Nihilists with Good Imaginations

In what may be her most ambitious piece yet, Chiara Bottici recently published a call for a continuation of debates around intersectional oppression along the lines traced out by anarchist thought. Somewhat surprisingly, though, Bottici avoided making explicit reference to some of her previous work, which, though it may be ...

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Nihilists with Good Imaginations

Pragmatism’s Promise

One of the many definitions of “dialectic” is “a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to discover the truth”; another is “discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation.”  On either definition, Richard J. Bernstein is indisputably the most proficient and prolific ...

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Pragmatism’s Promise

A View of Detroit’s “Beautiful Terrible Ruins”

From ruin porn to a call to action

Wayne State University art historian Dora Apel’s new book, Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline (Rutgers University Press, 2015) is the last word (at least, I hope it is) on the disreputable photographic genre known as “ruin porn.” Bringing her usual due diligence to bear, Apel ...

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A View of Detroit’s “Beautiful Terrible Ruins”

Why Spinoza?

I must begin with a confession: I am a smoker. I know that smoking is dangerous for my health, but I keep doing it. I have tried to stop a couple of times, but always failed. What most puzzles me in this troubled relationship is that, when I first began ...

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Why Spinoza?