Our very own David Hume is revered by many professional philosophers as the greatest of their number ever to write in English. His work is almost endlessly rich and stimulating to deep thought. The result is that there has sprung up a vast industry of publication on every single nuance that can be discerned from […]
Reading Hume by Peter Millican Read More »
A cheeky blend of impish pleasure and serious intent, Lust (2004) rescues this life-giving impulse from the revulsion of the dessicated desert fathers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers), the smug detachment of ascetics, and Puritans the world over. What is lust? Even though our language makes it clear that it can have broader applications, lust is often associated with sexual
Lust by Simon Blackburn Read More »
Danielle Steele is one of those people who has had such a busy life one can’t figure out where all the time came from to cram it all in. Another I often think of in this light is Melvyn Bragg. Steele (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danielle_Steele) is now 65 years old and the world’s best selling author, having sold
In this classic in the philosophy of history, Karl Popper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper) attacks those who believe in the ‘iron laws’ of history. In other words that there is some kind of fixed destiny or inevitability about how things must work out. For example, the ascendancy of the ‘pure blooded’ races (Fascism). Or the victory of the
The Poverty of Historicism by Karl Popper Read More »
Have you ever wondered what could possibly be meant by the epigrams ‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world‘, or ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’. These are just two of a large number of utterances (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) from celebrated Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (Ludwig Wittgenstein (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Insight and Illusion by Peter Hacker Read More »
Many readers love Roger Scruton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Scruton) for his traditionalist conservatism whether that be in aesthetics, politics, The Church of England, or public affairs (e.g. issues like fox hunting). Making love to Roger might be a whole lot trickier. He has allowed the fecundity of his mind to generate a tome on the philosophical aspects of
Sexual Desire by Roger Scruton Read More »
We normally take it for granted that other people will live on after we ourselves have died. Even if we do not believe in a personal afterlife in which we survive our own deaths, we assume that there will be a ‘collective afterlife’ in which humanity survives long after we are gone. Samuel Scheffler (http://as.nyu.edu/faculty/samuel-scheffler.html) maintains
Death and the Afterlife by Samuel Scheffler Read More »
Our subjective experience of time is that the future advances towards us into the present moment and then recedes into the past. It is a kind of ‘flow’, ‘the river of time’. Many thinkers are troubled, though, by questions about the relation between past, present and future. Is time travel possible? If so could you
Real Time II by David Mellor Read More »
This is the best short introduction to Humanism I’ve read. Part of the ‘Thinking in Action’ series from Routledge, it is systematic, clear and cool headed. People often ask me ‘What is Humanism?’ The short answer is ‘An ethical life without superstition’ Richard Norman (Professor of Philosophy at Kent, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Norman) covers all the main points
On Humanism by Richard Norman Read More »
