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Kant for Kids (Notes on a Survivor)

Tracing the reception of Kant’s phrase “selbstverschudeten Unmündigkeit” (“self-incurred immaturity” is the current consensus on how to translate it), I stumbled on one of those things that reminds us about the books, and the worlds, we have lost: This peculiar … Continue reading

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Translating Kant on Enlightenment: Two Nineteenth-Century Translations

As sketched last week, my plan had been to consider nine different translations of Kant’s essay on the question “What is Enlightenment?” and see how the translation of the crucial terms in essay’s opening sentence changed over the last two … Continue reading

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Wieseltier on the Barricades

As an aspiring curmudgeon (and damn, it takes a lot of effort), I’d like to like Leon Wieseltier’s Brandeis commencement address — I mean, it’s really cranky and curmudgeony.  But there are some things that even a would-be curmudgeon can’t … Continue reading

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The Words We Have Lost: Translating Kant on Enlightenment

What might have been the most famous words ever written about the Enlightenment go like this: “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit.”  The problem, however, is that the author of these words — Immanuel Kant (of … Continue reading

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Poetry After Auschwitz – What Adorno Didn’t Say

At the beginning of April, while participating in the defense of an elegant and insightful dissertation on Osip Mandelstam, I stumbled over one of those statements that Adorno never said, but which lots of people think he did: namely, that … Continue reading

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Revisiting the “Enlightenment Project,” Inspired by Anthony Pagden and Armed with Some Ngrams

I turned in the last of my grades for the semester at the start of the week and was reminded, once again, that if April is the cruelest month, May — at least for academics — must be the kindest: … Continue reading

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How Isaiah Berlin Revised the “Two Concepts” (A Concluding Philological Postscript)

Having finished my three posts on the exchange of letters between Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, I’m ready to reward myself by rolling around in the some of the nGram catnip that I’ve been accumulating. But there’s one bit of … Continue reading

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