A Political and Literary Forum
Two new books take aim at the moral failures of meritocracy. But we can advocate for a more just society without giving up on merit.
Agnes Callard
At a time of anxiety about fake news and conspiracy theories, philosophy can contribute to our most urgent cultural and political questions about how we come to believe what we think we know.
Michael Patrick Lynch
Happy birthday, John Rawls! We celebrate the political philosopher’s centenary, as well as the 50th anniversary of the publication of “A Theory of Justice.”
Joshua Cohen, Boston Review
The threat of fascism has grown before our eyes. Black Marxism helps us to fight it with greater clarity, with a more expansive conception of the task before us, and with ever more questions.
Robin D. G. Kelley
The Krugs and Dolezals dominate the headlines, but they are distractions from the fraud that imperils us all: believing oneself to be white.
Luvell Anderson
Much maligned as a mere tactician of power, Machiavelli was in fact a philosopher of the people. His critique of oligarchic domination remains essential today.
Camila Vergara
A new book suggests that modern readers can still follow the path of reason that Spinoza traced to true well-being, but they might not want to.
Carlos Fraenkel
Many reject privatization for its distributional consequences. The deeper problem is that it threatens the very foundation of political legitimacy.
Chiara Cordelli
Unlike gender inequality, racial inequality primarily accumulates across generations. Transracial identification undermines collective reckoning with that injustice.
Robin Dembroff, Dee Payton
Simone de Beauvoir’s relationship with her readers was a mutually demanding collaboration.
Vivian Gornick
The Frankfurt School on the appeal of authoritarianism—and how to counteract it.
Charles H. Clavey
Pestilence and plague have often prompted waves of apocalyptic thinking, calling into question the steady march of progress in human history.
John Merrick
Anger’s history—along with the very fact that it has one—can shed light on the hypertrophied emotional climate of today.
David Konstan
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Alex de Waal
Paul R. Katz, Leandro Ferreira
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