The New Basics

10 min read

"Public": An Essay by Ian Olasov (Keywords: Humanities; Intellectuals; Education; History of Philosophy; Activism)

"Whatever else the history of philosophy is, it is the history of the tensions between philosophy’s public-facing and scholastic tendencies"

Sally Haslanger

7 min read

The New Basics

"Discipline": An Essay by Sally Haslanger (Keywords: Academic Freedom; Free Speech; Knowledge; Expertise; Universities)

"A crucial function of academic research is to produce knowledge that informs our collective decisions in a democracy.

Chi Rainer Bornfree

7 min read

The New Basics

"Contradiction": An Essay by Chi Rainer Bornfree (Keywords: History of Philosophy; Metaphysics; Violence; Hegel; Heidegger; Graham Priest; Rosa Luxemburg)

"Contradiction is a problem for knowing, a problem for doing things together, and a problem for living and feeling."

Amy Kind

8 min read

The New Basics

"Imagination": An essay by Amy Kind (Keywords: Epistemology; History of Philosophy; Reason; Perception; Thought Experiments)

"Just as perception is not the enemy of reason despite its fallibility, neither is imagination."

Dan Taylor

10 min read

The New Basics

"Method": An essay by Dan Taylor (Keywords: History of philosophy; Authority; struggle; Metaphor; Causality; Kant; Foucault; Spinoza)

"Philosophy at the service of the authority’s demands for deference and submission might not really be philosophy at all."

William M. Paris

11 min read

The New Basics

"Possibility": An Essay by William M. Paris (Keywords: Critical Philosophy; Freedom; Intersubjectivity; Utopia)

"When the category of possibility is in crisis, the intelligibility of collective action and cooperative life will be imperilled"

Yoko Arisaka

8 min read

The New Basics

"Global": An Essay by Yoko Arisaka (Keywords: History of Philosophy; The Canon; Language; Eurocentrism)

"Our non-global conception of philosophy is rather a latecomer, while still establishing itself as the history of philosophy."

Jason Blakely

10 min read

The New Basics

"Ideology": An essay by Jason Blakely (Keywords: Politics; History; Culture; Scientism; Hermeneutics; Neoliberalism; Karl Marx; Clifford Geertz)

"When someone is lost in ideology, their politics appears natural, even scientific, and not historical and cultural."

Moritz Gansen, Hannah Wallenfels and Lilja Walliser

12 min read

The New Basics

"Authorship(s)": An Essay by Moritz Gansen, Hannah Wallenfels, and Lilja Walliser (Keywords: The Philosophical Canon; Authority; Academia; Neutrality; Collectivity)

"Can an idea be ours without just being owned? Can the author survive the end of authorial authority?"

Emmalon Davis

12 min read

The New Basics

"Novelty": An Essay by Emmalon Davis (Keywords: Knowledge; Genius; Pedagogy; Academia; Games)

"Academic philosophers are increasingly trained to see themselves as valuable only insofar as they can produce knowledge."

Elvira Basevich

7 min read

The New Basics

"Agency": An Essay by Elvira Basevich (Keywords: Liberalism; Nonideal Theory; W.E.B. Du Bois)

"There are many nonideal scenarios that can negatively impact upon one’s capacity for rational deliberation."

John Danaher

10 min read

The New Basics

"Enhancement": An Essay by John Danaher (Keywords: Enlightenment; Limits; Death; Technology; Brain)

"We may not like limits. They may frustrate us. But it is, arguably, only through embracing them that we can eke meaning out of existence."

Minna Salami

9 min read

The New Basics

"Desire": An Essay by Minna Salami (Keywords: Solitude; Sexuality; Oppression; Feminism)

"To the extent that desire is erotic, what would theories of desire be if women were makers, rather than bearers, of meaning?"

Kristina Lepold

6 min read

The New Basics

"Recognition": An Essay by Kristina Lepold (Keywords: Freedom; Agency; Personhood; Hegel; Honneth)

"Recognition is not just a moral or ethical concept, but also, and perhaps primarily, a political concept."

Nima Bassiri

8 min read

The New Basics

"Brain": An Essay by Nima Bassiri (Keywords: Neuroscience; Selfhood; Ontology; Power; Governance)

"The primacy of the brain functions as a something of a barometer for how we have come to be governed."

Francey Russell

10 min read

The New Basics

"Opacity": An Essay by Francey Russell (Keywords: Self-Knowledge; Moral Psychology; Literature)

"Self-knowledge emerges as an exercise of human agency, to be understood as the way in which one takes responsibility for one’s own mind."

Finn Mackay

9 min read

The New Basics

"Queer" by Finn Mackay (Keywords: Feminism; Activism; Heteronormativity; Gender; Sexuality)

"At such a fraught political moment, it is worth reflecting on the fact that to be queer is to be strange and difficult to categorise."

Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed

11 min read

The New Basics

"Madness" by Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed (Keywords: Identity; Personhood; rationality; Recognition)

"Philosophy needs to reckon with the part it has played, and continues to play, in the epistemic and normative exclusion of madness."

Kieran Setiya

8 min read

The New Basics

"Temperament": An Essay by Kieran Setiya (Keywords: Self-Expression; Emotion; Truth; Epistemology)

"If philosophy aspires to knowledge, aren’t philosophers bound to deny that temperaments, rather than arguments, determine what they think?"

Carrie Jenkins

9 min read

The New Basics

"Love" by Carrie Jenkins (Keywords: Normativity; Eudaimonia; Marriage; Socio-Economic Status)

"To love eudaimonically is to love with good spirits: with supportive community, with help from friends, and so on."

THE PHILOSOPHER

Published since 1923

THE PHILOSOPHER

Published since 1923

Official journal of the Philosophical Society of England (PSE), a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO). Registered UK Charity No. 1205921.

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