What's Left of Philosophy (Lillian Cicerchia, Owen Glyn-Williams, Gil Morejón, and William Paris)
Explore every episode of What's Left of Philosophy
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07 Feb 2022 | 31 | Raymond Geuss: Realism in Political Theory | 01:02:03 | |
In this episode we work through some of the ideas laid out in Part 1 of Raymond Geuss’ 2008 Philosophy and Real Politics. It’s a refreshingly clear-eyed argument for what he calls the realist approach in political philosophy, which tries to attend to the messiness of actually existing societies, the opaque and invested people who make them up, and the shifting, contradictory values they hold. We’re talking Hobbes meets Lenin meets Nietzsche here, folks. Leave your rational decision theory and normative idealism at the door. patreonn.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 22 Feb 2022 | 32 | What is Equality? Disagreeing with Jacques Rancière | 01:05:46 | |
In this episode we discuss the meaning of equality by delving into French political philosopher Jacques Rancière’s 1995 book, Disagreement. In a contentious conversation we unpack the core concepts of the book, including its expansive notion of the police and its highly restrictive definition of politics as foundationally egalitarian. Above all, we press Rancière (and each other!) on both the meaning and the political utility of equality as a presupposition or ‘axiom’ rather than a social goal. It’s a banger! patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 07 Mar 2022 | 33 | (Un)Learning How to Do Politics with Hannah Arendt | 01:08:07 | |
In this episode we discuss what distinguishes politics from other aspects of human existence by looking at Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition and “Reflections on Little Rock.” We question why Arendt is so concerned with defending the distinction between politics, the social, and the private realm and what useful insights can be drawn from these distinctions when analyzing real human history. In addition, we touch on Arendt’s controversial relationship to black politics around integration or as she thought of it black “social climbing.” This might be the one that gets us canceled! patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, second edition, with an Introduction by Margaret Canovan (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998). Hannah Arendt, “Reflection on Little Rock” in The Portable Hannah Arendt, edited by Peter Baier, 231-247 (New York: Penguin Books, 2000). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 22 Mar 2022 | 34 Teaser | What is Dialectics? Part IV: Dialectic of Enlightenment with Adorno and Horkheimer | 00:08:43 | |
In this episode we talk about Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, focusing on their notion of reason as abstractive domination and their understanding of the culture industry as a means of producing mass complicity with the machinations of capital. The good news is that we've got a much better sense of humor than either of them, so it's not as miserable as all that might sound. The bad news is we're not sure if they're wrong to be so pessimistic. We also drag a fair bit of popular culture, admit we still love it, and call out the podcast form itself. But you don't need to worry: your media consumption habits are good. You're fine. You're one of the ones who gets it, definitely. | |||
| 05 Apr 2022 | 35 | Moral Luck and Pedagogy (with Aaron Rabinowitz) | 01:08:42 | |
In this episode, we talk with Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space about the paradoxes of moral luck, the problematic nature of our everyday notions of responsibility, and what good pedagogy looks like when you’ve agreed – as you must – that spontaneous, volitional free will is merely an illusion. We do some Kantian maneuvering, form provisional alliances, and all things considered have as good a time as is possible given our total lack of freedom. References: Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” <https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/Nagel1.pdf> Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 20 Apr 2022 | 36 | What is Utopia? Part II. Plato's Republic (with Owen Alldritt) | 01:07:17 | |
In this episode, we talk with Owen Alldritt about justice. We come to Plato’s defense against the Western philosophical canon, mostly in spite of ourselves, and insist on the True coinciding with the Good. What does this all have to do with utopia, you ask? As it turns out, Plato is a realist and he thinks we can know the Good in itself, organize our cities accordingly, and realize justice…or at least philosophers can. Good luck to everyone else! | |||
| 02 May 2022 | 37 Teaser | What’s the ‘Structural’ in ‘Structural Injustice’?: Iris Marion Young and Political Philosophy | 00:10:17 | |
What do we mean when we call something a ‘structural injustice’? In this episode, we take up some of Iris Marion Young’s work and ask what makes the difference between interpersonal injustice and structural injustice. Along the way, we investigate concepts such as political responsibility, social connection, and the character of global injustice. As an extra special treat listeners will find out what is preventing Gil from being a revolutionary (the answer may surprise you)! patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Iris Marion Young, Responsibility for Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) Iris Marion Young, “Responsibility and Global Labor Justice”, The Journal of Political Philosophy 12:4 (2004): 365-388 Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 16 May 2022 | 38 | Liberal Democracy in Crisis: Carl Schmitt and the Present | 01:00:27 | |
In this episode, we discuss the infamous Nazi jurist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt, with particular focus on his 1923 book The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. We attempt to better understand the right-wing, Schmittian case against both liberal ‘parliamentarianism’ and ‘Marxist socialism’, while trying to discern his positive political vision. Doing so requires assessing his paradoxical claim that democracy and dictatorship are perfectly compatible, and that dictatorship is good, actually. We end by asking what the hell a ‘Left Schmittian’ is, asking what if anything he has to offer for leftist theory and practice today. patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, trans. Ellen Kennedy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000) Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, trans. G.L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Publishing, 2003) Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 30 May 2022 | 39 | Lukács: Social Totality and the Commodity Form | 01:05:01 | |
In this episode we discuss the work of György Lukács, focusing on the reification essay from his seminal 1923 book History and Class Consciousness. We talk about why it’s not great that the commodity form has penetrated every aspect of social life, why we need to retain the category of totality in spite of loud protests from postmodernists, and what’s special about the standpoint of the proletariat. Welcome to capitalism, folks: real contradictions and necessary illusions abound. But it’s not over yet! | |||
| 13 Jun 2022 | 40 Teaser | What is Liberalism? Part I. John Locke's Second Treatise of Government | 00:11:42 | |
In this episode we kick off our new series called “What is Liberalism?” with private property, conquest, and a discussion about John Locke’s apologia for both. We appreciate the efforts of the left to civilize liberalism in the wake of its own civilizing efforts across the globe, but we ask whether it’s really possible to separate economic and political liberalism to make liberalism work for the left. Our experiences in DEI workshops suggest not, although many who are smarter than Locke have tried. | |||
| 27 Jun 2022 | 41 | James Boggs and the Problem of Rights under Capitalism | 00:59:54 | |
In this episode we discuss James Boggs’s 1963 The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook. We talk about Boggs’s materialist conception of rights as “what you make and what you take.” In Boggs we find a novel conception of rights that are grounded in social power. We delve into the dangers automation and structural unemployment present to rights to life and happiness while wondering if a “workless” society would truly be a better one. In the end, we extend a figleaf to egalitarian liberals and offer to heal their psychic distress by showing them that they are already revolutionaries (comrades, join us: the water's fine!). patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil References: James Boggs, The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, with a New Introduction by Grace Lee Bogs and Additional Commentary (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009). James Boggs, “Toward a New Concept of Citizenship,” in Pages from A Black Radical’s Notebook: A James Boggs Reader, ed. Stephen M. Ward, with an Afterword by Grace Lee Boggs (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011). C.L.R. James, “The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the United States,” at https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1948/07/meyer.htm Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 12 Jul 2022 | 42 | Going Beyond the Pleasure Principle with Freud | 01:08:27 | |
