Offerings, Plans, Reflections
The Good-Enough Life; Responsibility for Justice; Philosophy and Technology
Dear all,
It’s been a long week, with lots of work on the new print issue, preparing events for the spring, as well as the day-to-day routines of uploading things, answering emails, and keeping track of whether we are making money or losing money. Things feel exciting, though, and it’s worth all the hard work.
As always, your thoughts, comments, and feedback are greatly appreciated - either publicly at the bottom of this newsletter or privately via email to thephilosopher1923@gmail.com
Finally, The Philosopher is still unfunded (any rich people out there with ethically-sourced money to burn?). We rely on your support to keep things going, pay our contributors, and so on. If you value what we do, please consider becoming a supporter via Patreon or offering a one-off/monthly/annual donation.
Offerings
Your Sunday Read!
“There is Nothing Better than Good Enough” by Avram Alpert.
Avram Alpert has written a truly beautiful essay for us. Taking Donald Winnicott’s idea of a “good-enough parent”, Alpert considers what is involved in a good-enough life and why such a vision is in fact far richer and more ennobling than those that strive after some forever unattainable vision of perfection.
As Alpert puts it, “a good-enough life is something that we live and work out and realize every day. It doesn’t have a formula. But it does have some basic contours: be decent; provide enough; don’t ask for too much and don’t settle for too little; do what you can to make a world that works well for all and not too well for a few; appreciate the ordinary wonders of human experience; help others to do the same.”
Avram Alpert will be taking part in one of our digital dialogues tomorrow to discuss this essay and his book, The Good-Enough Life. More details below.
This week, we also uploaded “Responsibility”, an essay by Maeve McKeown from our “New Basics” series. For Maeve, we need a new model of responsibility that is able to respond to the ever-evolving conditions of our world.
Events
Monday at 2pm EST/7pm EST:
“The Good-Enough Life”: How can an acceptance of our limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious society? Join Avram Alpert and our always brilliant assistant editor Chi Rainer Bornfree to find out…
Tuesday at 2pm EST/7pm EST:
“Hannah Arendt and the Human Condition”: As part of our “Century of Violence” series, Arendt scholar Samantha Rose Hill will discuss Hannah Arendt’s most prescient book, The Human Condition (1958) with Brad Evans. What does it mean to inhabit the earth and make the world in common? When, if ever, is violence politically necessary? Can the democratic principle of freedom survive in the 21st century?
For those of you who missed our recent events or would like to re-watch them or share them with others, we have now uploaded the video recordings of two recent events:
1) Ultimate Meaning (And Why We Cannot Have It): Rivka Weinberg with Anthony Morgan
2) What Matters Most: Valerie Tiberius with Karen Stohr
Plans
We have confirmed a few more exciting events for our spring series: Mariana Ortega and Andrea Pitts will be discussing Latina Feminist Philosophy; Carlos Alberto Sanchez will be discussing Mexican philosophy; Ben Laurence will be discussing the role of the political philosopher; and SM Rodriguez will be discussing queer theory in Africa. The series poster should be ready by the end of the month and the series will begin on 27th March.
To coincide with the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine on February 24th, we will be publishing a lengthy interview about the war with Slavoj Žižek along with a second interview with Samuel Moyn about the nature of the West’s relationship to war.
Reflections
This week, Charlie Taben reflects on his new lease of philosophical life 40 years on from gradating in philosophy:
After graduating with a B.A in Philosophy from Middlebury College in 1983 and starting a career in financial services, I was determined to stay engaged with the discipline. The relatively recent emergence of public philosophy has been a revelation, allowing me to engage with it alongside my day job. In fact, my journey reflects the evolution of public philosophy and – through my personal lens – I want to make the case that it both expands the discipline’s boundaries and influences dialogue across the broader public square.
My effort to stay connected to philosophy was transformed by the internet, initially through interactive forums. I then came across Harvard philosopher Sean D. Kelly’s blog and was drawn to the informed and accessible philosophical ideas I found there. Twitter, however, was the major accelerant of my renewed engagement with philosophy (you can find me here), and my curated feed is constantly overflowing with interesting material from a wide range of sources. Energized by this new arena and the wealth of content, I reached out to the American Philosophical Association to offer volunteer help. I was encouraged to contribute to the APA Blog, which ultimately led to editing a new series on Philosophy and Technology.
I am immensely grateful to the APA for this opportunity, and my example, 40 years removed from formal studies, demonstrates that public philosophy can widen the contours of the discipline by engaging a broader audience. My edited blog aims to construe technology in the broadest possible sense, and I want it to be an example of how philosophy can accessibly address modern problems, such as advances in AI and physics, the ethics of drone strikes and weighing the merits of medical technology.
Key contributors to the series have raised vital current issues. To give two examples: Christopher Kutz, in Deadly Drones, Killer Trollies, makes the case that philosophy has been complicit in the moral calamity of remote warfare, laying the intellectual groundwork for recklessly killing hundreds of civilians; in an interview on extraterrestrial technology, Carol Cleland describes how recent Department of Defense disclosures on Unexplained Aerial Phenomena represent genuine anomalies, inexplicable in terms of either our current scientific understanding of nature or current human technology.
Rather than simply communicating idea, however, a public brand of philosophy can also highlight the essential values of respectful communication and civil disagreement, both of which are rather thin on the ground in our current polarized climate. While philosophy can serve to address a wide range of urgent contemporary concerns, it can also reinforce the value of good faith dissent. Indeed, drawing out the complexity of issues and the validity of numerous perspectives is vital in harnessing the positive social potential of new tools like social media. I am thankful to be able to join this new public dialogue, immersing myself in the discipline again and promoting its enduring value.
You can reach out to Charlie via Twitter or at ctaben@gmail.com
Ending
This is the first time in 2023 that work on The Philosopher has bled into the weekend. It’s time I went and relaxed a bit…
Comments and feedback about any of this always welcome.
Wishing you all a great week ahead!
Anthony Morgan
Editor