Shai Tubali considers the roots and implications of Arendt’s active philosophy. In 1964 German journalist Gunter Gaus interviewed Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) for his TV show Zur Person. The conversation began with a peculiar exchange: Gaus kept insisting on defining Arendt as a ‘philosopher’ while she kept gently pushing back the title. Gaus looked perplexed. Arendt …
Bob James sees similarities in the two writers’ dark perceptions of industrialisation. In December 1941, William Faulkner mailed his New York publisher the fourth and final part of a forty-thousand-word short story from his home in Mississippi. In a separate note, Faulkner apologized to the publisher for being late with the manuscript, but said “there …
Amee LaTour argues we should sometimes welcome being run aground by life. What do you want out of life? Happiness? Comfort? Security? Like many philosophers associated with existentialism, Martin Heidegger emphasizes the potential fruitfulness of varieties of experience quite contrary to these states, such as the discomfort and insecurity of becoming stranded. When we’re stranded, …
Slavoj Žižek says Hegel doesn’t need to be a prophet to point us to a better tomorrow. The claim I want to defend is that Hegel is the philosopher most open to the future precisely because he explicitly prohibits any project of how our future should look. As he says towards the end of the …
Colin Wilson explores the more provocative side of existentialism. In the following essay I propose to argue that Husserl’s phenomenology has been radically misunderstood by the majority of those who consider themselves his followers, particularly Sartre, and that the problem lies in their failure to grasp what Husserl meant by ‘intentionality’. Intentionality should not be …
Matthew Barnard comprehends and condemns celeb culture in Heideggerian terms. I am about to argue something that ought to make your head turn: celebrity culture is philosophy. The often bemoaned idolisation of celebrities; the prevalence of talent shows such as X Factor; the popularity of reality TV shows; the phenomenon of ‘being famous for being …
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Dale DeBakcsy recalls his personal journey from Positivist to Pragmatist and back again. “Aristotle was a learned, encyclopedic, first-rate nerd. With no imagination.” It was September of 1998, and I was a dewy-eyed sophomore who had bluffed his way into Richard Rorty’s seminar on William James and Friedrich Nietzsche. I had taken philosophy courses before, …
Daniel Hill argues that without God, life would be meaningless. What is the meaning of ‘the meaning of life’? In analytic philosophy the bearers of meaning have usually been considered to be words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Hence life itself is not usually considered to be a bearer of meaning, but the word ‘life’ is. …
Terrence Thomson asks what Kant’s concept of history can teach us. In philosophy departments across the world, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), as well as his prominent moral works, such as the Critique of Practical Reason, are analysed, discussed, and often despaired over by students and scholars alike. His ‘critical philosophy’ has even …
Michael Squire scrutinises Hegel’s historical ideas about aesthetics. Mention the name ‘Hegel’ among art historians, and you’ll likely be met with a blank expression, or else with fear and trepidation. Love him or loathe him, Hegel has proven to be one of the most influential thinkers of Western academe. But working in an age before …