“Taylor has taken on the most delicate and exacting of philosophical questions, the question of who we are and how we should live…and he has made this an adventure of self-discovery for his reader.” —Martha Nussbaum, New RepublicIn this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led—it seems to many—to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality.The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor’s goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.
The Human Condition: Second Edition
A classic work of political thought, more relevant today than ever The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, “the theorist of beginnings,” whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan’s 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.
A revolution in our sense of self | Nick Chater
Psychologists have tried to plumb the depths of human motivation to make sense of our behaviour. But our inner mental world is a fiction, sustained by constant improvisation
On liberty
Introductory -- Of the liberty of thought and discussion -- Of individuality, as one of the elements of well-being -- Of the limits to the authority of society over the individual -- Applications; Book, leather; Explanatory note by H.E. Barker attached; 18
The Care of the Self within a Biopolitical Paradigm: Integrating Cognitive Psychology to resist Subjectification
Contemporary theories of resistance to biopolitical subjectification often reify unfreedom by lacking a plausible model of agency. This thesis resolves this by establishing an ontological foundation for the agent as fundamentally autopoietic and semiotic, drawing on contemporary cognitive science. It then proposes a new foundation for resistance by synthesizing Michel Foucault’s later work on the care of the self with the 4P/5E model of embodied cognition. I show how this interdisciplinary approach establishes Foucault’s ethical techniques as a systematic ecology of practices for cultivating a free, self-determining agent and by reframing resistance as a practical, embodied ethics of self-formation, it inherently fosters two vital skills: the gain of self-knowledge and self-mastery.
Ecocivilization: making a world that works for all
""One of the greatest thinkers of our age" (The Guardian) presents a new way of living-one modeled on nature's design instead of capitalism's-for fans of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Doughnut Economics It has often been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism-and yet that is what the historical moment urgently calls for. Climate change has reached an emergency state, inequality continues to grow, and, for many, the future has never seemed more bleak. Incremental policy improvements are no longer enough-we need a deep transformation of our current civilization to continue to survive. In Ecocivilization, leading thinker Jeremy Lent reimagines the basis of our civilization, and argues for a new global system of living, one based on life-affirming principles modeled after nature's own design. What enfolds is a robust framework incorporating Lent's own expertise, and the lived experiences of those on the ground already putting ecological civilization's core tenants into practice-justice, mutuality, diversity, and symbiosis. From the global economy to universal housing and income, from infrastructure to agriculture, every major aspect of our society could be redesigned to work together as a coherent whole, setting the conditions for all people to flourish. Ecocivilization shows how this future on a regenerated Earth is not only desirable, but entirely feasible"--
"To Be Thy Adam": Agency, Activism & Collective Intelligence in the Ruins of the Human
Metamodern Individualism Anonymous
Diunital Cognition, Emotional Intelligence and Archaeological Therapy
The Inner Life of Liberalism - Aaron Ross Powell’s Blog
The practices that make your life better are the same ones that sustain a free society. It's time liberalism took that seriously.
Michel Bauwens on Twitter / X
This is the deeper motivation that inspires Caitlin's work:< " It is possible for the human organism to liberate itself from its habituated creation of the ego through the process commonly referred to as spiritual enlightenment. It is also possible for humanity as a species to… https://t.co/smsjPAnNFr— Michel Bauwens (@mbauwens) June 18, 2026
Individualism Reconsidered
Joe Peacott Individualism Reconsidered with a bibliography by Jerry Kaplan 1991
A Manifesto for a Future Philosophy (guest post) - Daily Nous
“This project of re-envisaging, looking at past ideas, and developing new ones to deal with our difficult situation will take the work of many people…” […]
Meditations on Machinic Desire
The philosopher and accelerationist Nick Land writes, in his 1993 essay Machinic Desire, three of the most insight-dense paragraphs I’ve ever encountered:
The Self-Evidencing Agent: Mind, Existence, and Predictive Processing
How the concept of self-evidencing offers a philosophical principle for understanding mind and behavior, consciousness, value, wisdom, and meaning.What is
Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good
Rather than taking AI as a central focus, this paper treats it as diagnostic of deeper contradictions. AI intensifies extractivism while being unable to deliver on its promises, and its rampant scaling of energy and resource demands heralds a form of ‘total mobilisation’. This paper proposes decomputing as a programme for pushing back against such technocratic nihilism. Decomputing adopts a degrowth framework and advocates for reclaiming agency through deautomatisation and people’s councils, in order to develop convivial alternatives that centre an ethics of care. It is a philosophical and tactical response to the wider crisis of care induced by the collapse of existing systems. Decomputing proposes a prefigurative praxis for those experiencing ruptures in the infrastructures of everyday life, while minimising the opening for an authoritarian turn or war economy. Rather than capitulating to an increasingly fascistic world order, decomputing advocates a shift in the idea of order itself, one that means challenging the idea that ever more advanced tech is synonymous with progress. The paper argues that reclaiming critical infrastructures can be decoupled from the collapse of the general technopolitical regime, and makes a plausibility argument informed by destituent power and largely forgotten British cybernetics. Where the Luddite call was to ‘put down all machinery hurtful to the Commonality’, the goal of decomputing is the infrastructuring of the common good.
Individualism | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
Indie Thinkers
A curated collection of quotes from the brightest minds on the internet.