In this episode we talk psychoanalytic theory and practice. With Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle as our touchstone, we get speculative about human desire, the death drive, and the relationship between psychoanalysis and political struggle. We discuss the problem of scaling up from individual psychology to collective organizations, the opacity of the subject, and some of the psychosocial pathologies peculiar to the United States here in the twenty-first century. We could all use a bit more transference! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, trans. and ed. James Strachey (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 26 Jul 2022 | 43 | Transindividuality and Marxism with Jason Read | 01:01:23 | |
In this episode we talk with the wonderful Jason Read about his work on the concept of transindividuality and what it means for critical social theory, Marxist notions like alienation and reification, and traditional conceptions of freedom and equality. It’s bad news for anyone who thinks politics can be directly derived from ontology, but incredibly productive theoretically and practically if you're willing to think social relations as processes. Also Will admits he’s almost ready to confess his Spinozism, so that’s a clear win. follow us @leftofphil References: Jason Read, The Production of Subjectivity: Marx and Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2022) Jason's blog: http://www.unemployednegativity.com/ Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 01 Aug 2022 | 44 | Karl Kautsky's Cooperative Commonwealth | 01:01:01 | |
In this episode we talk about the most important Marxist thinker during the time of the Second International, Karl Kautsky. We talk about his infamous claim that the breakdown of capitalism is historically inevitable, what he thinks socialist praxis should look like in a liberal democracy, and what the concentration of large-scale capital means for your small business. Plus at some point we realize that almost all anti-socialist arguments are actually just confused anti-capitalist ones, which we find irresistibly delightful. We’re in old-school classical Marxist territory for this one, folks! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Karl Kautsky, “The Commonwealth of the Future,” in The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program), translated by William E. Bohn (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1910). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 08 Aug 2022 | 45 | On Solidarity and Conflict with Nathan DuFord | 01:08:34 | |
In this episode we are joined by Nathan DuFord to discuss their new book Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory. We unpack why they believe solidarity ought to be theorized as a political concept rather than moral injunction. For DuFord, we risk missing that solidarity is what the oppressed do with one another and that the oppressed will have disagreements within their solidary groups if we undertheorize the political dimensions of solidarity. We go on to discuss the relationships between trust and conflict, whether groups formed in solidarity can last forever, and contemporary questions concerning conflict in left organizations. If you believe in solidarity you won’t want to miss this episode! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Nathan DuFord [published under Rochelle DuFord], Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 22 Aug 2022 | 46 Teaser | What is Dialectics? Part V: Adorno's Negative Dialectics | 00:10:35 | |
In this patron-exclusive episode, we continue our series on the concept of dialectics by talking about Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. We reflect on what a non-closed dialectical system would look like, why Adorno is definitely not the defeatist he’s often caricatured as being, and what it means for us to hold onto utopian promises for a better world from within the administered nightmare of modern capitalism. Along the way we try to hone in on what’s special about Adorno’s negative dialectics, especially in comparison with what we get out of Kant and Hegel. And we give Heidegger an appropriately hard time for being just the worst. This is just a small clip from the full episode, which is available to patrons: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 2007). | |||
| 06 Sep 2022 | 47 | Guy Debord and the Society of the Spectacle | 01:01:04 | |
In today’s episode we talk about Guy Debord’s critique of life under modern capitalism by looking at his scathing and provocative The Society of the Spectacle. Is it true that all that was once lived is now mere representation? That the whole of society is mediated by an endless proliferation of passifying images? That the fullness of life has been replaced by its bloodless negation in survival? Because it sure feels like it! We discuss what exactly he means by spectacle, reflect on whether and how it’s possible to maintain his distinction between real needs and pseudo-needs, and consider what a politics without representation would, ahem, look like. And we talk some real trash on North American suburbia, whose surface-level image of homogeneous conflictless positivity is the true legitimation mechanism of capitalism here in the dying imperial core. It's a lot of fun, actually! | |||
| 19 Sep 2022 | 48 | Gillian Rose: Speculative Thinking and Post-Kantian Sociology with James Callahan | 01:00:54 | |
In this episode we are joined by James Callahan (aka Crane) to talk about Gillian Rose’s book Hegel Contra Sociology. We explore Rose’s critique of early twentieth-century sociology, which she argues was completely hampered by the limitations of its neo-Kantian framework. Looking to break out of this transcendental circle, Rose turns to Hegel and defends a highly original and sophisticated reading of his speculative political thinking, in order to develop a sociological analysis adequate for grasping and transforming our modern capitalist world. We also talk about why Hegel hated the starry skies above and thought slimes and rashes were way cooler. | |||
| 03 Oct 2022 | 49 | Coming to Terms with Human Finitude w/ Prof. Martin Hägglund | 01:05:52 | |
In this episode we are joined by Martin Hägglund to discuss the existentialist's argument for what makes human life meaningful—and why democratic socialism is the logical conclusion to reach after having considered the matter carefully. We also dig into the limits of social democracy, the need for the state, and the revaluation of value that is yet to come. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil Follow Martin: @martinhaegglund | http://martinhagglund.se References: Martin Hägglund, This Life: Secular Life and Spiritual Freedom (New York: Penguin Random House, 2020) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 17 Oct 2022 | 50 | Hermeneutics and Utopia: From Hans-Georg Gadamer to Ernst Bloch (Part 1) | 01:03:12 | |
In part one of our two-part mini-series on hermeneutics and utopia we discuss the thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1983 text Praise of Theory. We talk about the importance of prejudice and tradition for self-understanding, ask whether the natural sciences or the human sciences have sole claim to truth, and praise the (qualified) freedom of theory from instrumental reason (continental philosophy even gets a positive shout-out!). The purpose of this mini-series is to assess the insights of hermeneutics for theory and social philosophy, so look forward to our Patron exclusive conclusion on Ernst Bloch! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Praise of Theory, trans. Chris Dawson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 01 Nov 2022 | 51 Teaser | What is Utopia? Part III. Hermeneutics and Utopia: From Hans-Georg Gadamer to Ernst Bloch (Part 2) | 00:20:31 | |
In Part Two of our two-part mini-series we discuss the work of Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope. We ask what difference there is between the thought of Bloch and Theodor Adorno, how hope and utopia enable political action, and why so many traditions seem to abhor the concept of utopia. Expand your horizons and come learn how to hope again in this episode! | |||
| 14 Nov 2022 | 52 | Mike Davis: Historical Materialism and Militant Theory | 01:03:22 | |
This is a tribute episode to the great Mike Davis, the visionary social theorist and comrade who recently passed away in October 2022. We discuss his pathbreaking social analysis of Los Angeles, his political economy of urban life, his fondness for and reactivation of Marx’s political writings, and his unique ability to locate concrete phenomena within a specific historical conjuncture. Despite his clairvoyance about our disastrous present trajectory, we show why he was not the ‘prophet of doom’ that some think he was, insisting on the renewal of his spirit of militancy and hope. | |||
| 28 Nov 2022 | 53 | Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Anti-Materialist Sociology | 01:10:21 | |
Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism is probably the most important foundational text for modern sociology, and we think that’s kind of a downer, actually. We talk about how we are thoroughly unconvinced about his central historical claim in the book, which seems to be that the Protestant reformation created the subjective conditions for the emergence of capitalism somehow. We also take him to task for his weak criticism of historical materialism and for his own sorely lacking methodology. The book’s definitely got some interesting stuff in it, but it’s mostly a swing and a miss for us! Sorry, Weberians! | |||
| 05 Dec 2022 | 54 | Expropriating the Expropriators w/ Dr. Jacob Blumenfeld | 01:07:03 | |
In this episode we talk with Jacob Blumenfeld about the concept of property in German Idealism. As it turns out, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel each had a pretty different idea of property than their Anglo counterparts who were out there apologizing for private property as a natural right and capitalism as freedom. Some might even say that socialism is what completes the system of German Idealism. They might also say that Fichte is totally bonkers. In either case, the Germans are both way cooler and way weirder than you know. | |||
| 20 Dec 2022 | 55 Teaser | Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality | 00:08:52 | |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was many things, but chill was not one of them. In this patron-exclusive episode we have no chill either, getting into it about the renegade philosopher’s Discourse on Inequality, his totally bizarre fictional state of nature, and his stunningly prescient critique of modern society. You know, we aren’t primitivists at all, but sometimes it’s kinda hard to maintain that this whole civilization thing was worth it. We gave dogs anxiety disorders and spend our spare time licking the boots of our economic and political overlords! It sure seems like mistakes were made! Come, friends: take the Rousseau pill with us. | |||
| 01 Jan 2023 | 56 | Special Minisode: Hating on New Year’s Day with Antonio Gramsci | 00:31:29 | |
In this special holiday episode we bring in the new year by being complete and total haters! We keep it real light and breezy for this short little convo. We drag Auld Lang Syne, the concept of New Years’ resolutions, the very notion of historical dates, and also for some reason the city of Boston. At one point the discussion turns into an unboxing video, which is great content for a podcast, famously a visual medium. Oh and we read Antonio Gramsci’s 1916 essay “I Hate New Year’s Day”. We’re just having some fun with it! Happy new year to you all! | |||
| 16 Jan 2023 | 57 | What is Liberalism? Part II. Policing and Political Economy | 01:01:37 | |
In the second installment of our “What is Liberalism?” series we discuss the relationship between liberalism and the institution of the police. If a core principle of liberalism is the equal application of the law, then some enforcement mechanism is necessary to ensure the stability of the social order. The problem is that in liberal democracies the police are asked to equally apply the law while maintaining an unequal social order. These two tasks create legitimacy crises for the state. We discuss how the liberal political economy of the United States explains the exceptional brutality of the police, why it is so difficult to think of a world beyond the police, and how redistribution would ameliorate crime and social disorder. | |||
| 30 Jan 2023 | UNLOCKED: 24 | What's Left of Foucault? | 01:10:35 | |
We couldn't put together a new episode for you this week, so we thought we'd unlock an old Patreon exclusive! Thanks to everyone who helped us pick which one by voting in our Twitter poll. We'll be back with a brand new ep next Monday. | |||
| 06 Feb 2023 | 58 Teaser | Angela Davis: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation | 00:18:00 | |
In this episode we dig into some early writings by the incomparable black radical feminist and communist Angela Davis. We reflect on some of the contradictions involved in the transformation of women’s labor in the development of patriarchal capitalism and the latent potentials for the emancipated life in common that these developments nevertheless carry within themselves. We talk about the radical potential of industrializing housework, discuss strategies for the formation of effective solidarity, and—as usual—find a way to drag American suburbia. Get out there and contest capitalist power at the point of production! Those potentialities won’t actualize themselves, after all. | |||
| 20 Feb 2023 | 59 | Herbert Marcuse B-Sides Mixtape | 01:05:57 | |
Feeling alienated? In this episode, we are here for you. We dig into three periods of Herbert Marcuse’s thought. Marcuse was Martin Heidegger’s student in the 1920s, a member of the Frankfurt School in the 1930s, the philosopher of the New Left in the 1960s, and stays haunting the petit bourgeois in the 2020s. We pay our respects and get to the bottom of his influence on critical theory, social movements, and the culture. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry Into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955). Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). | |||
| 06 Mar 2023 | 60 | Antifascism and Emancipatory Violence with Devin Zane Shaw | 01:11:02 | |
In this episode we are joined by Devin Zane Shaw to talk about his book Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy. We discuss the concept of the ‘three-way fight’, what Beauvoir’s analysis of the antinomies of action can teach us about emancipatory violence, and the necessity of community self-defense. Ambiguity may be an inescapable condition for those of us who truly care about freedom, but you just cannot have dinner with nazis, comrades. | |||
| 20 Mar 2023 | 61 | Frantz Fanon, Racism, and the Alienation of Reason | 01:06:21 | |
In this episode, we take a deep dive into Frantz Fanon’s first book Black Skin, White Masks. We discuss his views on racism as a form of alienation and narcissism, assess that status of reason throughout his argument, and interrogate his emphasis on futurity over history. Throughout we defend his theory of social pathology and his embrace of reason and universal humanism. This episode should be a stimulating introduction to the anticolonial and revolutionary work of Fanon for both newcomers and experts! | |||
| 03 Apr 2023 | 62 | What is Aesthetics? Part I. Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education | 01:01:12 | |
In this inaugural episode of our new series on aesthetics, we discuss Friedrich Schiller’s 1795 Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. We begin with his assessment of the French Revolution and its perceived failure to deliver on its lofty republican ideals, focusing on his ascription of this failure to the fragmentation of the modern self and society. We then attempt to wrap our minds around Schiller’s proposed corrective: an ‘aesthetic education’ that mobilizes art and beauty toward the end of dialectically unifying sensuous life and Reason, nature and moral freedom, the ‘coarser’ class of ‘savages’ and the refined ‘barbarians’. We end, frankly, by trashing the current state of cultural production and fine art, caustically noting the contemporary shortage of Schillerian aesthetic education. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, eds. and trans. Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby (New York: Oxford University Press) Jacques Rancière, "Schiller and the Aesthetic Promise," trans. Owen Glyn-Williams, in Aesthetic Reason and Imaginative Freedom, eds. María del Rosario Acosta López & Jeffrey L. Powell (Albany: SUNY Press, 2018) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 17 Apr 2023 | 63 Teaser | Lenin's State and Revolution | 00:09:08 | |
In this patrons-only episode we discuss Vladimir Lenin’s 1917 The State and Revolution. When he’s not snarkily dragging his political opponents for their opportunism and philistinism, Lenin tries to work through some of the most hotly contested ideas in Marxian political theory, including the role of the state in capitalist society and its ‘withering away’ after the revolution, the problems of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bureaucracy, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. How could this polemical intervention still be relevant for us today, over a hundred years after the October Revolution and in a very different world than Lenin’s own? Join us and find out, tovarisch! | |||
| 01 May 2023 | 64 | What is Aesthetics? Part II. How Does it Feel to be a Problem, Hip Hop Nation? W/ Dr. Michael Thomas | 01:02:52 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Michael Thomas to talk about Black aesthetics and hip hop in particular. We work through what it means for hip hop to be a 'problem space' that reconstructs the cultural contradictions and political messaging of a racist society in a way that is not essentializing and that aspires to address social problems without producing easy answers. Main themes include hip hop's form, vibe, and story-telling capacity across generations. | |||
| 17 May 2023 | 65 | Gramsci's The Modern Prince | 01:01:26 | |
