meaningless term, which has, however, entirely dominated our historical thinking —we have failed to perceive not only the truth about this century’s intellectualism and politics but also the contributions of the great minds who came before the 18th century. I agree with the view of the Enlightenment that philosopher Yoram Hazony presents in this PagerU video. I have been expressing similar opinions on the Enlightenment in my posts.

The Platitudes On Good & Evil

It is not necessary that good will triumph over evil. In the political space, the desire for good is a luxury and a disability. It is not necessary that truth will make us free—truth can give rise to a new forms of scholasticism and slavery. It is not necessary that knowledge and good life go together—ignorant people often enjoy a higher quality of life than those with knowledge. It is not necessary that technology can cure the frailty of human nature—technology may fulfill our material wants but it can have a negative impact on our spiritual nature. It is not necessary that progress and peace move in tandem—the quest for progress can lead to wars and genocides. Man quests for stability and rationality but life without illusions and irrationality is impossible.

A Definite Proof of God’s Existence

Once upon a time there was a man who passionately desired for a definite proof of god’s existence or nonexistence. He took an atheist and a theist up a hill and threw them both down. As the theist fell, he cried, “There is a god.” As the atheist fell, he cried, “There is no god.” The theist survived the fall, the atheist didn’t. Thus, the man had definite proof of the existence of god. This short story elucidates the fact that it is beyond the bounds of possibility to prove or disprove the existence of god.

The Inefficacy of Libertarianism

The man who becomes a libertarian because he is inspired by the idea of liberty and free markets is like an alcoholic who tries to quench his thirst for alcohol by gazing at the labels in the bottles stacked on the shelves of a liquor shop. All that libertarianism can give you is the  abstract theory of liberty and free markets. It will not give you a nation where the two values exist. A nation is not an abstraction. People are not the creatures of ideology. Politics is not an abstract theory. It is the domain of practical knowledge and skill. Since libertarianism lacks practical knowledge and skill, it cannot have a direct impact on politics. 

Joseph Conrad On The Unexamined Life

Socrates assumed that an examined life is a good life, but Joseph Conrad rejects this idea. He believed that an unexamined life is better because it has authenticity. When a friend suggested in a letter that Singleton, the character in Conrad’s novel The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus', would have been more convincing if he was educated, Conrad sent a reply in which he questions the idea that the world is more intelligible to an educated person. Here’s an excerpt from Conrad’s letter:

You say: ‘Singleton with an education’ ... But first of all – what education? If it is the knowledge of how to live my man essentially possessed it. He was in perfect accord with his life. If by education you mean scientific knowledge then the question arises – what knowledge, how much of it – in what direction? Is it to stop at plane trigonometry or at conic sections? Or is he to study Platonism or Pyrrhonism or the philosophy of the gentle Emerson? Or do you mean the kind of knowledge that would enable him to scheme, and lie, and intrigue his way to the forefront of a crowd no better than himself? Would you seriously, of malice prepense cultivate in that unconscious man the power to think? Then he would become conscious – and much smaller – and very unhappy. Now he is simple and great like an elemental force. Nothing can touch him but the curse of decay – the eternal decree that will extinguish the sun, the stars one by one, and in another instant shall spread a frozen darkness over the whole universe. Nothing else can touch him – he does not think. 

Would you seriously wish to tell such a man: ‘Know thyself.’ Understand thou art nothing, less than a shadow, more insignificant than a drop of water in the ocean, more fleeting than the illusion of a dream. Would you? 

This letter, which is cited in Cedric Watts introductory book on Conrad, A Preface To Conrad, can be seen as Conrad’s rejection of rationalism in ethics. Singleton may not have the education but he is versed in the ways of the world because of his experiences at the sea with his sea mates.

Pinker’s Pollyannish Philosophy and Its Perfidious Politics

In her article, "Pinker’s Pollyannish Philosophy and Its Perfidious Politics,” Jessica Riskin says that she was tangled in a “knot of Orwellian contradictions” by Pinker’s feeble arguments [in his book Enlightenment Now], his misrepresentation of past philosophers, and misinterpretation of data. She writes, "Pinker is no intellectual historian, so perhaps it should not be surprising that he overlooks a key Enlightenment debate. I’m referring to the long and vigorous debate over the power, foundation, and limits of rational inquiry, perhaps the core example of Enlightenment self-directed skepticism.” I have to agree with Riskin’s assessment of Pinker’s work; I could find no value in Enlightenment Now. 

