Offerings, Plans, Reflections
The Myth of Western Philosophy; On Being a Loser; Book Club; The Value of Objectivity
Dear all,
In the week ahead, Lea Cantor and Josh Platzky Miller are hosting what looks to be one of the most exciting academic conferences of recent times. “Questioning ‘Western Philosophy’” will be taking place from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th April. In-person places are sold out but you can access it for free online. To coincide with this conference, we have uploaded Josh and Lea’s essay, “The Future of the History of Philosophy”. This week, we also welcome back the brilliant psychoanalyst and literary theorist Josh Cohen who will be discussing his essay Losers with me tomorrow. We also have full details of two forthcoming groups we are running. And a humorous/graphic account of Arthur Schopenhauer negotiating the temptations of modern technology. More on all this below…
Offerings
Your Sunday Read
“The Future of the History of Philosophy”: In this essay, Josh Platzky Miller and Lea Cantor help us to rethink the history of philosophy, freeing us from the inadequacy and parochialism of the “standard narrative” and the mythical idea of “Western philosophy” that have dominated popular histories to date, from Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy (1926) to Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy (1945) to A.C. Grayling’s History of Philosophy (2019).
For example, did you ever think it weird that there is a 600-year gap in the history of philosophy (from about 450-1050 CE)? Is it really the case, as Brian Magee put it in his defence of standard narrative that “for a long time scarcely any new intellectual work of lasting importance was done”? Erm, well, apparently not:
You can read Josh and Lea’s essay here.
This week, we also uploaded “Bodymind”, an essay by Joel Michael Reynolds that offers a powerful reflection on the relationship of mind and body, and the moral consequences that follow from this. You can read the essay here.
Event: Monday 24th at 11.30am PDT/2.30pm EDT/7.30pm UK
“On Being a Loser”: This event with renowned psychoanalyst and literary theorist, Josh Cohen, will explore truth, lies, violence, populism, vulnerability, humility, humiliation, positive thinking, and consolation in an attempt to diagnose a variety of social pathologies and usher us into an art of losing. Full details and registration here.
N.B. This event will start 30 minutes later than normal!
If you missed Monday’s event, “What is Mental Illness?”, you can watch the recording here.
And if you missed Tuesday’s event, “Frantz Fanon and The Wretched of the Earth”, you can watch the recording here.
Plans
Starting on the 6th June and running for six sessions, the brilliant Mariana Alessandri (who will be in conversation with Kieran Setiya on May 8th) will be running a book club to discuss key themes and thinkers from her new book, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods. With sessions on anger, sadness, grief, depression, and anxiety, it may not look like a bundle of laughs but will hopefully be a corrective to a culture pathologically averse to anything that deviates from the positive ideal. Places are very limited, but you can sign up here.
Starting on 5th July and running for six sessions, the also brilliant Amogh Sahu (who will shortly be in conversation with Ben Laurence on “The Role of the Political Philosopher”) will be asking various important questions about the value of objectivity: Is it achievable? Does this matter for its value? Does its pursuit hamper important ethical goals? Does it prevent us from considering the interests of marginalized groups? Places are also very limited, but you can sign up here.
Reflections
This week, comedy writer and philosophy enthusiast Johnny Shields imagines a journal entry from a youthful Arthur Schopenhauer struggling to negotiate the temptations of 21st century internet technology (please do not read if you are easily offended by graphic sexual content):
Sunday April 23rd: Another day of subservience to the terrible insistence of the will, the relentless pressure to slake the agonizing thirst that is the inexorable unremitting hallmark of lack, of deficiency, of suffering, of life itself. As if called by a force beyond me, a force in relation to whose majesty I am but the most imperfect and feeble servant, I find myself at my laptop. My heart is pumping, but I feel strangely at ease, a state of pristine one-pointed focus. I extract tissues, shut curtains, dim lights, the old familiar ritual played out ever more efficiently as the years pass and the will coils itself around me ever more intimately, draining me of any lingering vestiges of freedom, any fanciful sense that I somehow exist independently, detached from these relentless forces that time and again, despite all wishful thinking on my part, convince me of my ultimate subjugation to their demands. As always, I start by flicking through various videos, searching for one that can slake my thirst. But it’s never enough, not even nearly. Soon there are a dozen tabs open, new search options open up, each video drawing me briefly into its grip but none can ultimately satisfy. Eventually though I can’t hold back. My whole body spasms as I surrender to these most violent paroxysms of pleasure. I ejaculate voluminously, majestically, prodigiously into a strategically positioned tissue. I sit there shaking and whimpering like an abused dog. I can only assume that at this moment I would indeed be a most terrible sight to behold, yet another exemplar of the myriad ways in which the will triumphs gleefully over all that may be considered noble, lofty and upright in the human condition. There’s a temporary abatement. I scan the different tabs with a slight detachment, my feet no longer tapping away with impatience, with anticipation. But soon I’m off again. Phone calls ignored, postman ignored, the world ignored as I surrender into the clutches of the will. There must be twenty, thirty tabs open, a frenzy of tabs. My laptop is radiating heat. Tissues strewn across the desk like some kind of weird crusty mountain range. In the end there’s nothing left. I’m ejaculating bubbles. Bubbles. Like some dribbling baby. I go to the bathroom. My face is hollow and lifeless. I’m sticky and I stink. I’m tired and dehydrated. That’s sexual desire for you - the quintessence of the whole fraud of this noble world! I run a bath, put some soothing lavender scent in. I throw my clothes in the washing machine. I shave. I gargle some mouthwash. I lie back in the bath staring at the ceiling. My life coalesces into this one moment. I set aside the subtle pangs of loneliness and shame, focusing instead on the temporary reprieve offered to me, that brief deliverance from the miserable pressure of thraldom to the will. I soak in the bath, cleansed, not quite at peace but nonetheless in something like a painless state. In these rare moments I feel like a clear mirror of the world, able to contemplate things free from their relationship to the will. It’s no more than alms thrown to a beggar of course, but I am grateful for these moments nonetheless; indeed what else is there to be grateful for?
Ending
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Wishing you all a lovely Sunday, wherever you are.
Anthony Morgan
Editor