Debates

In the afterword to the 2020 reprinting of Kathe Koja’s seminal novel from 1991, The Cipher, Maryse Meijer writes: “Unlike many horror stories, in which protagonists stumble on some terrible …
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Sometimes, breaking a rule can heal a wound.

Depend upon no one, whose independence is guaranteed.

If you dive into the wreckage of your worst deeds, …
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A towering figure in the study of ancient thought, Pierre Hadot outlined three aspects of pursuing philosophy in Antiquity. Crucial to his distinction was the context of doing philosophy, rather …
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These days we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune which lasted exactly 2 months and 10 days (from March 18 till May 28 1871). After the infamous defeat …
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What is the purpose of the imagination when society is dominated by throwaway images? How did we come to create such a luxurious condition for ourselves, putting imagination to such …
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In 1976, AI pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum described machinic reasoning as ‘alien thought.’ Weizenbaum reasoned that, since the domain of thinking was “determined by man’s humanity,” “every other intelligence, however great, …
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In every society, one can hear the din of wolves, baying from the outskirts. On the first Wednesday of January, we witnessed the wolves clamber into the U.S. Capitol, scale …
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“R-Files” (short for “Review-Files”) is a new monthly feature of The Philosophical Salon. Under this heading, philosophers Frank Ruda and Agon Hamza look at what is happening in the world …
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In Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar, Anne Hathaway, starring as Brand, a member of a team of scientist-astronauts sent through a wormhole in search of an Earth-like planet in the …
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When George Floyd was killed, I started teaching Derrida’s Specters of Marx. This may seem like a strange choice, but the text allowed us to raise three questions about justice—especially …
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