‘Natural-History’ is one of the key concepts in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno, appearing from his very earliest work through to his very last. Unfortunately, the existing literature provides little illumination as to what Adorno’s concept of natural-history is, or what it is supposed to do. This paper thus seeks to supply the required understanding. Ultimately, I argue that ‘natural-history’ is best understood as a sort of ‘therapeutic’ concept, intended to dissolve certain philosophical anxieties (...) which might otherwise present obstacles to our being able to obtain a critical-theoretical understanding of reality. (shrink)

A philosophical memoir about becoming a father in an increasingly terrible world – can I hope the child growing in my partner's womb will have a good-enough life? For Kant, philosophy boiled down to three key questions: “What can I know?”, “What ought I do?”, and “What can I hope for?” In philosophy departments, that third question has largely been neglected at the expense of the first two – even though it is crucial for understanding why anyone might ask them (...) in the first place. In Infinitely Full of Hope, as he prepares to become a father for the first time, the philosopher Tom Whyman attempts to answer Kant’s third question, trying to make sense of it in the context of a world that increasingly seems like it is on the verge of collapse. Part memoir, part theory, and part reflection on fatherhood, Infinitely Full of Hope asks how we can cling to hope in a world marked by crisis and disaster. (shrink)

In this paper, I do three things. First, I unpack and outline an intriguing but neglected aspect of the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno—namely, his critique of Aristotle, which can be found in two of his lecture series: the unpublished 1956 lectures on moral philosophy and the 1965 lectures published as Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Second, I demonstrate how Adorno's Aristotle critique constitutes a powerful critique of contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism, of the sort advocated by (...) thinkers such as Philippa Foot, Michael Thompson and John McDowell. Third, I expound upon where this critique leaves the prospect of formulating a robust ethical naturalism more generally. (shrink)

Interest inThe German Ideologyhas largely focused on the ‘chapter’ on Feuerbach—invariably the focus of the various abridgements in which the work is usually read. But this does not reflect the weighting of the text itself, which is dominated by Marx and Engels's critique of the radical egoist philosopher Max Stirner. Which begs the question: just why did they spend so much time and effort writing about Stirner? In this paper, I will provide an answer—which comes down to three related points. (...) The first concerns the critique of reason; the second, egoistic self-interest. On both of these two points, Stirner makes a novel contribution—contributions which Marx and Engels feel clear affinities with. However, Stirner can ultimately be seen to get these two points, as it were,the wrong way around. This then leads to the third point: Stirner's misunderstanding of the nature of Communism. To clarify the nature of Communism, then, Marx and Engels were compelled to turn Stirner on his head. (shrink)

In a recent article, Fabian Freyenhagen argues that we should understand first-generation Frankfurt School critical theory (in particular, the work of Adorno and Horkheimer) as being defined by a kind of ‘linguistic turn’ analogous to one present in the later Wittgenstein. Here, I elaborate on this hypothesis – initially by calling it into question, by detailing Herbert Marcuse’s extensive criticisms of Wittgenstein (and other analytic philosophers of language) in One-Dimensional Man. While Marcuse is harshly critical of analytic ordinary language philosophy, (...) he is much more sympathetic to a different sort of ordinary language philosophy, which he unpacks with reference to Karl Kraus. I show how, by getting Marcuse’s criticisms of Wittgenstein and other analytic philosophers, and lauding of Kraus, into view, we can better understand the first generation of the Frankfurt School as having practised a sort of ‘non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy (that may or may not have been the sort of thing that Wittgenstein himself had in mind). (shrink)

In this article, I identify – and clear up – two problems for contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism. The first I call the problem of alienation; the second the problem of conservatism. I argue that these problems will persist, both for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of ethical naturalism, unless ethical naturalists adopt what I call ‘Practical Realism’ about essential human form. Such a Practical Realism leaves open the possibility of radical social and political criticism – I therefore suggest that contemporary ethical (...) naturalists ought to be more interested in exploring the affinities their view shares with Marxist political thought. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Hope is a disputed concept in the context of the climate movement. Basic analysis suggests that hope is important for political action – however, groups including XR have explicitly disavowed hope, and the facts of the crisis might more readily incline us to despair. Some authors, for instance Diana Stuart, have attempted to resolve this contradiction by arguing that ‘anti-hope’ climate activists are only rejecting forms of ‘false hope’, and that we should instead see their action as being motivated by (...) other forms of hope: one oft-mentioned candidate is the ‘radical hope’ discussed by Jonathan Lear. In this paper, I aim to do two things. Firstly, I show that we should not understand climate hope as ‘radical hope’, but rather as what I call ‘spontaneous hope’ – drawing on Jonathan Gingerich's work on ‘spontaneous freedom’. Secondly, I show that there is a relationship between spontaneous hope and the feeling of (righteous) anger. This in turn can help explain empirical work which establishes a link between climate activism and anger. (shrink)

John McDowell claims that a 'human' orientation towards the world is characterised by a 'deep connection' between reason and freedom. In this thesis, I argue that McDowell cannot make good on this coincidence, since his Platonic conception of rationality serves to bind free reflection in advance. This is a problem both for the 'minimal empiricism' that McDowell aims to secure in his magnum opus, Mind and World, as well as for the ostensibly liberal, anti-scientistic 'naturalism of second nature' that accompanies (...) it there. Ultimately, I argue that the problems that McDowell's thought is subject to can be solved by invoking the philosophy of nature which we can find in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor Adorno. Adorno is, I argue, able to secure the appropriate connection between reason and freedom, and thus what McDowell himself describes as a distinctively human orientation towards the world. Convinced McDowellians should therefore be motivated to, at least in this sense 'become Adornians'. The thought of McDowell and a number of his contemporaries is often considered to represent a kind of 'Hegelianisation' of analytic philosophy; my arguments suggest the need for its 'critical-theoreticisation'. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnalytic philosophy is often associated with a physicalistic naturalism that privileges natural-scientific modes of explanation. Nevertheless there has since the 1980s been a heterodox, somewhat subterranean trend within analytic philosophy that seeks to articulate a more expansive, ‘non-reductive‘ conception of nature. This trend can be traced back to P.F. Strawson’s 1985 book Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. However, Strawson has long been ignored in the literature around ‘soft naturalism’ – especially in comparison to John McDowell. One of the reasons for (...) this is that Strawson’s account of soft naturalism is not often viewed as particularly plausible – it has come in for heavy criticism from the likes of Sebastian Gardner and Robert Stern. In this paper, I argue that Strawson’s soft naturalism ought to be re-assessed: that his critics can be refuted, and that his naturalism remains a compelling alternative to the likes of McDowell’s. I attempt this through a ‘radicalisation’ of the modest Strawson’s position, demonstrating that his naturalism has implicit in it something like Marx’s conception of human ‘species-being’. (shrink)

Post-Kantian philosophers typically hold there to be a coincidence between reason and freedom. In this paper, I question their ability to secure this coincidence. I do so in particular by examining the work of John McDowell: probably the leading light of contemporary analytic post-Kantian philosophy, and certainly someone for whom the coincidence is important. Working through McDowell, I argue that in order to be considered ‘rationally free’ in relation to the external world, the world itself needs to, at at least (...) some level, elude rational understanding. In the conclusion, I claim that this invites greater engagement – particularly by post-Kantian philosophers working in the analytic tradition – with the work of Theodor Adorno. (shrink)