philosophy
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Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist Reason: A Review
> I have to confess that I’m extremely disappointed by Laclau’s 2005 book On Populist Reason. One thing you need to figure out before you start writing is what your audience will be like. Are you trying to address the specialists in your field or do you want the book to be accessible to any… Continue reading
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>Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity: A Review, Part II
> I want to dedicate the second part of my review of Liquid Modernity to those of its parts that I found to be objectionable. My problem with the entirety of Bauman’s work is that whenever he talks of people, humanity, or mankind at large, he always ends up making statements that are only true… Continue reading
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>Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity: A Review, Part I
> Liquid Modernity (2000) is probably Zygmunt Bauman’s most important work. This is where the philosopher introduces concepts that will inform his Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (2003), Liquid Life (2005), Liquid Fear (2006), Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (2006), etc. Since Bauman is one of my favorite contemporary… Continue reading
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Slavoj Zizek’s On Belief: A Review, Part II
The first part of this review is located here. It took me a while to write the second part of this review because I find the last chapters of the book to be quite inferior in quality not only to the beginning of On Belief but to the philosopher’s entire oeuvre. Žižek’s goal here is to… Continue reading
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>Slavoj Zizek’s On Belief: A Review, Part I
>I have no idea how I managed to miss Žižek’s On Belief when it first came out. Now, however, I have finally had a chance to read this book by one of the greatest philosophers of out time (actually, the greatest, in my opinion) and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, Žižek wouldn’t be… Continue reading
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>Zygmunt Bauman’s Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?: A Review, Part II
As I mentioned in the first part of this review, Bauman’s vision of today’s world is, at the very least, flawed. The impression his analysis often makes on me is one created by a person who is so afraid of certain aspects of life that he never ventures outside of his ivory tower. He hides… Continue reading
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Zygmunt Bauman’s Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?: A Review, Part I
Zygmunt Bauman is one of my favorite contemporary philosophers. His interest in the mechanisms of identity construction is enough to make me follow his work with great dedication. Bauman’s recent Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (Institute for Human Sciences Vienna Lecture Series) made a dubious impression on me. Everything Bauman… Continue reading
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>Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith, and Revolution: A Review, Part II
>Among other things, Eagleton’s Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (The Terry Lectures Series) is such a joy to read because of his brilliant deconstruction of Christopher Hitchens’s obnoxious God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything: “Hitchens seems to hold the obscure Jewish sect of the second-century BC known as the… Continue reading
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>Reason, Faith, and Revolution by Terry Eagleton: A Review, Part I
>In April of 2008, Terry Eagleton gave a series of talks at Yale University. Since I was in the process of looking for a job, I only managed to visit the last lecture in the series. Eagleton’s brilliant lecture on religion and the subsequent reception made two things very clear to me. First, Eagleton is… Continue reading
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