What's Left of Philosophy

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.leftofphilosophy.comReferences: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

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

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!  patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:William Paris, Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025)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

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!This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection (Los Angeles: semiotext(e), 2009).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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!!leftofphilosophy.comReferences:C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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. leftofphilosophy.comReferences:Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (Harvard University Press, 2022)Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (Harvard University Press, 2016)Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Harvard University Press, 2005)Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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

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!This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future, edited by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, translated by Judith Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.comMusic: Titanium by AlisiaBeats

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? leftofphilosophy.comReferences:Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big (The University of California Press, 2025).https://www.laborpolitics.comMusic:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.comReferences: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

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.This is just a short teaser. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form: 20th Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (New York: Cornell University Press, 1982)Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (New York: Verso, 2005)Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.socialmusic:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN 

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. leftofphilosophy.com | stevenmklein.comReferences:Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article,” trans. Sara Lennox and Frank Lennox, New German Critique  (3)(1974): 49-55. Original published in 1964.Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Beacon Press, 1971). Original German published in 1968. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Beacon Press, 1987).Steven Klein, The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.This is just a short teaser, which I couldn't help but stylize as a horror movie trailer once I had the idea. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (SUNY, 2010).Martin Heidegger, “Letter on ‘Humanism'”, in Pathmarks, trans. William McNeill (Cambridge University Press, 1998).Martin Heidegger, “The Self-Assertion of the German University”, Review of Metaphysics 38:3 (1985): 470-480.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.References:Theodor Adorno, “Free Time”, trans. Gordon Finlayson and Nicholas Walker, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. J.M. Bernstein (New York: Routledge, 2001).leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilmusic:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted questions, to everyone who came to the livestream, and really to any and everyone who's ever supported the show. We really love doing this, and are so so grateful. Here's to 100 more!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilmusic:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.We will be answering questions! There's a form on our website's home page where you can submit yours. Tell us what you want to hear about!We're really looking forward to it. See you soon.https://www.leftofphilosophy.comhttps://www.youtube.com/@whatsleftofphilosophyMusic: Smoke by SoulProdMusic

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.patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Roy Bhaskar, Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2011).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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. This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Rosa Luxemburg, “Reform or Revolution,” in The Essential Rosa Luxemburg (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007), 41-104.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism, trans. Patrick Camiller, with an introduction by Stuart Hall (New York: Verso, 2014)Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Francis Bacon et. al., The New Atlantis, in Three Early Modern Utopias (New York: Oxford, 2009).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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!patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphilReferences:John Dewey, Experience & Education (New York: Free Press, 2015)John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Penguin Books, 2005)Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Norman Geras, “Our Morals: The Ethics of Revolution,” Socialist Register 25(1989): 185-211.Norman Geras, “Democracy and the Ends of Marxism,” New Left Review 1(203)(1994): 92-106.Norman Geras, “Human Nature and Progress,” New Left Review 1(213): 151-160.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Katrina Forrester, In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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

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. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Jeff Diamanti, “Critical Raw Materials,” in Worlding Ecologies (2024), 135-43. Jeff Diamanti, Climate and Capital in the Age of Petroleum (Bloomsbury, 2021).Charmaine Chua, Martin Danyluk, Deborah Cohen, and Laleh Khalili, “Turbulent Circulation: Building a Critical Circulation with Logistics,” Society and Space 36(4)(2018): 617-629.Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).G.A. Cohen, “The Labor Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 8(4)(1979): 338-360.G.A. Cohen, “The Structure of Proletarian Unfreedom,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 12(1)(1983): 3-33.G.A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).Nicholas Vrousalis, The Political Philosophy of G.A. Cohen (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Alberto Toscano, Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (New York: Verso, 2023).Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilthebrooklyninstitute.com | @materialist_jew References:Ajay Singh Chaudhary, “We're Not in This Together,” The Baffler (2020) https://thebaffler.com/salvos/were-not-in-this-together-chaudharyAjay Singh Chaudhary, The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World (London: Repeater Books, 2024).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Matt McManus, The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2023).Matt McManus, “Liberal Socialism Now,” Aeon (2024). https://aeon.co/essays/the-case-for-liberal-socialism-in-the-21st-centuryMusic: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Manon Garcia, We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women's Lives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021).Manon Garcia, The Joy of Consent: A Philosophy of Good Sex (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Ernst Bloch, “Ideas as Transformed Material in Human Minds, or Problems of an Ideological Superstructure (Cultural Heritage) (1972)” in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, trans. Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), 18-71.Filippo Menozzi, "Inheriting Marx: Daniel Bensaïd, Ernst Bloch and the Discordance of Time” in Historical Materialism 28, 1 (2020): 147-182.Stuart Hall, “Marx's Notes on Method: A ‘Reading' of the ‘1857 Introduction' [1974]” in Selected Writings on Marxism, ed. Gregor McLennan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 19-62.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil References:Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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. This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:David Harvey, “The urban process under capitalism: a framework for analysis.” In Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capitalist Society, eds. Michael Dear and Allen Scott (London: Routledge, 1981).David Harvey, “The Right to the City.” New Left Review 53 (Sept/Oct 2008). https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii53/articles/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-cityMusic:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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 | @leftofphilReferences:National Council on Disability, Response to Singer https://ncd.gov/newsroom/04232015münecat, "Sovereign Citizens: Pseudolaw & Disorder":https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8?si=s3Xu_nH7dS6NkrWdmusic:Vintage Memories by Schematist | https//schematist.bandcamp.comConnect by Astrale | https://go-stream.link/sp-astrale START OVER by HYMN | https://get.slip.stream/g3FFTJ My Space by Overu | https://go-stream.link/sp-overu 

In this episode, we are joined by George Washington University Assistant 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! leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Vanessa Wills, “What Could It Mean to Say, ‘Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism?'” Philosophical Topics 46 no. 2 (2018): 229-246.Music:Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso Books, 1979).Music:Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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!!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:John Bellamy Foster, “Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology 105.2 (1999): 366-405John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, “Marx's Ecology in the 21st Century,” World Review of Political Economy, 1.1 (2010): 142-156Music:Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, “Participatory Planning,” Science & Society 56.1 (1992): 39-59.Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, “In Defense of Participatory Economics,” Science & Society 66.1 (2002), 7-28.Robin Hahnel, A Participatory Economy (AK Press: 2022).Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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!This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on  Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Rainer Forst, Normativity and Power: Analyzing Social Orders of Justification, translated by Ciaran Cronin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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

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/@JohntheDuncanReferences: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

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 | @leftofphilReferences: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)

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!leftofphilosophy.comMusic: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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/leftofphilosophyReferences: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

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 | @leftofphilmeganhyska.comReferences:Christopher Lewis and Adaner Usmani, “The Injustice of Under-Policing in America,” American Journal of Law and Equality 2 (2022): 85-106Megan 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.htmlAmia 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

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!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil sorenmau.comReferences:Søren Mau, Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital (New York: Verso, 2023)Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

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/leftofphilosophyReferences: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