What's Left of Philosophy

In this live discussion we recorded at the Radical Philosophy Association's 2026 conference at Pomona College, we talk about the post-liberal trajectory in recent political theory with Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed as our focal point. Their description of how things feel bad might seem appealing at first blush, but their culturalist orientation and ahistorical diagnosis leaves open the door for very evil stuff like, you know, fascism—which is the whole point of their project, if you're paying attention. We prefer historical materialism!

Thanks so much to the RPA and all involved organizers for making this happen!

In this episode, we discuss the aesthetic philosophy of the so-called “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance”, Alain Locke. Locke thought art had a central role to play in the social emancipation of Black Americans. It is through art that the social consciousness of society can mature into becoming genuinely pluralist. However, not just any art will do.  We focus on why he insists there must be a strict separation between art and propaganda, how he thought poetry and drama could develop the cultural group life of black people, and why he centered the folk, or everyday people, as genuine sourc...

Just a quick pair of announcements for you!

We'll be doing a live episode recording at the Radical Philosophy Association's conference at Pomona College at 8pm next Thursday, October 15. 

https://www.radicalphilosophyassociation.org/rpa-biennial-conference.html

And Gil will be teaching a class on Hobbes's Leviathan in Chicago next month through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/hobbess-leviathan/

We hope that you will be able to join us for one or both! Thanks very much.

Music: "Mothership" by Blue Steel

In this episode we discuss the concept of hyperpolitics, as originally conceptualized by Anton Jäger. We contemplate the acute lack of substantive political transformation that has resulted from recent upheavals and movements, and wonder about what it would take to revive the kind of mass politics of the early to mid-twentieth century. Throughout, we wrestle with the prevailing sense of powerlessness and doom, the practical necessity of hope, and the potential paths toward meaningful social and political transformation.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References: 

Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences (New Yor...

In this episode we discuss the work of French philosopher Alain Badiou. Ever since the 1970s, Badiou’s philosophy has been characterized by an untimely systematicity and an ambitious effort to bring together politics, art, science, and love in a unique synthesis under the aegis of a novel fundamental ontology. In Metapolitics, Badiou explains what he understands by politics as a historical site where truths can be produced, and what it means for a militant subject to remain faithful to such a truth, affirming a radical egalitarianism over against the exclusions and hierarchies of the state. Along the way he...

In this episode, we continue our series on modernity with a discussion of modernity, colonialism, and the future of both. We take up the claim that modernity is a justifying myth for European colonialism and wonder why we are all so enraptured by it. Are the Europeans as modern as we think they are? We also defend modernity’s promise of emancipation and then wonder what the point of all the modernity talk is anyway. There’s a lot of ambivalence here, but perhaps that’s the point!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

References:

A...

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 been about development through contradictions. We moderns bear witness to the constant dissolution of the tr...

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, even the most amazing machines do little more than increase the rate of exploitation and expose untold millions to desperate poverty. There’s no reason in principle why machines, includin...

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!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

Johannes Althusius, Politica, translated by Frederick S. Carney (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964).

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 episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

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 century. We discuss the divergences between liberal and republican accounts of freedom, whether the constitution should remain the grammar for leftist political s...

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 with Gil Morejón

https://thebrooklyninstitute.c...

Hello! Just dropping in with a few announcements about some cool upcoming stuff. Hope you'll join us!

SPEP Webinar: Philosophy and Environmental Injustices, with Matthias Fritsch, Romy Opperman, and Michael Peterson, May 21, 5pm Eastern Standard Time

https://us.list-manage.com/1tRnwaVjgii?e=e22f097f7b&c2id=b595b31be157b5b356d9b3d96de5843f

BISR Chicago Course: Anti-Oedipus with Gil Morejón

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/deleuze-and-guattari-anti-oedipus-chicago/

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 developing the postwork imaginary Weeks wants. We may just be the kind of modernists she’s calling out, but we’re very s...

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 mode of domination for colonized peoples. More than anything, we contend with the notion that state ‘recognition’ is not only insufficient, but inimical to the kind of emancipatory Indigenous politi...

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 on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Terry Eagleton, Culture and th...

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 present increasingly disconnected from the past of the Civil Rights Movement? We work through th...

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 friends at the Critical Theory Working Group, who you should check out:

https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/

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 between the ‘proletarian general strike’ – which is violent and revolutionary – and the ‘political general strike’ which aims to win minor concessions instead of a transform...

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.social

References:

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pilgrimage to Non-Violence”: 

https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-articles/pilgrimage-to-nonviolence.php

Marti...

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 choices. We get into whether history has a meaning on its own, what it contributes to...

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 | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

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, prohibition crowds… Does a lynch mob follow a logic analogous to that of the viewing public in a world of mass media, a gathering of d...

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 Chamberlain, Living Through Capitalism: Resisting Devastation Through Communities of Life (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). 

Musi...

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 achieve stability and harmony. What follows is a comprehensive examination of how we...

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 by the fact that at some point people started trading stuff with each other. It also means that after the communist revolution succeeds we’ll h...

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 successes of their constitutional arrangement, ask about the costs of these successes.

leftofphilosophy.com

Music:

“Vintage Me...

