Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy, and they die if these roots decay (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations) Philosophy itself never begins anything. This beginning has already happened elsewhere.  That is why the theme of the beginning, seen purely and simply from within the realm of philosophy, provides us with … [continue reading]

Recently I read a very interesting piece posted on Aeon, “Dignity is Delicate,” by Remy Debes, about the concept of human dignity and contemporary politics. Debes compellingly argues for the claim that although the essentially Kantian concept of human dignity has emerged since WW II as a moral and political rallying-point for oppressed people, moral … [continue reading]

Dear Philosopher or Philosophically-Minded Person, Do you ever think about the larger philosophical implications of contemporary events and issues, especially when reading newspapers, journals, or blogs? —Of course you do: but then what? What if you were able to convert your thinking DIRECTLY into something you were able to use for TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, for PHILOSOPHY … [continue reading]

Prologue[i] It’s the late twentieth century. A mob of graduate students and professors of philosophy walking through a dark wood come upon a tarnished, weather-beaten plaque set into a crumbling stone wall. It reads: Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of  music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and … [continue reading]

APP Editors’ Note: Jeremy Tauzer is a PhD student in philosophy at Saint Louis University. INTRODUCTION Imagine, or perhaps recall, the ideals of the incoming philosophy grad student. This student has emerged from encounters with the sarcasm of Socrates, the loftiness of Plato, the painstaking system-making of Aristotle, the epistemological turmoil and ethical theorizing of … [continue reading]

If I were to ask my colleagues what they think about neoliberalism and its impact on today’s colleges and universities, many of them would report that they’ve either never come across the term “neoliberalism” or that they are unsure what it means. This is interesting in and of itself. But if I ask, “have you … [continue reading]

For more than 35 years, I’ve been amazed, amused, bemused, and appalled by professional academic philosophy–my varying mental states cascading over one another, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, both in alternation and in combination. A question that has always intrigued and worried me, right from the time I … [continue reading]

In a very cool recent article in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, “On the Emergence of American Analytic Philosophy,”  Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen argue, compellingly, that the mid-20th century emergence of Analytic philosophy in the USA consisted in an institutional take-over of leading philosophy departments and leading journals by Analytic philosophers, in … [continue reading]

The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin is often credited with the statement “behind every fascism is a failed revolution.” Allegedly, Benjamin made this statement in his essay Theories of German Fascism: On the Collection of Essays War and Warrior, edited by Ernst Jünger, and was originally published in 1930. Although the sentence seems not to be … [continue reading]