In this episode we talk about Antonio Gramsci’s book The Modern Prince. Written while imprisoned by the fascists in Mussolini’s Italy, the work is a reflection on the party as a form of organization and the importance of leadership for revolutionary socialist politics. We discuss Gramsci’s realist approach to politics as an art and science, his insistence on partisanship as a condition for objectivity in socio-political analysis, and what he might have to say about the sad state of leftist movement today. We are also joined by Owen’s adorable baby Eleni, who makes her presence known on more than one occasion. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince, in Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans. and ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 30 May 2023 | 66 | What's Left of Equality? Between Opportunity and Flourishing | 01:00:43 | |
In this episode, we unpack tensions between theories of equality that emphasize opportunity and outcomes in a discussion based upon Christine Sypnowich’s recent Boston Review article, “Is Equal Opportunity Enough?” We also discuss our very own William Paris’s response to Sypnowich in his essay “The Art of Equality.” We debate whether liberalism is tied to capitalist institutions, what it means to lead a flourishing life, and why French social clubs may contain part of the answer. We end with a stirring defense of equality as the best concept for social transformation. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Christine Sypnowich, “Is Equal Opportunity Enough?” https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/is-equal-opportunity-enough/ William Paris, “The Art of Equality” https://www.bostonreview.net/forum_response/the-art-of-equality/ Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 13 Jun 2023 | 67 TEASER | What is Liberalism? III. John Rawls and Political Liberalism | 00:16:54 | |
In this episode we finally get down and dirty with the big dog of Anglophone political philosophy, John Rawls. We discuss his 1993 book Political Liberalism, which expands on his earlier theory of justice to develop an account of the pluralistic tolerance at the heart of a liberal society characterized by the fact of a diversity of incommensurate but reasonable worldviews. We talk about what Rawlsian theory genuinely has going for it, but also pull no punches about the serious theoretical and practical limits to this most careful and aspirationally progressive exemplar of liberal political philosophy. But hey: don’t worry, we can tolerate a good liberal. This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 27 Jun 2023 | 68 | F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom: Competition, Individualism, and the Politics of Reaction | 00:57:48 | |
In this episode, we discuss the ideas of economist and political philosopher F.A. Hayek as they appear in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom. This influential book was written in response to what Hayek saw as the trend towards socialism in the mid-twentieth century and it offers his defense of “classical liberalism.” We examine the political and epistemological premises of Hayek’s theory of liberty and free markets, question his assumptions on human nature and cooperation, and near the end critique his odious conflation of communism and fascism. Say what you will about Hayek: at least he saved us from being subordinated and unfree! ...Right? patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, edited by Bruce Caldwell (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007). F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, edited by Ronald Hamowy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011). Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | 69 | Mute Compulsion: Economic Power and Capitalist Domination w/ Dr. Søren Mau | 00:56:53 | |
On this episode we are joined by Dr. Søren Mau to discuss his new book, Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. We talk about why economic power is different than violence and ideology, what’s distinctive about the human being in terms of its metabolic exchange with nature, and what this means for capitalist reproduction and the possibility of its interruption. Speaking of interruptions, we find ourselves subject to reactionary infrastructural violence when the internet crashes mid-conversation, but we manage to recover before long! | |||
| 28 Jul 2023 | 70 | How Does Propaganda Work? w/ Dr. Megan Hyska | 00:58:36 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Megan Hyska to discuss her work on propaganda. She takes us through the history of the term propaganda, what makes propaganda a distinctly political concept, and how propaganda helps create or inhibit group agency. She shows why thinking that assumes propaganda can only work by manipulating our irrationality fails to help us see that propaganda can be effective even when it does not trick or deceive us. This is a great episode for those of you interested in the relationships between effective propaganda and social power. Also if you are Hobbesian just wait until you hear what Owen has to say! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil meganhyska.com References: Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani, “The Injustice of Under-Policing in America,” American Journal of Law and Equality 2 (2022): 85-106 Megan Hyska, (2021) “Propaganda, Irrationality, and Group Agency,” in The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology, eds. M. Hannon & J. de Ridder: 226-235. Megan Hyska, (2023) “Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 9(2), 303-317. W.E.B. Du Bois, (1926) “Criteria for Negro Art” http://www.webdubois.org/dbCriteriaNArt.html Amia Srinivasan, (2016) “Philosophy and Ideology,” Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History, and Foundations of Science 31(3): 371-380. Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 08 Aug 2023 | 71 TEASER | What is Liberalism? Part IV: Neo-Republicanism | 00:19:55 | |
In this episode, we dive into Philip Pettit’s Republicanism from 1997, which argued that republicanism and liberalism are not the fast friends many assume them to be. However, many liberal and left philosophers think that neo-republicanism is just riding the coattails of liberalism or that it’s just another bourgeois moralism. So what’s the big deal? And how radical can republicanism be? This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford University Press, 1997). Philip Pettit, The Common Mind (Oxford University Press, 1993). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 22 Aug 2023 | Updates and Live Show Announcement! 8/22/2023 | 00:02:03 | |
No episode this week BUT we've got some big news: that's right, at long last, a What's Left of Philosophy live show! Come see us on October 12th at the Free Times Cafe in Toronto, 8pm onward. More details coming soon. Thanks for everything! | |||
| 13 Sep 2023 | 72 | Gerrard Winstanley and the English Revolution | 00:54:27 | |
In this episode we talk English Revolutionary politics in the mid-17th century, and specifically the philosophy and practice of legendary 'Digger' Gerrard Winstanley. We discuss his radically egalitarian conviction that the execution of Charles I was not sufficient, and that all the 'kingly power' of landlords and owners must be abolished to complete the Revolution. We draw a stark contrast between Winstanley and his contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, while distinguishing his conception of the 'commons' and its use from that of John Locke. Did the then-existing forces of production need to be developed for modern communism to be possible? Probably yes, but look: this dude was raw. 1leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Gerrard Winstanley, The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, Penguin (Baltimore: 1973) Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Penguin, 1975) | |||
| 20 Sep 2023 | 73 | Effective Altruism is Terrible w/ John Duncan | 01:00:55 | |
In this episode, we are joined by researcher and video essayist John Duncan (@Johntheduncan) to talk about the Effective Altruism movement and why it is so comprehensively awful. Granted, it’s got some pretty solid marketing: who could be against altruism, especially if it’s effective? But consider: from its individualism to its focus on cost-effectiveness and rates of return, from its idealist historiography to its refusal to cop to its obvious utilitarianism, from its naive empiricism to its wild-eyed obsession for preventing the Singularity—it’s really just the spontaneous ideology of 21st century capitalism cosplaying as ethics. Look, if your moral project involves you working in finance or for DARPA, sees new sweatshops in the global south as a good thing, and is beloved by tech bro billionaires, you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. It’s deeply embarrassing and accordingly we drag it for filth. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil https://www.youtube.com/@JohntheDuncan References: William MacAskill, “The Definition of Effective Altruism”, in Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues, eds. Hilary Greaves and Theron Plummer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). William MacAskill, What We Owe the Future (New York: Hachette, 2022) Adams et. al., The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 02 Oct 2023 | 74 | Time and Work Discipline with E.P. Thompson | 00:58:41 | |
