Episode 16

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Published on:

7th Apr 2022

FOUNDATIONS: Reason & Permissible Despotism in Mill, Part 2

In Season 2 - our FOUNDATIONS series - we’ll examine European philosophers from the 17th through the 19th centuries, to see how their views have shaped and defined our own… whether we realize it or not.

We continue our discussion of Mill’s justification for “despotism” as a means of cultivating maturity in societies in their “nonage”.

Following Hannah Arendt, we begin by looking at the rational justifications for racism as they developed in Europe, and how this related to Mill’s notion societal immaturity. We use this discussion to cast further light on the relationship between European notions of reason and both freedom and its opposite.

A FREEDOM OF IDEAS may be found online at afreedomofideas.com.

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***SEASON TWO READINGS AND SOURCES***

On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill

John Locke's 2nd Treatise on Civil Government, by John Locke

Meditations on First Philosophy, by René Descartes

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, by Tyson Yunkaporta

A Treatise of Human Nature [Books 1-3], by David Hume

Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes

The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Encyclopedia Logic (Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences Series #1), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Philosophy of Mind: Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences Series #3), by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel's Philosophy of Right, by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Thom Brooks, Editor)

Copyright 2024 Cori Di Biase

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About the Podcast

A Freedom of Ideas
Considering the Philosophy, Literature, and History of Liberty
The idea of freedom is central to the way we live our lives. Some of us say we would die to defend it, and many have. To explain who and what we are, we first call ourselves “free”.

But for as often as we say the word, do we understand what freedom is?

We will explore the idea of freedom through the lens of philosophy, history, literature… and whatever else we can find to learn from. I hope you’ll join the conversation.

About your host

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Cori DiBiase