What's Left of Philosophy

Episoder

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  139 TEASER | What is Modernity? Part I: Marshall Berman and the Contradictions of Modern Experience 28.07.2026 7min

  In this episode, we begin our new series on modernity with a discussion of Marshall Berman’s 1982 book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Some of the questions we will tackle in this series will address the substance of modernity, whether modernity is singular or multiple, the relationship of art to modernization, and whether modernity is better understood as a rupture from the past or a development out of it. Berman, for his part, argues that modernity has always ...
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  138 | Machinic Intelligence and Marxism 14.07.2026 52min

  In this episode, we use Marx’s infamous “Fragment on Machines” from the Grundrisse as a starting-point for a wide ranging discussion about the emancipatory and regressive potentials of AI technologies. Marx thought that automated systems of machinery are incredible embodiments of highly developed human knowledge, which render labor increasingly unnecessary in processes of production, opening the door for unprecedented liberation. Of course, tied to the imperatives of capital accumulation, eve...
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  137 | Althusius: Communitarianism Before Hobbes 29.06.2026 53min

  In this episode we talk about the political philosophy of early modern jurist Johannes Althusius. For us, he represents a road not taken in political theory, since Hobbes definitively constructed political philosophy around the idea of the self-interested atomized subject and he couldn’t disagree more. Althusius is an axis between medieval and modern thinking about political life, and his federalist vision forces us all to ask odd questions about what we want. History teaches! leftofphilosoph...
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  136 TEASER | What’s the Point of Equality? Meditations on Post-Socialist Analytical Philosophy 10.06.2026 9min

  In this episode, we talk about the relational paradigm in political philosophy. Made famous by Iris Marion Young, developed later by Elizabeth Anderson, this view of what equality is all about presents a puzzle for the class conscious. It says that the point of equality is to live in a society of equals. Its proponents skewered famous analytical Marxists for having a reductive and economistic view of justice. Was this fair? Join us to find out. This is just a short teaser of the full ep...
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  135 | The Ambiguities of Reconstruction w/ Professor Lucien Ferguson 28.05.2026 1t 4min

  In this episode, we are joined by Assistant Professor of Law Lucien Ferguson (Chicago-Kent College of Law) to discuss the ambiguities of freedom and labor in the constitutional interpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments that were passed after the US Civil War. Our discussion is guided by the landmark Slaughter-House Cases of 1873 that narrowly construed the federal rights protected by the 14th amendment and set the stage for the failure of Reconstruction at the end of the 19th cent...
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  UPCOMING STUFF! | SPEP Webinar on Environmental Philosophy | BISR Class on Anti-Oedipus 18.05.2026 1min

  Just a quick word about upcoming events you should join us for! SPEP Webinar: Philosophy and Environmental Injustices, with Matthias Fritsch, Romy Opperman, and Michael Peterson, May 25, 5pm Eastern Standard Time https://us.list-manage.com/1tRnwaVjgii?e=e22f097f7b&c2id=b595b31be157b5b356d9b3d96de5843f As noted in the audio, a previous version of this announcement wrongly identified the date of the webinar as May 21. It's May 25. Sorry for the confusion! BISR Chicago Course: Anti-Oedipus w...
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  134 TEASER | The Problem with Work 12.05.2026 9min

  In this episode we discuss Kathi Weeks’ 2011 book The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries. The text brings together social reproduction feminism and autonomist Marxism to develop a critique of work as the organizing principle of life and dominant ethos in capitalist society. Weeks argues that the valorization of work is taken for granted even in certain strains of socialist criticism. We agree that work sucks, but we admit we have a hard time devel...
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  133 | Indigenous Struggles Beyond the Colonial Politics of Recognition: Glen Coulthard's Red Skin, White Masks 25.04.2026 59min

  This episode engages with Glen Coulthard’s 2014 book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Coulthard weaves a rich and varied tradition of radical Indigenous thought and practice with Marxism and the anti-colonial thought of Frantz Fanon into a distinctive vision of emancipation. Together, we interrogate his claims that dispossession rather than exploitation, or the expropriation of land rather than the expropriation of labour, constitutes the paradigmatic mod...
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  132 TEASER | Marxism and Religion, Part II: The Gospel According to Terry Eagleton 06.04.2026 8min

  In this episode, we discuss Terry Eagleton’s defense of religion. We focus on his diagnoses of the Enlightenment, modernism, and post-modernism as different kinds of post-religious movements. Post-modernism is the only “truly atheist” one, which is one reason it got along with capitalism so well. We also talk a lot about social and spiritual meaning and their importance to Left wing political projects. This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us o...
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  131 | What's Left of Black Politics? Brandon Terry's Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement 23.03.2026 56min

