Debates

In October 2022 we published in The Philosophical Salon a critique of Cedric Robinson’s landmark study, Black Marxism.[1] We took objection to Robinson’s claim that Marxism is a European ideology …
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The search for extraterrestrial intelligence simultaneously inscribes itself within the domains of science, art, and the paranormal. Yet, whether we are dealing with astrobiology, science fiction, or superstition, each of …
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As Slavoj Žižek often recalls, philosophy’s purpose is not to provide all the answers but to ask the right questions. If the question concerning warnings is one of them, it’s …
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“I know what you’re thinking, but it is NOT my mother!” This unprompted reflection by a patient led Freud to the perplexing insight not only that ‘mother’ occupied some unusually …
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 Professors, like other teachers, must accustom themselves to being misinterpreted. For example, in a philosophy of law class I once cited the famous adage, variously and often mistakenly attributed, that …
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Everyone’s busy debating whether Donald Trump’s global tariff plan is economic protectionism, geopolitical strategy, electoral propaganda, or the act of a madman who has lost the plot. It seems to …
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The recent debate over “AI Slop”—a term coined to dismiss AI-generated works as trash—brings to light a host of issues. Some, like Ted Gioia, lament a vaguely defined “good taste” …
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“He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty windowpane, the past is something he could see but not touch … If he could break through that dusty …
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My favored plot of crime novels concerns a person (usually a woman) who is in mortal danger. Unknown forces try to kill her because she knows something she shouldn’t have …
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That every like is not the same, O Ceasar! The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon! William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Today we live in societies where real interpersonal relations have …
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