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Knox Peden

Knox Peden

Knox Peden is Senior Lecturer in European Enlightenment Studies at the University of Queensland, where he teaches in the Advanced Humanities Programme in Western Civilisation. He is the author of Spinoza Contra Phenomenology: French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze (Stanford, 2014) and, with Stephen Gaukroger, French Philosophy: A very short introduction (Oxford, 2020). Among other venues, his writings have also appeared in Modern Intellectual History, History & Theory, and the Sydney Review of Books.

Knox Peden reviews 'Capitalism: The story behind the word' by Michael Sonenscher

July 2023, no. 455 27 June 2023
Karl Marx was coy about what lay on the other side of capitalism. Communism, in his phrase, amounted to ‘the real movement which abolishes the present state of things’. As a guide to the organisation of society, the pugnacious phrase left something to be desired – literally. Though he appreciated capitalism as an essential stage in the progress of humanity, Marx nevertheless treated its supe ... (read more)

Knox Peden reviews 'Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought' by Tae-Yeoun Keum

September 2021, no. 435 23 August 2021
Tae-Yeoun Keum’s Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought is a study well suited to the moment. The convergence of pandemic conspiracy theories with populist narratives of globalist malfeasance shows that the desire for stories that give meaning to our collective experience is alive and kicking (if not exactly well). We are told we’re moving into a post-truth age. Yet cries of ‘fa ... (read more)