Oleh: Chris Matthew Sciabarra. Teks aslinya berjudul “The First Libertarian” Diterjemahkan ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia oleh Iman Amirullah. (*Sebenarnya libertarian “dialektis” pertama!) Dalam review singkatnya atas The Political Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, Timothy Virkkala (Mei 1999) memuji diskusi Tim S. Gray tentang metodologi liberal klasik yang hebat sebagai sintesis dari pendekatan “individualis” dan “holistik” dalam…

The earth’s surface, the natural environment, human, animal and plant life, but also the culture, have all been mapped out for centuries. Old cartography and engravings often show this with striking images. How one understands and interprets this mapping and imaging will depend largely upon the state of scientific development at the time. The reasons why people begin this…

It is common in Brazil to say, “Text with no context is pretext.” The wordplay conveys a valuable truth: Out of context reasoning can be easily used as pretext for an agenda. To comprehend reality outside of context can serve interests very different from those originally intended. This should be a wakeup call for the…

In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith famously wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” It may seem strange that history’s best-known advocate of the free market would cast such aspersions on business…

(*Actually, the first “dialectical” libertarian!) In his short review of The Political Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, Timothy Virkkala (May 1999) praises Tim S. Gray’s discussion of the great classical liberal’s methodology as a synthesis of “individualist” and “holist” approaches to social theory. But Virkkala remarks This method–I’m tempted to call it “dialectical,” but Spencer’s prose…