Slavoj Zizek
“It makes me infinitely proud that I was invited to publish in Underground Theory- -the idea of workers reading a text of mine is a dream come true. Many of today's "radical" theorists enjoy writing unreadable texts in which they explain why "ordinary" people are so
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn, is the most influential book in the history and philosophy of science, and one of the most cited books of the 20th century. Starting Friday, I’ll begin a public course on Kuhn’s classic book…
@SketchesbyBoze
True. But what they get right is that, if a large library is just a status symbol, it’s good to give it up. A real large library is a catastrophe and delight of addiction.
@zriboua
It tells you, though, what an authority like Butler is calling, and thus constituting as, the “progressive Left” : Holocaust renewing antisemitism and terrorism, as called for in Hamas’ charter.
@thomaschattwill
This kind of thinking is acceptable and normal in certain corners of academia; and it’s a harrowing example of how deadly and practical ideas are. Every “ivory tower” academic is one government posting away from shaping what happens to us or our families. Ideas matter.
The house where Hegel finished the Phenomenologie des Geistes (or at least the Preface) is in Bamberg, and has this little sign! I sat at the nearby cafe as much as I could, basking in the glow of spirit. Bamberg is a beautiful town, btw, and Schelling also spent six months there
@nicoscosc
Kafka ironically misunderstands Kierkegaard, and what Kafka says subsequently is true, but it is not a rejection of Kierkegaard. It is a proper rejection of a false position he attributed to SK, perhaps reasonably, based on how SK is often misunderstood.
This is easily the best political profile I’ve read this year, and a superb example of how careful, focused study of one context - the UK - can illuminate the international political situation. Thanks heavens for
@sullydish
If you don’t follow Peter and his podcast, please do. It’s the most monumental and generous project in public philosophy ever seen, and it is a sign of what the world can be like if we take technology and the ancient values of the university seriously:
Folks I just finished interviewing CORNEL WEST for the podcast, and it was AMAZING. Will air on January 28 as episode 140 of the History of Africana Philosophy.
I cannot express how excited I am to publish tomorrow the full conversation I had with
@mcleish_t
Tom McLeish. He lays out a stunningly beautiful vision of science as a healing of broken relationships, weaving ecology, redemption, and the most rigorous science together.
Not Being and Time: A New Interpretation of Sein und Zeit
Seven years ago, I stumbled across a revolution while translating a key passage in Heidegger. I later wrote my dissertation on the subject
@Yale
. Now I'm making the argument public
#philosophy
:
If Shakespeare invented us moderns, as Harold Bloom argued, we can admit Bloom was a mini-epoch unto himself. That epoch has now passed. Some small, mean minority may rejoice, but the many, sharing his humble origins, will always be grateful to a great critic.
#haroldbloom
Poetry Unbound is simply beautiful and now my favorite podcast. Is that really surprising, given the soul of its host,
@duanalla
? If you love yourself, beauty, or anything, you’ll enjoy this:
Hi, friends, if you ever wondered what the magazine I run is all about,
@YaleDivSchool
just published a great piece about our work. A big thanks to
@MarginaliaROB
’s amazing team and Leah Silvieus, who interviewed us and wrote the piece; and thanks to YDS!
I can say, as someone whose read this, this is a major Event—it’s comparable to Taylor’s A Secular Age—and my congratulations to you, Peter, and thanks for all your insight and support! Stay tuned for The Marginalia Review of Books Symposium on Some New World…
Great to see the final product at last!
Big thanks to Alex Wright and the team at CUP, and to all the colleagues who gave advice and commentary. (It's also the official publication day in the UK).
Dissertation submitted. All my gratitude for all those who saw me through. This is the work of my mind and my heart, and I offer it to the heavens, to my family. May my words continue to…
@philosophybites
I agree it’s Kierkegaard. His “ethics” incorporates what today we’d call psychology and anthropology, so even his empirical insights into the human condition surpass any “theories” of ethics in the academic sense. I’m doing a series on him here:
@gabewildau
It’s definitely relevant, but have you known major media outlets to dislose such connections? I’d be impressed with any that did. Westerners act like Western governments aren’t also doing Psy Ops through media and think tanks. So long as that pretense, or ignorance reigns, a
This is one of the most important, enjoyable, and intellectually significant conversations of my life. Over an hour talking to the the person who has most revolutionized our understanding of science and religion, Peter Harrison
@uqpharri
“Once you look back at the history, it’s clear that the natural sciences, up until the nineteenth century, were permeated with theological and philosophical conceptions." Peter Harrison
@uqpharri
, Emeritus Prof.