Ugliness and The Power of Money

Karl Marx defines ugliness as a characteristic that may have a negative impact on a person’s lifestyle only when he is lacking in money. Here’s an excerpt from his essay, “The Power of Money,” (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844):

“I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness–its deterrent power–is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honored, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?”

I think Marx is wrong on this. It is not necessary that a man with money will buy beautiful women and clever people—he might end up squandering his money the ugly and the stupid. Money does not give you wisdom, and without wisdom you cannot identify real beauty and real cleverness. 

The Atheistic Religion of Environmentalism

The behavior of the atheists supports the view that the need for religion and god is hardwired in human beings. The atheists have a theological view of atheism; they have always been passionately engaged in bringing salvation to all through politics and science. When their idea of salvation through politics died with the communist disasters of the 20th century, the atheists faced the risk of being driven out of politics. To protect their political relevance they turned their eschatological hope on other issues—one of them being environmentalism, which for the atheists, is a scientific means for bringing salvation to all. Love for environment is there in the theists too, but the theist environmentalists are less dangerous. Their heaven is an afterlife phenomena and they accept that human beings are indelibly flawed—the theists are not using environmentalism (or communism) as a blueprint for building an earthly heaven. Being convinced that man is a perfect being, there is nothing that the atheists won’t do to achieve their political goals. Their environmentalist project can be as deadly as their communist project.

On The Limitations Of Free Market System

A free market system might facilitate the rise of large business houses and make it easier for the people to find better employment and procure goods and services at competitive prices, but it cannot make us more wise, rational, peaceful, or civilized. A nation with a free market system can be as unreasonable and nihilistic as a nation with backward economy. No power can coerce the big business houses, which thrive under a free market system, to use their economic power for moral purposes, since no one knows what purposes are moral. The free markets might solve a few economic problems, but in the process they generally give birth to several intractable political and cultural problems.

Stability Versus Liberty

The primary political requirement of human beings is not liberty—it is stability. Hobbes understood that people want their government to protect their life, property, and way of life. In case there is a conflict between liberty and stability, most people will tolerate a loss of their liberty but they will never tolerate instability.

The Three Aspects of a Nation

The political existence of a nation rests on three aspects: first, the center of political power; second, the mode of exercise of political power; third, the culture that makes people feel that they are a part of a society. When the correlation between these three aspects is judicious and free of contradictions, the nation can be a land of happiness, stability, and prosperity.

Nyaya: The Logic of Inquiry and the Pursuit of Certainty

Among the six classical schools of Hindu philosophy, Nyaya holds a distinctive place for its systematic exploration of logic, epistemology, and the methodology of rational inquiry. The school is traditionally traced to the composition of the Nyaya Sutras, attributed to Akṣapāda Gautama and dated between the 6th and 2nd centuries BCE. 

While the exact chronology and authorship remain uncertain, it is likely that the text evolved through contributions by multiple scholars over time. Regardless of its textual history, the Nyaya Sutras laid the groundwork for one of the most rigorous intellectual traditions of ancient India.

A central achievement of the Nyaya school lies in its development of a structured methodology for attaining pramā, or certain knowledge, about a given object of inquiry. This methodology is grounded in clearly defined rules of reasoning and an unwavering commitment to epistemic clarity.

For the Nyaya thinkers, inquiry (jijñāsā) is not a casual or arbitrary activity—it is a response to saṃśaya, or doubt. The very act of inquiry presupposes an absence or insufficiency of knowledge. If a proposition is already known with certainty, then inquiry is superfluous. Conversely, when doubt arises—whether due to conflicting evidence, partial understanding, or competing interpretations—it creates the intellectual conditions necessary for philosophical investigation.

However, doubt alone is not a sufficient precondition. The Nyaya school emphasizes the necessity of empirical grounding. An inquiry must be rooted in pratyakṣa (perception) or other valid means of knowledge such as anumāna (inference), upamāna (comparison), and śabda (reliable testimony). This insistence on observational data reveals the fundamentally empirical orientation of Nyaya thought, distinguishing it from purely speculative philosophies.

