Tom Whyman
Biographic Data
| ID | 4375677 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Whyman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Whyman |
| SIGNATURE | WHYMAN T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0939-8134 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Fichte and Humanism About Reason
In proclaiming the importance of his philosophical system, Fichte often makes some reference to the progress of the human race – appealing to a notion of mankind that is universal and cosmopolitan, as well as being associated with both reason and freedom. For this reason, it makes sense to read Fichte as a sort of humanist – even if this isn’t something that has often been noted in the literature. Specifically, in this paper, I argue that Fichte …
Adorno's empiricism
Adorno's work contains pregnant references to the concepts of both “intellectual” and “metaphysical” experience. While the concept of metaphysical experience figures relatively prominently in the Adorno literature, intellectual experience has been largely neglected—indeed to the point that certain scholars have asserted that the two concepts are in fact the same. In this article, I demonstrate that they are not, while also showing how the concept…
Adornoian Hope and Murdochian Despair
Adorno is not often thought of as a ‘hopeful’ thinker. This is understandable: after all, for Adorno, we are not only unfortunate enough to inhabit ‘the wrong life’ – we are also, by inhabiting it, supposed to be denied any knowledge of the good. And yet, there is a curious optimism to Adorno’s pessimism. In this paper, I show why this apparent paradox in fact makes total sense – by means of a comparison between Adorno and another of the 20th cen…
Fanon, Violence, and Spontaneous Freedom
Frantz Fanon’s writings remain controversial for the force and openness with which they advocate violence in the context of decolonial political struggle. Prima facie, Fanon appears to suggest that decolonial political violence is somehow inherently good; this places him in tension with a certain common-sense thought about the ethics of political violence, which is that it is only OK to commit acts of violence when they cannot be avoided. In this…
Spontaneous hope, anger and climate activism
Hope is a disputed concept in the context of the climate movement. Basic analysis suggests that hope is important for political action – however, groups including XR have explicitly disavowed hope, and the facts of the crisis might more readily incline us to despair. Some authors, for instance Diana Stuart, have attempted to resolve this contradiction by arguing that ‘anti-hope’ climate activists are only rejecting forms of ‘false hope’, and that…
‘Lucifer in person’
Towards the end of her life, Iris Murdoch attempted (but did not succeed) to write a monograph on Heidegger. In this paper, I argue two things. Firstly, Murdoch’s Heidegger study is more than a mere curiosity – that in fact, Murdoch’s interest in Heidegger was bound up with the most fundamental concerns of her thought. Heidegger functioned for Murdoch as the most dangerous representative of the form of moral scepticism her own moral Platonism was…
From the ethics of procreation to the ethics of parenthood
At one point in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer asks:"If the act of procreation were neither the outcome of a desire nor accompanied by feelings of pleasure, but a matter to be decided on the basis of purely rational considerations, is it likely the human race would still exist?Would each of us not rather have felt so much pity for the coming generation as to prefer to spare it the burden of existence, or a…
Natalism, Natality, and the Climate Crisis
millennials, fear of climate change is a factor in their decision not to have children. 3 Meanwhile, a 2023 systematic review of such studies by a team of researchers at UCL found that in 12 out of 13 studies, conducted worldwide, stronger concerns about climate change were associated with a desire to have fewer children, or none at all (Dillarstone et al 2023).Recent books by authors such as Gina Rushton (2023), Elizabeth Rush (2023) and Anastas…
Dialectical Aristotelianism
I have noticed, in Anglophone philosophy, a certain way of invoking Marx. The pattern here is—understandably, given the relative scarcity of substantial engagement with Marx outside of (radical) political theory—a rather loose one. But I've spotted it in the work of John McDowell, Michael Thompson, and Mary Midgley. In each of these thinkers, Marx is invoked in the context of an inquiry into human nature: into the question of what (if anything) s…
Egoism and Class Consciousness, or
Interest in The German Ideology has largely focused on the ‘chapter’ on Feuerbach—invariably the focus of the various abridgements in which the work is usually read. But this does not reflect the weighting of the text itself, which is dominated by Marx and Engels's critique of the radical egoist philosopher Max Stirner. Which begs the question: just why did they spend so much time and effort writing about Stirner? In this paper, I will provide an…
