Why do diamonds cost more than water, when water is essential to life? The answer eluded both Smith and Marx before its resolution arrived in the form of the Marginal Revolution.
The Open Society and Its Frenemies: Karl Popper’s Defense of Science and Liberalism for the 21st Century
While the world’s attention is focused on religious fundamentalism, there is a new tribalism, and a new revolt against reason, taking shape within liberalism. The name of this movement is New Atheism, but it would be more appropriate to call it Atheist Fundamentalism.
Philosophy of History Part XIII: Karl Marx’s Historical Materialism
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” –Karl Marx
Not School Digest #4: Sartre, Heidegger, Zizek, Marx, and Theater
Excerpts from discussions on Sartre’s Nausea, Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology,” Slavoj Zizek’s Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels’s “Communist Manifesto,” Peter Schaffer’s play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form.
Not School: Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”
Featuring Andy Langley and Glen Stratton. Recorded November 16, 2013.
Episode 83 Follow-Up: Q&A with Frithjof Bergmann
In light of our ep. 83, many listeners had questions on Frithjof’s social/political/economic proposals for creating a post-job, pro-meaningful-work world.
Episode 83 Follow-Up: Q&A with Frithjof Bergmann
In light of our ep. 83, many listeners had questions on Frithjof’s social/political/economic proposals for creating a post-job, pro-meaningful-work world.
Frithjof Bergmann on the Post-Work Culture for Not School
Might as well get this crush of Not School-related posts up in one wash so we can get on to other things… In our Marx episode we talked at the end about what happens after technology makes all of our jobs obsolete. I purposefully cut that line of discussion short because we’re planning a whole episode on it, which will Continue Reading …
Iván Szelényi Lectures on Marx & Alienation
I referred in the episode to a number of lectures on Marx that helped me to put the German Ideology into perspective with Marx’s other texts and filled me in on few of the Young Hegelians that he criticized. These were from Yale’s Foundations of Modern Social Theory course by Iván Szelényi. (Get them from iTunes U.) Lectures 9-13 are Continue Reading …
Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition (Citizens Only)
On Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846. What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are not primarily what changes the world; it’s economics.
End song: “Job” by Mark Lint and the Fake from So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
PREVIEW-Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition
On Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846. What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are not primarily what changes the world; it’s economics.
Topic for #70: Karl Marx’s “German Ideology”
On 1/13 we recorded a discussion of an early work of Karl Marx, from about 20 years before the publication of his famous Das Capital, The German Ideology. Listen to the episode. We read just part 1 of the work, which was written in 1845-6 but not published until 1932 (with some portions of it coming out earlier in the Continue Reading …
Structuralism Summarized in 30 Minutes
Watch on YouTube. Here is a surprisingly edifying and entertaining synopsis of structuralism. I particularly like how Prof. Louis Markos connects Saussure’s work to the “proto-structuralism” of Freud and Marx. Also enjoyable is Markos’ mini-rant, in light of Wes’s recent post: Structures are found in all areas of thought and study, from history to linguistics, psychology to anthropology.
Peter Singer on Hegel & Marx
In this series of videos of Bryan Magee interviewing a young Peter Singer, Singer provides an explication of Hegel’s overall philosophical enterprise. We’ve linked to Magee’s show in other places (like here, here and here) and in this interview we get to see Peter Singer actually doing traditional philosopher-type stuff. He has an outstanding ‘stach and nice square coke-bottle specs. Continue Reading …
Debating Individual vs. Environmental Forces in History (or, Lord Bragg Loses his Bearing!)
Among my favorite podcasts is the BBC Radio 4 show In Our Time. IOT is usually a genteel forum dedicated to discussing “the history of ideas.” Topics and tone range from Oxbridge middlebrow to Oxbridge highbrow, but I always walk away learning something. I almost swerved the car, however, when tempers flared on last week’s episode. IOT’s host, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Continue Reading …