What's Left of Philosophy
In What’s Left of Philosophy Gil Morejón (@gdmorejon), Lillian Cicerchia (@lilcicerch), Owen Glyn-Williams (@oglynwil), and William Paris (@williammparis) discuss philosophy’s radical histories and contemporary political theory. Philosophy isn't dead, but what's left? Support us at patreon.com/leftofphilosophy
Episodes
116 episodes
111 TEASER | Infantile Disorders: The Coming Insurrection
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 dyin...
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Season 1
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Episode 111
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16:37
110 | What is Liberalism? Part VI. Possessive Individualism and the Collapsing Order
In this episode, the boys talk about C.B. Macpherson’s insightful text The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Macpherson holds that liberal political theory from Hobbes to Locke is correct in its premises, since like it or n...
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Season 1
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Episode 110
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54:47
109 | Should We Abolish Prisons? w/ Dr. Tommie Shelby
In this episode, we are joined by special guest Tommie Shelby to discuss the arguments presented in his most recent book, The Idea of Prison Abolition. We talk about the social functions that prisons serve, whether any of those are leg...
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Season 1
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Episode 109
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1:06:37
Will Has Published a Book!
This is a short promo for Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (Oxford University Press, 2025), written by WLOP’s very own Will Paris. You can find the book here:
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2:30
108 TEASER | Friedrich Nietzsche on Learning How to Live in a Dying Culture
In this episode, we tackle Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. In this book, Nietzsche diagnoses the cultural pathologies of a Europe that no longer seems able to take risks and experiment with life. We discuss his account of n...
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8:33
Gil is Teaching a Class on Kant's First Critique in Chicago
You read the title! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason at the Goethe Institute in downtown Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.Enrollments are now open for anyone interes...
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1:01
107 | How Labor Can Win w/ Eric Blanc
In this episode, we discuss Eric Blanc’s new book about the strategies re-building U.S. labor today, as well as how they can translate across movements and borders. Though many smart philosophers have declared that the labor movement is dead, w...
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1:10:27
106 | Karl Polanyi and the Critique of Market Society
In this episode, we discuss the work of brilliant heterodox economist Karl Polanyi. We talk about his criticisms of neoclassical orthodoxy, his arguments against the commodification of land, labor, and money, and his critique of the dominance o...
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Season 1
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Episode 106
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1:02:29
105 TEASER | Fredric Jameson: Marxist Criticism and the Role of Theory
In this episode, we discuss the work of the late, great Fredric Jameson. Basing ourselves on his Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, and Archaeologies of the Future, we talk about the notion that history is o...
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Season 1
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Episode 105
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9:31
104 | Does History Have a Repetition Compulsion?
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Black Reconstruction, and The Black Jacobins. What do these three texts have in common? They all aim to make a historical moment legible as a drama. In doing so, Marx, W.E.B...
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Season 1
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Episode 104
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58:44
103 | Habermania w/ Dr. Steven Klein
Another week, another German philosopher. This time, Steven Klein joins us to discuss the ideas and legacy of one Jürgen Habermas. We talk about his evolution alongside and away from the Frankfurt School, the enlightenment project at the core o...
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Season 1
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Episode 103
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1:07:48
102 TRAILER | The Heidegger Episode
Here, we finally deliver on our longstanding threat to do an episode all about influential philosopher Martin Heidegger. We give him credit where it’s due: he has a compelling account of the conditions for meaningful existence along with a reso...
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6:08
101 | Free Time Under Capitalism
In this episode, we discuss Theodor Adorno’s essay “Free Time”, in which the critical theorist really lets his cantankerous old man flag fly. He argues that how our subjectivities are shaped by capitalist culture and work discipline makes it ve...
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Season 1
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Episode 101
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1:00:59
100 | Special Q+A Livestream!
For this very special 100th episode of the show, we set aside a few hours to answer questions submitted by listeners! We livestreamed the session on our YouTube channel, and this is the audio from that recording. Thanks so much to every...
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Season 1
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Episode 100
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1:57:21
100th Episode Livestream Announcement | Ask Us Anything!
Some news! We are going to livestream our 100th episode recording session at 1pm Eastern / 12 noon central standard time on our YouTube channel on Sunday October 27th.We will be answering questions! There's a form on our website's home ...
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1:20
99 | What is Dialectics? Part VI: From Explanation to Emancipation: Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism
In this episode, we discuss the philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar and his essays in Reclaiming Reality. We discuss whether it is possible for the human sciences to overcome the fact/value distinction, what role knowledge has in self-e...
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Season 1
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Episode 99
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1:01:35
98 TEASER | Reform or Revolution?
In this episode we take on a Marxist classic, Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution,” in which she skewers Eduard Bernstein for being a feckless opportunist and for relinquishing the goal of socialism. Luxemburg takes on his argument that it’s...
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Season 1
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Episode 98
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10:11
97 | Poulantzas, Marxism and the State
In this episode we take up the question: what is the State? With 1978’s State, Power, Socialism by Nicos Poulantzas as our guide, we talk about what it means to grasp the state as a historically specific form inseparable from the econo...
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Season 1
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Episode 97
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55:52
96 TEASER | What is Utopia? Part IV. Bacon's New Atlantis
In this episode we talk about the weird little unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis, written by founding enlightenment figure Francis Bacon. We talk about his fetish for differential novelty, his understanding and valorization of ...
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Season 1
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Episode 96
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14:50
95 | John Dewey and the Education of Experience
In this episode, we discuss the educational philosophy of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Focusing on his 1938 treatise Experience & Education we explore questions concerning the ends of education, what it means to be an effect...
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Season 1
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Episode 95
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1:03:45
94 | Norman Geras' Ethics of Revolution
In this episode, we discuss the contributions of political theorist Norman Geras to socialist debates about revolutionary ethics, movement democracy, and justice. He argues for a right to revolution, but that there’s a difference between politi...
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Season 1
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Episode 94
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57:55
93 TEASER | Charles Mills and the Racial Contract
In this episode, we talk about the late, great Charles Mills and his landmark book The Racial Contract. Forcefully arguing that the modern discourse of egalitarianism and freedom is underwritten by a tacit commitment to global white su...
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Season 1
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Episode 93
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11:06
92 | What is Liberalism? Part V. Robert Nozick’s Libertarian Reveries
In this episode, we discuss Robert Nozick’s libertarian political philosophy as presented in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. We consider his challenges to leftist thought, especially the sort of left liberalism championed by ...
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Season 1
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Episode 92
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1:02:05
91 | Fanon’s Dialectic of Violence
In this episode, we tackle the concept of violence as it appears in the revolutionary and anticolonial work of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Throughout the episode we link together Fanon’s endorsement of revolutionary viole...
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Season 1
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Episode 91
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1:01:03
90 | Ecological Materialism and Logistical Strategy w/ Dr. Jeff Diamanti
In this episode, we are joined by Jeff Diamanti to discuss what it looks like to watch the climate change. Our conversation shifts from analytical, aesthetic, and political perspectives, as we turn our attention from critical raw materials to t...
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Season 1
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Episode 90
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1:20:04