Two sorts of philosophical therapy
In a recent article, Fabian Freyenhagen argues that we should understand first-generation Frankfurt School critical theory (in particular, the work of Adorno and Horkheimer) as being defined by a kind of ‘linguistic turn’ analogous to one present in the later Wittgenstein. Here, I elaborate on this hypothesis – initially by calling it into question, by detailing Herbert Marcuse’s extensive criticisms of Wittgenstein (and other analytic philosophe…
Adorno’s Wrong Life Claim and the Concept of Despair
Adorno’s critical theory is distinguished by his affirming what I call the ‘Wrong Life Claim’ (WLC), the claim that everything in existence exhibits wrongness or badness. This claim is notoriously hard to justify. The WLC, as I describe it, appears to rest on two things: the first is a form of Hegelian social holism; the second is some experience of or fundamental orientation towards reality which can motivate an ‘inversion’ of said holism. In th…
Adorno's Aristotle Critique and Ethical Naturalism
In this paper, I do three things. First, I unpack and outline an intriguing but neglected aspect of the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno—namely, his critique of Aristotle, which can be found in two of his lecture series: the unpublished 1956 lectures on moral philosophy and the 1965 lectures published as Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Second, I demonstrate how Adorno's Aristotle critique constitutes a powerf…
Radical ethical naturalism
In this article, I identify – and clear up – two problems for contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism. The first I call the problem of alienation; the second the problem of conservatism. I argue that these problems will persist, both for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of ethical naturalism, unless ethical naturalists adopt what I call ‘Practical Realism’ about essential human form. Such a Practical Realism leaves open the possibility of radical…
Adorno's Aristotle Critique and Ethical Naturalism
In this paper, I do three things. First, I unpack and outline an intriguing but neglected aspect of the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno—namely, his critique of Aristotle, which can be found in two of his lecture series: the unpublished 1956 lectures on moral philosophy and the 1965 lectures published as Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Second, I demonstrate how Adorno's Aristotle critique constitutes a powerf…
Radical ethical naturalism
In this article, I identify – and clear up – two problems for contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism. The first I call the problem of alienation; the second the problem of conservatism. I argue that these problems will persist, both for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of ethical naturalism, unless ethical naturalists adopt what I call ‘Practical Realism’ about essential human form. Such a Practical Realism leaves open the possibility of radical…
Adorno's Aristotle Critique and Ethical Naturalism
In this paper, I do three things. First, I unpack and outline an intriguing but neglected aspect of the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno—namely, his critique of Aristotle, which can be found in two of his lecture series: the unpublished 1956 lectures on moral philosophy and the 1965 lectures published as Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Second, I demonstrate how Adorno's Aristotle critique constitutes a powerf…
Radical ethical naturalism
In this article, I identify – and clear up – two problems for contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism. The first I call the problem of alienation; the second the problem of conservatism. I argue that these problems will persist, both for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of ethical naturalism, unless ethical naturalists adopt what I call ‘Practical Realism’ about essential human form. Such a Practical Realism leaves open the possibility of radical…
Adorno’s Wrong Life Claim and the Concept of Despair
Adorno’s critical theory is distinguished by his affirming what I call the ‘Wrong Life Claim’ (WLC), the claim that everything in existence exhibits wrongness or badness. This claim is notoriously hard to justify. The WLC, as I describe it, appears to rest on two things: the first is a form of Hegelian social holism; the second is some experience of or fundamental orientation towards reality which can motivate an ‘inversion’ of said holism. In th…
Egoism and Class Consciousness, or
Interest in The German Ideology has largely focused on the ‘chapter’ on Feuerbach—invariably the focus of the various abridgements in which the work is usually read. But this does not reflect the weighting of the text itself, which is dominated by Marx and Engels's critique of the radical egoist philosopher Max Stirner. Which begs the question: just why did they spend so much time and effort writing about Stirner? In this paper, I will provide an…