In this episode, we discuss E.P. Thompson’s amazing article “Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” E.P. Thompson is the legendary Marxist historian and author of The Making of the English Working Class. How did time become money? And why can’t we just pass it away? Lots of work discipline, as it turns out, which leads us to ask – maybe laziness is a virtue? leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” in Class: The Anthology, eds. Stanley Aronowitz and Michael J. Roberts (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2018). Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 24 Oct 2023 | 75 TEASER | Power, Reason, and Justification: Rainer Forst’s Critical Theory | 00:08:14 | |
In this episode, we discuss the social theory of the Kantian critical theorist Rainer Forst in his book Normativity and Power. We work through how well his theory of the relationship between power and reason accounts for economic domination, why he thinks power and violence ought to be distinguished, and whether critical theory can escape the problem of circularity in judging the difference between better and worse reasons for acting. Do we have reasons for acting? Does it matter? Come get Kant-pilled and leave your Hegel at home! patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | |||
| 06 Nov 2023 | 76 | For and Against Participatory Planning & Economics | 00:56:08 | |
In this patron-requested episode, we discuss the proposals for participatory planning and economics developed by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert. They contend that socialists should want to organize social production and consumption neither through authoritarian centralized planning, nor through market mechanisms, but by democratic consensus attained through federated workers’ councils. We appreciate the scope of the ambition and their visionary utopianism, and generally buy their criticisms of markets, but also discuss what we find unsatisfying in their approach. Mostly this means talking about how a system like the one they propose can’t stop a lazy scoundrel like Owen from defrauding the whole thing into the ground like it’s the USSR 2.0. But honestly it’s hard to hold that against them. | |||
| 22 Nov 2023 | 77 | What is Ecosocialism? Part I. John Bellamy Foster and the Metabolic Rift | 00:59:02 | |
In this inaugural episode of our new series on ecosocialism, we discuss some writings by ecological Marxist thinker John Bellamy Foster, whose main contribution to contemporary discourse is his elaboration of the theory of metabolic rift. We talk about how this concept is meant to explain why the capitalist mode of production is environmentally unsustainable in principle, but also dig into why this approach is not totally satisfying. By the end of the discussion we’re bumming ourselves out about the unfolding climate crisis and the looming threat of ecofascism. Can’t promise that the rest of the series won’t also be a real downer! Uh, sorry about that!! | |||
| 05 Dec 2023 | 78 | Perry Anderson's Considerations on Western Marxism | 00:58:22 | |
In this episode we get the Perry Anderson treatment and ask if we philosophers are the problem with how Western Marxism has evolved over time. We discuss what Anderson calls the formal and thematic shifts that happened within this theoretical tradition once the philosophers got in the driver’s seat. Partly ethnographic, partly analytical, and a little more meta-philosophical than usual. We hope you’ll indulge us this once as we ask ourselves what the hell we’re doing. | |||
| 18 Dec 2023 | 79 | What Could It Mean to Say, “Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism”? with Professor Vanessa Wills | 01:04:49 | |
In this episode, we are joined by George Washington University Associate Professor Vanessa Wills to discuss her article “What Could It Mean to Say, ‘Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism’?” We try to figure out why critics badly understand the Marxist concept of causation as it concerns identity-based oppression, why labor and production provide the conditions of possibility for science, and whether the abolition of capitalism would automatically mean the end of racism and sexism (no, but it sure would help!). And as a treat, Hegel shows up to school us on the appearance/essence distinction! | |||
| 09 Jan 2024 | 80 | Grab Bag Special Episode with Michael Peterson! Utilitarian Harems, Nietzschean Ciphers, and Cowardly Chatbots | 01:22:31 | |
In this nonstandard episode, Gil and Owen are joined by Michael Peterson to talk about how dreadful utilitarianism is, consider some of the offers that folks have made to come guest on the show, and reflect on how deeply unimpressive LLMs are when it comes to actually taking a position. Just having some fun with it! Video of the recording is available to our supporters on Patreon. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | |||
| 22 Jan 2024 | 81 TEASER | David Harvey: Capitalist Urbanization and the Right to the City | 00:11:05 | |
In this episode, we talk about David Harvey’s analysis of the urbanization process as a form of accumulated surplus capital expenditure and consider the built environment as a crucial site of class struggle. The physical constitution of the built environment in which we live mediates our forms of sociality and political dispositions, not to mention how important it is for making mass action and organization possible. So it sure sucks that the shape of its development has been determined by the needs of capital rather than those of human flourishing for a few hundred years now! Oh, and we’re really mean to the suburbs, too. | |||
| 07 Feb 2024 | 82 | The State and Right: Kant's Metaphysics of Morals | 01:01:48 | |
In this episode, we dig into the Doctrine of Right in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals to see what he has to say about the state. Turns out he’s a fan, because the state is what guarantees the possibility of justice and perpetual peace. Nice! But he also thinks that the state should be authorized to kill you. And that you don’t have the right to rebel even if the sovereign is abusing their power. And that you shouldn’t think too hard about the origin of the state. And that human beings are transcendentally disposed to malevolent violence toward each other? So let’s call this a mixed bag, maybe. | |||
| 19 Feb 2024 | 83 | What is Aesthetics? Part III. Ernst Bloch: In Search of the Red Sublime | 00:56:03 | |
In this episode, we return to the work of Ernst Bloch and his theory concerning “aesthetic genius” and the possibility of the red sublime. Bloch attempts to construct a Marxist account of art that can explain how it is possible for aesthetic objects to provoke experiences of beauty and sublimity long after the historical conditions of their genesis have passed. Bloch thinks certain artworks contain a utopian surplus that beckons for a not-yet existing classless society. In other words, Bloch thinks we can inherit the knowledge of the real possibility of communism from the history of class domination and catastrophe. Join us as we try to make sense of these claims, dunk on the idea of art as “resistance,” and even try (in vain) to get Gil to experience the sublime! | |||
| 07 Mar 2024 | 84 | Sex in Philosophy w/ Dr. Manon Garcia | 01:06:41 | |
In this episode, we talk with Manon Garcia about the problem of women’s submissiveness in feminist philosophy. Then we discuss longstanding feminist criticisms of the concept of consent, what we want from consent in the first place, and what it could mean in the future. And we wonder if the reason it’s so hard to talk about sex in philosophy is that we don’t really think about it philosophically enough, which is too bad, since as it turns out, good sex is an integral part of the good life. | |||
| 19 Mar 2024 | 85 TEASER | Giving an Account of Oneself: Judith Butler's Ethics of Opacity | 00:08:56 | |
In this episode we delve into Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself, an illuminating book from 2005 that examines subject-formation and the relationship between the self, other people, and the normative social order. We reconstruct Butler’s efforts to ground a philosophical ethics with positive claims in the insights of three theoretical traditions that have generally been understood to frustrate moral philosophy: post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Our core focus is the question of whether Butler’s conceptions of the ‘relationality’ and ‘opacity’ of the human self can do the kind of ethical heavy lifting that they claim. | |||
| 02 Apr 2024 | 86 | Right-Wing Political Thought w/ Dr. Matt McManus | 00:59:00 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Matt McManus to discuss his research into the history and philosophy of right-wing politics in his book The Political Right and Equality. We discuss the nature of conservatism as an irrationalist reaction to modernist ideas about human egalitarianism, the rhetorical strategies of the right, and the historical conditions under which moderate conservatism turns over into extremist fascist reaction. We pay special attention to Edmund Burke’s aestheticization of politics and Joseph De Maistre’s formula for presenting conservative ideology as punk-rock counterculture rather than the argumentatively weak status-quo apologia it really is. It pays to know your enemy, comrades. | |||
