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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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 | @leftofphil References: National Council on Disability, Response to Singer...

In this episode, we are joined by George Washington University Associate 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...

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 |...

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...

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...

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...

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:...

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...

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...

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.com Music: 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...

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...

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...

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...

In this episode we finally get down and dirty with the big dog of Anglophone political philosophy, John Rawls. We discuss his 1993 book Political Liberalism, which expands on his earlier theory of justice to develop an account of the pluralistic tolerance at the heart of a liberal society characterized by the fact of a diversity of incommensurate but reasonable worldviews. We talk about what Rawlsian theory genuinely has going for it, but also pull no punches about the serious theoretical and...

In this episode, we unpack tensions between theories of equality that emphasize opportunity and outcomes in a discussion based upon Christine Sypnowich’s recent Boston Review article, “Is Equal Opportunity Enough?” We also discuss our very own William Paris’s response to Sypnowich in his essay “The Art of Equality.” We debate whether liberalism is tied to capitalist institutions, what it means to lead a flourishing life, and why French social clubs may contain part of the answer. We end with...

In this episode we talk about Antonio Gramsci’s book The Modern Prince. Written while imprisoned by the fascists in Mussolini’s Italy, the work is a reflection on the party as a form of organization and the importance of leadership for revolutionary socialist politics. We discuss Gramsci’s realist approach to politics as an art and science, his insistence on partisanship as a condition for objectivity in socio-political analysis, and what he might have to say about the sad state of leftist...