Furthermore, the Nyaya tradition is concerned not only with the possibility of attaining certain knowledge, but also with the purposiveness of inquiry. Akṣapāda Gautama asserts that inquiry must be directed toward a meaningful end—mere intellectual curiosity is insufficient justification. There must be a reasonable expectation that the inquiry will lead to niścaya (certainty), and that such certainty will serve a higher objective.

Ultimately, the Nyaya school situates philosophical inquiry within an ethical and teleological framework. Knowledge is not pursued for its own sake alone, but as a means toward the niḥśreyasa—the highest good. Reasoning, then, is not just a technical exercise in logic but a tool in the pursuit of truth, liberation, and human flourishing.

In a world where the value of critical reasoning is often subordinated to immediacy and ideology, the Nyaya vision remains a compelling reminder: that inquiry begins in doubt, proceeds through observation and logic, and culminates—ideally—in clarity that serves both understanding and the greater good.

On The Pitfalls of Freedom of Speech

Michael Oakeshott points out in his essay, “The Political Economy of Freedom,” that the concept of freedom of speech has been distorted to such an extent that it is now revealing itself to be a menace to freedom. Here’s the relevant passage from his essay:

"The major part of mankind has nothing to say; the lives of most men do not revolve round a felt necessity to speak. And it may be supposed that this extraordinary emphasis upon freedom of speech is the work of the small vocal section of our society and, in part, represents a legitimate self-interest. Nor is it an interest incapable of abuse; when it is extended to the indiscriminate right to take and publish photographs, to picket and enter private houses and cajole or blackmail defenseless people to display their emptiness in foolish utterances, and to publish innuendos in respect of those who refuse to speak, it begins to reveal itself as a menace to freedom. For most men, to be deprived of the right of voluntary association or of private property would be a far greater and more deeply felt loss of liberty than to be deprived of the right to speak freely… under the influence of misguided journalists and cunning tyrants, we are too ready to believe that so long as our freedom to speak is not impaired we have lost nothing of importance - which is not so. However secure may be a man's right to speak his thoughts, he may find what is to him a much more important freedom curtailed when his house is sold over his head by a public authority, or when he is deprived of the enjoyment of his leasehold because his landlord has sold out to a development company, or when his membership of a trade union is compulsory and debars him from an employment he would otherwise take."

I think Oakeshott has made a valid point. The powerful cabal of politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, and activists has been quite successful in weaponizing the concept of freedom of speech to go after their ideological and political enemies. Instead of making people safe, this draconian version of freedom of speech is making them unsafe.

Herder and the Enlightenment

In his essay, “Herder and the Enlightenment,” Isaiah Berlin hammers several nails in the Enlightenment’s coffin by arguing that the Enlightenment was a conformist, elitist, idealistic, and monolithic project, which contained the ideological seeds that would one day germinate into totalitarian movements, while the counter-Enlightenment of thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder was essentially pluralistic and hence conducive for the rise of free societies. 

In section 9 of his essay, Berlin asks two questions: “What is the best life for men?” and “What is the most perfect society?” A few paragraphs later, Berlin makes the following comment: “If Herder’s notion of the equal validity of incommensurable cultures is accepted, the concepts of an ideal State of or an ideal man become incoherent. This is a far more radical denial of the foundations of traditional Western morality than any that Hume ever uttered.” 

I am convinced by Berlin’s view that the Counter-Enlightenment, not the Enlightenment, was the real fountainhead of the ideas of liberty, democracy, and free markets.

On Vaiśeṣika Ontology

Kanada is the founder of the Vaiśeṣika School (one of the six Hindu schools of philosophy). His exact dates are unknown, but it is believed that he composed the Vaiśeṣika Sutra around the third century BC. His focus was on the nature of reality, which he understood as dharma. In the Vedic tradition, the word “dharma” stands for the cosmic order as a whole. All that is there in the universe is part of dharma. When there is a breakdown of the cosmic order, then there is “adharma,” which is a negation of dharma.

The Vaiśeṣika Sutra opens with these lines:

"We shall now consider the nature of dharma.

It is from dharma that the highest and supreme good is achieved.

The Veda has its authority because of its concern with dharma."