| 17 Apr 2024 | 87 | The Politics of Left-Wing Climate Realism w/ Dr. Ajay Singh Chaudhary | 01:14:44 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Ajay Chaudhary to discuss his book The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World and the political, economic, and affective sites of exhaustion reproduced through climate degradation. We examine the expanding colonial relations of what Chaudhary calls the “extractive circuit” between the both the Global South and Global North as well as widening segments of the working classes in the Global North. We dispel fantasies of both the hope that climate change will automatically unify a coherent politics for a just transition and the fear of a human apocalypse. Given this, what would a left-wing climate realism look like as opposed to burgeoning forms of right-wing climate realism that aims to extract and protect as much wealth as possible for a vanishingly small minority? Much of our conversation concerns the role of temporality in our politics and the imperative not to wait for the future to solve our climate crises. Turns out waiting for Greta Thunberg to solve all our problems is a poor strategy! | |||
| 02 May 2024 | 88 | On Late Fascism w/ Alberto Toscano | 01:07:55 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Alberto Toscano to talk about his analysis of contemporary far-right movement and ideology. We discuss his new book Late Fascism and consider the strategic and rhetorical downsides of analogizing the present moment to past instantiations of fascist politics in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. We try to get a grip on what distinguishes contemporary fascism, why liberal discourse’s fixation on ‘totalitarianism’ fails to grasp the specificity of fascism, and ask what Black and third-world scholars can teach us on this score. | |||
| 15 May 2024 | 89 TEASER | G.A. Cohen's Analytical Red Sublime | 00:12:12 | |
In this episode, we discuss essays from throughout G.A. Cohen’s philosophical career. Cohen is known as one of the founders of Analytical Marxism, so we talk about what this tradition in Marxist thinking is about and how it handles the problems of political let-down and disillusionment that affect us all. We also get into his polemics against the libertarians and John Rawls in his essays on exploitation, freedom, and justice. | |||
| 27 May 2024 | 90 | Ecological Materialism and Logistical Strategy w/ Dr. Jeff Diamanti | 01:20:04 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Jeff Diamanti to discuss what it looks like to watch the climate change. Our conversation shifts from analytical, aesthetic, and political perspectives, as we turn our attention from critical raw materials to the future cartographies already being carved out. We explore Jeff’s notion of the terminal as the kind of space where capitalism abstracts matter and value becomes concrete. As it turns out, there’s more to see in the logistics than philosophers might think, from indigenous resistance and sabotage to a possible world of sustainable provision. | |||
| 11 Jun 2024 | 91 | Fanon’s Dialectic of Violence | 01:01:03 | |
In this episode, we tackle the concept of violence as it appears in the revolutionary and anticolonial work of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Throughout the episode we link together Fanon’s endorsement of revolutionary violence against colonial domination with his work as a psychiatrist. How could Fanon argue for the necessity of violence while bearing witness to its regressive effects on both those who suffer violence and those who deploy it? What makes the revolutionary violence of the colonized qualitatively distinct from the violence of colonizers? Finally, what can Fanon's dialectic of violence tell us today? This episode casts Fanon as both revolutionary and care worker and explores the tensions and resonances between the need for freedom and the costs of struggle. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004). Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 1965). Frantz Fanon, Œuvres (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2011). Frantz Fanon, Alienation and Freedom, eds. Jean Khalfa and Robert J.C. Young, trans. Steven Corcoran (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 01 Jul 2024 | 92 | What is Liberalism? Part V. Robert Nozick’s Libertarian Reveries | 01:02:05 | |
In this episode, we discuss Robert Nozick’s libertarian political philosophy as presented in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. We consider his challenges to leftist thought, especially the sort of left liberalism championed by the likes of John Rawls. We take seriously his demand for an argument for egalitarianism and his critique of patterned accounts of distributive justice. But we also give him a hard time for some of his more absurd arguments, from those about swimming pools to those concerning wealthy basketball players and the all-important human need to feel like a very special boy. When it comes to libertarianism, this is in fact them sending their best. | |||
| 16 Jul 2024 | 93 TEASER | Charles Mills and the Racial Contract | 00:11:06 | |
In this episode, we talk about the late, great Charles Mills and his landmark book The Racial Contract. Forcefully arguing that the modern discourse of egalitarianism and freedom is underwritten by a tacit commitment to global white supremacy, Mills develops an immanent criticism of liberalism that remains faithful to many of its core values. We discuss the limits and promises of liberal universalism, the potential reform of contractarian logic, and whether white people really mean it when they say they want to abolish whiteness. Rest in peace to a really real one. | |||
| 02 Aug 2024 | 94 | Norman Geras' Ethics of Revolution | 00:57:55 | |
In this episode, we discuss the contributions of political theorist Norman Geras to socialist debates about revolutionary ethics, movement democracy, and justice. He argues for a right to revolution, but that there’s a difference between political and social revolution, and that this difference tells us something about which ends justify which means. Other topics include state theory, dual power, and the role that Marxism can play in social movements today. | |||
| 14 Aug 2024 | 95 | John Dewey and the Education of Experience | 01:03:45 | |
In this episode, we discuss the educational philosophy of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Focusing on his 1938 treatise Experience & Education we explore questions concerning the ends of education, what it means to be an effective educator, and the relationship between experience and history. Dewey advocates for a form of education that focuses less on knowledge accumulation and more on cultivating the capacities of students for freedom through the enrichment of their experience. Other topics include Dewey’s controversial naturalism, the tension between Deweyan pragmatism and Marxist social theory, and finally why the traditional lecture still has a lot to recommend it! | |||
| 28 Aug 2024 | 96 TEASER | What is Utopia? Part IV. Bacon's New Atlantis | 00:14:50 | |
In this episode we talk about the weird little unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis, written by founding enlightenment figure Francis Bacon. We talk about his fetish for differential novelty, his understanding and valorization of knowledge production, and his ambivalent status as a pivotal figure between medieval and modern science. He’s right that European rationality is sickly, but what can orgiastic science deliver for utopian consciousness? Not clear! But it definitely would be cool to be able to make meteors and multiply natural forms. | |||
| 12 Sep 2024 | 97 | Poulantzas, Marxism and the State | 00:55:52 | |
In this episode we take up the question: what is the State? With 1978’s State, Power, Socialism by Nicos Poulantzas as our guide, we talk about what it means to grasp the state as a historically specific form inseparable from the economy, find ourselves torn between the mutual dissatisfactions of Althusser and Foucault, and ask whether it is even possible to conceptualize ‘the capitalist state’ as such. Doing so might be necessary for political strategic reasons, but O, abstraction! Along the way we give some of our favorite French thinkers a bit of a hard time. It’s meant with love. Mostly. | |||
| 27 Sep 2024 | 98 TEASER | Reform or Revolution? | 00:10:11 | |
In this episode we take on a Marxist classic, Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution,” in which she skewers Eduard Bernstein for being a feckless opportunist and for relinquishing the goal of socialism. Luxemburg takes on his argument that it’s possible for socialists to take increasing control of the capitalist state and progressively implement reforms that socialize the economy. Best diss track of all time. But don’t worry, we take Bernstein seriously, too. A ghost is haunting twenty-first century socialism, and it may very well be his – To rupture, or not to rupture? That is the question. | |||
