Thomas Paine
1737-1809 · American Philosophy · Prominent
Paine was an Anglo-American pamphleteer who wrote for people who had never opened a political treatise, and Common Sense turned American independence into a popular demand against monarchy and hereditary rule. Rights of Man puts government on the natural rights of whoever is alive now, since no generation can bind the next. In The Age of Reason he keeps God and drops scripture.
Signature
The position Paine is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable
- Theology
- Deism
Positions on the 16 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (79 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable (6 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (28 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (81 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (84 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- mildly leans Transcendence (67 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (29 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (71 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly leans Means (69 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- leans Militarism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage (0 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- mildly between Uncertain and Certain (45 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- strongly leans Global (100 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
4 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Paine refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Deism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Open Future
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal First Cause
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Welfare Capitalism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law / Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul / Agnostic
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good / Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?