The story of the Medici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici) in Florence is one of intense power struggles and patronage of sublime art works which have made the city into a world class treasure trove of beautiful paintings, sculpture and architecture. This is a fascinating recent account which should leave you spellbound. Next thing – go and visit Florence for […]
Florence and the Medici Read More »
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
The ‘Tempest’ and its travels by Peter Hulme Read More »
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell (http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mm/) provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity), a broad set
Complexity: A Guided Tour Read More »
Jodi Picoult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodi_Picoult and http://www.jodipicoult.com/) has legions of devoted readers, currently having some 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide. She received an A.B. in creative writing from Princeton University and a master’s degree in education from Harvard. She is the author of seventeen novels including My Sister’s Keeper (now a major film starring Cameron Diaz
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
A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny Read More »
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.
Hume’s Epistemology and Metaphysics by Georges Dicker Read More »
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
Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed Read More »
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
Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher by Gregory Vlastos Read More »
Janus: A Summing Up is a 1978 book by Arthur Koestler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler) that develops his philosophical idea of the holarchy, introduced in his 1967 book, The Ghost in the Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_in_the_Machine). The holarchy provides a coherent way of organizing knowledge and nature all together. The idea of the holarchy is that everything we can think of
Janus: A Summing Up by Arthur Koestler Read More »
