Robert Paul Wolff

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Robert Paul Wolff (born December 27, 1933 in New York ) is a political philosopher and individual anarchist .

Life

Robert Paul Wolff received his PhD from Harvard University in 1957 . He then worked as a philosophy lecturer at Harvard, at the University of Chicago , at Columbia University and, since 1971, at the philosophy faculty of the University of Massachusetts . Since 1992 he has been employed there in the department for African American studies . His son Patrick Wolff (born February 15, 1968), to whom he taught chess at the age of five , is a two -time American chess master (1992 and 1995).

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Wolff has written 21 books that deal with the history of philosophy in modern times and political, social and economic philosophy and in which he deals with the topics of Marxism, tolerance, liberalism and reason.

With his writing Defense of Anarchism (German: A Defense of Anarchism ) Wolff reached a large international readership. The quintessence of Scripture is that there is an indissoluble contradiction between the state's claim to rule and the individual's duty to make himself the author of his decisions, and thus no form of government other than anarchy can be legitimized. Wolff's defense of individual anarchism also received praise he did not welcome: from ranks of the political right, from libertarians and anarcho-capitalists .

In The Poverty of Liberalism (dt. The misery of liberalism ), Wolff points to the widespread inconsistencies in the liberal and conservative thinking of the 20th century. Wolff takes John Stuart Mill's texts On Liberty and Principles of Political Economy as a starting point.

Within philosophy, Wolff is better known for his Kant research, in particular for his work on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ( Kant's Theory of Mental Activity and The Autonomy of Reason ). Wolff also made a name for himself with a commentary on Karl Marx 's Capital ( Understanding Marx ) and other studies on Marx's philosophy, in which he examined the rhetorical and literary stylistic devices used by Marx.

In 2005 Wolff published his "Autobiography of an Ex-White Man " ( Autobiography of an Ex-White Man ), he writes here about his experience as a member of the Department of African American Studies and what it taught him about America.

Fonts

  • Kant's Theory of Mental Activity . 1962.
  • Beyond Tolerance . In: Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore and Herbert Marcuse : Critique of Pure Tolerance . 1965. (German: Beyond the tolerance. In: Critique of pure tolerance. Translated by Alfred Schmidt . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1966, pp. 7–59)
  • The Poverty of Liberalism . 1968. (German: The misery of liberalism )
  • In Defense of Anarchism . Harper & Row Inc., New York 1970, ISBN 0-520-21573-7 . (German: A Defense of Anarchism )
  • The Autonomy of Reason . 1974.
  • Understanding Marx . 1985.
  • Autobiography of an Ex-White Man . 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adrian Gaster, International Biographical Center (Ed.): The International Authors and Writers Who's Who . Melrose Press Ltd, Michigan 1976, ISBN 0-900332-45-X , pp. 1106 (English).
  2. ↑ chessgames.com. Retrieved November 30, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Robert Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American political philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City