From remarks delivered at the American Political Science Association in Boston on August 30 and at the New School in New York City on September 18. Critchley is the chair of philosophy at the New School. Critchley’s most recent work, The Book of Dead Philosophers, is forthcoming from Vintage.

There is something desperately lonely about Barack Obama’s universe. One gets the overwhelming sense of someone yearning for connection, for something that binds human beings together, for community and commonality, for what he repeatedly calls “the common good.” Of course, this is hardly news. We’ve known since his keynote speech at…