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Philosophy in the Contemporary World

On Protest and Hope as Social Inquiry

In 1948, Marxist philosopher C.L.R. James, addressing Black political militancy, insisted “that the independent Negro movement that we see today and which we see...

Report from Richmond’s Monument Wars: Public Art, National Trauma, Being with the Dead

Richmond, VA, the former Confederate capital and major slave trading center, is an active experimental laboratory for removing and transforming old so-called “monuments,” creating...

Never Mind the Camus: Sartre’s Typhus is the Existential Plague Fiction We Need

Albert Camus has been having a good pandemic, sixty years after he died. Copies of The Plague have sold faster than publishers can print...

Inter-American Philosophy in Mexico: Report on the SAAP’s 47th Annual Conference

The Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) had its 47th annual conference, holding it for the first time in Mexico, at the...

Philosophy and Civilization: An Interview with Rupert Read, Spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion

Philosopher Rupert Read is active in the climate change movement Extinction Rebellion, and has recently released a new book about his work there. He...

Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Tiger King, Charismatic Megafauna, and the Problem of Looking

Confession: I have not watched Tiger King.  At first glance this makes me an odd fit for writing about Tiger King. Afterall, with 64...

Philosophy in the Contemporary World: A Society of Strangers

On a cold December day, I walk in Manhattan. I see a man face down on the ground. As he turns, I see his rough, gaunt features....

Philosophy in the Contemporary World: Sorites Authoritarianism

Many of us are familiar with the sorites paradox. Take a million grains of sand and put them into a pile. That’s a heap. Remove...

White Philosophers: It’s Time to Stop Using Digital Blackface

The origins of blackface date from the early 19th century minstrel shows, in which white actors blackened their faces to take up racist, exaggerated and stereotypical...

The Importance of Unorthodox Narratives in Philosophy

Few reading the Blog of the American Philosophical Association would be surprised that the word, "philosophy" comes from the Greek, philosophia, meaning "love of...