The feeling of existential unease, of not being at home in the world, is present in James Baldwin’s novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, to a painfully concentrated degree. The novel takes that feeling of unease as its starting point and goes on to explore broader themes related to family, history, and religion. The…
Category: Culture
On Kantian Enlightenment
In his essay “What is Enlightenment?” Immanuel Kant proposes that to achieve enlightenment, one needs the freedom to make public use of their reason. Any such summary statement would run the risk of misunderstanding Kant’s position if we overlook the significance of the public itself. Kant defines public as a universal space potentially shared by…
The Burnout Society (Byung-Chul Han)
I think it was sometime during the summer of 2018 that my friend Peter Limberg gave me a copy of the Agony of Eros. That was my introduction to Byung-Chul Han. Han is an aphoristic philosopher, carrying the influence of Nietzsche quite visibly. He engages with cultural and social topics in a way that is…
Review of ‘the Tyranny of Metrics’ by Jerry Z. Muller
Among the books I have recently borrowed from the library, Jerry Muller’s (2018) book, the Tyranny of Metrics, has been the one I’d like to purchase a copy of and keep at hand for future reference. Muller is a historian who has written books on Adam Smith, various aspects of capitalism, and the history of…
Criticism, Philosophy, & Love: An Exchange with Javier Rivera
My friend, Javier Rivera, has posted a video about the relationship between religion and philosophy. Specifically, he talks about the duty of philosophers to ask, “What is religion?” Javier points out the dominant tendency in philosophers to fixate on their own discipline, asking again and again, “What is philosophy?” but a similar kind of (philosophical)…