What's Left of Philosophy

In this episode, we discuss Donna Haraway’s distinctive socialist cyberfeminism. We talk through the virtues and vices of her version of postmodern feminism and leftism, the ambivalent character of scientific knowledge production and new technologies, and the strange material powers of metaphor. Ask yourself: would you rather be a cyborg or a goddess?
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References:
Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Donna Haraway, “The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Constitutions of Self in Immune System Discourse,” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Sophie Lewis, “Cthulhu plays no role for me,” Viewpoint Magazine, 2017 <https://viewpointmag.com/2017/05/08/cthulhu-plays-no-role-for-me/>
Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In our inaugural episode, we talk about Louis Althusser’s pathbreaking work on philosophy and Marxism from the 1960s. Targets of reckless slander include Sartre and post-structuralist theories of agency.
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References:
Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001)
Louis Althusser, Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists. Translated by Ben Brewster, James H. Kavanagh, Thomas E. Lewis, Grahame Lock, and Warren Montag. Edited by Gregory Elliott (New York: Verso, 2011)
Louis Althusser, Machiavelli and Us. Translated by Gregory Elliott. Edited by François Matheron (New York: Verso, 2000)
Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we are joined by Nathan DuFord to discuss their new book Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory. We unpack why they believe solidarity ought to be theorized as a political concept rather than moral injunction. For DuFord, we risk missing that solidarity is what the oppressed do with one another and that the oppressed will have disagreements within their solidary groups if we undertheorize the political dimensions of solidarity. We go on to discuss the relationships between trust and conflict, whether groups formed in solidarity can last forever, and contemporary questions concerning conflict in left organizations. If you believe in solidarity you won’t want to miss this episode!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References:

Nathan DuFord [published under Rochelle DuFord], Solidarity in Conflict: A Democratic Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022).

Music:

Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In part one of our two-part mini-series on hermeneutics and utopia we discuss the thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer in his 1983 text Praise of Theory. We talk about the importance of prejudice and tradition for self-understanding, ask whether the natural sciences or the human sciences have sole claim to truth, and praise the (qualified) freedom of theory from instrumental reason (continental philosophy even gets a positive shout-out!). The purpose of this mini-series is to assess the insights of hermeneutics for theory and social philosophy, so look forward to our Patron exclusive conclusion on Ernst Bloch!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References:

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Praise of Theory, trans. Chris Dawson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

In this episode we dig into some early writings by the incomparable black radical feminist and communist Angela Davis. We reflect on some of the contradictions involved in the transformation of women’s labor in the development of patriarchal capitalism and the latent potentials for the emancipated life in common that these developments nevertheless carry within themselves. We talk about the radical potential of industrializing housework, discuss strategies for the formation of effective solidarity, and—as usual—find a way to drag American suburbia. Get out there and contest capitalist power at the point of production! Those potentialities won’t actualize themselves, after all.
This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:
patreon.com/leftofphilosophy
References:
Angela Y. Davis, "Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation," in The Black Feminist Reader, eds. Joy James and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting (Malden: Blackwell, 2000)
Angela Y. Davis, “The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective”, in Women, Race, and Class (New York: Random House, 1983)
Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com