Episodes

  • Robert B. Talisse, "Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Robert B. Talisse, "Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Nov 21 2024
    An internet search of the phrase "this is what democracy looks like" returns thousands of images of people assembled in public for the purpose of collective action. But is group collaboration truly the defining feature of effective democracy? In Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance (Oxford UP, 2024), Robert B. Talisse suggests that while group action is essential to democracy, action without reflection can present insidious challenges, as individuals' perspectives can be distorted by group dynamics. The culprit is a cognitive dynamic called belief polarization. As we interact with our political allies, we are exposed to forces that render us more radical in our beliefs and increasingly hostile to those who do not share them. What's more, the social environments we inhabit in our day-to-day lives are sorted along partisan lines. We are surrounded by triggers of political extremity and animosity. Thus, our ordinary activities encourage the attitude that democracy is possible only when everyone agrees--a profoundly antidemocratic stance. Drawing on extensive research about polarization and partisanship, Talisse argues that certain core democratic capacities can be cultivated only at a distance from the political fray. If we are to meet the responsibilities of democratic citizenship, we must occasionally step away from our allies and opponents alike. We can perform this self-work only in secluded settings where we can engage in civic reflection that is not prepackaged in the idiom of our political divides, allowing us to contemplate political circumstances that are not our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 38 mins
  • Owen Ware, "Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany" (Routledge, 2023)

    Owen Ware, "Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany" (Routledge, 2023)
    Nov 20 2024
    Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany by Owen Ware (Routledge, 2024) takes the reader on a tour through the reception of Yoga philosophies in nineteenth-century German and the early twentieth century. European luminaries like Schlegel, Hegel, von Günderrode, Schelling, Humbolt, and Müller all engaged with works like the Bhagavad Gītā and Yogā Sūtras, though in very different ways, some reading yogic thought as entailing a threatening nihilism, others lauding it as superlatively philosophical. Ware shows how their responses to Indian thought illuminates our understanding of post-Kantian philosophy and its anxieties over pantheism indebted to Spinoza. He concludes with two chapters on a range of Indian scholars from Swami Vivekananda to K. C. Bhattacharyya, exploring how their work engages with this history of European readings, grappling with themes of freedom, morality, and devotion in yoga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Matti Eklund, "Alien Structure: Language and Reality" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Matti Eklund, "Alien Structure: Language and Reality" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Nov 10 2024
    It is not uncommon to encounter people who think and talk about the world so differently from the way you do that it’s not really possible to put yourself in their shoes. But such systems of representing the world are not truly alien – they still involve terms that pick out objects, properties, and other elements found in familiar languages and metaphysical theories. In Alien Structure: Language and Reality (Oxford University Press, 2024)), Matti Eklund considers whether there are ways of representing the world that are completely alien in both linguistic and metaphysical structure, and which may capture reality better (on an ontological realist view) or which might show the limits to “anything goes” (on an ontological relativist view). Eklund, who is professor of philosophy at Uppsala University, defends the value of considering these possibilities and links his discussion to conceptual engineering, philosophy of quantum mechanics, and other contemporary philosophical debates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Vanessa Christina Wills, "Marx's Ethical Vision" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Vanessa Christina Wills, "Marx's Ethical Vision" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Oct 21 2024
    Does Marx have a coherent ethical vision? How does that square with his sometimes-scathing dismissal of morality? What does his critique of capital have to do with ethics? Why is the proletariat the revolutionary class? What is the normative importance of that claim? In Marx’s Ethical Vision (Oxford University Press, 2024), Vanessa Wills provides a careful reconstruction of Marx’s understanding of human nature and the possibility of creating a world best suited to our flourishing. Working from Marx’s earliest texts through his last, Wills shows not only how Marx builds his understanding from material conditions in their historical specificity, but also how doing so can help guide efforts to change the world in ways that support individual growth, self-expression, and development as a universally shared project. Wills consistently argues against philosophical projects that try to salvage Marx’s valuable insights stripped of his method. Wills shows that the method by which Marx sought to understand the world and human nature as a force within it is integral to understanding his vision for what ought to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr
  • Roberta L. Millstein, "The Land Is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millennium" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

    Roberta L. Millstein, "The Land Is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millennium" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
    Oct 10 2024
    Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic has been both hugely influential in the environmental conservation movement – and also often misinterpreted. In The Land is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millenium (University of Chicago Press), Roberta Millstein aims to set the record straight. Millstein, who is professor emerit of philosophy at the University of California – Davis, offers interpretations of Leopold’s key concepts of the “land community” based in complex webs of causal interactions and “land health” as an ability of the land community to renew itself over time. She provides a comprehensive overview of Leopold’s prescient ideas regarding the expansion of humanity’s scope of moral concern to the land communities to which we belong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Samuel Ely Bagg, "The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)

    Samuel Ely Bagg, "The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)
    Oct 1 2024
    We commonly think of democracy as a social order governed by the people’s collective will. Given the size of the modern states, this picture is typically adjusted to say that democracy is a system of representative government, where elected officials are tasked with governing in ways that reflect the collective will of their constituents. Although it is familiar, this way of depicting democracy invites difficulties. The concept of a collective will is notoriously difficult to nail down. And, moreover, the idea that modern elections reveal or express such a will remains dubious. Accordingly, a good deal of democratic theory aims to fill in the missing details regarding the collective will and its representation. In The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy (Oxford University Press 2024), Samuel Bagg takes a different tack by proposing a vision of democracy where the central aim is to protect public power from capture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Soraj Hongladarom et al., "Philosophies of Appropriated Religions: Perspectives from Southeast Asia" (Springer, 2024)

    Soraj Hongladarom et al., "Philosophies of Appropriated Religions: Perspectives from Southeast Asia" (Springer, 2024)
    Sep 21 2024
    The open-access edited volume Philosophies of Appropriated Religions: Perspectives from Southeast Asia (Springer, 2023) collects philosophical approaches to Southeast Asian traditions of philosophy and religion. The editors, Soraj Hongladarom, Jeremiah Joven Joaquin, and Frank J. Hoffman, have produced a volume that treats traditional topics in philosophy of religion, such as the problem of evil and afterlife, as well as religious identity, beliefs, practices, and diversity. Contributions vary in methodology; some focus on empirical data and modern culture, while others engage with philosophical texts. Essays focus on a range of religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and indigenous practices. Despite this variety, the volume's editors present the collection as having a kind of unity, both in the specificity of how Southeast Asia "appropriates" religions and the philosophical nature of the essays included. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    53 mins
  • Wendy Salkin, "Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation" (Harvard UP, 2024)

    Wendy Salkin, "Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation" (Harvard UP, 2024)
    Sep 1 2024
    We are familiar with the idea of a formal representative, and perhaps the idea of a formal political representative readily comes to mind. Roughly, this is someone who has been selected by an official process to hold a political office where he or she is tasked with promoting, advocating, and speaking for a constituency. However, we are also familiar with informal representatives: those who speak for a constituency but are not appointed by formal processes. Once again, the idea of an informal political representative is probably familiar: rock stars and other celebrities commonly claim to “speak for” others with respect to distinctively political matters, and they are understood by the public to (informally) represent a constituency. Of course, there are lots of ways in which informal political representation can go wrong. Surprisingly, the topic has not been thoroughly theorized. Until now. In Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation (Harvard University Press 2024), Wendy Salkin develops an intricate framework for thinking about informal political representation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
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    1 hr and 7 mins