RPA Mag

A publication of the Radical Philosophy Association

Professor of Philosophy Emeritus

Richard Schmitt

Born in Germany to a Jewish mother, I entered first grade in the year in which Adolf Hitler won the election for German Chancellor. I managed to survive World War II in Holland and came to the US in 1946. Educated at the University of Chicago and at Yale, I began teaching at Brown in 1958. Brown, militantly analytic, hired me to be the Vice-President of bullshit (like Existentialism). In the next 42 years I moved from Existentialism, to Marxism, to Political Philosophy with a book on Heidegger, two on Alienation, a book on Marx and Engels, and various publications in political theory. I participated in many organizing projects. The most successful one is the Radical Philosophy Organization.

“I never owned any slaves”

Who owes reparations?

4 years ago

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Who is the most corrupt of all?

4 years ago

Is Our Democracy a Blessing?

How the Enemies of Democracy Come to Power by Electoral Means

4 years ago

Bribery in College Admissions

A reminder of the pervasive corruption of American public life

4 years ago

Why Moderate Fascists Are Called Populists

What the term today is hiding

5 years ago

What Do You Think about Prisons?

A primer on mass incarceration and the purpose of prisons.

5 years ago

Labor Day 2018

Our Country Has Lost Its Way and Is Drifting Without a Plan

5 years ago

Structural Racism

Why structural racism does not exonerate individual Whites from responsibility for the injustices suffered daily by Black Americans.

5 years ago

Conversations about Politics

A reflection on political disagreement, respect, and democracy

5 years ago

Disagreeing and Blaming

On the complicity of philosophers and others in Trump’s family separation policy.

5 years ago

An Orgy of Hypocricy

Why “nice nationalism” is just as bad as it’s vulgar twin

5 years ago

What Price Greatness?

Our military expenditures do not “make America great” but impoverish us at home where education, health care and other essential services fall to the level of an underdeveloped country

6 years ago

Not Another Left-Wing Publication!

An example of how RPA Mag can be used to further undergraduate teaching.

6 years ago