What's Left of Philosophy

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

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 traditions, political forms, and social mores of the past in the name of the production of the new. However, Berman thinks the 20th century has lost touch with the essentially contradictory nature of modernity by becoming either dogmatic enthusiasts of creative destruction or resolute pessimists who see nothing but degradation in modern life. He returns us to the 19th century where artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Marx, and Baudelaire had a more vivid and sensitive appreciation of the contradictory demands of modern development. We discuss Berman’s ultimately hopeful account of modern experience, its relation to urban life, and why any future politics must reckon with people’s desire for stability. Get ready to ride the wave of modernity (it’s not like you have a choice)! This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Verso, 2010).Perry Anderson, “Modernity and Revolution”, New Left Review I/144 (1984): 96-113.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

138 | Machinic Intelligence and Marxism

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, including AI systems, couldn’t instead free up our time for the active development of our capacities and the pursuit of our personal and collective goals. Abolish the drudgery of gruntwork! But which way we go with these technologies is a political, not a technical matter; a little historical materialism goes a long way.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.socialReferences:Karl Marx, “Fragment on Machines”, in Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), pgs. 690-712.Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

137 | Althusius: Communitarianism Before Hobbes

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).Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

136 TEASER | What’s the Point of Equality? Meditations on Post-Socialist Analytical Philosophy

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:patreon.com/leftofphilosophyReferences:Elizabeth Anderson, “What’s the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109 (1999): 287-337.Samuel Scheffler, “What is Egalitarianism?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 31(2003): 5-39.Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press, 1990. Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu |https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

135 | The Ambiguities of Reconstruction w/ Professor Lucien Ferguson

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 strategy, and how the collapse of reconstruction shapes debates around citizenship and belonging to this day.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social References:William E. Forbath, “The Ambiguities of Free Labor: Labor and the Law in the Gilded Age” Wisconsin Law Review 4 (1985): 767-817. Music:“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN