Christoph Cox, professor of philosophy, received his B.A. in Modern Culture & Media from Brown University and a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Professor Cox teaches and writes on contemporary European philosophy, cultural theory, and aesthetics.
He is the author of Sonic Flux: Sound, Art, and Metaphysics (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming) and Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation (University of California Press, 1999), and co-editor of Realism Materialism Art (Sternberg, 2015) and Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (Continuum, 2004/2017). The recipient of an Arts Writers Grant from Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation, Cox is editor-at-large at Cabinet magazine. His writing has appeared in October, Artforum, Journal of the History of Philosophy, The Wire, Journal of Visual Culture, Organised Sound, The Review of Metaphysics, and elsewhere.
He has curated exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, The Kitchen, CONTEXT Art Miami, New Langton Arts, G Fine Art Gallery and other venues and has written essays exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Mass MoCA, the South London Gallery, Berlin's Akademie der Künste, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Oslo Kunstforening, and other venues.
Recent and Upcoming Courses
- Philosophy as a Way of Life
Philosophy today is generally conceived and practiced as a purely theoretical discipline dedicated to answering conceptual questions and solving intellectual problems. Yet philosophy began as a practical discipline dedicated to helping human beings live their lives in the fullest and best way possible. In this course, we will read and discuss the work of various philosophers-ancient, modern, and postmodern-for whom philosophy is a practical tool for living. Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Shankara, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, the Situationists, Singer, Nussbaum, and West.
- Thinking the Absolute: Metaphysics and the New Realism
Can we grasp the way the world really is, or are our concepts and ideas always mediated by conceptual schemes, linguistic categories, and social positioning? While the latter view has dominated philosophy and cultural theory for the past half century, the former view has become increasingly prominent. This course will examine the work of a variety of philosophers who argue that our thought can grasp "the absolute": the neo-materialism of Manuel DeLanda, Jane Bennett, Catherine Malabou, and Karen Barad; the neo-rationalism of Alain Badiou, Quentin Meillassoux, and Ray Brassier; and the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman and Timothy Morton. The course will also consider important influences on new realist thought such as Wilfrid Sellars and Paul and Patricia Churchland.
- Philosophy, Relativism, and Truth
Is there such a thing as "objective" or "absolute" truth? Or is everything "relative" - to a particular individual, culture, language, or conceptual scheme? What is truth, anyway? In this course, we will examine the nature of truth, knowledge, and value and consider a range of challenges to the idea of "objective" or "absolute" truth. We will begin by considering solipsism, skepticism, and subjective relativism and then spend most of the semester discussing various forms of relativism (conceptual, epistemic, ethical, cultural, aesthetic, etc.). Drawing upon texts from early Greek philosophy through contemporary Anglo-American and European philosophy, we will try to sort out strong from weak arguments for various versions of objectivism and relativism.
- The Posthuman Condition
Are we becoming "posthuman"? Can we be certain that the versions of humanity that have existed until now will continue to exist in the future, given our ability to control our own evolution and to create intelligent machines? Can we still uphold a boundary between biological organism and cybernetic mechanism? How have posthuman conceptions provided inspiration for black liberation, feminist politics, and gender hacking? We will begin by discussing philosophical and biological conceptions of the human and the boundaries between humans, animals, machines, and other entities. We will go on to explore the ontological and ethical issues presented by versions of the posthuman in theory, film, music, art, and literature. Theoretical readings by Haraway, Preciado, Braidotti, Eshun, Parisi, Weheliye, Darwin, Nietzsche, DeLanda, Thacker, Hayles, and others.
- Sonic Philosophy
This course will take sound and the sonic arts as both an object of inquiry and a provocation for thought. Reading texts by philosophers and cultural theorists, and examining work by composers, sound artists, writers, and filmmakers, we will investigate the ontology of sound and music, the nature of listening, technologies of audio recording and dissemination, time and space in the sonic arts, synaesthesia, and other issues. Each class will involve both discussions of theoretical texts and analysis of sonic art works.
- Knowledge, Ignorance, Stupidity
It is often said that the aim of education is the acquisition of knowledge, and that "knowledge is power." Yet Socrates affirmed ignorance; other philosophers and theologians condemned curiosity; and religious mystics have celebrated "unknowing." What is "knowledge" and why might it be considered good or bad? Is "knowledge" the same as "information"? What are the differences between ignorance, stupidity, idiocy, and foolishness? Through the analysis and discussion of philosophical and religious texts, novels, films, and works of visual art, we will consider these and many more questions and, in the process, perhaps learn (and un-learn) something.
- Introduction to Metaphysics
What is ultimately or fundamentally real? What is the nature of being? Is reality essentially physical, nonphysical, or both? Is it one or many, visible or invisible, discrete or diffuse, eternal or temporal? Philosophers have offered the wildest and most varied answers to these questions. Today, metaphysical debates continue to rage within philosophy, cultural theory, and social theory. In this course, we will survey a range of metaphysical theories, from ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophers up through the most recent debates in European and Anglo-American philosophy. Readings from Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Lao Tsu, Samkara, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Whitehead, Harman, and others. The readings will be very difficult but also very rewarding. As Spinoza said: "Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare."
- New French Philosophy
From the 1960s through the 1990s, French philosophy was dominated by the "post-structuralist" philosophers Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray. Over the past fifteen years, a new group of French philosophers has come to the fore, philosophers who often challenge post-structuralist conceptions of truth, reality, science, language, and philosophy itself. Some of these philosophers - for example, Alain Badiou, Francois Laruelle, and Gilbert Simondon - are from an older generation but have only recently become influential and widely known. Others - such as Quentin Meillassoux and Catherine Malabou - are from a younger generation. All of them are on the cutting-edge of French philosophy today. This course will examine the work of Badiou, Laruelle, Simondon, Meillassoux, and Malabou, focusing on their work in ontology and metaphysics. These texts are very challenging. Previous work in philosophy is strongly recommended.
