Archive of What is Philosophy?

Colm McAuliffe on the 1973 ICA festival that sparked British interest in Francophone structuralist and post-structuralist thought.

... and back in print! From Stuart Hall to Ellen Meiksins Wood, stock up on these classic works of theory and politics.

There are three kinds of idiots: those who can count, and those who can’t. The ones who can count are obsessed with debunking received ideas and finding the hidden truth behind it. They measure things, calculate, and through the rigorous use of their own idiosyncratic reasoning they know why the earth is flat. Then there’s idiots who want to diverge from received ideas but are more playful, willful, intentionally absurd. Byung-Chul Han reminds us of this kind of idiocy which Deleuze thought characteristic of the philosopher. Is Han this kind of special idiot? Maybe.