“Confessions of a Frigid Man: A Philosopher’s Journey into the Hidden Layers of Men’s Sexuality” is the translation of a Japanese 2005 bestseller. Soon after the publication, this book stirred controversy over the nature of male sexuality, male “frigidity,” and its connection to the “Lolita complex.” Today, this work is considered a classic in…[Read more]

This paper presents an introductory overview of Plato’s poetics, aesthetics, and literary theory, with particular reference to his notion of mimesis, and grounding the discussion on his Theory of Ideas. It is part of a lecture series on the history of literary criticism, partly available online as HYPERCRITICA: A HYPERTEXTUAL HISTORY OF LITERARY…[Read more]

This article considers the question ‘What makes hope rational?’ We take Adrienne
Martin’s recent incorporation analysis of hope as representative of a tradition that views the
rationality of hope as a matter of instrumental reasons. Against this tradition, we argue that
an important subset of hope, ‘fundamental hope’, is not governed by instru…[Read more]

This rubric is designed to facilitate a creative and lively philosophical dialogue online by encouraging strong writing in blog posts and comments. These criteria will be used for the qualitative evaluation of the blog posts and comments.

‘In The Inhumanist Manifesto, Gary Hall writes that “[i]f the inhuman equals the human intertwined with the nonhuman, then the inhumanities are the humanities.” Articulating the latest version of his radical theories on posthumanism, piracy, Marxism, open access and the commons, this bold remix of Hall’s self-proclaimed pirate philosophy detai…[Read more]

An Honours course taught by me at Edinburgh in 2011

An Honours course taught by me at Edinburgh in 2009 and 2012

This infographic illustrates the PPJ Formative Peer Review process from start to finish.

Very short essay on the way Deleuze uses images in his book on Bacon. In the original French edition, the images are in a separate volume; he does that in order to mime, or enact, the theory of sensation in his text. It seems to me this is an unusual and promising strategy for art history (disposing images so their sequence and arrangement…[Read more]

How do we learn the link between speech and money? What is the process of formation that
legitimates the logic whereby speech is equivalent to money? What are the experiences, events, and subjectivities
that render the connection between currency and speaking/listening intuitive? As educators and researchers,
what do we do and say to shore up…[Read more]

Primera versión del proyecto Compartiva (filosofía software) asociado al hardware Cousateca.

Review of Edward J. Watts, Hypatia. The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher

Adding to the long list of “post” conditions, the term “post-internet” offers a fairly recent attempt to characterize a certain social, political, historical, and material condition that artists, curators, educators, and critics are currently working with. For some, it provides a language to articulate the complex entwinements between online…[Read more]

Adding to the long list of “post” conditions, the term “post-internet” offers a fairly recent attempt to characterize a certain social, political, historical, and material condition that artists, curators, educators, and critics are currently working with. For some, it provides a language to articulate the complex entwinements between online…[Read more]

Adding to the long list of “post” conditions, the term “post-internet” offers a fairly recent attempt to characterize a certain social, political, historical, and material condition that artists, curators, educators, and critics are currently working with. For some, it provides a language to articulate the complex entwinements between online…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

The historical narrative of water purity tends to chart a process of secularisation with an
increasing importance on cleanliness. We suggest otherwise – that rhetorically at least, water
has never been secularised. Moral impurity and water contamination have a long and
interrelated history. Even before the connection had been made between c…[Read more]

What is philosophy? That’s a good question—not because there’s no answer, but because what’s involved in posing it points up something essential to philosophy. In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza sets out what’s required by a definition. A circle, a typical definition might run, is a figure in which all lines drawn fro…[Read more]