From Nozick to the Lake District

I’m all over the place this week. From my last video on Foucault, I’m moving onto a philosopher that could not be more different; Robert Nozick.

I have a love-hate relationship with Nozick. I disagree with his politics profoundly. His defence of Lockean metaphysics and a minimal libertarian state irks much I believe in. But his 1975 Anarchy, State and Utopia is a commanding work and an impressive move forward in analytical philosophy. Reading it is a rewarding challenge I’d recommend to anyone interested in political philosophy.

I’ve tackled Nozick for Then & Now for two reasons: first, because he’s a necessary counterpoint to Rawls (blood brothers, almost). Second, because I want to further explore the tensions between the foundations of each. Both philosophies rely on a kind of intuitionism which I suspect, once thought about, proves circular. In other words, if you were intuitively inclined towards a Rawlsian politics then Nozick is unlikely to convince you otherwise, and vice-versa.

That video will be coming next week.

I expect to find that in the state of nature that is the English Lake District, to which I venture next Friday, natural Lockean rights will be absent. I look forward to connecting more with the Romantic in me; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Goethe, Shelley, Rousseau.

I’ve been reading and planning for an extended episode, one that explores English Romanticism in-depth, from a personal and hopefully idiosyncratic perspective. Expect more of a travelogue; hiking, exploring, reading, thinking.

I’m excited to create something new; looking at the Romantics revolt against industrialisation, enlightenment, and modernity, and their repositioning of feeling, virtue, and nature. Take these few lines from Wordsworth, for example:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

Before then (that video should be completed by the end of August) I’ve just published my latest on Foucault:

Finally, This week, the podcast version of The Flesh of Modernity has been produced by Jack Cuthbert (https://twitter.com/JackCuthbert). Jack’s edited it specifically for audio so it sounds great: https://soundcloud.com/user-843224572/the-flesh-of-modernity