The system that Kanada elucidates in his Vaiśeṣika Sutra is pluralistic realism (a doctrine of multiplicity). He is concerned with the independent reality of things, outside and independent of the observer. He classifies the fundamental constituents of reality into seven categories: substance, quality, action, universality, particularity, a relation of inherence, and absence or negation.

“Substance” is the most important category since other categories can get manifested only in relation to substance. Kanada divides the category “substance” into nine types of atoms: earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time, self, and mind. The objects in the visible universe are composed of earth, water, fire, and air atoms in association with (as per the requirement) other atoms. Ether, space, time, and self are eternal and all-pervading. Mind is of an atomic size and it functions in conjunction with the self atoms which fuel life—every human being has one self atom and one mind atom.

Kanada talks about twenty-four kinds of qualities and five kinds of actions that are inherent in substances. The occurrence of an object is an example of the universality of substance. The category of “absence” is an explanation for all kinds of negation or non-existence in the fabric of reality.

Thoughts on Wittgenstein’s Legacy

Wittgenstein is eulogized by most contemporary academics as a profound and brilliant philosopher of the 20th century. But was of the level of Edmund Husserl, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Karl Popper? These philosophers were Wittgenstein’s contemporaries but they did not use his theories in their philosophy. Russell and Moore have praised Wittgenstein, but they never made use of his philosophy. They disagreed with him on every philosophical issue. I find it puzzling that Wittgenstein is regarded as a great philosopher when all his philosophical claims were rejected in his lifetime.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe: The Last Libertarian Standing

In his book Democracy: The God That Failed (Chapter 10: “On Conservatism and Libertarianism”; Page 218), Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes: "In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal." I wonder what the libertarians have to say about such opinions. 

On Hegel’s God

It is not clear if Hegel was a theist, pantheist, or an atheist. His philosophy does not put God and religion on a pedestal. However, there are several elements in Hegel’s thought which indicate that he was a theist. If Hegel believed in God, then that God would not be a perfect being like the God of religions. His God would be an entity that seeks perfection in a universe that he had himself created. His God would be eternal and immutable. His God would need to manifest himself in the universe in order to perfect himself and the world. Only by perfecting the world could the Hegelian God perfect himself. Thus, in Hegelian philosophy, History is seen as God’s project for self-perfection. God is himself an active participant in history.

Schumpeter’s Theory of Creative Destruction

In his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter asserts that capitalism will not die due to its economic failures, as Karl Marx had predicted, but due to its economic success. The following sentence from his book can be seen as a summary of his thesis: “Capitalism, while economically stable, and even gaining in stability, creates, by rationalizing the human mind, a mentality and a style of life incompatible with its own fundamental conditions, motives and social institutions.”

Schumpeter talks about the “perennial gale of creative destruction” that capitalism faces. He writes: “The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”

In a capitalist system, things are always in a flux, and society is never stable. As capitalism creates new products and services, and develops new ways of manufacturing and trading, it dismantles the old ways of doing business. Not everyone can keep pace with the high speed motion of the capitalist marketplace and many people get left behind. Capitalism creates many ways of succeeding in the marketplace, but it also creates as many ways of failing.

Hegel On The Condemnation of Socrates

When Socrates picked up the mantle of free enquiry, which is unencumbered by prevalent beliefs and prejudices, he was following the command that the Greeks attributed to their god Apollo: “Man, know thyself.” Socrates had dedicated his life to inculcating in his followers the virtue of critically reflecting on matters concerning morality and politics. But this kind of critical reflection makes reason, and not social custom, the ultimate judge.

In his Philosophy of History, Hegel says that by teaching his followers to reflect on moral and political issues, Socrates was destabilizing the Athenian city-state—he was fomenting a revolution. He posits that the Athenians were right in regarding him as an enemy of their way of life and condemning him to death. However, in ancient Athens, the principle of free thought was too firmly entrenched in culture to be banished by the execution of a single individual. The revolutionary idea remained alive in Athens after the death of Socrates; and in time it led to the condemnation of all the accusers of Socrates, while Socrates himself was posthumously resurrected.

The posthumous resurrection of Socrates had a vitalizing impact on the principle of free thought. According to Hegel, the Socratic method of free thought contributed to the decline of Ancient Greek civilization. He held that Socrates was responsible for the end of the world-historical role that the Ancient Greeks had been playing.

