Professor Kozlowski Lectures

Today we discuss Jason Stanley's How Propaganda Works - a book I've been reading on-and-off since the History of Social Thought class, but which seems more important and relevant every day. ⁠Please support my work through Patreon⁠ Check out our sister channel: Professor Kozlowski Lecture Notes ⁠And check out my other projects on my website

Shamelessly promoting our new paid sister channel, Professor Kozlowski Lecture Notes , where you can find our discussions of V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Sandman , and all the rest of our forthcoming research into "A Brief History of British Magick" and beyond. You can also listen along by joining the Patreon - paid patrons get access to all Notes recordings without paying for each lecture...

Today Professor Kozlowski does some long-overdue housekeeping. We'll talk about our ambitions for the future, specifically our project on The History of British Magick for the summer of 2026, and how we might get paid doing it - as well as the usual pleas for Patreon subscriptions and other contributions. (Like, Share, Subscribe!) Please support my work through Patreon And check out my other p...

The Bible is a long, difficult text with many apparent conflicts, especially when it comes to a believer's responsibilities to secular government. Here we will look at the seven most obvious models of political participation in the Bible, and try to reach a theology of Godly government. This lecture is intentionally brief (at least by Professor Kozlowski standards), in the interest of clarity...

Professor Kozlowski finally reaches plot development in Goethe's Faust, Part One .  He discusses Margareta as a character, Faust's (and the audience's) relationship to her, and the looming sense of destruction hanging over everyone.  What could go wrong?

Professor Kozlowski, introvert and buzzkill extraordinaire, poops on that most famous of lavish, extravagant parties: the one thrown by Gatsby in Chapter 3 of The Great Gatsby . A century of interpreters have mythologized this party as a symbol of doomed American innocence and romance - an innocence Hollywood and the Trump administration seem determined to re-create. Are we right to idolize the ri...

Professor Kozlowski wraps up his study of political philosophy by discussing the ups and downs of the project, summarizing some of the most important findings, and musing about the future (which will hopefully contain less Hobbes). If you're interested in Professor Kozlowski's other online projects or want to keep up with his work, visit his website: professorkozlowski.wordpress.com If you...

Professor Kozlowski concludes his series on political philosophy with a look at the nature of propaganda and its (often-unnoticed) effect on language. By examining the ideas of George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit," and Jason Stanley's How Propaganda Works , we aspire to reach a deeper understanding of how language can...

Today Professor Kozlowski investigates a grab bag of other political perspectives, including the radical Utilitarianism of Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," the Cosmopolitanism prescribed by Martha Nussbaum, and the Native American perspectives on land, community, and individuality discussed by V. F. Cordova and Ted Jojola in their writings. It may not add up to a cog...

The Ethics of Care presents one of the most cogent and effective alternatives to liberal government theory current today. It is revolutionary, empathetic, inclusive, and compelling. Today, Professor Kozlowski outlines the theory and practice of the Ethics of Care (as presented in Held's The Ethics of Care and Pirate Care by Graziano et al. ) as a culmination of his discussions of liberal theor...

Professor Kozlowski examines some of the most famous political activists of the twentieth century. Remember that all opinions expressed in this lecture are opinions, both for the speaker and the readings cited, and that you should trust the research, not the authority of the researcher. Today's readings include: Gandhi, Indian Home Rule Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth MLK Jr., Letter from Bir...

Professor Kozlowski continues testing the limits of algorithmic censorship with a discussion of Communism and Anarchism. No references to the Cookbook here, but we are going to look deeply at some widely varied ideas underlying Anarchist thought, and their justifications for fighting against the state, as well as the underpinning ideas of many 20th century activist movements (which we will discuss...

Professor Kozlowski continues his idiotic life choices by reading and critiquing the neo-liberal political philosophy discussion surrounding John Rawls' A Theory of Justice . We'll talk about what Liberalism is, its dominance in the discussion of political philosophy, and its assumptions and blind spots - as well as just getting very frustrated by Nozick's particular brand of Libertari...

Today, Professor Kozlowski tackles the preeminent development in political philosophy of the twentieth century - and spectre overhanging the twenty-first: Fascism and Totalitarianism. We'll examine Italian Fascism with Mussolini's own "The Doctrine of Fascism" as well as Umberto Eco's 2001 essay "Ur-Fascism" ; Nazism with the Extra History video series Nazi Occultis...

Professor Kozlowski invites the wrath of the Internet by proposing to discuss Conservatism. To do that, we'll explore the history of conservative thinking (and American Conservatism in particular) from Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Romanticism (including Nietzsche's perspective in On the Genealogy of Morals ), to the 20th and 21st centuries. We'll touch on maj...

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential and divisive works of political philosophy. Yet it almost seems quaint and harmless in a modern world of global Capitalist reach, and more rhetorical than scientific compared to the more systematic and explanatory Capital . Is Marx's theory of capitalist greed and social upheaval still relevant in a post Cold War world? Or is this a harmle...

At long last, Professor Kozlowski tackles that most divisive of all political thinkers: Karl Marx. Today we'll talk about the legacy of Marx (especially in the USA), and take our first steps to understanding Marxist views of capitalism through Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and excerpts from Marx's own Capital . Additional readings include: Weber's The Protestant Work Ethic and the...

Professor Kozlowski introduces his new course - History of Social Thought - with a lecture walking through the syllabus and describing the responsibilities and expectations of the course.

Today we confront the primary moral philosophy presented as a challenge to Kant's Deontology: Utilitarianism. We'll read Chapter 1 of Bentham's "An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation" as well as a sizable portion of Mill's On Liberty - which is remarkably NOT Utilitarian, and famous as one of the primary texts underlying contemporary Libertarianism....

Professor Kozlowski tackles the preeminent philosopher of Enlightenment philosophy: Immanuel Kant. In this lecture, we'll discuss the basic principles underlying Deontological Ethics (including an explanation of the Categorical Imperative), before moving on to appreciate the wry dark humor and cutting insights of his political essay "Perpetual Peace." Our readings include excerpts fr...

Professor Kozlowski finally reaches the American Experiment. Today we discuss the Declaration of Independence , several of the Federalist Papers (and the response by the mysterious "Brutus" ), the American Constitution , and the legend of Hiawatha the Unifier *. Along the way we will discuss the current state of the American Experiment and how the decisions of the founders may have overl...

Professor Kozlowski tackles the French Enlightenment with excerpts from Montesquieu and Rousseau. The first is an orderly, encyclopedic thinker trying to categorize and classify every element of political philosophy; the second may well be a proto-Anarchist masquerading as an Enlightenment mainstay. Really, what were we expecting from the French? Readings today come from Montesquieu's The Spir...

In a fit of spite, Professor Kozlowski condenses his discussion of landmark British political philosophers Hobbes and Locke - forerunners of the American constitution - into a single joint lecture. We'll compare and contrast the two states of nature proposed by these thinkers, examine their divergent attitudes toward the authority of government, and root their philosophical conclusions in the...

Professor Kozlowski ventures into the modern era of political philosophy with a look at two titans of early-Renaissance era political philosophy: Ibn Khaldun, the great Islamic historian and proto-sociologist/economist writing in the post-Mongol Invasion Abassid Caliphate, and Machiavelli, the political philosopher so famous that "Machiavellian" has become synonymous with pragmatic-to-th...

Today Professor Kozlowski takes on the political philosophy of the Medieval (and early modern) Christian world, as a cross-section of ideas and interpretations made by Christian political philosophers. Our readings for today hail from: City of God by Augustine of Hippo Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas "Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed" by Martin Luther (requires a...