The Harm Principle: Why Your Freedom Ends Where My Nose Begins
Mill's 1859 rule still decides where your rights end and mine begin
The Utility Principle: Why the Greatest Good Became the Worst Tyranny
The Enlightenment's most seductive moral theory promised scientific ethics but opened doors to justified sacrifice
The Noble Savage: Rousseau's Fantasy That Still Shapes Environmental Thought
How an Enlightenment thought experiment became a persistent myth shaping our views on nature, progress, and indigenous peoples
The Blank Slate: How Nurture Conquered Nature Until Science Fought Back
Why the most liberating idea of the Enlightenment became both a weapon for equality and a blueprint for oppression
Civil Society: The Space Between Family and State That Makes Freedom Possible
The voluntary associations between private life and government are where citizens actually learn to be free.
The General Will: Democracy's Most Dangerous Idea
Rousseau promised that true freedom meant obeying the collective. The twentieth century showed where that logic leads.
The Progress Myth: Why Enlightenment Thinkers Believed Tomorrow Beats Yesterday
How a revolutionary idea about history became Western culture's deepest assumption—and why it's cracking
The Enlightenment's Gender Problem: Why Reason Had a Male Face
How philosophy's champions of universal reason built systems that excluded half of humanity—and what that reveals about all of us
The Education Revolution: How Teaching Everyone to Read Changed Everything
From forbidden skill to fundamental right, literacy didn't just teach people to read—it taught them to think for themselves.
Property Rights: The Philosophical Trick That Created Capitalism
How a 17th-century philosopher convinced us that working on something makes it ours—and why that idea remade the world
Secular Ethics: How Morality Survived the Death of Divine Command
When God stopped underwriting morality, reason and evidence stepped in—transforming ethics from obedience into discovery
Deism: The Compromise Between Atheism and Christianity
How Enlightenment thinkers invented a hands-off God who built the universe and walked away, letting science and respectability coexist
The Pursuit of Happiness: America's Most Radical Founding Idea
How one word change in the Declaration of Independence redefined what governments exist to do
Why John Stuart Mill Thought Eccentrics Save Civilization
Mill's radical argument that society's strangest members are exactly who we need to protect
The Separation of Powers: Why Dividing Government Saves Democracy
Discover how 18th-century thinkers designed governments to fight themselves—and why their wisdom matters when that balance erodes.
Natural Rights: The Fiction That Became Reality
How Enlightenment philosophers invented invisible entitlements that restructured civilization and continue expanding today
The Social Contract You Never Signed But Can't Escape
Why the political obligations you inherited might still be legitimate—and how to tell when they're not
How Adam Smith Invented the Invisible Hand and Changed Economics Forever
The father of economics was a moral philosopher who warned against both government control and corporate power—here's what he actually believed.
The Republic of Letters: History's First Social Network
How Enlightenment thinkers built an intellectual community through letters that reveals what our digital networks are missing
The Day Reason Declared War on Tradition
Discover how Kant's call to think for yourself became the most dangerous idea in history, threatening every comfortable authority.
How Coffee Houses Overthrew Kings: The Accidental Democracy Movement
Discover how eighteenth-century coffee shops accidentally invented modern democracy by turning casual conversations into unstoppable political force
Before Science: How Natural Philosophy Became the Method That Changed Everything
Discover how rejecting ancient wisdom for systematic observation created humanity's most powerful tool for understanding reality
The Encyclopedia That Started a Revolution
How Diderot transformed a reference book into history's most dangerous weapon against tyranny and ignorance
The Radical Idea That You Own Yourself
How a simple philosophical principle demolished slavery and continues to reshape debates about freedom, medicine, and human dignity
Why Voltaire Defended His Enemies: The Counterintuitive Logic of Free Speech
Discover why protecting offensive speech isn't noble charity but strategic self-defense against the machinery of suppression that history shows always changes hands.
Enlightenment's Dark Side: When Reason Justified Oppression
How the architects of reason built elaborate justifications for slavery, colonialism, and exclusion—and why their principles outlived their prejudices
The Invention of Tolerance: How Religious Wars Created Secular Democracy
Discover how Europe's bloodiest religious conflicts forged the unlikely foundations of modern democracy and freedom of thought
Why Your Right to Privacy Started with a Man Reading His Mail in 1760
Discover how 18th-century mail privacy battles created the philosophical foundation for digital rights and human dignity in the surveillance age