Invasive Thoughts

Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov
  • 4.7 (13)
  • PHILOSOPHY

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

  1. Emily Riehl (GUEST): Metamathematics and Infinity Category Theory

    APR 6

    Emily Riehl (GUEST): Metamathematics and Infinity Category Theory

    Emily Riehl (Johns Hopkins, Mathematics) joins us to discuss the power of abstraction in mathematics. Is category theory the mathematics of mathematics? What is infinity category theory? How has the form of a mathematical proof changed over time? Can AI execute mathematical proofs? Check out Emily's game, Reintroduction to Proofs: https://adam.math.hhu.de/#/g/emilyriehl/reintroductiontoproofs

    1h 17m
  2. Peter Fenves (GUEST): Kant's Rational Delusions

    MAR 10

    Peter Fenves (GUEST): Kant's Rational Delusions

    Peter Fenves (Northwestern) poses some unexpected questions relating to Immanuel Kant’s thought. How does politics emerge from a shortage of space? Should we understand humans as two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional creatures? Why do we so often desire to fly? Is the moral destiny of humanity to give way to a new species of rational beings on Earth? Is Nicholas delusional? (Listen at minute 53.) Finally, we consider what disappointed Walter Benjamin in Kant’s writings on history and how Benjamin’s critique reframes the Enlightenment conception of science.

    1h 29m
  3. Sean Kirkland (GUEST): Nietzsche and Heidegger at the End of Metaphysics

    FEB 8

    Sean Kirkland (GUEST): Nietzsche and Heidegger at the End of Metaphysics

    Is Nietzsche a philosopher or an anti-philosopher? Is Western philosophical thought one monolithic tradition? Sean Kirkland (DePaul Philosophy) joins us to discuss the position of such "threshold" thinkers as Plato and Aristotle on one hand and Heidegger and Nietzsche on the other. He also relates what he learned by translating Nietzsche for the new Stanford translation of the Complete Works. (This includes Nietzsche's punctuation habits: Sean counts 13 colons in one sentence from Nietzsche's drafts and 91 exclamation marks in The Birth of Tragedy.) Along the way, we return to the Greeks and the tragic vision of the world captured in Aristotle’s philosophy.

    1h 30m

  4. 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
  5. David Wellbery (GUEST): Goethe, the Age of Goethe, and World Literature

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

    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

  7. 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
  8. Peirce Again: Chance, Necessity, Love

    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
See All (15)

Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Nicholas Bellinson and Khafiz Kerimov
  • Show Website
    Invasive Thoughts

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