Socrates and His Teaching

Isaac Bashevis Singer translated by David Stromberg

Socrates is the best-known Greek philosopher among most people. The reason for his fame is not the philosopher himself but his mean wife, Xanthippe. People in no way interested in philosophy know that the great Socrates had a bitter spouse who caused him great suffering. Socrates is also famous for ...
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Socrates and His Teaching

Is Amartya Sen 21st Century’s ‘Great Critic’ of Capitalism?

A response to Tim Rogan

Tim Rogan, in an essay recently published by Aeon, claims that Amartya Sen is the “Century’s Great Critic of Capitalism.” He states that Sen deserves this attribute because of his groundbreaking approach to capitalist critique, wherein he combines the moral and material critiques of capitalism that have hitherto remained two distinct ...
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Is Amartya Sen 21st Century’s ‘Great Critic’ of Capitalism?

Navigating Finance and the Imagination

A walking tour event

On April 14, a temporary assembly of activists, artists and interdisciplinary academics will drift together through the City of London to explore the intersections of finance and the imagination in the historic district of English (and global) wealth and power. With over 15 presentations on topics ranging from algorithms to architecture, ...
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Navigating Finance and the Imagination

2018 Arendt-Schürmann Symposium in Political Philosophy

An announcement

The editors of the Imaginal Politics vertical at Public Seminar are excited to announce their partnership with the organizers of the 2018 Arendt-Schürmann Symposium in Political Philosophy at the Philosophy Department of the New School for Social Research. This year’s Symposium, entitled “Philosophy and Coloniality” represents an overdue focus on the ways ...
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2018 Arendt-Schürmann Symposium in Political Philosophy

The Parthenon as a Mediator between Greek Mathematics and Liberal Education

An excerpt from Michael Weinman and Geoff Lehman’s latest book

We propose here to pursue a method of speculative reconstruction to detail what can be learned about the “state of the art” in the early development of “liberal education” in fifth-century Greece. One needs to be cautious in speaking about such a development at such a time, which predates ...
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The Parthenon as a Mediator between Greek Mathematics and Liberal Education

In Love’s Shadow

Reflections on love at the Night of Philosophy

In the title track from his album Station to Station, at the junction where the music resolutely picks up pace, David Bowie sings: “It’s not the side effects of the cocaine. I’m thinking that it must be love.” [1] In contrast to the accelerating beat, the lyric is riddled with irresolution. Is love ...
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In Love’s Shadow

Courage Before the Break

Agnes Heller’s Theory of “Radical Needs” Revisited

“Good persons exist, how are they possible?” With this question, inimitable Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller outlines her philosophical territory. As readers of critical theory, it is hard to know how to begin expressing our admiration for the energetic grande dame of our tradition. One anecdote might suffice: Heller’s mentor, the great, but ...
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Courage Before the Break

Stoicism and Love, Not a Contradiction

Symposium on Love

Plato’s Symposium, written between 385 and 370 BCE, is one of the classics of Western philosophy, and indeed is a sheer pleasure to read. Not only we are treated to a fun (if utterly non factual!) story by the playwright Aristophanes on the origin of the idea of soul mates, ...
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Stoicism and Love, Not a Contradiction

Symposium on Love

Intermezzo sub species aeternitatis

It is 5.30 am, that time of the night when the darkness awaits for the light, like an intrepid lover, who has been alone for too long. It is a time of passage, when everything is still dark, but we can already hear the noise of the day break. Day ...
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Symposium on Love

On Leaping Into Love

Night of Philosophy Love Symposium

Remember the last time we had this dinner party, Aristophanes got drunk and went on a rant about soulmates? Here we are -- almost 2,500 years later -- and people still believe in this myth. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Aristophanes was joking! When we fall in love, it does feel ...
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On Leaping Into Love

Critical Love

Night of Philosophy Love Symposium

Mériam Korichi invited me to prepare a ten-minute speech for a Symposium of Love that she was hosting at the annual Night of Philosophy. Realizing I didn’t have anything to say about love, I thought about how I might begin to answer the question: What is love? What unfolded was ...
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Critical Love

A Night of Philosophy

Reintroducing the flute player

25 centuries after Plato’s Symposium… 1. “All you need is love”? “Make love not war”? These slogans were made famous by the radical counter-culture movement in the US in the early 1960’s and were to go viral in the year 1968 when the intellectual, social and political contestation spread to the whole ...
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A Night of Philosophy