A century and a half after the death of John Stuart Mill, it is easy to think that we have had enough of him. Although William Gladstone once posthumously canonised him as “the saint of rationality”, many contemporary thinkers believe …
AI is a false prophet
Idolatry is intrinsically paradoxical. Although it enslaves humans to undisciplined desires and pleasing falsehoods, it springs from the will to mastery. It’s essential that the Golden Calf can’t talk, let alone make mountains smoke and skies thunder, as God does …
The true Left is not woke
It is 85 years since the great bluesman Lead Belly coined the phrase “stay woke” in “Scottsboro Boys”, a song dedicated to nine black teenagers whose execution for rapes they never committed was only prevented by years of international protests …
Is France too sexy for the trans wars?
A bit like Napoleon, radical transactivism is moving swiftly and imperviously across Europe. Blithe to the consequences for women, lesbians, and gay men, pan-European LGBT organisations such as ILGA Europe are lobbying hard for governments to introduce self-ID, and also …
Why philosophers are so weird
Not for the first time, an academic philosopher has been causing mirth on Twitter. No, not Jason Stanley, the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University — this time it’s the turn of Professor Agnes Callard of the University …
Covid and the Cult of Technology: Revisiting Heidegger and McLuhan after 2020
by Chris Waldburger
In the first edition of this series examining the philosophical underpinnings of the Covid Event, I described Nietzsche’s prescience in identifying in his time an emergent modern psychology. This psychology could be entitled the psychology of ‘the…Covid and the Cult of Technology: Revisiting Heidegger and McLuhan after 2020
In the first edition of this series examining the philosophical underpinnings of the Covid Event, I described Nietzsche’s prescience in identifying in his time an emergent modern psychology. This psychology could be entitled the psychology of ‘the last man’. In our …
In defence of deepfakes
Philosophers of knowledge sometimes invoke a thought experiment involving “Fake Barn Country”, an imaginary land which for some reason is scattered with lots of convincing barn facades but very few real barns. Somewhat unusually, a man in Fake Barn Country …
The philistine war on AI art
Among the most ingenious moments in Kraftwerk’s admirable oeuvre is the point in 1981’s “Pocket Calculator” when a human voice self-contentedly sings: “By pressing down a special key / It plays a little melody.” The melody follows in confirmation. The …
Power has poisoned academia
In the spring of 2017, the journal Hypatia published an article titled “In Defense of Transracialism”, in which the author, Rebecca Tuvel, argued that “since we should accept transgender individuals’ decisions to change sexes, we should also accept transracial individuals’ …
Nietzsche’s Last Men and the Covid Event
by Chris Waldburger. Also published on his Substack
With this piece, Chris Waldburger begins a series in which he examines the philosophical underpinnings and ramifications of the Covid Event. He begins by looking again at the ways in which Nietzsche…Nietzsche’s Last Men and the Covid Event
by Chris Waldburger. Also published on his Substack
With this piece, Chris Waldburger begins a series in which he examines the philosophical underpinnings and ramifications of the Covid Event. He begins by looking again at the ways in which Nietzsche…Michel Houellebecq’s sexual apocalypse
Looking back, the National Public Radio building in midtown Manhattan felt like the centre of a dying world. I was set to appear on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, where, two days before my 33rd birthday, I would join the …
William MacAskill’s ineffective altruism
In Ray Bradbury’s short story, A Sound of Thunder, the anti-hero, Eckels, is a customer of Time Safari, Inc. (“1. You name the animal. 2. We take you there. 3. You shoot it”). The firm promises to take him back …
Bob Dylan has no philosophy
This is something special, obviously. Consider, for a moment, the author’s credentials. Pelé knows a lot about playing football, as does Floyd Mayweather about boxing, but do they have the chops to transfer their instinctive and acquired expertise into the …