Boba University

Prussian Idealism  Political discussion in the modern west never extends beyond bipartisan shouting match to something more philosophical. The kind of thinkers discussed today are normally limited to a few liberal political philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, or Rousseau. What all these thinkers have in common is that they have an individualistic outlook and anarchistic ontology that places the individual above society. Thus, it always conceives society as a contractual creation between free individuals. But there is another tradition in the West, a more illiberal philosophical tradition, perhaps best exemplified by Prussian philosophers such as Hegel, Kant, Frederick the Great, and Spengler. It may be important to look back to them as they offer an alternate view and allows Americans to reflect on whether their ideas apply to all parts of the world.    There is no other country revered for its constant sloganeering about freedom and liberty than France. Nothing co...

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 was a conglomeration of different diplomats and important people from different European countries. Part of the reasons for its success is that it unconsciously functions on the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and egalitarianism because the diplomacy is mostly about most of Europe trying to decide on how to restore the countries to their former boundaries and to give them to their "rightful" rulers i.e. giving property back to all than having them under a monolithic France. It's not a crazy idea to think that this meeting between the allied powers is democratic in nature, because the success of the congress is described by Metternich, "not on my part, nor on that of Austria, but from society at large..." But at the same time, it was also a triumph for anti-liberal, anti-democratic Austrian policy, and also, because of British and French disagreement, it was a demonstration of the decline of the congress system. The congress proclai...

A brief overview by BobafrigginFeet      H ere I will be going over some of the reasons why Bloodborne is not simply an adaptation and amalgamation of Dracula and the Lovecraft mythopoeia, but going towards the roots of these horror stories, why it is also a parody of the tragic failure of the philosophy of the European Enlightenment or Age of Reason akin to Doctor Faust. Setting :  For most people today it is easy to shrug off the setting because most people do not see its significance. The gas lit cobblestones of Yharnam and its architecture that is distinguishably influenced by real world settings of late 18th century cities of London, Paris, Edinburgh, Cologne, Transylvania, etc. are a testament as to how one could describe the zeitgeist of its fictional population. There is undoubtedly 18th century European fashion, 18th century European accents, an original soundtrack inspired by classical music particularly those of the Romantic era, 18th century European...

By Giovanni Pico della Mirandola   Most esteemed Fathers, I have read in the ancient writings of the Arabians that Abdala the Saracen on being asked what, on this stage, so to say, of the world, seemed to him most evocative of wonder, replied that there was nothing to be seen more marvelous than man. And that celebrated exclamation of Hermes Trismegistus , ``What a great miracle is man, Asclepius'' confirms this opinion. And still, as I reflected upon the basis assigned for these estimations, I was not fully persuaded by the diverse reasons advanced for the pre-eminence of human nature; that man is the intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above him as he is the lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway between the timeless unchanging and the flux of time; the living union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hym...