@IASH_UQ
, in conversation w/
@SamuelLoncar
.
Starting this Friday,
@MarginaliaROB
will be releasing its forum on
@iamfujimura
’s beautiful Art and Faith: A Theology or Making from
@yalepress
Featuring poets, an art historian, and my own opening essay, check it out and subscribe to MRB to get the latest installments.
This essay by
@YaelEisenstat
and
@nils_gilman
offers mature reflection that is subtle, sane, and rooted in a vision of government regulation that protects citizens, calls BS where needed, and agrees we need to make our regulations better.
Over 30,000 views in two weeks, this had become by far my most popular video, and led to another 1,000 subscribers to the Becoming Human Project. I have to say it is totally unexpected but wonderful that it’s this episode, about science and its meaning, that’s striking a chord
Things Ancient and New: The Logic of Scientific Discovery in Thomas Kuhn
According to Thomas Kuhn, the most mature sciences have only a limited tolerance for novelty. Contrary to the common image of scientific progress as a continuous series of discoveries, Kuhn shows it’s
@ShadiBartsch
I never realized until reading Sextus Empiricus’ summary of the atomists that theories of flow, music, process actually seem to be the norm…I now think we misread Plato and the forms drastically by imposing our bias for the discrete, rather than the continuous, on the Greeks.
@ShadiBartsch
Yes! Tolkien actually writes about this, I think in The Hobbit, saying how the nice parts of stories aren’t actually much fun to listen to, but the hard and dangerous parts are…I think it’s in the section on Rivendell…hard times make for great stories, if we can survive them.
This is a great essay, showing how a work of classic literature is mixed up in class and gender politics and how kindness and resistance to cruelty has turned into “kid’s stuff.” We have so much to learn from good literature and good criticism:
Today is the 200th birthday of Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty.
I’m thrilled to have this essay on her work at
@MarginaliaROB
:
How The Working Class Became Children: The Politics of Kindness in A Victorian Novel -
1. Plato: tools invite alienation, then certify it as the norm.
2a. Aristotle: Happiness, or blessedness, is what all humans aim at. It’s our most basic love.
2b. Erich Fromm: modern society makes people feel like a failure if they are unhappy, so they say are, but aren’t.
What’s the simplest explanation for:
1. Most people in the world are repulsed by the idea of working on tools for increasing happiness
2. If you ask basically anyone “would you like to be twice as happy” they immediately say yes
@xgabegottliebx
Oddly, perhaps, the best Kant intro I could think of is Fred Beiser’s The Fate of Reason, which has to be the best written single book in our field, and for Kant’s context, thought, and impact, invaluable.
Had a senior staff meeting
@MarginaliaROB
, and got to discuss:
-our upcoming forum with
@iamfujimura
on his new
@yalepress
book, Art and Faith
-my interview with
@jwilson1812
about books, culture, and editing
-a piece on Islam, poetry and belonging, coming Friday.
I ❤️my job
Today's issue is LIVE! Feat. Tom McLeish
@mcleish_t
& MRB's Editor-in-Cheif,
@SamuelLoncar
in conversation about science and the healing of the world +
@Columbia
Prof. Mark C. Taylor on Cormac McCarthy's "The Passenger"
@AAKnopf
:
Really important and valuable thread if you follow these issues. German law is far ahead of US law, and I’m grateful the EU continues to set an important international example of the competent regulation of these predatory business models.
Facebook PR had a masterpiece last week - thx to court decision on July 4th and PR mob to its new app launch (a ripoff of Twitter no matter what their friendlies say). Over weekend, I read arguably the most important court decision in Facebook's history so you don't have to. 1/9
Daston explains why Einstein wouldn’t get published today, how we might fix peer-review, why scientists don’t like the history of science, and what the future of science could look like:
Are scientists afraid of their own history? Lorraine Daston, Director Emerita of Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and regular visiting professor
@UChicago
’s Committee for Social Thought in conversation with Editor
@SamuelLoncar
Existential Ontology, Consumer Capitalism, and The Religious Stage
Kierkegaard's theory of the three stages of life, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious offers profound insight into the existential realities of human life. Building on the prior two episodes on the aesthetic
Purpose and agency are central concepts in the new biology, and I believe they will revolutionize science. I’m excited to share this conversation, with the person - Philip Ball - who just wrote The Book on the new biology, in conversation with Iain McGilchrist.
