Paths to nowhere

This interview with the philosopher Raymond Geuss, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, explores the questions animating his 2026 book Tracks in Chaos: Philosophical Orientation and Political Reflection (Polity). The book's title invokes Heidegger's image of the Holzweg – forest tracks cut through labour that often lead nowhere – which Geuss develops into a figure for philosophy as a historically situated, constrained, and dependent activity rather than an autonomous system. Drawing on his formation in Heidegger, Marx, and Adorno, he defends a suspicion of ordinary language and everyday concepts, proposing a ‘binary vision’ for operating within social practices while seeing through them. He distinguishes three senses of authority, none of which philosophy can claim, and separates ‘moralising’ from moral judgement proper. The interview closes with his diagnosis of a disintegrating West, marked by concentrated wealth and power, financialisation, technological deskilling, and a pervasive loss of orientation.

Interview · Judgement · Moral philosophy · Ordinary language philosophy · Political philosophy · Politics · Reflection (computer programming) · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Digital Education and Society · Digital Media and Philosophy