Capitalism and Big Government

Capitalism is a big government system—just as communism is. In a capitalist country, the size of the government is proportional to the size of the economy. The attempt to cut the size of the government in a capitalist country has a destabilizing impact on the economy—it leads to job losses in the private sector and political and cultural problems. If you want a small government system, then you have to move away from capitalism towards a system that is regulated through self-governed guilds and local communities.

Multiculturalism Does Not Work

A nation in which several cultures enjoy an equal status ceases to be a nation. It becomes a “United Nations,” a forum where bureaucrats representing various cultures gather to squabble on global issues. History tells us that the United Nations type of nations do not survive. There have been a few successful empires that were multicultural—for instance, the Roman Empire and the British Empire. However, an empire is not the same thing as a nation. The second point is that the Romans and the British could keep their empires together so long as their own culture was strong. Once their own culture got weakened, the Roman and the British empires were finished.

Religion, Racism, and Liberty

The idea that freedom from religious and racist considerations goes hand in hand with liberty and free markets is an inversion of the truth. A society that is secular, atheistic, and non-racial is not—as today's liberal and libertarian intellectuals and politicians claim—a natural state for mankind. 

In the last three thousand years, there has never been a successful city-state or nation in which the people have not been motivated by religious and racist considerations. The religious and racist considerations are not necessarily bad. Such considerations enable large groups of people to identify with each other and coexist in all kinds of political communities. People have a natural instinct to be religious and to identify with their race. 

The liberals and libertarians yearn for a nation that is secular, atheistic, and non-racial, but their goal cannot be achieved without using state power. A nation free of religious and racist considerations is necessarily totalitarian (like the Soviet Union).

Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religion

In statement 6.43 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein says that the good or bad acts of the will do not alter the world, but rather they “alter only the limits of the world”—in other words, they lead to a change in how the world appears to the moral agent. To a good-willed agent the world will appear differently from how the world appears to a bad-willed agent. In the same statement, Wittgenstein goes on to say: “The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.” This means that a good-willed agent can achieve happiness or that for a good-willed agent the ultimate moral value is happiness. In the statement preceding 6.43, statement 6.422, Wittgenstein suggests that good-willing contains its own reward—happiness—while bad-willing leads to the opposite. He writes, “There must indeed be some kind of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but they must reside in the action itself.”

In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein posits that the realms of facts and value are distinct because the matters of value concern the world as a whole and are unrelated to the facts within it. In statement 6.431, he says, “So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.” In statement 6.4311, he says, “Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death… Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.” In statement 6.4312, he says, “How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.” In two statements which follow, he suggests that the consideration of God being the source of value is entirely related to world as a whole and with matter of value: in statement 644, he says, “It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists”, and in statement 6.46, he says, “To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole—a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole—it is this that is mystical.”

These statements in the last four pages of the Tractatus lead to the book’s famous last statement 7: “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” This statement is a reassertion of Wittgenstein’s belief that nothing can be said about the ethical and religious matters, since they lie outside the world.

On The Gulf Between Moral Ideals and Moral Reality

Moral philosophy is an ideal and it is impossible for a human being to achieve an ideal. There has never been a moral philosopher who has accomplished the feat of practicing the moral ideals that he preached. The wide gulf between moral ideals and moral reality can never be bridged.

The hollow logic of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is often treated with the reverence reserved for sacred texts, yet its fame far exceeds its philosophical yield. The book’s 145 pages glimmer with the authority of precision, but beneath their mathematical sheen lies a hollow ambition — to solve philosophy by defining the limits of language.

The Tractatus promises clarity but delivers only aphorisms: glittering sentences that sound profound precisely because they refuse to engage with the messy substance of human thought. Its propositions do not resolve philosophical problems; they merely declare them unsayable. It is an act of abdication dressed as discovery — a philosophy that ends not in illumination but in silence.

The work’s admirers call it rigorous; its critics see a mirage. In the grand tradition of philosophy, where thinkers have wrestled with meaning, mind, and morality, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus contributes little beyond style. Its brevity is not brilliance but evasion — a retreat into linguistic formalism that leaves the enduring questions of existence untouched.

The Tractatus remains a fascinating monument to 20th-century intellectual arrogance: the dream that logic could explain life, and that silence could replace wisdom.