In this episode, we discuss the literary and cultural theories of Raymond Williams. Famous for classic works of literary analysis like The City and the Country and concepts like ‘structures of feeling’, we join Williams in analyzing how our emotions, impulses, and tone in poetry and novels evolve in relation to economic development. Many structures of feeling today are built on exploitation, but maybe that’s not the end of the story. 

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

Re...

In this episode, we welcome Nicholas Vrousalis onto the show to discuss his recent book Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust. The basic thesis of the book is that capitalist exploitation should be understood as a problem of domination, and thus freedom, rather than a problem of fairness or vulnerability. For Vrousalis where there is exploitation there is domination, but there can be domination without exploitation. Throughout our conversation Nicholas takes us through his defense of normativity in Marxist theory, how normativity relates to social theory more broadly, and what makes domination under capitalist social relations structural rather...

Our live show at the Epiphany Center for the Arts is right around the corner! Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 8. It’s a one-night only event, so don’t miss it! Get your tickets here:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

Also on August 7 here in Chicago: Pelle Dragsted will be discussing his book Nordic Socialism with William Banks and Matt McManus at Pilsen Community Books at 6pm! Details can be found here:

https://pilsencommunitybooks.com/events/46798

See you soon!

leftofphilosophy.com

Musi...

In this episode we discuss Axel Honneth’s Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. As one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called ‘3rd generation’ of Frankfurt School critical theory, we ask whether Honneth’s notions of ‘normative reconstruction’ and ‘social freedom’ build constructively upon the legacies of critical theory or depart from them in a more liberal direction. Lillian reminds us that he has good answers to some of our more acerbic criticisms of his work, but we ultimately wonder about what critical theory has lost in its most recent iteration—one that, we think it’s clear, is...

In this episode, we discuss Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. First published in 2000, this seminal post-Marxist text analyzed changes to power, sovereignty, and class structure in the age of globalization. Twenty-five years ago, it was the Left who was anti-globalization. Today, it’s the Right. So, we might ask, are we still in the Age of Empire?

GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000). 

Music:

...

In this episode, we discuss Alasdair MacIntyre’s landmark book After Virtue. MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist and committed anti-liberal, offers a defense of the Aristotelian tradition and its search for the truly common good against the dominant tendency of liberal societies to reduce morality to individual preferences. Modern society, MacIntyre believes, is one where we live fragmented lives, unable to narrate a coherent story of the relationship between morality and politics. Our invocations of morality ring increasingly hollow as we cannot even imagine what it would mean to convince others of what is good. We explore how the loss of mo...

Hi everyone! We are thrilled to announce that we will be performing live on August 7 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago.

This is a one-time only event and tickets are limited! Get yours here:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

Among other things, we’re planning to talk about the Communist Manifesto. The event will be filmed and released as a special episode.

We’re really excited about this – it’s going to be a fantastic time, and we hope to see you there! Thanks for all your sup...

That's right, folks! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Spinoza's Ethics at Twelve Ten Gallery in Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Enrollments are now open for anyone interested. Check out the course description and sign up here:

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/spinozas-ethics/

Hope to see some of you there!

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: AMALGAM by Rockot

In this episode, we talk about Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In it, he argues that modern culture is basically continuous with that of predatory barbarism, except that it is drunk on the extreme surplus produced by capitalism. Under these conditions, much of human activity becomes performative: consumption, leisure, and perhaps paradoxically enough even hustle culture are all forms of demonstrating one’s superiority in a petty game of social esteem. We explore some of these paradoxes and discuss whether Veblen’s analysis still rings fully true in the 21st century, but to be honest we mostly...

In this episode, we discuss the centrality of ‘representation’ in politics and political theory, guided by Hanna Pitkin’s 1967 treatise The Concept of Representation. Much of the focus is on her notion of ‘substantive representation’ – the activity of advancing the welfare and interests of others – in comparison to the empty husk of formal representation we’ve all become accustomed to in our putatively representative democracies. We explore the Anglo-American efforts to constitutionally immunize representation against advocacy and agitation by the represented, and heed Pitkin’s implicit warning that where representation is insubstantial and inadequate, hyper-investment in pale substitutes like flag and figurehea...

In this episode, we discuss “political marxism” as a paradigm shift in Marxist thinking about historical development, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and why that should matter to philosophers with an interest in challenging easy conceptual binaries that remain entrenched even in radical circles, like between economics and politics. We take a look at the two leading figures of this kind of Marxism – Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood – to put the conflict back into class conflict.

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon...

In this episode, we discuss WLOP co-host William Paris’s recently published book Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation. In his book, Will examines the utopian elements in the theories of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, and James Boggs and their critique of racial domination as the domination of social time. The crew talks about the relationship between utopia and realism, the centrality of time for our social practices, and how history can provide critical principles for an emancipated society. We even find out whether Gil, Lillian, and Ow...

In this episode, we discuss the 2007 text The Coming Insurrection, written by the pseudonymous collective The Invisible Committee. We talk about the book’s scathing condemnation of the present, its critique of everyday life in the dying late capitalist empires of the 21st century, and the kind of insurrectionary anarchism it advocates. Maybe we’re just grumpy old people who have failed to kill the cops in our heads, but we think the project dead-ends in presentist adventurism and doesn’t take seriously enough the importance of social stability and political organization. That said, we try to take a sympat...