Voltaire, Rousseau, Samuel Johnson — they're just like us! They were the beneficiaries and the first victims of a novel force: modern celebrity more »
The Enlightenment emerged from a 150-year “staccato burst” of European philosophy. Why did these thinkers — Hobbes, Descarte, Voltaire, Rousseau — write as they did? more »
For all his renown, Hume remains a philosopher’s philosopher. Why? He's not a tragic or romantic figure, and did not offer an easily distilled message more »
Is suicide a valid escape from misery, as Hume believed, the right of every individual? Or is it a moral transgression? On such questions, secularism has lost its way more »
David Hume reveled in controversy. His friend Adam Smith was more restrained. Both were unlikely and indispensable avatars of the rise of liberal thought more »
Did the Enlightenment have Buddhist roots? How Tibetan lamas, Siamese monks, and an Italian missionary inspired David Hume more »
Have we moved beyond Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau? No, and nor should we. Their 18th-century debates are still our debates more »
How blank are our slates? Hobbes and Rousseau believed in the existence of human nature, but today’s philosophers are skeptical. Biology suggests an answer more »
'Late in life, Rousseau acknowledged that it was arrogant of him to promote virtues he couldn''t live up to. Sorry, Socrates, the examined life isn''t what it''s cracked up to be' more »
We suffer from “nature-deficit disorder” and the accompanying pretenses of citified life. Take a cue from Hobbes, Rousseau, Einstein, Dickens, and Hazlitt: Take a hike more »
So Hobbes was an atheist with a gloomy view of human nature? Rousseau believed in a peace-loving “noble savage”? Wrong and wrong. We misunderstand the great philosophers more »
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