| 14 Oct 2024 | 99 | What is Dialectics? Part VI: From Explanation to Emancipation: Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism | 01:01:35 | |
In this episode, we discuss the philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar and his essays in Reclaiming Reality. We discuss whether it is possible for the human sciences to overcome the fact/value distinction, what role knowledge has in self-emancipation, and what to do about middle-class surburbanites who would rather watch the world burn than take a hit on their property values. Some highlights include the pod disagreeing on Althusser, Spinoza’s joy saving the day, and settling accounts with the role of the activist-intellectual in contemporary times. | |||
| 17 Oct 2024 | 100th Episode Livestream Announcement | Ask Us Anything! | 00:01:20 | |
Some news! We are going to livestream our 100th episode recording session at 1pm Eastern / 12 noon central standard time on our YouTube channel on Sunday October 27th. | |||
| 01 Nov 2024 | 100 | Special Q+A Livestream! | 01:57:21 | |
For this very special 100th episode of the show, we set aside a few hours to answer questions submitted by listeners! We livestreamed the session on our YouTube channel, and this is the audio from that recording. | |||
| 18 Nov 2024 | 101 | Free Time Under Capitalism | 01:00:59 | |
In this episode, we discuss Theodor Adorno’s essay “Free Time”, in which the critical theorist really lets his cantankerous old man flag fly. He argues that how our subjectivities are shaped by capitalist culture and work discipline makes it very difficult—maybe even impossible—to use our time off the clock in genuinely meaningful ways. Certainly we waste a lot of our precious hours consuming pointless, artless slop and participating in activities just because we feel like we’re supposed to, but is it really the case that everything we do is just unfree pseudo-activity, at best blowing off steam before helplessly getting back to work? We broadly come down on the side of low culture and hobbies, but Marvel movies and Disney adults are definitely cause for concern. | |||
| 03 Dec 2024 | 102 TRAILER | The Heidegger Episode | 00:06:08 | |
Here, we finally deliver on our longstanding threat to do an episode all about influential philosopher Martin Heidegger. We give him credit where it’s due: he has a compelling account of the conditions for meaningful existence along with a resonant critique of the alienation endemic to modern society, and is responsible for making important concepts like temporality, finitude, language and historicity into core themes of 20th century continental philosophy. Of course, he’s also an unrepentant Nazi, animated by fascist ideas like originary authenticity and racial destiny, an enemy of conceptual thinking in favor of obscurantist poetics, and an idealist loser who wants us to turn away from actual meaningful things here and now so we can begin to approach the fateful question of the meaning of Being as such. We don’t like him! And we're right. | |||
| 18 Dec 2024 | 103 | Habermania w/ Dr. Steven Klein | 01:07:48 | |
Another week, another German philosopher. This time, Steven Klein joins us to discuss the ideas and legacy of one Jürgen Habermas. We talk about his evolution alongside and away from the Frankfurt School, the enlightenment project at the core of his work, and why a critical theory born in crisis is a different animal than a critical theory born under conditions of relative capitalist stability. Love him or not, we can’t deny that Habermas is a giant of modern European philosophy. Shout out to the Habermaniacs. | |||
| 30 Dec 2024 | 104 | Does History Have a Repetition Compulsion? | 00:58:44 | |
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Black Reconstruction, and The Black Jacobins. What do these three texts have in common? They all aim to make a historical moment legible as a drama. In doing so, Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, and C.L.R. James seem to show that history has a structure of repetition. But what could repetition mean? In this episode, we discuss an essay by the Japanese Marxist Kojin Karatani on Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire. We explore Karatani’s theory for why representative democracies seem condemned to degenerating into authoritarian crisis, what a Marxist concept of repetition could mean, and the relationships between political crises and economic crises. Come join us as we ring in a new year that has made it possible for “a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.” References: Kojin Karatani, “On The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, trans. Seiji M. Lippit, in History and Repetition, ed. Seiji M. Lippit (Columbia University Press, 2012). leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 16 Jan 2025 | 105 TEASER | Fredric Jameson: Marxist Criticism and the Role of Theory | 00:09:31 | |
In this episode, we discuss the work of the late, great Fredric Jameson. Basing ourselves on his Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, and Archaeologies of the Future, we talk about the notion that history is only accessible in narrative form, the concept of social totality, the tension between poststructuralist criticism and historical materialist thought, and the problems plaguing the increasingly specialized and alienated intellectual division of labor in our times. What do we want from cultural studies, and what do we want from the social sciences, in twenty-first century Marxist thought? It’s a spicy one. | |||
| 27 Jan 2025 | 106 | Karl Polanyi and the Critique of Market Society | 01:02:29 | |
In this episode, we discuss the work of brilliant heterodox economist Karl Polanyi. We talk about his criticisms of neoclassical orthodoxy, his arguments against the commodification of land, labor, and money, and his critique of the dominance of markets in theory and in practice. Put markets in their place and regulate the hell out of them! We also consider his influence on recent leftist economic thought, and talk through what’s at stake in the difference between Marxist and Polanyian approaches to history and politics. We think there are limits to the Polanyi line, but it’s hard not to love an authentically humanist fellow traveler! leftofphilosophy.com References: Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014). Karl Polanyi, For a New West: Essays, 1919-1958, eds. Giorgio Resta and Mariavittoria Catanzariti (Malden: Polity Press, 2014). Fred Block, “Karl Polanyi and the Writing of ‘The Great Transformation’”, Theory and Society 32:3 (2003), 275-306. Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 10 Feb 2025 | 107 | How Labor Can Win w/ Eric Blanc | 01:10:27 | |
In this episode, we discuss Eric Blanc’s new book about the strategies re-building U.S. labor today, as well as how they can translate across movements and borders. Though many smart philosophers have declared that the labor movement is dead, workers from Starbucks to Amazon have something else in mind. So, what’s left? | |||
| 20 Feb 2025 | Gil is Teaching a Class on Kant's First Critique in Chicago | 00:01:01 | |
You read the title! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason at the Goethe Institute in downtown Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Enrollments are now open for anyone interested. Check out the course description and sign up here: https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/kants-critique-of-pure-reason-chicago/ Hope to see some of you there! leftofphilosophy.com Music: Titanium by AlisiaBeats | |||
| 24 Feb 2025 | 108 TEASER | Friedrich Nietzsche on Learning How to Live in a Dying Culture | 00:08:33 | |
In this episode, we tackle Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. In this book, Nietzsche diagnoses the cultural pathologies of a Europe that no longer seems able to take risks and experiment with life. We discuss his account of nihilism, his aristocratic commitment to the breeding of new philosophers, and why it is important not to domesticate Nietzsche’s critiques of morality. Along the way, we unpack what Nietzsche would think of philosophers today and why he thinks they have such a hard time finding the truth. Come learn the philosophy of the future before it’s too late! “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com | |||
| 03 Mar 2025 | Will Has Published a Book! | 00:02:30 | |
This is a short promo for Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (Oxford University Press, 2025), written by WLOP’s very own Will Paris. You can find the book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/race-time-and-utopia-9780197698877?cc=ca&lang=en&. And check out Will’s interview about the book: https://newbooksnetwork.com/race-time-and-utopia Music: “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 18 Mar 2025 | 109 | Should We Abolish Prisons? w/ Dr. Tommie Shelby | 01:06:37 | |
In this episode, we are joined by special guest Tommie Shelby to discuss the arguments presented in his most recent book, The Idea of Prison Abolition. We talk about the social functions that prisons serve, whether any of those are legitimate, and what the differences are between radical reformist and abolitionist positions. This conversation is wide-ranging, making connections between lots of left-wing debates, from how we explain the emergence of unjust institutions to how we argue for social transformation. | |||
