EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

Have you enjoyed a laugh over Christmas and the New Year? Did you ever wonder why no other animal seems to have a chuckle? By contrast, humour is a universal feature of human life. It has been discovered in every known human culture, and thinkers have discussed it for over two thousand years. Why do we have […]

Evil is not the most comfortable subject to consider. Apart from its inherently unsettling nature, a short effort at reflection quickly reveals some serious problems in trying to conceptualise the phenomenon. In the literature there are two main contentions. 1) Evil is a deficiency of goodness. In the human moral sphere it is the failure to act well. Sins

Here we are at the shortest day 2014. As the year ends the plaintive cries are familiar -‘Where has the time gone? Just whizzed by. Been busier than ever, what with paying the mortgage, full time job, social whirl, taxi service for the kids, the tyranny of the smartphone, the superfluity of entertainment options. Better that

Neuroscience and discussions about the brain and consciousness are powering ahead at a fomidable pace. It’s hard to keep up without being involved full time in the research. Here, though, is a book from 2014 which will take you to the cutting edge. Stanislas Dehaene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene and http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-stanislas-dehaene/#|m=#course|) describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs

Existentialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism) was fashionable in the 1960s. Much of this is to do with the fact that its ideas were presented and consumed in theatre, literature, and popular culture. It insists that thinking begins with the human subject—not as a disembodied exercise in reason, but the acting, feeling, living human being. This chimed with the zeitgeist, and

In my view Epicurus was the real deal among the ancient thinkers. He got more right than any other about the human condition and sits behind the great humanistic tradition in Western thought. First point to make is that Epicurus does not recommend sybaritic excess! Forget delicatessen jars full of fine and exotic foods. Although he is

There are a number of premises in the town centre of Lanark in which one may place a bet. The bookie seems to be a stable presence on our High Street whilst the activity on online gambling is enormously popular. Both bookies and their clients deal in probabilities, or if you like ‘odds’. What, for

Distinguished academic Marina Warner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Warner and http://www.marinawarner.com/home.html) offers a short history and analysis of the fairy tale. I was alerted to this by the Guardian review (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/20/once-upon-a-time-a-short-history-of-fairy-tale-marina-warner) which turned out to be a splendid summary. What is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us

Have you ever been mildly irritated that there is a class of people in this country who simply can’t lose? More likely you’re boiling with rage at the fact. Casino Capitalists in the City of London can’t lose. When times are good they’re trousering fortunes. When times are bad, the tax payer bails them out.