Two sorts of philosophical therapy
In a recent article, Fabian Freyenhagen argues that we should understand first-generation Frankfurt School critical theory (in particular, the work of Adorno and Horkheimer) as being defined by a kind of ‘linguistic turn’ analogous to one present in the later Wittgenstein. Here, I elaborate on this hypothesis – initially by calling it into question, by detailing Herbert Marcuse’s extensive criticisms of Wittgenstein (and other analytic philosophe…
From the ethics of procreation to the ethics of parenthood
At one point in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer asks:"If the act of procreation were neither the outcome of a desire nor accompanied by feelings of pleasure, but a matter to be decided on the basis of purely rational considerations, is it likely the human race would still exist?Would each of us not rather have felt so much pity for the coming generation as to prefer to spare it the burden of existence, or a…
Natalism, Natality, and the Climate Crisis
millennials, fear of climate change is a factor in their decision not to have children. 3 Meanwhile, a 2023 systematic review of such studies by a team of researchers at UCL found that in 12 out of 13 studies, conducted worldwide, stronger concerns about climate change were associated with a desire to have fewer children, or none at all (Dillarstone et al 2023).Recent books by authors such as Gina Rushton (2023), Elizabeth Rush (2023) and Anastas…
Dialectical Aristotelianism
I have noticed, in Anglophone philosophy, a certain way of invoking Marx. The pattern here is—understandably, given the relative scarcity of substantial engagement with Marx outside of (radical) political theory—a rather loose one. But I've spotted it in the work of John McDowell, Michael Thompson, and Mary Midgley. In each of these thinkers, Marx is invoked in the context of an inquiry into human nature: into the question of what (if anything) s…
Spontaneous hope, anger and climate activism
Hope is a disputed concept in the context of the climate movement. Basic analysis suggests that hope is important for political action – however, groups including XR have explicitly disavowed hope, and the facts of the crisis might more readily incline us to despair. Some authors, for instance Diana Stuart, have attempted to resolve this contradiction by arguing that ‘anti-hope’ climate activists are only rejecting forms of ‘false hope’, and that…
‘Lucifer in person’
Towards the end of her life, Iris Murdoch attempted (but did not succeed) to write a monograph on Heidegger. In this paper, I argue two things. Firstly, Murdoch’s Heidegger study is more than a mere curiosity – that in fact, Murdoch’s interest in Heidegger was bound up with the most fundamental concerns of her thought. Heidegger functioned for Murdoch as the most dangerous representative of the form of moral scepticism her own moral Platonism was…
Fichte and Humanism About Reason
In proclaiming the importance of his philosophical system, Fichte often makes some reference to the progress of the human race – appealing to a notion of mankind that is universal and cosmopolitan, as well as being associated with both reason and freedom. For this reason, it makes sense to read Fichte as a sort of humanist – even if this isn’t something that has often been noted in the literature. Specifically, in this paper, I argue that Fichte …
Adorno's empiricism
Adorno's work contains pregnant references to the concepts of both “intellectual” and “metaphysical” experience. While the concept of metaphysical experience figures relatively prominently in the Adorno literature, intellectual experience has been largely neglected—indeed to the point that certain scholars have asserted that the two concepts are in fact the same. In this article, I demonstrate that they are not, while also showing how the concept…
Adornoian Hope and Murdochian Despair
Adorno is not often thought of as a ‘hopeful’ thinker. This is understandable: after all, for Adorno, we are not only unfortunate enough to inhabit ‘the wrong life’ – we are also, by inhabiting it, supposed to be denied any knowledge of the good. And yet, there is a curious optimism to Adorno’s pessimism. In this paper, I show why this apparent paradox in fact makes total sense – by means of a comparison between Adorno and another of the 20th cen…
Fanon, Violence, and Spontaneous Freedom
Frantz Fanon’s writings remain controversial for the force and openness with which they advocate violence in the context of decolonial political struggle. Prima facie, Fanon appears to suggest that decolonial political violence is somehow inherently good; this places him in tension with a certain common-sense thought about the ethics of political violence, which is that it is only OK to commit acts of violence when they cannot be avoided. In this…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Critical Theory and Philosophy (5 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Environmental ethics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works)