Book Review contributions are single-authored or multiple-authored reviews of recent books in the area of social epistemology.
I am grateful to Brian Martin for his thoughtful review of my book, Escaping Maya’s Palace. Yet there is more to say about the hidden psychological underbelly of modern civilization and capitalism and about the prospects for social transformation. …… Read More ›
Contemporary societies have many well-documented shortcomings, but is there a fundamental problem everyone is missing? And how would we go about discovering such a fundamental problem? How about reinterpreting an ancient epic for hidden psychological insights? … [please read below… Read More ›
The concept of transhumanism has risen to prominence in the early 21st century. Work from futurist thinkers such as Ray Kurzweil,[1] Nick Bostrom,[2] and Max Tegmark have fueled a popular understanding of artificial intelligence and genetic enhancement.[3] Mainstream culture has… Read More ›
Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion is an ambitious synthesis of Aztec thought written by a self-described analytic philosopher (3) who also has affinities with process thought. I am going to begin by saying why this book is timely… Read More ›
What is most interesting about Calamity Theory is the irony at its heart. Using the problematics of the existentialist tradition to critique Nick Bostrom’s existential risk project is fruitful. Despite the coincidence of word choice, existentialist philosophy has so little… Read More ›
“It’s time to confront conspiracy theories? We’ve always been out of time for that.” — Otto Blaast In Social Epistemology we find an essay by philosopher Steve Clarke, “Is There a New Conspiracism?”[1] He argues Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of… Read More ›
Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies is an easy book for me to review. Why do I make such an audacious statement at the start of this review? Because this book is inextricably linked to the last two books I… Read More ›
What do we mean when we talk about models? We mean simulacra, miniatures, objects which serve as physical abstractions in order to make a point or test a theory. More broadly speaking, models are mental or physical objects that belong… Read More ›
Books like Massimo Airoldi’s Machine Habitus contain radical, transformative ideas in accessible, professional prose. Airoldi’s ideas are radical because he advocates a shift of fundamental categories in what sociologists must consider the objects of their analysis in understanding modern society…. Read More ›
Like Florian Jaton (2022, 2021), I don’t have a lot of time for experiences that can’t be scrapped for parts and exchanged for healthcare benefits and other requisites to bare life. The book is as battered as he imagines, and… Read More ›