Adding philosophical depth to anything and everything
My new monograph in critical theory has been published. Rethinking Misrecognition and Struggles for Recognition: Critical Theory Beyond Honneth. The book explores the nature of injustices and people’s efforts to gain justice. Here’s the listing description from the sales page: […]
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Why do injustices continue to happen? We say it is because of prejudice but what is prejudice? It is difficult to fight something that we cannot define and one of the important tasks in philosophy is understanding what is behind social phenomena like prejudice. Recognition is the key.
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It shouldn’t be a political debate, but somehow it is. What should we as a society do in response to the Coronavirus pandemic? Seems obvious to anyone with any humanity: save people’s lives. Bizarrely, some feel we shouldn’t spend efforts […]
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Martin Buber on Encountering Others “When we encounter another individual truly as a person, not as an object for use, we become fully human.” – Martin Buber As a philosopher, my main research focus is on human relations, specifically the […]
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What is racism? Hatred? Yes. Ignorance? Yes. But the hatred spewed by ignorant racist views are symptoms of a deeper dis-ease. We need to call racism what it really is — something larger than any individual but that springs from […]
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Trevor Noah is a comedian, but in a deeply personal and thoughtful video released 30 May 2020, he is a philosopher. It’s wonderful. Seriously, it is a brilliant piece of philosophy. You can view it here and even if you […]
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Yes, Trump is a terrible president and worse, a terrible human being. But that doesn’t mean I will vote for Biden, because that illusion that we are stuck with only two possible choices is a part of what’s wrong with American politics.
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Capitalism is an economic system that has both passionate defenders and fierce critics. But both sides in the debates over capitalism’s beneficial and harmful affects tend to conflate capitalism with free enterprise. Much of the defense of capitalism takes the […]
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“If it happened once, it can happen again.” – Primo Levi Not all wisdom is feel-good candy. Harsh truths can be the most important truths. The quote in the graphic above expresses one of the most important facts of our […]
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Philosopher Stanley Cavell is correct: we must understand that Nazis were not monsters. Ridiculous you say? Yes and no. We must first understand what evil is. Hear me out. “To understand Nazism, whatever that will mean, will be to understand […]
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