I subtitled last year’s review “More Philosophy, Less Politics.” The distinction that I drew between “politics” and “philosophy” was not mean to suggest that philosophy has no political implications, but that the province of its interests is wider than the collective governance of the public sphere and the social forces that shape it. It was more an expression of my own desire to think more broadly and deeply about the problems of human life that originally drew me into philosophy: Is life meaningful? must it be meaningful to be worth living? what are the implications for the value of our lives of the fact that we evolved through a series of happy accidents and that death equals annihilation; but also, in the age of Chat-GPT, what remains distinctive about human experience and thought?; what is the value of work in a period where we can imagine intelligent machines doing everything for us?; what is the difference between human creativity and the machinic assemblage of sentences and images?; how can philosophers cultivate the desire to think and create in the age of advancing AI?; how can we cultivate a taste for the “mistake” in the age where one-dimensional machine perfection is the norm?

My goal was only partially realized. i was able to think out loud about problems that interest me as a philosopher and I reviewed more books than I normally do. I enjoy engaging with the works of other thinkers and writers; reviewing books is an excellent lesson in intellectual humility. A good review should, I think, draw out the truth of the text and never lecture or scold about what the author should have written (i.e., the book you would have written). But– and I blame the world– I kept getting dragged back to problems of social organization Since the current structures and forces of global and national life-organization are directly responsible for killing masses of human beings and systematically depriving hundreds of millions of others of even the most basic necessities of dignified and enjoyable life, one cannot be interested in questions of the meaning and value of life and the reconciliation of different world views and ignore the political realities of world.

Those realities grow darker by the minute. As I write Israel and Iran continue to lob missiles at each other. From afar, the absurdity is apparent and the adolescent-boy tough talk from both sides nauseating. The alternative is so simple: trust and talk. (If Trump really were the tough guy he pretends to be he would take on a really difficult task: threatening to ut off all weapons to Israel until it begins to abide by international law and negotiate a seriously with the Palestinians).

Alas, Trump is mostly talk and politics- as I discussed in a few different posts last year– does not obey the logic of objective rationality.

Case in point: millions of American workers once again voted for a billionaire property developer and showman, thinking that he will protect their interests. In the not yet 6 months that he has been in office, Donald Trump has unleashed the worst of human instincts on his country and the world. His administration continues to aid and abet war criminal behaviour in Israel, indulges in the xenophobic projection of the causes of all social problems onto a demonized other, unapologetically uses state violence to attack internal enemies, and openly collapses the difference between state interests and personal ambition (a hallmark of totalitarianism across historical time). Perhaps worst of all, Trump’s undisguised assaults on liberal-democratic institutions has been supported by a pervasive mindlessness and open disdain for empirical truths and principled consistency of position that makes his administration impervious to rational argument.

Philosophy is reflective and historical and not a future-oriented predictive science, but I feel confident in saying that Trump is a symptom and not the cause of a dying world. The old world was riddled with contradictions that are now exploding alongside Israel’s and Iran’s bombs: the contradiction between a global economy and an international political system divided into nations states; the contradiction between the capitalist need for growth and the finite resources of the planet; the class contradictions between a ruling class appropriating ever more wealth for itself and the majority subsisting on less and less, in more and more precarious circumstances, and the even wider chasm between the wealth and energy consumption of the Global North and the Global South. The problem solving capacities of the old institutional order have been exhausted.

Philosophy cannot predict the future nor can it solve the problems it studies. The number one duty of the philosopher is to try to understand. It seems inhuman to try to grasp causes as objectively and dispassionately as possible when people are suffering and dying. But if change requires clear understanding of causes then philosophy serves the mission of promoting universal understanding best when it takes the side of evidence and truth against all one-sided ideologies and fundamentalisms and refuses to uncritically cheerlead political movements. The truth is: wars kill, lack of food and sanitation kills, lack of education chokes the development of cognitive and creative potential, ideologically contrived hatreds keep tyrants in power and impoverish the world. Philosophy takes the side of those truths. Its ultimate goal is to promote mutual understanding between groups who agree on those basic facts of life. Mutual understanding is a virtuous circle of reciprocal learning, expanded intelligence, and shard joy at being alive together. The blog will continue to advance that goal as best I can.

Thanks to my readers and those who contribute through their comments. As with years past I have left a few of the less context-dependent of last year’s posts up and all have been collected– just because I like collecting things– and published here.