Philosophical Dictionary

Are philosophers deliberately confusing? Explore the "Death of the Author," obscurantism, postmodernism, and how to tell if difficult philosophy is profound or pretentious. A practical guide to reading Heidegger, Derrida, and other obscure thinkers without losing your mind.

We discuss Roland Barthes and his use of semiotics to explain the extra meanings of mundane items. How can this process help us see the world around us in a different way?

Let's discover the difference between analytic and continental philosophy. Learn which approach matches your thinking style, why some philosophy feels like math while other philosophy feels like literature, and how both methods complement each other. Includes Russell's King of France, Heidegger, and practical examples.

In this article we will discuss the Marxist psychiatrist and father of decolonialism Franz Fanon. We'll take a peek into his descriptions of lived experience as a Black man and the harmfulness of a culture that sees whiteness as human.

Aristotle said contemplation was the highest life. Hannah Arendt said modernity killed it and replaced action with endless labor. Now we're trapped working and consuming instead of thinking or truly acting. Her 1958 book The Human Condition warned us: we became jobholders, not citizens or thinkers.

In this article, we discuss the life and work of Karl Marx's closest collaborator and friend, Friedrich Engels, and the way his practical approach to economics informed Marx's views.