Philosophy

The Philosophical Testament of Johannes Haller

As it has fallen to the lot of our generation to relive the experiences of a Jeremiah and Josephus, writes Martin Braun, it is not surprising that a literature of historical self-analysis has sprung up in post-war Europe—most notably in Germany.

Chamfort: A Man for Our Time

‘Human society must be begun again’, wrote Chamfort, who, after delighting the Court and the fashionable world, became an eloquent prophet of the Revolution. By Alaric Jacob.

Bury, Spengler and the New Spenglerians

“There is no analogy,” wrote Bury, “between the development of a society and the life of an individual man.” Martin Braun describes how Spengler, Toynbee, Sorokin and others have sought to controvert him by arguing the case for the “Senescence of the West.”

Pablo de Olavide: Spirit of an Age

Douglas Hilt introduces the scholar, innovator and agricultural reformer, Pablo de Olavide, who brought to Spain the ideas of the French Enlightenment.

Edmund Burke’s Negro Code

Though all his life Burke fought against injustice, cruelty and oppression, his attitude towards the slave-trade was at times ambiguous. Yet, writes Robert W. Smith, the great writer was the first statesman in Britain or Ireland to produce a plan for ending it.

Cyrano de Bergerac: Poet, Philosopher and Swordsman

Mildred Allen Butler offers a profile of a renowned swordsman, student of philosophy, literary critic, social satirist and story-teller; Cyrano de Bergerac expressed his views of life in his ingenious account of expeditions to the Empires of the Sun and Moon.

Roger Bacon: Doctor Mirabilis

J.J.N. McGurk profiles Roger Bacon; a 13-century Franciscan, with a reputation as a necromancer, who showed a remarkable combination at Oxford and in Paris of philosophic and scientific gifts.