Invasive Thoughts

Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov

4.6 (10)
PHILOSOPHY

Let our thoughts invade yours. Khafiz and Nicholas teach at St. John's College, Annapolis. Follow us on Instagram: @invasive_thoughts

JAN 27

Jon Cogburn (GUEST): Bridging the Continental-Analytic Divide; Paradoxico-Metaphysics; and, Panpsychism, or, are all things Mind?

In this episode of Invasive Thoughts, we’re joined by Jon Cogburn, Chair of Philosophy at Louisiana State University. Jon sketches a history of the Continental–Analytic divide in American philosophy and suggests what it might take to bridge it today. Jon explains how more than one metaphysics could be true at the same time, and how even a self-contradictory metaphysics could be true. We go on to discuss contemporary philosophy’s attraction to set theory; the flat ontologies of Graham Harman and Tristan Garcia; ancient and contemporary forms of panpsychism; and, along the way, why philosophers so often find themselves at odds with administrators. We talk about the religion of Silicon Valley, philosophy’s relationship to popular culture (Jon has co-authored a book on philosophy and Dungeons & Dragons), and finally Jon’s Buddhism and how it informs his philosophical outlook.

1h 41m
JAN 20

David Wellbery (GUEST): Goethe, the Age of Goethe, and World Literature

David Wellbery (UChicago German, Social Thought) joins us to discuss Goethe's work, life, and milieu. He describes Goethe's position at the center of an intellectual and artistic world which included Schiller, Hölderlin, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, the Schlegels, the Humboldts, and many other intellectual and scientific figures of the period. He also explains some of Goethe's administrative responsibilities, carried out with incredible energy and efficiency: from the oversight of the University of Jena to the directorship of a mining operation in Weimar. This episode will give listeners a sense of Goethe's astonishingly various achievements in literature and natural philosophy. David also describes his own hopes for the humanities via an idea of world literature.

1h 25m
JAN 14

Richard Strier (GUEST): Shakespeare, Herbert, Jarrell, Dylan

Richard Strier (UChicago English, emeritus) recites the poem that changed his career, explains why formalism and historicism should be friends, offers us a way of reading George Herbert’s “Love” (III) and lets us in on a current argument with a friend about a Bob Dylan song.

1h 32m
12/28/2025

Terry Pinkard (GUEST): Hegel's America and America's Hegel

Terry Pinkard, renowned Hegel scholar and translator of the Phenomenology of Spirit (2018) sits down with us to discuss his own intellectual career; the challenges of reading, translating, and understanding Hegel; when and how Hegel found a home in America and his relation to American democracy; and American pragmatism. #Americanphilosophy #pragmatism #Hegel #Dewey #translation #Germanidealism #PhenomenologyofSpirit

1h 21m
11/06/2025

Peirce Again: Chance, Necessity, Love

We return to Peirce for an exploration of his more speculative, systematic essays ("A Guess at the Riddle", "Evolutionary Love”, and others). What should all systems of thought have in common? What would it mean to privilege spontaneity, chance, and even love in a philosophical worldview? What is “agapasm”? What happens to philosophy after Darwin? And what mystical meaning do the numbers 1, 2, and 3 have for an antimetaphysical thinker like Peirce? #pragmatism #speculativephilosophy #tychism #agapasm #synechism #PeircenotPierce #Americanphilosophy

1h 6m
09/06/2025

Metzinger's Ego Machines

How do advances in neuroscience disrupt our intuitive notions of the self? Thomas Metzinger's The Ego Tunnel brings together philosophy and the science of the brain to offers a novel redefinition of what it means to be an individual in the world. Direct brain manipulation, psychopharmacology, induced out-of-body experiences—all of these pose new political and philosophical challenges for humanity.

1h 7m
07/10/2025

Jane Addams and Hull House

For our sixth episode, we talk about the writings and social work of Jane Addams, American pragmatist philosopher, founder of Hull House in Chicago, and co-founder of the ACLU. For her peace advocacy, Addams (1860-1935) was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize. She bantered with Tolstoy and became Chicago's first female garbage inspector. Tune in to hear more about her ideas and activities.

59 min
06/09/2025

Agamben's Bored Animals

What distinguishes human beings from animals? The question has been a mainstay of philosophy for over two thousand years. Is it our bipedalism? Our rationality? Or could it be our capacity for boredom? Giorgio Agamben takes up this question and its consequences in The Open: Man and Animal (2002).

1h 22m
05/16/2025

Northrop Frye's Literary Universe

What is literary criticism? What concept of literature underlies it? Northrop Frye's 1957 Anatomy of Criticism sketches a vast and comprehensive map of the literary universe and shows us what it would look like to entertain a total order of literature. We discuss aspects of Frye's visionary project as well as literary criticism's status today.

1h 4m
04/04/2025

Meillassoux's Failed Coup

Quentin Meillassoux's 2006 After Finitude seemed like it was going to revolutionize philosophy. It didn't. We talk about its radical implications and why it may still have traction today.

58 min
04/04/2025

Hegel, Goethe's Gardener

Around the time he was finishing the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel almost became director of Goethe's botanical gardens in Jena. We play around with affinities between Goethe's botany and Hegel's idealism.

1h 19m
04/04/2025

Peirce, the "Greatest American Thinker"?

"Certainly the greatest American thinker ever." - Bertrand Russell. A foray into the thought of Charles Sanders Peirce, father of pragmatism, largely through six classic essays.

1h 24m

12 Episodes

4.6

out of 5

10 Ratings

Let our thoughts invade yours. Khafiz and Nicholas teach at St. John's College, Annapolis. Follow us on Instagram: @invasive_thoughts

Creator

Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

12
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov
Show Website

Invasive Thoughts