EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

What makes Shakespeare the greatest dramatist/poet, period? This masterpiece of literary criticism and elucidation will tell you what. It is, in itself, a marvellous achievement and a distillation of a lifetime of thinking. The finest tragedies written in English were all composed in the first decade of the seventeenth century, and it is generally accepted that the […]

The words ‘history’ and ‘past’ are often used inter-changeably. There is, though, a proper technical distinction. The past is everything that has receded into time. It is complete and irrecoverable (setting aside for the moment any speculation about time travel). History is what is written about the past. It is an interpretation of the past.

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

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

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

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

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.

Continuum’s Guides for the Perplexed (http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/guides-for-the-perplexed) are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of

Socrates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/) himself did not write any philosophical texts. Our knowledge of the man and his philosophy is based on writings by his students and contemporaries, particularly Plato’s dialogues, but also the writings of Aristotle, Xenophon and Aristophanes. As these are either the partisan philosophical texts of his supporters, or works of dramatic