In this episode, we talk about Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s audacious and influential text Intellectual and Manual Labor. A fellow traveler of the Frankfurt School, Sohn-Rethel argued that the social activity of commodity exchange involves a set of real abstractions that actually precede and give rise to the structure of human consciousness and its capacity for ment ... Show More
Apr 25
133 | Indigenous Struggles Beyond the Colonial Politics of Recognition: Glen Coulthard's Red Skin, White Masks
This episode engages with Glen Coulthard’s 2014 book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Coulthard weaves a rich and varied tradition of radical Indigenous thought and practice with Marxism and the anti-colonial thought of Frantz Fanon into a di ... Show More
59m 9s
Apr 6
132 TEASER | Marxism and Religion, Part II: The Gospel According to Terry Eagleton
In this episode, we discuss Terry Eagleton’s defense of religion. We focus on his diagnoses of the Enlightenment, modernism, and post-modernism as different kinds of post-religious movements. Post-modernism is the only “truly atheist” one, which is one reason it got along with ca ... Show More
8m 27s
Jan 2025
The Nature of All Things: Spinoza's Philosophical Odyssey
Professor of philosophy Colin Bodayle joins Breht to dive into the profound, unique, and almost mystical philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Together, they discuss the value of philosophy for all of us, Spinoza as a "philosopher's philosopher", his life and death in 17th century wester ... Show More
2h 43m
Jun 2025
Dialectics of Nature: Engels on Dialectical Materialism as a Worldview
<p>In this episode, Alyson and Breht explore Friedrich Engels' <em>Dialectics of Nature</em>, a bold and underappreciated attempt to apply dialectical materialism to the natural sciences. Often dismissed or misunderstood, this unfinished work offers a sweeping view of reality - f ... Show More
2h 35m
May 2025
Dialectics of Nature: Engels on Dialectical Materialism as a Worldview
In this episode, Alyson and Breht explore Friedrich Engels' Dialectics of Nature, a bold and underappreciated attempt to apply dialectical materialism to the natural sciences. Often dismissed or misunderstood, this unfinished work offers a sweeping view of reality - from physics ... Show More
2h 35m
Feb 2024
Class 2: The Heritage of the Enlightenment
“Our Western heritage is reason—reason, analysis, action, progress!” –Settembrini the organ-grinder in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in mo ... Show More
47m 7s
Oct 2021
Hegel: The Case For Contradiction with Todd McGowan
<p>In this episode, Craig, Will, Matt, and Adam are joined by University of Vermont Professor Todd McGowan to discuss Hegel's concept of contradiction as he lays it out in his book, Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution. Throughout the latter part of ... Show More
1 h