Tom Vandeputte
@tomvandeputte.bsky.social
Philosophy and critical theory | Professor at Sandberg Institute Amsterdam | Working on catastrophe, pessimism and utopian imagination | Books-in-progress: Benjamin, Anders, Weil
Pinned
Tom Vandeputte
@tomvandeputte.bsky.social
· Nov 20
A piece that came out in New German Critique sometime between leaving Twitter and rejoining this place: "Continuity as Catastrophe: Origins of a Thesis in Walter Benjamin."
read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-c...
Unfortunately no longer open access, but feel free to PM for a copy.
read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-c...
Unfortunately no longer open access, but feel free to PM for a copy.
Simone Weil commenting in the early 1940s on Thucydides’ “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” alongside its complement, “each human being always commands when he has the power to do so”:
January 7, 2026 at 8:14 AM
Simone Weil commenting in the early 1940s on Thucydides’ “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” alongside its complement, “each human being always commands when he has the power to do so”:
“The desire to possess is only a specific form of the hunger for power: the desire to make the world congruent to oneself, or more precisely, to coerce the world to become me. That it can, at most, become *mine* instead of *me*: this is […] already the first scandal and comprise.” (Anders, 1936)
January 6, 2026 at 4:32 PM
“The desire to possess is only a specific form of the hunger for power: the desire to make the world congruent to oneself, or more precisely, to coerce the world to become me. That it can, at most, become *mine* instead of *me*: this is […] already the first scandal and comprise.” (Anders, 1936)
Reposted by Tom Vandeputte
This selection of essays and interviews reflects the wide range of scholarship published on the blog in 2025.
Year in Review: Best of 2025
by the Primary Editors
www.jhiblog.org
December 31, 2025 at 4:30 PM
This selection of essays and interviews reflects the wide range of scholarship published on the blog in 2025.
Annual Christmas break reading: Gillian Rose
December 31, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Annual Christmas break reading: Gillian Rose
Günther Anders’ 1936 review of Bloch’s now famous analysis of fascism and non-contemporaneity: “For those interested in a concrete philosophy of history […] reading the chapter on Ungleichzeitigkeit, which is unfortunately buried underneath the others, will be indispensable.”
December 5, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Günther Anders’ 1936 review of Bloch’s now famous analysis of fascism and non-contemporaneity: “For those interested in a concrete philosophy of history […] reading the chapter on Ungleichzeitigkeit, which is unfortunately buried underneath the others, will be indispensable.”
Klossowski, “Time and Aggressiveness” (1936): “In the individual, aggressiveness presents itself as a struggle against the long time constituted by the resistance of the world, a struggle against the evolution demanded by the laws of species, the laws of the social milieu.”
December 5, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Klossowski, “Time and Aggressiveness” (1936): “In the individual, aggressiveness presents itself as a struggle against the long time constituted by the resistance of the world, a struggle against the evolution demanded by the laws of species, the laws of the social milieu.”
The blatant lie as primal expression of sovereignty: “[The human being has] the tremendous power of being able to lie. [B]y virtue of asserting its own independent existence, it can declare to the existing that it does not exist, not in that way; [...] it can deny (verleugnen) what is." (GA, 1930)
November 14, 2025 at 10:26 AM
The blatant lie as primal expression of sovereignty: “[The human being has] the tremendous power of being able to lie. [B]y virtue of asserting its own independent existence, it can declare to the existing that it does not exist, not in that way; [...] it can deny (verleugnen) what is." (GA, 1930)
An absolutely devastating loss. Such a lucid thinker and speaker, maintaining his enthusiasm and love of the age-old game despite his obvious struggles. Rest in peace.
GM Daniel Naroditsky passed away. He was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator. FIDE extends its deepest condolences to Daniel’s family and loved ones.
October 21, 2025 at 12:32 PM
An absolutely devastating loss. Such a lucid thinker and speaker, maintaining his enthusiasm and love of the age-old game despite his obvious struggles. Rest in peace.
Reposted by Tom Vandeputte
“Facts of murder and even genocide […] are the themes of preference of this obscene language of denial. [E]ven this denial retains an element of sadistic sweetness: the denial itself becomes a kind of ‘second murder’, eliminating even the undesired facts of murder from the world.”
October 13, 2025 at 2:47 PM
“Facts of murder and even genocide […] are the themes of preference of this obscene language of denial. [E]ven this denial retains an element of sadistic sweetness: the denial itself becomes a kind of ‘second murder’, eliminating even the undesired facts of murder from the world.”
Günther Anders (1989): “The goal of ‘disinformation’ consists in the emphatic suppression or denial of facts that have come to light or can come to light, but ought not to […]. The goal is […] to keep the interlocutor from seeing certain facts or, once seen, to keep them from bearing these in mind.”
October 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Günther Anders (1989): “The goal of ‘disinformation’ consists in the emphatic suppression or denial of facts that have come to light or can come to light, but ought not to […]. The goal is […] to keep the interlocutor from seeing certain facts or, once seen, to keep them from bearing these in mind.”
Reposted by Tom Vandeputte
“Official history is believing murderers at their word.”
- Simone Weil
- Simone Weil
August 12, 2025 at 3:33 AM
“Official history is believing murderers at their word.”
