On two possible readings of Descartes’ Cogito, or, Descartes was a Cartesian even if he was ‘really’ a Heideggerian.

Descartes argument “the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind,” often paraphrased “I think, therefore I am,” has room for two separate interpretations, both of them profoundly different. The standard narrative (at least with the post-structuralists I hang out with) is that [...]

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The ways we ask for justice, or, why I am not a Rawlsian.

I’ve recently reread the segment from The Brothers Karamazov on Ivan’s rebellion. This time I was struck by the reasons Ivan gives for his rebellion, reasons that help identify the anxieties I have had of late in settling between two competing conceptions of justice: Rawlsian liberalism and postmodern socialism (I have in mind Laclau and [...]

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