What's Left of Philosophy

That's right, folks! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Spinoza's Ethics at Twelve Ten Gallery in 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/spinozas-ethics/ Hope to see some of you there! leftofphilosophy.com Music: AMALGA...

In this episode, we talk about Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class . In it, he argues that modern culture is basically continuous with that of predatory barbarism, except that it is drunk on the extreme surplus produced by capitalism. Under these conditions, much of human activity becomes performative: consumption, leisure, and perhaps paradoxically enough even hustle culture are all fo...

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 puta...

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 ki...

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 rel...

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 th...

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...

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 lef...

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-utopia Music...

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 wa...

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 som...

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.com References: Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-W...

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...

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...

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 Ko...

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. Lo...

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 histori...

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 poin...

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 ar...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ca...

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 cu...