- Simone Weil
- Simone Weil
Eighty years since Hiroshima – I remember the strangely superficial terms in which the event was discussed in history classes: as a curious moral dilemma, an exercise in moral reasoning and the calculus of human life/death, quick to pass over its monstrosity
August 6, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Eighty years since Hiroshima – I remember the strangely superficial terms in which the event was discussed in history classes: as a curious moral dilemma, an exercise in moral reasoning and the calculus of human life/death, quick to pass over its monstrosity
“The absurdity […] that the human being can desire – and does desire – more from the world than it offers.” (GA)
August 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
“The absurdity […] that the human being can desire – and does desire – more from the world than it offers.” (GA)
Günther Anders’ writings from the early 1940s refer to a primordial, “extreme” concept of freedom that repeats itself in the modern: a “freedom without consequences” - the liberatory experience of unaccountability and impunity that he may have recognised in fascism
August 4, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Günther Anders’ writings from the early 1940s refer to a primordial, “extreme” concept of freedom that repeats itself in the modern: a “freedom without consequences” - the liberatory experience of unaccountability and impunity that he may have recognised in fascism
“Nothing dies as slowly as a category” – Günther Anders, writing in 1940-41, on the persistence of the category of progress (which, in turn, testifies to the slow death of the category of providence)
August 1, 2025 at 8:04 AM
“Nothing dies as slowly as a category” – Günther Anders, writing in 1940-41, on the persistence of the category of progress (which, in turn, testifies to the slow death of the category of providence)
Günther Anders’ one-page eulogy to Benjamin focuses entirely on his conception of language and its critique: “The distinction between the truth of the matter and the correctness of syntax left him cold; so deeply was he convinced that, also in language, the untrue could never find the right syntax.”
July 23, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Günther Anders’ one-page eulogy to Benjamin focuses entirely on his conception of language and its critique: “The distinction between the truth of the matter and the correctness of syntax left him cold; so deeply was he convinced that, also in language, the untrue could never find the right syntax.”
Anders’ sharp critique of Adorno is a critique of form: “I believe I detect a tone of revenge, of contempt, of violation in your style. […] Because you forgo political action […] you attempt, with linguistic means, to produce something resembling action, to at least inflict something on the reader.”
July 12, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Anders’ sharp critique of Adorno is a critique of form: “I believe I detect a tone of revenge, of contempt, of violation in your style. […] Because you forgo political action […] you attempt, with linguistic means, to produce something resembling action, to at least inflict something on the reader.”
Of all the thinkers in the orbit of the Frankfurt School, the most careful reader of Anders seems to have been Bloch, who was deeply impressed by his “book of mourning” (the first volume of The Obsolescence of Mankind) and especially the Hiroshima journals, which he called Anders’ “book of peace”
July 7, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Of all the thinkers in the orbit of the Frankfurt School, the most careful reader of Anders seems to have been Bloch, who was deeply impressed by his “book of mourning” (the first volume of The Obsolescence of Mankind) and especially the Hiroshima journals, which he called Anders’ “book of peace”
Günther Anders writing to Ernst Bloch in 1959: “Adorno […] regards me as an unpleasant piece of furniture, an uncontrollable one – we don’t make use of each other”
July 6, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Günther Anders writing to Ernst Bloch in 1959: “Adorno […] regards me as an unpleasant piece of furniture, an uncontrollable one – we don’t make use of each other”
Summer reading from years ago that is back on this year's reading list: early 20C histories/theories of depression
June 20, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Summer reading from years ago that is back on this year's reading list: early 20C histories/theories of depression
On protest and demonstration:
These are not “protests,” they are demonstrations. We’re not asking them for anything other than to fuck off.
It’s a demonstration of resistance, of counterpower, of the threat of ungovernability, of the emergent/potential backlash against exploitation and abuses by the ruling class.
It’s a demonstration of resistance, of counterpower, of the threat of ungovernability, of the emergent/potential backlash against exploitation and abuses by the ruling class.
June 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
On protest and demonstration:
A striking theme in early 20C French thought that never seems to have been developed: the attempt to base a materialist account of the origin of human societies / social forms not on the need for food and shelter but the need to sleep
June 6, 2025 at 8:17 AM
A striking theme in early 20C French thought that never seems to have been developed: the attempt to base a materialist account of the origin of human societies / social forms not on the need for food and shelter but the need to sleep
Even at its most saturated, our apocalyptic imagination pales in comparison to that of a random fifteenth-century monk
June 5, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Even at its most saturated, our apocalyptic imagination pales in comparison to that of a random fifteenth-century monk
Melanie Klein is so good on envy and its latent destructive impulse: “envy [is] the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something – the envious impulse being to take away or to spoil it”
June 3, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Melanie Klein is so good on envy and its latent destructive impulse: “envy [is] the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something – the envious impulse being to take away or to spoil it”
Günther Anders’ theory of first drafts: “To hope that the text arrives directly would be naive. […] You may never expect that your first draft produces the text or something resembling a text. At first this draft is only pulp […] which, in the best cases, appears to desire that it *becomes* a text.”
May 29, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Günther Anders’ theory of first drafts: “To hope that the text arrives directly would be naive. […] You may never expect that your first draft produces the text or something resembling a text. At first this draft is only pulp […] which, in the best cases, appears to desire that it *becomes* a text.”