Byung-Chul Han

The Philosophy Archive Dialogues · Sep 12, 2026 · 34m

You might think freedom means the absence of chains, but what if the new chains are invisible—and we cheerfully put them on ourselves? Byung-Chul Han steps into a world that calls itself liberated, yet quietly trains us to work on ourselves until we break.Han was born in nineteen fifty-nine in Seoul, South Korea, during a time of rapid change. His early years unfolded against the backdrop of a country remaking itself through modernization. But Han’s journey would take him even further, to Germany—a nation where philosophy and critical theory were living traditions. This crossing matters. It…