Dan Taylor

  • Lockdown Stoics

    I’m teaching two philosophy courses online on Mondays, starting next week: The Stoics Society, Language, Difference Both through the Mary Ward Centre at a highly affordable rate (11 classes for £73/£32) The Stoics well, because, in times like these… But also because these thinkers, and ones I’ve grouped around them on this experimental course, have…

  • Cosmic dancer

    This has been a time of unprecedently intense dreaming. And little wonder, when dreams are one of the few places in which we are free to roam. Evidence (anecdotal and otherwise) seems to suggest that many of us have been dreaming much more intensely since this lockdown. With the old world either paused or at…

  • Hope and fear

    ‘Hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of men’ – Nietzsche ‘not to laugh at human actions, or mourn them, or curse them, but only to understand them’ – Spinoza   The ancient Greeks disliked hope. In his history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides describes it as a form of…

  • Back to school

    This week has had that short-breathed, edgy feeling, as all my teaching gigs fall into place. So many new faces and names, so many different things to try and remember. Each year my teaching load expands. I’m learning how to spin more plates simultaneously, and find myself learning more widely as I go. It’s thrilling;…

  • Where are we going? Philosophy in the Anthropocene

    Mark Fisher once wrote that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. As evidence of dramatic climate change mounts, film and TV are awash with endless dystopian futures, contributing to an air of fatalism and resignation. But philosophy has historically demanded that we think through and beyond the…

  • Update (October 2018)

    Just an update on my goings-on, which on a professional level haven’t changed much. Since September I’ve been back teaching at Goldsmiths and the Mary Ward. At Goldsmiths I’m teaching a couple of first year History modules; at Mary Ward I’m halfway through a course on Hannah Arendt as well as the introductory classes, with…

  • Updates

    The last six months have been good, if defined by hard work. Teaching has been a joy, and it’s been great to work with such bright students. Fascinating essays and some inspired conversations. Not much is worthy of self-publicity (is anything?), but a couple of updates are due. I’m back at Mary Ward Centre teaching…

  • Four Conversations

    I’m speaking this Sunday afternoon in London at Conway Hall, ‘Four Conversations: A United Kingdom?’, at the Bloomsbury Festival. The theme is nationalism and identity, explored from four different perspectives within the UK. I’ll be joined by Ewen Cameron, Jennifer Thomson, Daryl Leeworthy, and the audience. It’s free, and has been brought together with the…

  • Spinoza in London

    From next Monday I’m teaching a 12-week course on the philosophy of Spinoza that’s open to the public. It will explore Spinoza’s Ethics in depth, as well as the Theological-Political Treatise and its contributions to the Enlightenment and modern political ideas. We’ll be thinking with Spinoza about nature, knowledge, freedom, contentment, and democracy. While some…

  • K Blundell Award

    Some wonderful news: I have received one of the K Blundell Trust’s awards to help complete my next book. The Trust gives grants to British authors aged below 40 whose works aim to increase social awareness, and are awarded twice a year. Crucially, these are awards for works in progress. If one has neither a…