| 02 Apr 2025 | 110 | What is Liberalism? Part VI. Possessive Individualism and the Collapsing Order | 00:54:47 | |
In this episode, the boys talk about C.B. Macpherson’s insightful text The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Macpherson holds that liberal political theory from Hobbes to Locke is correct in its premises, since like it or not we basically all are defined by our properties, living in a society almost exclusively defined by market relations—but that those same market relations engender class antagonisms that progressively undermine the possibility of durable social cohesion. He wants to save liberal theory and liberal democracies from themselves, but is there a viable way forward? You know what we think: it’s socialism or barbarism, baby! Too bad it’s looking like barbarism!! | |||
| 14 Apr 2025 | 111 TEASER | Infantile Disorders: The Coming Insurrection | 00:16:37 | |
In this episode, we discuss the 2007 text The Coming Insurrection, written by the pseudonymous collective The Invisible Committee. We talk about the book’s scathing condemnation of the present, its critique of everyday life in the dying late capitalist empires of the 21st century, and the kind of insurrectionary anarchism it advocates. Maybe we’re just grumpy old people who have failed to kill the cops in our heads, but we think the project dead-ends in presentist adventurism and doesn’t take seriously enough the importance of social stability and political organization. That said, we try to take a sympathetic look at the moment of negativity it expresses, and think about how it speaks to real frustrations and genuine revolutionary desires. We’re diversity of tactics people who want to build a better future together, after all! | |||
| 28 Apr 2025 | 112 | Excavating Utopias w/ Dr. William Paris | 01:13:49 | |
In this episode, we discuss WLOP co-host William Paris’s recently published book Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation. In his book, Will examines the utopian elements in the theories of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, and James Boggs and their critique of racial domination as the domination of social time. The crew talks about the relationship between utopia and realism, the centrality of time for our social practices, and how history can provide critical principles for an emancipated society. We even find out whether Gil, Lillian, and Owen think the book is any good! Thomas Blanchet, Lucas Chancel, and Amory Gethin, "Why Is Europe More Equal than the United States?" American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 14 (4): 480–518 (2022) Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 14 May 2025 | 113 TEASER | Political Marxism | 00:14:07 | |
In this episode, we discuss “political marxism” as a paradigm shift in Marxist thinking about historical development, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and why that should matter to philosophers with an interest in challenging easy conceptual binaries that remain entrenched even in radical circles, like between economics and politics. We take a look at the two leading figures of this kind of Marxism – Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood – to put the conflict back into class conflict. This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Robert Brenner, “The Social Basis of Economic Development,” in Analytical Marxism, ed. John Roemer (Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 23-53. Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (Verso Books, 2016 [1995]). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 26 May 2025 | 114 | What's Left of Representation? | 00:56:42 | |
In this episode, we discuss the centrality of ‘representation’ in politics and political theory, guided by Hanna Pitkin’s 1967 treatise The Concept of Representation. Much of the focus is on her notion of ‘substantive representation’ – the activity of advancing the welfare and interests of others – in comparison to the empty husk of formal representation we’ve all become accustomed to in our putatively representative democracies. We explore the Anglo-American efforts to constitutionally immunize representation against advocacy and agitation by the represented, and heed Pitkin’s implicit warning that where representation is insubstantial and inadequate, hyper-investment in pale substitutes like flag and figurehead inevitably follows. References: Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN | |||
| 18 Dec 2020 | 1 | Althusser: Marxism and Philosophy | 01:02:21 | |
In our inaugural episode, we talk about Louis Althusser’s pathbreaking work on philosophy and Marxism from the 1960s. Targets of reckless slander include Sartre and post-structuralist theories of agency. | |||
| 18 Dec 2020 | 2 | Stuart Hall: What are the politics of culture? | 01:16:27 | |
In this episode we discuss the work of cultural theorist Stuart Hall and his politics of culture. We focus on his relationship to Althusser and Gramsci with a detour through contemporary Black politics in the United States. | |||
| 18 Dec 2020 | 3 | Laclau and Mouffe, or How we learned to hate class and love Derrida | 01:11:07 | |
In our third episode, we talk about Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, the landmark text of post-Marxism. Both serious arguments and slam dunks ensue. | |||
| 01 Jan 2021 | 4 | Security, Supreme Concept of Bourgeois Society? | 00:58:45 | |
In our fourth episode we talk about security, digging into Mark Neocleous' argument, following Marx, that security rather than liberty is 'the supreme concept of bourgeois society'. But we also ask the thorny question of how the left can speak to everyone's desire to feel safe while critically highlighting the racialized violence and ruling-class utility of existing security regimes. It's, uh, more fun than that probably sounds. | |||
| 15 Jan 2021 | 5 Teaser | Beauvoir: Existentialism and Liberation | 00:14:28 | |
Full episode on the Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | |||
| 29 Jan 2021 | 6 | What's Left of Positivism (with Dr. Liam Kofi Bright) | 01:12:26 | |
In this episode, we heal the divide between analytic and continental philosophy by finally giving logical positivism its due. Dr. Liam Kofi Bright (London School of Economics, @lastpositivist) explains the socialist roots of some of the positivists, details their views on the role of science and knowledge in projects of social betterment, and defends the political importance of clarity. | |||
| 12 Feb 2021 | 7 | Why Does Class Matter? | 00:59:26 | |
Episode 7 dives into class theory as we discuss why it’s important to make a normative case for class politics, misconceptions about who the working class is, and why the labor market dominates. We also ruminate on why workers don’t always organize and why solidarity is a counterculture. Plot twist: Lillian accuses everyone except herself of class reductionism. | |||
| 26 Feb 2021 | 8 | (Neo)colonialism and Anticolonialism | 01:06:30 | |
In episode 8, we look to the writings of Aimé Césaire to guide a conversation about colonialism, neocolonialism, and anti-colonial thought and struggle. Focusing especially on his 1950 Discourse on Colonialism and his 1956 letter to Maurice Thorez—in which he explains his resignation from French Communist Party—we discuss the subjective and objective ‘boomerang effects’ of colonialism on colonizing countries, the tensions between particularism and universalism in putatively global left politics, the relationship between colonialism and capitalism, and the state of neocolonial domination and exploitation. | |||
| 12 Mar 2021 | 9 | C.L.R. James: Leadership, Organization, Mass Politics (with Dr. William Clare Roberts) | 01:01:01 | |
Episode 9 explores the antinomies of autonomy and self-emancipation in the thought of C.L.R. James. Dr. William Clare Roberts joins us to discuss James’ legacy and how it fits into his book project on the history of “history from below.” Please be advised that a side-effect of this episode may be republicanism. (No, you Yanks, not the GOP. It’s the Black Jacobins, get it?) | |||
| 28 Mar 2021 | 10 | Donna Haraway: Socialist Cyborg Affinities | 01:15:23 | |
In this episode, we discuss Donna Haraway’s distinctive socialist cyberfeminism. We talk through the virtues and vices of her version of postmodern feminism and leftism, the ambivalent character of scientific knowledge production and new technologies, and the strange material powers of metaphor. Ask yourself: would you rather be a cyborg or a goddess? | |||
| 09 Apr 2021 | 11 | Climate Politics and Global Justice (with Dr. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò) | 01:18:20 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Professor Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (@OlufemiOTaiwo) (Georgetown University) to discuss his work on the politics surrounding climate change and generative frameworks for global justice. In this wide-ranging discussion we address the urgency of climate politics for the African continent, what it means to connect the local to the global, and how we can move towards richer forms of collaborative security. We also offer a theory of “vibes” in politics and theory. | |||