Marginalia

Hans Jonas confronts the theological challenge posed by Auschwitz.

He questions whether divine goodness, intelligibility, and omnipotence can all be maintained after the Holocaust.

His speculative account imagines a God who relinquishes unrestricted power in creating the world.

This God suffers and cares but cannot simply intervene to prevent human evil.

The argument places responsibility for what happens in the world more firmly on human beings.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice — Hans Jonas

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Eichmann vs. Arendt - Against the Banality of Evil · Rosenzweig and Heidegger: Between Judaism and German Philosophy (Peter E. Gordon)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Peter Gordon examines Adorno’s sustained engagement with existentialism and phenomenology.

He follows Adorno’s criticisms of Kierkegaard, Husserl, and Heidegger across his career.

These encounters help explain how Adorno developed his own materialist philosophy.

The discussion includes his objections to authenticity and the idealization of inward subjectivity.

Gordon shows how criticism could coexist with a lasting intellectual bond to these traditions.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Adorno and Existence — Peter E. Gordon

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Related episodes: A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity (Peter E. Gordon) · Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization (Peter E. Gordon)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Peter Gordon asks whether religious ideas can retain critical value in secular political life.

The book examines this question through Benjamin, Horkheimer, and Adorno.

Their work explores how theological concepts change as they enter a profane world.

Gordon considers the relationship between secularization, social criticism, and hopes for justice.

The inquiry asks which religious resources can survive transformation without retaining religious authority.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization — Peter E. Gordon

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Adorno and Existence (Peter E. Gordon) · Confronting Antisemitism: Fighting Antisemitism Today (Theodor Adorno)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Paul Mendes-Flohr examines the combined Jewish and German inheritance of German-Jewish culture.

Franz Rosenzweig’s image of a land of two rivers frames the discussion.

The book explores cultural affiliation, assimilation, and the tensions of belonging to more than one tradition.

German cultural participation did not necessarily bring full acceptance within German society.

This history offers a broader account of the challenges of living with plural identities.

Series: History & Judaism

German Jews: A Dual Identity — Paul Mendes-Flohr

Publication source

Explore: History & Judaism

Related episodes: Cambridge History of Judaism - Topics: Jews of Lithuania · Cambridge History of Judaism 2 - The Hellenistic Age 1/2

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Nicholas Van Handel studies the prosodic structure readers assign during silent reading.

The dissertation compares Maze tasks and self-paced reading as methods for investigating implicit prosody.

Its experiments examine how mentally supplied rhythm and phrasing affect sentence processing.

The findings support the Maze task’s sensitivity and its more localized processing effects.

The work also outlines how grammatical principles could guide incremental prosodic parsing.

Series: Language & Linguistics

The Sound of Silence: Investigations of Implicit Prosody — Nicholas J. Van Handel

Publication source

Explore: Language & Linguistics

Related episodes: Optimality Theory (René Kager) · Phonological Tone (Moira Yip)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Peter E. Gordon challenges the image of Theodor Adorno as a philosopher of unqualified despair.

In A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity, he argues that criticism of a damaged society can still be guided by possibilities for a better life.

The book examines fragments of happiness and human flourishing within Adorno’s philosophy and aesthetics.

These possibilities help explain the standards behind Adorno’s social criticism.

The central question is what gives a critique its force when the world it criticizes is also the source of its values.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity — Peter E. Gordon

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Related episodes: Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) — Full Discussion · Adorno and Existence (Peter E. Gordon)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Adorno examines modern society through aphorisms and reflections on everyday life.

Written in exile, the work connects private experience with capitalism and historical catastrophe.

Its subjects include morality, relationships, culture, intellectual work, and damaged autonomy.

Small observations reveal how social pressures reach into seemingly personal choices.

The book uses critical reflection to test the possibility of a less damaged life.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life — Theodor W. Adorno

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · Art & Music

Related episodes: Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius (Detlev Claussen) · Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) — Full Discussion

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Detlev Claussen traces Adorno’s life through the upheavals of twentieth-century Europe.

The biography connects his Frankfurt upbringing and musical education with his intellectual development.

Exile and the catastrophe of Nazism shape the account of his work and relationships.

Benjamin, Horkheimer, and other contemporaries help place critical theory in its historical setting.

Claussen examines how Adorno’s experiences informed his reflections on culture and modern society.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius — Detlev Claussen

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) · Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) — Full Discussion

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Susanne Langer develops a theory of art as the symbolic expression of human feeling.

She distinguishes artistic forms from the discursive symbols used in ordinary language and science.

Painting, music, dance, and literature create different kinds of imagined space, time, and experience.

These forms make patterns of feeling available without reducing them to literal statements.

The book treats artworks as expressive structures rather than records of an artist’s personal emotions.

Series: Art & Music

Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art — Susanne K. Langer

Publication source

Explore: Art & Music · Philosophy & Critical Theory

Related episodes: Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art (Celeste Marcus) · On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (Edward Said)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Vygotsky examines how thought and language develop through childhood.

He argues that speech begins in social interaction and can become internalized verbal thought.

The book investigates the changing relationship between word meaning and consciousness.

It connects concept formation with children’s everyday experience and school instruction.

Language provides a central route into his account of higher mental functions.

Series: Mind & Psychology

Thought and Language — Lev S. Vygotsky

Publication source

Explore: Mind & Psychology · Language & Linguistics

Related episodes: Evolutionary Psychology and Development (Palacios et al.) · Human Nature (D. W. Winnicott)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!