philosophy — Bunk History

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Illustrated man with a top hat, sitting next to headstones.

The Left Side of History

Historians have been too much the ideological allies of Progressivism to permit themselves to see its master flaw.

by Allen C. Guelzo via Claremont Review of Books on May 4, 2020

Detail from the painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy, featuring Franklin and Hamilton.

The Founders' Moral Mind Was Revolutionary, and Free

A new history sees the authors of the Declaration as moral agents, and sets out to capture the thinking behind the principles.

by Bradley J. Birzer via The American Conservative on April 2, 2020

Photo of two men

The Renegade Ideas Behind the Rise of American Pragmatism

William James, Charles Peirce, and the questions that roiled them.

by John Kaag, Douglas Anderson via Literary Hub on January 9, 2020

Why Historical Analogy Matters

If the idea of historical incommensurability is right, then analogical reasoning in history becomes an impossibility.

by Peter E. Gordon via New York Review of Books on January 7, 2020

A building that appears distorted

Staring at Hell

The artists of our time, with their ruin-porn coffee-table books, offer the world a glossy, anesthetized image of abandoned infrastructure from Chernobyl to Detroit.

by Kate Wagner via The Baffler on January 6, 2020

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.

by Lewis H. Lapham via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 14, 2019

Story-Shaped Things

Historians tell stories about the past. A new book argues that those stories are often dangerously wrong.

by Jonathan W. Wilson via Contingent on October 16, 2019

How to Forget

A review of Lewis Hyde’s “A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past.”

by Sebastian Stockman via Los Angeles Review of Books on October 14, 2019

Working Off the Past, from Atlanta to Berlin

A Jewish American reflects on a life spent amidst the ghosts of the American South and the former capital of the Reich.

by Susan Neiman via New York Review of Books on August 26, 2019

How the Chicago School Changed the Meaning of Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’

Smith wasn’t warning about government intervention in the market; he was warning about government capture.

by Glory M. Liu via Washington Post on April 22, 2019

William James and the Spiritualist’s Phone

A story of a philosopher, his sister, and belief.

by Emily Harnett via Lapham’s Quarterly on February 4, 2019

Where Does Truth Fit into Democracy?

In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?

by David A. Bell via The Nation on January 24, 2019

MLK: What We Lost

50 years after King's death, his image has been transformed and stripped of its radicalism.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on October 18, 2018

Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History

The political scientist argues that the desire of identity groups for recognition is a key threat to liberalism.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on September 3, 2018

The Enlightenment’s Dark Side

How the Enlightenment created modern race thinking, and why we should confront it.

by Jamelle Bouie via Slate on June 5, 2018

John Dewey's Experiment in Democratic Socialism

Despite his reputation as a liberal, Dewey's staunch commitment to democracy put him on a collision course with capitalism.

by Alexander Livingston, Ed Quish via Jacobin on January 8, 2018

"Slave Ship" painting (1840) by J M W Turner. Courtesy the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Does Locke’s Entanglement With Slavery Undermine His Philosophy?

John Locke took part in administering the slave-owning colonies. Does that make him, and liberalism itself, hypocritical?

by Holly Brewer via Aeon on December 12, 2017

Michel Foucault in Death Valley

Simeon Wade describes visiting Death Valley with Michel Foucault in 1975.

by Simeon Wade, Heather Dundas via Boom California on September 10, 2017

Watson Heston cartoon of two people at a crossroads--one direction is the "Free Thought Road" which leads to truth, and the other direction is "Orthodox Road" and the "Vale of Tears."

Atheists in the Pantheon

Leigh Eric Schmidt profiles the nineteenth century's notable "village atheists."

by Joseph Blankholm via Public Books on August 14, 2017

Wild Thing: A New Biography of Thoreau

Freeing Thoreau from layers of caricature that have long distorted his legacy.

by Daegan Miller via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 16, 2017

Calhoun College building at Yale University.

Don’t Repress the Past

Another way to look at controversial historical figures.

by James Livingston via The Chronicle of Higher Education on November 20, 2015

Portrait of Edward Gibbon

Bonfire of the Humanities

Historians are losing their audience, and searching for the next trend won’t win it back.

by Samuel Moyn via The Nation on January 21, 2015

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

by Scott Spillman via The Point on July 23, 2014

Ted Kaczynski being led by two law enforcement officers.

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber

Purposely brutalizing psychological experiments may have confirmed Theodore Kaczynski’s still-forming belief in the evil of science while he was in college.

by Alston Chase via The Atlantic on June 1, 2000

William F. Buckley Jr. surrounded by piles of books in his office.

What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.

by Sam Tanenhaus, Cullen Murphy via The Atlantic on June 1, 2025

Herbert Spencer

The Man Who Believed in Nothing - Part II

Spencerism in America.

by Henry Snow via Another Way on March 4, 2025

Protest and Politics

Two new biographies enhance our knowledge of John Lewis, the late congressman and civil rights hero.

by Jason Sokol via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 15, 2025

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman: The Original Substacker

Publishing needs his democratic spirit.

by Sam Kahn via UnHerd on December 13, 2024

The cover of "Martian Time-Slip," featuring a man tending to a farm on Mars.

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.

by Jonathan Lethem via The Paris Review on November 14, 2024

President Woodrow Wilson riding as a passenger in a two seater car with his chauffeur, George Howard.

States’ Rights or Inalienable Rights?

Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.

by Samuel Postell via Law & Liberty on November 13, 2024

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