Have you heard about the revolution in biology? Here’s Philip Ball (
@philipcball
), former editor of Nature, discussing his new book, How Life Works, with
@dr_mcgilchrist
A confession: I hate US academic semesters. They are too long for one course. The Oxbridge / Chicago / etc systems of basically around 6-9 weeks or so are much better. Since I now teach independently on my schedule, I’m not sure I would go back to the US system…
Becoming Human:
This new podcast from
@MarginaliaROB
‘s
@SamuelLoncar
—examining the roles of philosophy, religion, and science in being human, particularly in the modern age—is outstanding.
Give it a listen—and let me know what you think.
Jane Austen’s Persuasion was published on this day in 1817. Happy birthday, Anne Elliot! Here is
@nedbustard
’s beautiful illustration for my chapter on Persuasion and the virtue of patience in On Reading Well.
#austen
#janeausten
Such a terrible take by Strauss, totally enraptured by the spell of his teacher Heidegger, utterly indifferent to the historical reality, catastrophic in its influence, typical in its modernist folly, a perfect summation of error:
"No one can be both a philosopher and a theologian or, for that matter, a third which is beyond the conflict between philosophy and theology, or a synthesis of both. But every one of us can be and ought to be either the one or the other, the philosopher open to the challenge of
Neil Postman said when new technologies are introduced, we should attend to how they change language. Writing and reading are now systematically ambiguous words. As are research, knowledge, and information.
Jenni(dot)ai is a super app designed specifically for academic writing.
1.5 million academics and students are using it all over the world.
Here are Jenni's five amazing features that will make academic writing faster and easier for you:
1. Beat the Writer's Block:
Write the
In troubled times, when I am sure I know my enemy, I try to remember that the enemy’s face is my own. My confident hatred falters, and a lance of humility, reality, pieces the red haze with luminous truth: I can help most by healing first my own wrongs:
Absurdly imprecise. Memory is a mental concept. No crude physiological scan of an organ we don’t even know how to model can tell us anything about mental states, only suggest the neural substrates correlated with mental activity, something Aristotle and Co. understood is feasible
Neuroscience has revealed the nature of memories, but it has also upended the very notion of what memories are. We answer five questions that speak to how much we’ve learned and what mysteries remain.
A friend, currently a grad student at an Ivy-league school, describes their seminars, where students always “lead” discussion, with damning brevity: “Non-experts, not reading, teaching the class.”
#academictwitter
#students
#seminars
#gradschool
It’s not every day that one gets to publish a long forgotten poem by Vladimir Nabokov, in a translation by
@Luke_P_Parker
that, if anything, makes this light entertainment even more entertaining! Read “The Cinema”
@LAReviewofBooks
!
@Helenreflects
I’d say you can’t prove it in the sense you can’t prove any historical event. Once asked to conceptualize the event, you interpret it, and the underdetermination of facts means, universally, all such interpretations are contestable, and the theory will determine the data.
Thomas Kuhn argued 60 years ago that the history of science portended a revolution in our image of science. Peter Harrison (
@uqpharri
) and I took a deep dive into this issue, exploring his pathbreaking work on how science connects to the idea that humans are fallen.
“In this sense, our stories of the progress of science derive their plot-lines from a secularized Christian eschatology.” - Peter Harrison, Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy at the University of Queensland,
@uqpharri
on
#science
and
#religion
Existentialism, German Idealism, Modern Theology, Psychology, and the Meaning of Life - these are part of the answer to the question, Why Does Kierkegaard Matter? The Poet of Existence: Introduction to Søren Kierkegaard begins here:
The Existential Enlightenment: An Introduction to Søren Kierkegaard
From the rationalism of the Enlightenment to the dark freedom of Existentialism, there is a hidden path, passing through the abyss of human depravity into a new, scientifically rigorous psychology of the human
To celebrate the holidays and my gratitude for reaching 5k subscribers to my channel, I’ll be posting my media work in threads. My vision is a world full of wisdom-loving people, seeking and living the Human Mystery, hence the Becoming Human Project. 🧵
Fear and Trembling is the most famous book by Kierkegaard, but to understand it we have to understand his theory of stages. This episode explores the ethical stage and illustrates it through Fear and Trembling and Judge Wilhelm of Either / Or…
"Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit is an attempt to rewrite the nature of philosophy and religion by eliminating eternity, jettisoning rationality, and transforming divinity." Editor in Chief
@SamuelLoncar
on Heidegger's confounding spell.
