Philosophy and the Capitalist World

Philosophy today faces two challenges: first, it is not critical enough of its own processes and concepts; second, it is inadequate to the present. The first claim can be grasped more easily than the second. Reading theory today, it is remarkable how many concepts have been transformed into entities that one can imagine snatching with tweezers and dropping in a jar for further study back in the lab. Too often theory challenges the equation between concepts and objects only to dead-end in the reassertion of some primal category like “desire,” “the subject,” “the political,” and so on. It is perhaps impossible to do otherwise; but in that case we should be aware of the limits of what we parade about as critical theory. This paper deals with some theses on tis matter and will review the condition of philosophy in our contemporary postmodern situation