Many philosophers believe that free will is an illusion. It is an extraordinarily powerful illusion, which accounts for the fact that hardly anyone can bear to give it up. Even after being convinced by a series of cogent philosophical arguments, it will seem to a conscious agent that he is making genuine choices at points […]
Free Will and Consciousness by Gregg Caruso Read More »
An infant gurgling in its cot imagines that its nursery constitutes the whole world. The warm breast of its mother exists solely for its nurture. It takes a long series of painful adjustments to comprehend the immense scale of the world and diversity of other human beings, all with their individual motivations and interests which probably
The Age of Genius by Anthony Grayling Read More »
Atheism didn’t start with Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins in the modern era. Neither can any of Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Voltaire, Arthur Schopenhauer, or Friedrich Nietzsche take full credit for exposing the delusion of theism. Atheism began way back in antiquity, and has a long and distinguished pedigree. This superb book by Cambridge Professor of Greek Culture Tim Whitmarsh (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/directory/professor-tim-whitmarsh) traces these
Battling the Gods by Tim Whitmarsh Read More »
Marilynne Robinson (born November 26, 1943, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/magazine/the-revelations-of-marilynne-robinson.html?_r=0 ) is an American novelist and essayist. She has received several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and the 2012 National Humanities Medal. One high profile admirer is Barack Obama. If ever there was a time when we should heed the voices of wisdom and compassion
The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson Read More »
Graham Priest (http://grahampriest.net/) (born 1948) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Home), as well as a regular visitor at the University of Melbourne where he was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy and also at St. Andrews University. He was educated at Cambridge and the London School of Economics. His publishing record
Beyond the Limits of Thought by Graham Priest Read More »
The fact that we have all moved at incredible speed into a ‘digital age’ is news to no-one. Laurence Scott, a critic and lecturer in English at King’s College London, is not so much interested in technology as the humans that use it – particularly our subtle transformation from analogue to digital beings. The author displays a
The Four-Dimensional Human by Laurence Scott Read More »
Are you paying attention? Attention, according to Jesse Prinz (http://www.subcortex.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Prinz), is the key to understanding the phenomenon of consciousness. We don’t know for sure how the crumpled 3 pound gelantinous mass inside the skull produces the magic lantern show which is our waking experience. There are many theories. Synthesizing decades of research, The Conscious Brain advances
The Conscious Brain by Jesse Prinz Read More »
Steven Cahn (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Philosophy/Faculty-Bios/Steven-M-Cahn) of The City University of New York has put together an introductory reader in philosophy for the present day. It offers standard Western historical and analytic materials alongside writings from Chinese, Indian, Native-American, African American, continental, and other sources. Approximately 25% of the contemporary readings are by women, including leading feminist theorists.
The World of Philosophy by Stephen Cahn Read More »
In promoting this title by Robert P. Waxler (http://www.umassd.edu/cas/english/faculty/robertpwaxler/) the risk is that I’m preaching to the converted. After all, this is a book review page. Its readers are presumably already convinced of the value of the written word. We should never, though, tire of the assertion that long and deep reading leads to a quality
The Risk of Reading by Robert P. Waxler Read More »