The best interviewer to be on stage, with the recently passed Paul Auster…if you haven’t seen Holdengräber with Werner Herzog, or Mike Tyson, or countless others, dive into the archives, and enjoy…
🖤 I will never forget an evening a dozen years ago .
@nypl
with
PAUL AUSTER
Before taking to the stage we went & visited his archives
@NYPL
He was surprised & delighted to discover a handwritten paper he wrote as a teen on Whitman & the French.
🎥
Things Ancient and New: The Logic of Scientific Discovery in Thomas Kuhn
According to Thomas Kuhn, the most mature sciences have only a limited tolerance for novelty. Contrary to the common image of scientific progress as a continuous series of discoveries, Kuhn shows it’s
A Christmas Carol remains my favorite ghost story of all time. A haunting truth: “darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.” — Light gives life, and the pursuit of radiance might mean confronting your own dimly lit and horrifying past.
#Christmas
#amreading
#Scrooge
Simply amazing writing, a story told so well the pleasure of the reading only deepens the power of its point, sharp enough to slice a gash in the upper class.
#amreading
#essay
#FridayFeeling
7 years, and today, to celebrate, we publish my interview with a true genius, a former Fellow at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies, and a leading scholar of the history of Greek mathematics and the origins of modern science.
This was the most wonderful, warm, and useful conference I’ve ever attended. It’s organizer
@zacharysdavis
is a gem of a human. So glad to think hard about education and access in the digital age. And the first keynote by
@NoahRFeldman
was superb: humane, thoughtful, and engaged.
Huge shout out to
@sound_edu
for an amazing conference on audio education. Any teachers and scholars who love podcasts and their educational potential should follow their work and come next year. Integrating new tech with the best of the old is the future.
#SundayThoughts
#audio
I’m teaching my course Are Humans Becoming Gods in Germany this summer, and this is your reminder that transhumanism literally wills the destruction of the human species as a means to its goal.
It’s funny people think you can start programs to identify misinformation when no one agrees on what knowledge is, how it is achieved, and whether this achievement can be taught. So, um, yeah it’s still Socrates: 1, Modern Media/Education: 0.
#wednesdaythought
@KSPrior
This is a key part of the story I’m telling in the Becoming Human podcast. The role of science today can’t be understood if it isn’t seen in a much longer historical framework, in which its religious function becomes explicit and central.
I have an intense critique of post-liberalism, around 10,000 words, showing it’s deep devotion to Nazi and other anti-liberal traditions, and explaining why our political debates are religious / philosophical proxy wars. I’d love to publish it somewhere nominally post-liberal…
I struggle to understand how people can says the news is important when no one remembers what the news was a few weeks ago. Better to listen to, watch, and read things that bring lasting value or deep pleasure, not anxiety, fear, and loathing.
#FridayMotivation
@NautilusMag
@philipcball
In tears I acknowledge my gratitude for the intellectual and life-affirming gift that is this essay and all of your work, Phil, and may your life over many decades to come be a rich reward for your perennial and amazing gift of probing curiosity into the order of life in its
Interested in technology, culture, and religion? You might like my week-long summer course at
@YaleDivSchool
, "Are Humans Becoming Gods? Technology, Science, and Faith in a Posthuman Age." Registration is open now!
#technology
#religion
#transhumanism
@xgabegottliebx
I call it the American fate of German Idealism. Horkheimer is right re: the metaphysics, if one recognizes pragmatism anticipates, as it prophesies, the replacement of all metaphysics by capitalism, where process and future outcomes converge to ultimate value. Lukács is right, in
Imagine a whole generation raised to read on social media. A “long read” would be a minute or two. The ideal sentence would be a picture. The best paragraph would be a video. Books would be silly old stuff. Movies would be too long. Congrats: you imagined today.
