Theory – Dan Taylor

On chess

My essay on chess is now up online on The Philosopher webpage: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/essay-taylor It’s written like a game of chess, involving two sides. It weighs up different styles and approaches to playing the game, as well as its place in literature and philosophy. I’d been interested in Spinoza’s connection to chess for a while, and…
Recent deeds

I have singularly failed to keep this blog updated with recent work. This might give the impression that I’ve been dwelling in a bunker, riding out the pandemic surrounded by tins of chopped tomatoes and piles of the London Review of Books. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But instead it’s been a whirlwind…
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…
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…
“A Brief History of Sacrifice” out now with Fold Press

Fold Press have published a long essay of mine, with a new accompanying essay by Steve Hanson. “A brief history of sacrifice” fuses Bataille with Burial, austerity cuts with public executions, Mauss with Facebook, signing on with the politics of self-immolation. It brings together observations on mental health, debt, wage slavery and alcohol’s consolations into…
Paper and razor

I’ve two oddball pieces in two collected editions by Pavement Books. “On Paper” is a short story, included by Jack Boulton in Hand Picked: Stimulus Respond, and “We hate humans!” is an article on skinheads and the demonisation of working class violence in Return to the Street, edited by Sophie Fuggle and Tom Henri. There…
Capitalism makes us anxious

Want to hear a joke in bad taste? Here goes: Four people are on an airplane when its engines fail: an investment banker, an economist, a pensioner, and a student. The hull catches fire, and there are only three parachutes. The banker grabs one and says “this plane is my property, it’s my right!” and…
Newspapers

A man wakes up punctually at his usual early time. A newspaper is delivered to his home, as he has arranged for every weekday morning. He completes the same washing routine, exercises reluctantly, eats the same moderate and healthy breakfast, and after dressing in his usual combination of sensible shirt and trousers, works through…
Three talks, two weeks

I’m temporary leaving the companionship of Spinoza and band rehearsals to give three talks on contemporary politics. It’d be nice to see people at Housmans in particular on 11th Sept. “Perverted by language: British political discourses of fairness, opportunity and security in the midst of financial crisis”, at the European Sociological Association 11th conference 2013,…
Check out the Nowt Press Anthology

‘Mephisto is the true herald of modernity’, so I argue in an essay in Beginning Again in the Middle: Nowt Press Anthology 1. The collection offers more incisive and nutritious fare aside from my manic ‘thirteen assertions’ on digitised economies (it’s hard to hold a straight face in a tongue like mine when you’re talking…