philopapers

Anytime a Marxist talks about Stalin they fall into a trap. In certain contexts, merely mentioning his name produces an impression of regression, of a Marxism forever stuck in the past, entrapped by the problems and dramatis personae of the 1930s. Any attempt on the part of the Marxist to situate Stalinism in the complexities of the […]

The COVID-19 pandemic was a moment of stark contradictions. Shelter-in-place guidelines, social distancing practices and national lockdowns isolated individuals, disrupting social and communal life. The pandemic was a time of isolation and missed opportunities: students who never went to prom, job opportunities lost to COVID-19 shutdowns, loved ones unable to attend family get-togethers and even

Originally published in 2000 by Les Éditions le Seuil, Marx, une critique de la philosophie by French philosopher Isabelle Garo was recently reissued by the publisher. Why choose to republish, more than twenty years later, this work of Marxist exegesis? In France, the ongoing editorial work surrounding the publication of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, paired with a

With the increasing financialization of our everyday lives, land financialization has been a pressing concern for critical geographers and urbanists alike. Typically, studies on the phenomenon take a grand view, focusing, for example, on the role of global capital flows, or treating financialization as a ‘new’ regime of accumulation. But the more practical implications of

German sociologist and philosopher Oskar Negt, who died in the spring of 2024 at the age of 89, was a scholar and public intellectual working broadly in the tradition of the Frankfurt School. He studied at the University of Frankfurt and from 1970 to his retirement in 2002, he held the chair as professor of

In Education for Political Life: Critique, Theory, and Practice in Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Knowledge, Iaan Reynolds reintroduces Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, a complex social theory and phenomenological method of inquiry, to twenty-first-century readers anew as a form of political philosophy. Against the common characterization of Mannheim as an eccentric sociologist, advanced by Mannheim’s many

Joan Braune’s Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements combines philosophical and activist vantage points in its commentary on fascism and far right radicalisation, offering unique insights for the present moment. Braune showcases an unusual capacity to weave themes anchored in social critique with philosophical reflection alongside an incisive understanding of oppression and how it reproduces itself in society.

Lachlan Dale considers a naturalistic view of Buddhism. Robert Wright’s book, Why Buddhism Is True: The Science And Philosophy Of Meditation And Enlightenment (2017) is part of the ‘Secular Buddhist’ movement – a project which seeks to strip away the religion’s metaphysical and mystical content and ground it in a naturalistic or science-based interpretation. In

We seek purpose and enlightenment as Stephen Anderson attempts to understand Raymond Tallis’s attempt to understand our understanding of the world. We are sometimes slow to recognize any downside to our modern age’s mad enthusiasm for scientific achievement, technological advancement, globalization, bureaucratic rationalization and the proliferation of information. But philosophers have highlighted the paradox of

Melissa Merritt considers the logic of Immanuel Kant. It is well known that Immanuel Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason to establish metaphysics as a science. At the outset of the Critique, Kant considers what this effort might learn from successful examples of scientific inquiry – mentioning logic first of all, which he claims