Faraday, Blanchot and Gorz: the day the centre gave way

Faraday was born on 22 September 1791, Blanchot on 22 September 1907. André Gorz died on the day in 2007, with his wife Dorine, by their own decision. Three lives that each removed a centre, the atom, the author, the self-sufficient self; and two lesser names, Ruffini and Potebnia, who did the same to the formula and the word.

Schopenhauer, Williams and Bunge on what philosophy can do for a life

Arthur Schopenhauer died on his sofa in Frankfurt on 21 September 1860. Bernard Williams was born on the date in 1929, Mario Bunge in 1919, Peter van Inwagen in 1942; Savonarola in 1452, and Virgil died on it in 19 BC. Each had a view on how much philosophy can settle, and they do not agree.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Bernard Williams

Strauss, Montague, Rose and Piper: what a text hides and what it shows

Leo Strauss was born on 20 September 1899, Richard Montague in 1930, Gillian Rose in 1947 and Adrian Piper in 1948; Annie Besant died on the date in 1933. Four births and a death, and between them a quarrel about whether meaning is something hidden between the lines or something fully on the surface.

Leo Strauss

Brussels proposes an EU-wide age limit for social media and a ban on profiling feeds for minors

The European Commission's KIDS Act, presented in Strasbourg on 17 September, would bar under-13s from social media, confine 13- and 14-year-olds to parent-managed accounts, switch off profiling-based recommender feeds for everyone under 18 and shift the burden of proof onto platforms. It reopens a question Mill thought he had closed.

What social media actually shows is which desires an algorithm can amplify

The claim that platforms expose a society's collective unconscious is unfalsifiable and unnecessary. A smaller claim survives contact with the evidence, and it is the more disturbing one: what billions of small reactions register is not what a society hides, but what its ranking systems can be made to select for.

Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Rancière, Émile Durkheim, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord

Who licenses knowledge: Freire, Gilson and Vattimo on 19 September

Paulo Freire was born on this day in 1921; Etienne Gilson died on it in 1978, Gianni Vattimo in 2023. On the same date in 1796 a Philadelphia printer published a letter no one had heard spoken. Four anniversaries, one argument about who is entitled to say what counts as knowledge.

Paulo Freire, Gianni Vattimo

The AI art trial that did not happen, and the question it still poses

Reports that Andersen v. Stability AI went to a San Francisco jury this month are false: the docket shows a case still in discovery, no class certified and trial set for June 2027. Beside Thaler v. Perlmutter, closed by the Supreme Court in March, it shows how poorly copyright's two words, copy and author, fit what artists say was taken.