Perhaps life hasn’t turned out entirely as you’d hoped? Your car is less prestigious than the BMW Series 7 next door. You’re holidays are not exotic, your marriage has not endured as a lovestruck dream, your children’s behaviour is disappointing. You’ve been overlooked in the race for promotion. In your early 20s your ambition was […]
Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed Read More »
All human cultures that we know of, literate and non-literate, have constructed stories about their own origins. It’s a perfectly natural thing to do. At an individual level the child asks ‘Where did I come from, Mummy?’ So, it’s equally compelling for a tribe or civilisation to ask ‘Where did we come from? The answers,
Origins by Jim Baggott 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 »
Frank M. Turner (1944–2010) was John Hay Whitney Professor of History, Director of the Beinecke Library, and University Librarian, all at Yale University. Turner delivered a landmark lecture course on European intellectual history that drew hundreds of students over many years. His lectures were lucid, accessible, and beautifully written. With a notable lack of jargon they distilled
European Intellectual History by Frank M. Turner Read More »
In the period 2013-2015 The European Union has been desperately trying to prevent Greece from crashing out of the Euro. Bailout follows bailout. Why? It is a basket case of an economy saddled with a 320 billion Euro debt, a society mired in corruption from top to bottom, and with a hopelessly divided political class. For every
Introducing the Ancient Greeks by Edith Hall Read More »