#amwriting
My favorite / not-favorite part of magazine publishing: having a deadline and working up to the minute. Tomorrow is the 7th year anniversary of the Marginalia Review of Books under my Editorship. Feb 2, 2017 was the first new issue since its refounding. What a ride!
I never thought the first synthetic statement of my critical media theory, so inspired by McLuhan, would appear next to his own work! All thanks to David McKerracher
@theorypleeb
. I’ll be talking about the essay in New York this Sunday, and I’d love to see you!
My weekend:
Apocalyptic Philosophy in Hegel, Heidegger, and Hösle
One: What is Apocalyptic Philosophy and why is it is a necessary and necessarily urgent field of Philosophy?
Two: How has Hegel’s apocalyptic philosophy of absolute unveiling defined the horizon of modernity?
What a moment…I’ve been predicting this to my friends and students for a while now, and last publicly discussed this (“Dawkins is a Christian,” I said) with
@OGRoseWriting
and Dave at
@theoryundrgrnd
Bizarre from Dawkins, who wrote a book called ‘The God Delusion’ claiming religion was a deeply malevolent, dividing force in the world.
Now he’s calling himself a ‘cultural Christian’? Find it odd to use religion to extend your secular political points.
Very cool to hear about how soldiers in war made this book a classic..I’ve definitely reread it 7 times…and I first encountered it at 23 at Yale…it’s silly to waste this book on high schoolers, who have not yet been defeated by life…
The Great Gatsby was dead. By 1939, F. Scott Fitzgerald was secretly buying all copies himself to keep his book in print...
But now, each year, half a million copies are sold!
Back from the dead...how?
READ the strange (yet true) story of how an obscure book became a classic:
@innesseff
@evfk
Thanks, Nathan; this is an urgent and excellent thread. If you’d like to develop it for a short essay
@MarginaliaROB
, we’d be glad to publish it. As a scholar of religion, running a nonprofit for no pay (help support us if you care!), I feel the precarity, but believe ....
Happy Kierkegaard Day! To celebrate, dive (or dip) into my public series, The Poet of Existence, an in-depth study of his thought, context, and importance today
Honored my work is honored by the people. Thank you, readers. And many thanks to
@LAReviewofBooks
for publishing my latest review on American Cosmic.
#thetruthisoutthere
A.A. Milne’s genius with language is missed so easily precisely because of its core quality: an indescribably natural yet wondrous strange and child-like quality, being both profound and endearing for the same reason. He stirs gentleness and love in us.
Here lies a tree which Owl (a bird)
Was fond of when it stood on end,
And Owl was talking to a friend
Called Me (in case you hadn’t heard)
When something Oo occurred.
For Lo! the wind was blusterous
And flattened out his favourite tree
~A.A.Milne
#STORM
#StormIsha
I’m delighted to see someone who shares my reaction to Simone Weil. 3 cheers for Aristotle-Hegel. She is what Plotinus attacks in his tractate against the gnostics: a world-hater, a cosmos-slander, a defamer of flesh.
Gravity and Grace is one of the most evil works of philosophy I’ve ever read. Every line is an anti-materialist horror show, written with absolute disdain for reason and life. One should never forget that spirit is not a disembodied soul; “spirit is a bone.”
I’ll be starting a course for YouTube on Søren Kierkegaard, my first love in philosophy. Any topics or texts you’d like to see covered?
#kierkegaard
#philosophy
Your reminder that Werner Herzog is a magician of the old order, a Bavarian born out of time who once walked from Germany to France to heal (ancient idea) and visit a sick friend (a famous director), and it worked…hence the whole ship up the mountain and other wonders…Mensch.
How does a class on Poetry and Philosophy sound? The idea: get a poet and philosopher to read together and discuss poetry and the meaning of things. I live this life and love it; thinking about teaching different levels of the idea to different audiences...
#poetry
#philosophy
The problem with religion and science isn't that they are incompatible; it's that our ideas about them are incoherent, uncritical, and childish. We need a new "normal" that resists their traditional antagonism and raises the real and important questions.
#religion
#science
#ideas
Eros, Magic, and Immortality: The Myth of Diotima, Plato's Symposium
Science, magic, and immortality all lead back to the same ancient god: Eros.
The history of revolutionary advances in humanity, the Holy Grail, and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity can all be traced back to a single