What's Left of Philosophy – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, we talk with James Chamberlain about his new book, Living Through Capitalism, in which he argues that capitalism is hostile to biological life processes and our ability to know them well enough to lead flourishing lives. Capitalism mutilates all life, and not just human life, in its harnessing of life for its own ends. Only in communities that resist this “strange teleology” that capitalism imposes on life can we truly be free. 

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

James Chamberlain, Living Through Capitalism: Resisting Devastation Through Communities of Life (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we take on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although he is now more well known as an economist because of his later book The Wealth of Nations, Smith shows himself to be a philosopher in his own right in Moral Sentiments. Smith, contrary to popular characterizations, wanted to show that our conduct is not solely motivated by egoism or selfishness, but that we are also motivated by the fortunes of others. For Smith it is only through sympathy that society can achieve stability and harmony. What follows is a comprehensive examination of how we develop virtue, expound rules for justice, and cultivate emotional maturity through our sympathy for others. This episode is all of you who feel society has become more emotionally dysfunctional, lost its sense of shame, and want to understand why it is so frustrating when our so-called ‘friends’ refuse to hate what we hate. Join the pod as we learn about propriety and justice!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, intro Amartya Sen (New York: Penguin, 2009).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Hi everyone! We are thrilled to announce that we will be performing live on August 7 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago.

This is a one-time only event and tickets are limited! Get yours here:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

Among other things, we’re planning to talk about the Communist Manifesto. The event will be filmed and released as a special episode.

We’re really excited about this – it’s going to be a fantastic time, and we hope to see you there! Thanks for all your support.

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: 

“Bubble” by Sun Cuts | https://get.slip.stream/3wxjrv/

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

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

In this episode, we kick off a new series on the concept of utopia by taking a look at the guy who invented the word, Thomas More. We discuss how his wonderfully satirical 1516 book Utopia was written in response to the enclosures happening in England, which forced masses of peasants into unemployment and misery and created the conditions for early capitalist agriculture. His fictional island nation of Utopia thrives without private property, but More’s real trick is how he reveals the wildly utopian and fantastical nature of our own capitalist world order. Plus Owen invents the phrase ‘professional social improvement class’, which is just great. 

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil 

References: 

Thomas More, Utopia, trans. Robert M. Adams, ed. George M. Logan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 

Karl Kautsky, Thomas More and his Utopia, trans. Henry James Stenning, accessed at the Marxist Internet Archive: <https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1888/more/index.htm>. 

Quentin Skinner, “Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the language of Renaissance humanism,” in The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Padgen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 

Alexandre Matheron, “Spinozism and the Breakdown of Thomist Politics: Machiavellianism and Utopia,” in Politics, Ontology, and Knowledge in Spinoza, trans. and ed. Filippo Del Lucchese, David Maruzzella, and Gil Morejón (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020). 

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode, we read Jean-Paul Sartre's Search for a Method. We begin by working through Sartre’s puzzling claim that Marxism is this era’s one true philosophy and then branch out into broader questions concerning what it is we are trying to do when we philosophize and whether Sartre was right not to give up on capital-T “Truth.” Other topics include Sartre’s conception of freedom, the relationship of the individual to history, and the problems of dogmatic Marxism up to the present day. This one is sure to delight, and it's just the start for us with old J-P!

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil

References:

Jean-Paul Sartre, Search for a Method, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Vintage Books, 1963)

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! In this surprise gift of an episode, we’re visited by the spectre of Jacques Derrida and his deconstruction of the gift. Like the Ghost of Christmas Past, he forces us to ask whether we have given enough, whether we know how to give without reciprocity, and why it is so hard to give in the first place. The gang reflects on the phenomenology of gift-giving and the insidious politics of philanthropy, and even takes shots at the big guy himself: Santa Claus. So sit back, grab your eggnog, and celebrate the holidays with your four favorite philosophers. ‘Tis the season!

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil

References:

Jacques Derrida, Given Time I. Counterfeit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992)

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we get together to discuss a new article by our very own Will Paris! We talk about Will’s critical and materialist conception of consciousness, the role of awareness and normative expectations in processes of social transformation, and why utopia is involved in knowledge production. We talk Bloch, we talk Hayek: you know, the usuals. It’s a classic original crew set, recorded live on stream!

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil

References:

William Paris, “Crisis Consciousness, Utopian Consciousness, and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology (forthcoming)

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we welcome Dr. Ashley Bohrer to discuss Walter Benjamin’s 1921 essay “Critique of Violence”. We talk about the relationship between violence and the law, reflect on the limits of institutional power for emancipatory projects, and get really real about the spiritual dimension of justice. Keep your messianism weak, comrades.

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil

ashleybohrer.com

Pedagogies for Peace podcast: https://kroc.nd.edu/research/intersectionality/pedagogies-for-peace-podcast/

References:

Walter Benjamin, “Critique of Violence,” trans. Edmund Jephcott, in Selected Writings Volume I: 1913-1926, eds. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com