There used to be a widely held view in Western Europe that we were the ‘civilised’ peoples and that less advanced peoples were savages. It was all very much Dr Livingstone taking the light of the Gospel and truth out to darkest Africa. Well, they certainly got the Gospel and we got the land. This view pertained […]
The Cambridge Companion to Lévi-Strauss Read More »
David E. Cooper, Professor of Philosopy at Durham, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E_Cooper) has put together this volume of writings about the theory of beauty. Possibly on the esoteric side, nevertheless whole academic careers have been devoted to it. Authors represented are Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Bell, Dewey, Heidegger and Collingwood. Hume and Schopenhauer are
Aesthetics: the classic readings by David E. Cooper Read More »
Before the microscope thinkers had speculated about what the world is made of at the minutest level. The miroscope introduced evidence for the first time and it has revolutionised our knowledge of the world and the organisms that inhabit it. In the seventeenth century the pioneering work of two scientists, the Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and
The story of the Medici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici) in Florence is one of intense power struggles and patronage of sublime art works which have made the city into a world class treasure trove of beautiful paintings, sculpture and architecture. This is a fascinating recent account which should leave you spellbound. Next thing – go and visit Florence for
Florence and the Medici Read More »
It’s a contentious matter as to which of Shakespeare’s plays is the greatest. Some say ‘King Lear’, others say ‘Hamlet’. For my money ‘Measure for Measure’ is right up there, but ‘The Tempest’ is the greatest play. It was the last to be written and seems to encapsulate the Bard’s best wisdom. Here, for example, is
The ‘Tempest’ and its travels by Peter Hulme Read More »
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell (http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mm/) provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity), a broad set
Complexity: A Guided Tour Read More »
Jodi Picoult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodi_Picoult and http://www.jodipicoult.com/) has legions of devoted readers, currently having some 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide. She received an A.B. in creative writing from Princeton University and a master’s degree in education from Harvard. She is the author of seventeen novels including My Sister’s Keeper (now a major film starring Cameron Diaz
Anthony Kenny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kenny) has produced a monumental work for the general reader on the history of Western philosophy. Not many heroic attempts on this scale have been made since that of Bertrand Russell in 1945 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosophy) and (http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Western-Philosophy-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415325056/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387469626&sr=8-1&keywords=russell+history+of+western+philosophy) Kenny’s work was originally published in 4 parts as follows: Kenny, A. (2004) Ancient Philosophy: A New
A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny Read More »
David Hume’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/) Treatise on Human Nature (1739) and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) are amongst the most widely studied texts in philosophy. They deserve to be. Hume was the most profound thinker ever to write in English. A recent informal poll of contemporary leading philosophers on the philosophybites website(http://philosophybites.com/2012/11/whos-your-favourite-philosopher.html) brought out Hume as massively influential.
Hume’s Epistemology and Metaphysics by Georges Dicker Read More »
