Imagine being introduced to someone at a party. A friend of yours wants you to meet someone she knows and facilitates an encounter. Even before you have shaken hands with your new conversation partner, he exclaims: “I am not an alcoholic!”, before proceeding to tell you his name. Chances are that you will think your … [continue reading]

**Major Black Mirror spoilers ahead!** Last week, in the course of a single afternoon, two different people swerved and then bumped into me because their eyes were glued to their cell phones. Annoyed, but always trying to find some humor in things, I thought to myself, “should I just yell out ‘Smithereens!’ whenever this happens?” … [continue reading]

I. By fascism, I mean a political ideology that valorizes the nation-state, conceived as an organic whole, and seriously depreciates or even outright rejects the autonomy and human dignity of the individual; that places highly centralized governmental coercive power in the hands of a single charismatic leader, aka “the strong man”; that glorifies violence against … [continue reading]

APP Editors’ Note: The following essay was an invited submission to the online journal Analyse & Kritik, intended for its forthcoming special issue on “Rorty and Paradigm Change in Philosophy.” But now it has a philosophical life of its own. The complete version of the essay follows directly below; and here’s a downloadable .pdf of … [continue reading]

Back in 2010, nobody expected the identitarian inquisition. Their chief weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to identity politics. They have come to dominate universities, centrist and leftist political parties, much of the mass media, and the most powerful corporate tech giants. The chief dogma of The Identitarian Church is … [continue reading]

Profanity (aka cursing, cussing, swearing, etc.) is civil-disobedient, counter-cultural, defiant, disruptive, edgy speech. (Profanity can also occur via other forms of expression, e.g., gestures, voiced music/singing, or pictures, although for simplicity’s sake in this little essay, I’ll focus mostly on speech.) The terminology of profanity in contemporary secular societies usually derives from words standing for … [continue reading]

Cognitive neuroscientists and science-obsessed philosophers of mind frequently claim that they’re “going to unravel the mystery of consciousness” via natural science one of these days.[i] But it just ain’t going to happen. Andrew has many excellent students who care more about real philosophy than about getting bank-able grades. One of them wrote to him recently … [continue reading]

APP Editors’ Note: This is the tenth in a series on the historical and philosophical foundations of anarchism and socialism, with special reference to social anarchism (aka “anarcho-socialism,” “libertarian socialism,” etc.) and democratic socialism. We decided to devote the first five installments of the series to the Democratic Socialists of America, aka the DSA, and … [continue reading]

APP Editors’ Note: This is the ninth in a series on the historical and philosophical foundations of anarchism and socialism, with special reference to social anarchism (aka “anarcho-socialism,” “libertarian socialism,” etc.) and democratic socialism. We decided to devote the first five installments of the series to the Democratic Socialists of America, aka the DSA, and … [continue reading]

PART 1 PART 2 6.  Coercive Liberalism “We are condemned to be free” may have been a key slogan of Existentialism, but it is equally true of today’s liberalism. But at least, the existentialists viewed the human condition as absurd, since we had to experience the responsibility of freedom without ever being able to shake … [continue reading]