The discipline today finds itself precariously balanced between incomprehensible specialisation and cheap self-help Siobhan Lyons As long as there has been such a subject as philosophy, there have been people who hated and despised it,’ reads the opening line of Bernard Williams’s article ‘On Hating and Despising Philosophy’ (1996). Almost 30 years later, philosophy is… Read More Whither philosophy?
“Dionysus is the god of decisive mob action. Once stated, it should be easy to see why such a god is called for and why he is revered. He claims legitimacy” not from his ability to disturb the peace but from his ability to restore the peace he has himself disturbed – thereby justifying, a… Read More Violence, desire and the sacred: Remembering René Girard (1923-2015)
American politicians, the mainstream media, a powerful segment of academia – all have marginalized the faculty of critical thinking. The paradox is that modern academic disciplines claim to follow Socratic Method of inquiry but in reality, they blatantly follow Sophistic relativistic philosophy and seem unable to confront the corrupting influence of money in American politics… Read More Is the One-Sided US Response to the Gaza Crisis a Sign of Civilizational Decline?
On grasping human things in human terms Wilfred M. McClay Back in the 1980s, an editor at Harvard University Press had the bright idea of asking some of the leading lights of the day to write their own version of a philosophical dictionary, modelled on Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). The project petered out rather quickly, presumably because… Read More The burden of the humanities
Ibn Sina, known in the West as ‘Avicenna,’ and his contemporary Biruni set out to redefine law, medicine and philosophy in the 11th century The Genius of their Age: Ibn Sina, Biruni, and the Lost Enlightenment; By S. Frederick Starr Reviewed by Maxwell Carter I never realized quite how idle and inadequate I was until reading… Read More Central Asia’s Big Thinkers
Bernard Williams argued that one’s ethics is shaped by culture and history. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is right Daniel Callcut Travel and history can both inspire a sense of moral relativism, as they did for the Greek historian and traveller Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. What should one make of the fact… Read More Wrestling with relativism
By Anthony Grafton Reading Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s encyclopedic study of magic is like stumbling into a vast cabinet of curiosities, where toad bones boil water, witches transmit misery through optical darts, and numbers, arranged correctly, can harness the planets’ powers. Anthony Grafton explores the Renaissance polymath’s occult insights into the structure of the universe, discovering a… Read More Marked by Stars: Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy
A Delhi Court has dismissed a plea moved by the Delhi Police against a magisterial court’s order which ordered the release of the electronic devices seized from editors of “The Wire” during searches conducted in October last year in relation to an FIR lodged against them by BJP leader Amit Malviya. The judge added that… Read More Delhi Court Upholds Release Of Electronics Devices Seized From Editors Of ‘The Wire’, Says Police Causing Undue Hardship To Them
In this presentation on ‘The Psychosocial Health of Palestinian Youth: Occupation and Resistance’, Professor Rita Giacaman addresses the impact on wellbeing on young Palestinians as a result of prolonged military occupation. In exploring this issue, Professor Giacaman also considers the positive steps Palestinian youth take to resist the oppressive conditions they face. Decades of studying… Read More Professor Rita Giacaman on The Psychosocial Health of Palestinian Youth: Occupation and Resistance (2018)
Rachel Cooke In the days since the attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, Nathan Thrall, an American journalist and former director of the Arab-Israeli project at the International Crisis Group, has found himself lodged anxiously between worry for his wife and daughters at home in Jerusalem, and awareness that, as the tour to promote his new… Read More ‘It’s lonely being a Jewish critic of Israel’ – Nathan Thrall on his book about a Palestinian father’s tragedy
After the truth-shower 