My third book Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom has now come out in paperback. It was actually released nearly two years ago at the usual heavy academic book price, so I was reluctant to publicise it at the time. But now I can! So get your instant Enlightenment, guaranteed. Everything you wanted to know about Spinoza but were afraid to ask.
Here’s my attempt at a Twitter thread where I set out why the book is worth a look.
And if that’s not sealed the deal, then you can get 30% off using the voucher code NEW30 when you order direct from Edinburgh University Press.
Apparently for a time you could get the other 70% off when you added the code MYMATEISDANYEAH but someone seems to have caught wind of this.
What’s that, you want to hear about all my other minor and obscure book chapters and niche ideas? Really? You sure? Ah fantastic. Well read on.
The other day I was on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme on “The invention of animals”, joining Katherine Rundell, Stella Sandford and Helen Cowie. I talked about medieval and early modern attitudes to animals and what they can tell us about politics and society.
I wrote an essay for The Philosopher titled “On Method”, which is out in their new issue. In it I set out what I think makes philosophical method interesting, journeying through the concepts of orientation, causality, metaphor and struggle. I recommend getting a subscription to this sharp, engaging and accessibly written magazine of ideas.
Heard about “climate anxiety” but don’t really know what it is? Or think maybe it’s a bit of an overreaction/load of old nonsense/one of the most pressing issues of our time/the reason we should pack it all in and move to the Faroes? Well you’re in luck, because I wrote an open access book chapter explaining what it is, how to understand it, and how we can make use it for a new edited collection. You can read it here.
Woah – wait up. I totally forget to share my possibly epoch-changing book review of David Ridley’s The Method of Democracy for the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. (It is a good book). You can read it here and it’s open access.
Last one – me and Marie Wuth have got a green light to develop a new edited collection, New Perspectives on Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise: Politics, Power and the Imagination, with Edinburgh University Press. All being well, that will appear in a couple of years.
Friends I won’t subject you to a long year in review. I read lots of books. Two which stood out were Didier Eribon’s Returning to Reims, The Qur’an and E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, which I read twice (but I wouldn’t trust my counting – I just said that was two). It was a hard year with moments of colour, like dancing to Kraftwerk one afternoon in a field. For those, and all the hugs I am blessed to share with my 4-year-old son, who amazes me every day with his smiles and his light, I am most thankful.
Dan Taylor 
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