EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

In 1980 I read ‘The Problem of Pain‘ (1940) by C.S. Lewis. It is essentially a defence of Christian doctrine – and the assertion of a loving God – in the face of ubiquitous suffering. It left many unresolved questions in my mind about the nature and existence of pain. Why, for example does pain have

If  inequality doesn’t bother you a bit – turn away. If you believe it’s an obscenity that the rich can stash away £13 trillion in offshore investment accounts in order to avoid tax (http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-22/news/32788549_1_tax-havens-tax-justice-network-investment-bank) whilst the poor are ground into the dust, made to work harder every day and have their income reduced – this

This is a treat for anyone who is already convinced by the ideas of evolutionary biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology) or wishes an introduction to them. Here is a question…Will people born in the 1990s in the developed world live as long as those born 60 years ago? The upward trend in life expectancy of the last century

Few works of economic and political analysis are worth reading 60 years after publication. The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955), by French intellectual Raymond Aron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Aron) is one of them. The author shows how noble ideas can slide into the tyranny of secular religion and emphasizes how political thought has the profound responsibility of telling the

One of my favourite contemporary philosophers is Simon Blackburn (http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/). A lot of this is to do with his willingness to address his books to a popular audience. He is never less than lucid and informative. I feel a wry but honest smile behind much of his commentary. His is a cool, powerful, analytical mind.

Journalist and polemicist Rod Liddle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Liddle) likes to ‘mix it up’. I heard about Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014) on Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ on Monday. It sounded enjoyably provocative. Here is the trade description: ‘With a sharp eye for the magnificently absurd, Rod Liddle sets light to modern-day Britain. In the western world, on

It’s hard to imagine a cockroach being bored. It simply gets on with what a cockroach does and then dies. Boredom seems only to be a possibility for organisms capable of reflective consciousness. Schopenhauer treated boredom as worthy of philosophical consideration. He thought it was lethal and that it proved the vanity of human existence. Heidegger,