Imagine a world where English Literature students were placed in charge of political revolution. Marshalling the full resources of their limited literary perspectives, what might we expect?
Duality without Dualism
How could a contrast between Real and Unreal ever even be formulated? The question ‘could everything be a mirage?’ can be immediately answered: no. A mirage is something which is set in contrast to something that isn’t a mirage. Thus there is something deeply suspect when we’re asked to transpose these conditions into metaphysical divisions or dualism.
a note on The Latest Zizek Thing
No doubt Zizek sees himself as a Lacanian figure, kissing the cheek of culture at the right moment so as to disturb its psychical neuroses – each polemical world a calculated cure. From the other side however, it feels very much like an old man has spit all over our faces. And when we decide to avoid the next session, he’ll call us to remind us that this moist therapy is essential.
Phenomenology is Wrong
There are two traditions within phenomenology: realist phenomenology and idealist phenomenology. The distinguishing feature is how they treat their ‘pre-bracketed’ and ‘post-bracketed’ states. In the realist case when we interpret (describe) the world we can bracket the truth of the claims epistemologically; in the idealist case we can metaphysically bracket claims.
Justice and the Dialectic of Anger and Guilt
What is it to say that a rapist should be treated with compassion?
Democracy and the Freedom of Choice
There is a fundamental incoherence to the universal prescription of the freedom to choose: since any one choosing anything is impossible, the parameters of this freedom are who is choosing and what they can choose.
Inverting the Gaze: Pagan Political Philosophy
Michael Burgess discusses how moral philosophies often require an ideal or transcendent view from which actions can be judged and how this manifests (or doesn’t) in contemporary individualism.
Ecce Zizek! Feynman Homo
Why do we treat the sins of Feynman and Žižek differently? Is plagiarism worse than sexism?
June’s Intro to Philosophy Not School Group: Metaphilosophy
We’ll be covering “An Introduction to Metaphilosophy” with new group leader Michael Burgess. Join us!
Murder and Ideology: philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it.
In the ordinary business of science it is reasonable to claim that the moon causes the tides, and to refer to empirical data as evidence. In the ordinary business of literary criticism it is reasonable to claim that Gordon Geko was greedy or that house elves are moral stand-ins for the peoples of our world who are enslaved and oppressed Continue Reading …
Tales from the Crypt: Transhumanism, wow!
The licence to speculate on the fringes of human progress is immediately issued when that which we hadn’t even imagined transitions to that which we merely know we do not fully understand. This transition point is the playground of the so-called “popular imagination”, the stage on which esteemed careers are built without the effort and determination of achievement. Though, admittedly, it’s often Continue Reading …
Not School Group Proposal: Zizek!
For March I’m proposing a Not School reading group on Zizek. The group will read a 25-page transcript of a talk he gave at the International Journal of Zizek Studies 2012 conference. It is, I think, a very nice summary of some of his key philosophical positions and where his current theoretical interests lie. The added advantage of this reading Continue Reading …
Why the Divide? A Note on Continental Philosophy
The term Continental philosophy has no singularly accepted formal definition, nor does it even signify a “you know it when you see it” kind of activity, because it is not really a distinguishable activity at all. Indeed, most people who study philosophy on the continent have no idea that it is “continental philosophy” they are studying, but simply see it as philosophy Continue Reading …
The Existentialist Self in the World: Doubt, Being and Caring
If from continental philosophy you throw out transcendental phenomenology and older idealist trappings–transcendental subjects and so on–you are left with a system which still has two components: the world and the self. It was the relationship between these two that took hold as the major problem for 20th C. continental philosophy. The upshot of the first phase of the “analysis of the Continue Reading …
The Subject: A Brief History
[A post from Michael Burgess. This reiterates some of the first half of our Popper episode.] The Cartesian subject, the “I” of the “I think”, sits apart from the world, receiving it. Descartes’ 17th Century inheritors, the British Empiricists took “the world” to be little more than a series of sense perceptions, perhaps perceptions of something – but we would never Continue Reading …
How to Flunk Philosophy: or Here we go Again
Editor’s Note: Thanks for this submission from listener and PEL Citizen Michael Burgess. The principal critics of philosophy appear to come from one ideological view point, though it has been expressed in different guises throughout the ages. I’m going to call it, “I don’t understand this so it doesn’t make sense”ism. At its most sophisticated, this might be logical positivism and Continue Reading …
Chomsky vs. Zizek
Editor’s Note: We feel the need to provide some coverage of one of the few big news stories in philosophy, which is the ongoing hostile exchange between two giants of the philosophical left, Noam Chomsky and Slavoj Žižek. Since none of us podcasters has read much by either fellow or has much patience for following this story, I’ve asked PEL Continue Reading …