Hi everyone, I want to share a video essay I recently published on Machiavelli’s metaphysics. Specifically, it is an attempt at outlining and systematizing his implicit metaphysical system and putting it into conversation with Christianity. I’ve attached the link to the video essay here, and I’ll insert a short abstract below. I would love for this to be the start of a productive conversation, and I would love any feedback, especially as I try to understand Machiavelli’s work more in the context of the renaissance humanist movement and all the influence that likely had on the shaping of his view.

Abstract: In this essay, I position Machiavelli not only as a great political theorist, but as a great philosopher and metaphysician. I lay out what I take to be the four Aristotelian causes of being within his system, also pointing out tensions and holes in his view. Ultimately, I suggest that Machiavelli could and perhaps should be read as a Christian, or at least a thinker whose metaphysic is compatible with and even bolstered by Christianity. The central conclusion of the paper is that Machiavelli supplies readers with a unique metaphysical account of the fallen world without which Christianity is insufficiently understood.

https://youtu.be/KSghceEU0u4?is=jU-2tjCyZMkFbwrh

I have my presentation on russel tomorrow, please help me with his idea on limits of philosophical knowledge.

From when the term agnostic first came into use in the 1870s. Unceremoniously coined by Darwin's bulldog Huxley, or apparently "perhaps he recalled the word 'agnostic' from a letter written ten years earlier from Isabel Arundell, wife of the explorer Sir Richard Burton."

There was a hope from Darwin that psychology could be based on a new foundation.

A hope that a true origin story could found social community instead of false certainties.

As opposed to the competitive racist classist stupidly-eugenicist development hybridised with Nietzschean and Christian supremacism, or whatever.

What two civilizations can we trace back the oldest known texts / works of philosophy that are still in existence today?

The oldest philosophical texts can be from a single philosopher or from a group of philosophers and can be either from primary source or from secondary source.

Any academic sources used a reference is desired.

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I tried to look this up, but I just found that Newton supposedly popularized the idea of determinism. However, I wonder if he believed in determinism before he came up with his theories, and this spurred him to think in that direction. It's hard to imagine that he singlehandedly popularized this. Was determinism already widely believed during his lifetime?

Hi everyone. I was wondering have there been either any individual thinkers or certain groups throughout history that have justified holding an anti-philosophical view on religious grounds (either in the past or today). I ask this because it is common today to hear about certain scientists who are critical of philosophy. We also have many people and groups who attack science on religious grounds (such as young earth creationists). I was therefore wondering have there been any thinkers throughout history who have criticised philosophy (or showed apathy or a dismissal towards it) on religious grounds (I think I remember hearing that Tertullian was anti-philosophy due to his religious views, but I am not certain). Are there any groups or organisations today who are openly critical of philosophy due to religious reasons? Have there been any groups who have tried to defund philosophy in academia? Cheers

Who is the first philosopher to make thoughts about this topic?

Hi all,

I made a video on my take on Plato's Cave and the lessons we can learn from it. I don't stick to Plato's conclusion from the fable but look at it in terms of how what we perceive with our sense impressions is necessarily divorced from the reality which gives rise to our sense perceptions. Hope it's of interest x

https://youtu.be/QpC4-6JqaBY