  In this episode, we discuss Brandon Terry’s 2025 book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. There is little doubt that in US the Civil Rights Movement stands out as one of the clearest examples of Black politics in the social imagination. How we narrate the Civil Rights Movement tends to shape our expectations of politics and the future. But what happens when the resources of this tradition fall into crisis? What is the future of Black politics in a pr...
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  130 | Max Horkheimer: What Makes Critical Theory Critical? 06.03.2026 1t 4min

  In this episode we talk about Max Horkheimer’s essay “Traditional and Critical Theory”, which serves as a kind of manifesto for the Frankfurt School of Marxist thought. We talk about how he defines these categories, reflect on whether the distinction holds up, and ask ourselves whether we can call ourselves critical theorists in the present. It turns out grasping oneself as part of a historically unfolding social totality is difficult, if you can believe it. Special thanks to our friend...
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  129 TEASER | The General Strike and Socialism: Sorel's Reflections on Violence 16.02.2026 11min

  In this episode we discuss Georges Sorel’s 1908 Reflections on Violence. We focus on his central claim that all of socialism is concentrated in the idea or ‘picture’ of the general strike, scrutinizing his claim that the ‘myth’ of the general strike is even more important than its precise concretion. His emphasis on political myth gives rise to questions about his potential irrationalism and the consequent (mis)appropriation of his ideas by fascists. Finally, we address his distinction betwee...
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  129 | Introducing: Marxism & Religion, Part I: Martin Luther King, Jr. 28.01.2026 1t 1min

  In this episode, we introduce our new series on “Marxism and Religion.” At political, social, and spiritual levels, the series explores this complicated relationship for a transitioning age. We start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is a political and spiritual beacon for many of us and a democratic socialist by another name. Our discussion explores how MLK Jr. continues to shine light on the righteous path to liberation. leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky....
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  127 | Hayden White's Forms of History 14.01.2026 55min

  In this episode, we discuss the work of historian Hayden White. His provocative claim is that the practice is inescapably the practice of narrative forms to give sense and significance to events of the past. It is this form that often supplements, or even outright makes, historical arguments. Is history a tragedy, a comedy, a satire, or a romance? Why did Marx describe history as tragedy and then farce? What could entitle him to that? The historian always prefigures their history with these c...
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  126 | Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program 29.12.2025 58min

  In this episode, we talk about Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program, but you knew that from the title. We discuss Marxian critiques of redistributive left politics, why dogmatic Marxists are wrong about this, and much more. We connect it to the present and disagree. It’s very good. Listen. References: Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | ...
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  125 TEASER | Elias Canetti: Crowds and Power 04.12.2025 10min

  In this episode, we talk about Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power. Equal parts political theory, poetic sociology, and speculative anthropology, this staggering work explores human social life through an increasingly elaborate series of reflections on the nature of crowds. The result is a fascinating typology of different kinds of crowds in which human beings cast off their individuality for the sake of equality and directed collective action: there are baiting crowds, feast crowds, p...
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  124 | Living Through Capitalism w/ Dr. James Chamberlain 19.11.2025 57min

  In this episode, we talk with James Chamberlain about his new book, Living Through Capitalism, in which he argues that capitalism is hostile to biological life processes and our ability to know them well enough to lead flourishing lives. Capitalism mutilates all life, and not just human life, in its harnessing of life for its own ends. Only in communities that resist this “strange teleology” that capitalism imposes on life can we truly be free. leftofphilosophy.com References: James Cha...
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  123 | Adam Smith and the Lessons of Sympathy 03.11.2025 1t 5min

  In this episode, we take on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although he is now more well known as an economist because of his later book The Wealth of Nations, Smith shows himself to be a philosopher in his own right in Moral Sentiments. Smith, contrary to popular characterizations, wanted to show that our conduct is not solely motivated by egoism or selfishness, but that we are also motivated by the fortunes of others. For Smith it is only through sympathy that society can achie...
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  122 | Real Abstraction and the Origin of Consciousness with Alfred Sohn-Rethel 14.10.2025 54min

  In this episode, we talk about Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s audacious and influential text Intellectual and Manual Labor. A fellow traveler of the Frankfurt School, Sohn-Rethel argued that the social activity of commodity exchange involves a set of real abstractions that actually precede and give rise to the structure of human consciousness and its capacity for mental abstraction. This really puts Kant in his place: the supposedly pure reason of the transcendental subject is historically conditioned ...
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  121 | The Federalist Papers 02.10.2025 1t 2min

  In this episode we discuss the essays of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton compiled as the Federalist Papers. We talk about the philosophical justifications of the recently signed US Constitution, focusing especially on the tension between, on one hand, their passionate defense of republicanism against tyranny and despotism, and on the other, their hostility toward democratic forces. We place the problem of the durability of the republic at the core of their thought, and while noting the s...