Gillian Rose: Fascism and representation
‘Not in my name’ is and is not in my name In her essay ‘The Future of Auschwitz’, Gillian Rose describes two obvious reactions provoked
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Influential writing old and new.
the unexamined life is not worth living
the unexamined life is not worth living Socrates (Plato, 1997, 33) The unexamined life is not worth living is perhaps Socrates’ most famous quote and
Socrates On Trial
Socrates is perhaps the most famous philosophical figure of the last 2,500 years. If you are new to philosophy then you will come to see
Žižek on the history of humanity and violence
Couldn’t the entire history of humanity be seen as a growing normalisation of injustice, entailing the nameless and faceless suffering of millions?
Wherein Lies the Value of Art? Clive Bell’s Radical Aesthetic Vision
The British philosopher and art critic Clive Bell (1881-1964) was a prominent proponent of the formalist approach to aesthetics. In this specific sense, he advocated
Is uni worth it? What’s the point of Higher Education?
Undeserving of the light of higher education, no wonder… In 1690 the philosopher John Locke famously wrote ‘The candle that is set up in us,
The Souls of White Folk
This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious acts.
Distorted Rhetoric and Forgotten Principles: How AOC is Reviving Oratory in the US
There are parallels to be made between the shape of democracy in Athens all those years ago and that of US politics today. In the same manner that rhetoric took principal place in determining the outcome of the socio-economic structures of the Athenian city-state, so too have we witnessed the undeniable power that rhetoric continues to possess in the present-day.
What did Max Weber mean by the ‘spirit’ of capitalism?
Max Weber’s famous text The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) is surely one of the most misunderstood of all the canonical works
Paul Rée, Nietzsche, and the Myth of Libertas
In 1878 Nietzsche wrote a letter to Paul Rée (1849-1901) in which he declared: ‘All my friends are now agreed that my book [Human, All-Too-Human]
Gillian Rose: To be a philosopher you need three things
Gillian Rose Quote: What do you need to be a philosopher? You discover that you are a philosopher: it is not something you ever become.
Durkheim’s Anomie in a Time of Crisis
Durkheim formulated his concept of anomie in his doctoral dissertation, The Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. The word ‘anomie’ comes from the
Camus’ The Plague: Contagion, confinement and complicity
Camus’ The Plague (La Peste) is one of the most famous novels penetrating the heart of the world’s current pandemic.
For Nietzsche, life’s ultimate question was: ‘Does it dance?’
Friedrich Nietzsche’s body of work is notoriously difficult to navigate. He wrote in multiple styles, including essays, aphorisms, poems, and fiction. He introduced idiosyncratic concepts
Philosophy and the Liberal Arts
This image of Philosophy and the Liberal Arts is perhaps the most iconic of liberal arts education. But what does it mean?
Personality is not only about who but also where you are
What if patience, and maybe other personality features too, are more a product of where we are than who we are?
What is Education for? A rare look at higher education in prison
Research shows that education is prison can be life changing. For the incarcerated education teaches a deep lesson in freedom.
We need to talk about trees
Trees are now a matter of politics. And we are learning that trees do more than previously thought. They are in fact a source of hope.
The New Dark Age
Hope is above all ‘a state of mind … it is a dimension of the soul … It is an orientation of the spirit’
The Science and Culture of Health, Strength, and Beauty
Plato speaks of the three physical virtues—health, strength, and beauty—as joining to form one chorus with the virtues of the soul—piety, courage, temperance, and justice.
Educating for Freedom: in praise of Freire
What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.
The best thing for being sad
The best thing for being sad is, Merlyn tells Wart, something that the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, and never dream of regretting
Hegel and Martin Luther King
Hegel and Martin Luther King shared a deep understanding of profound change. There can be nothing new without a struggle with the old. And they might be telling us something important about right now
Socrates in love: how the ideas of this woman are at the root of Western philosophy
Socrates is a foundational figure of Western philosophy. New research explores if his ideas about truth, love, justice, courage and knowledge were born out of his relationship with a fiercely intelligent woman, Aspasia of Miletus.
Why speaking to yourself in the third person makes you wiser
We credit Socrates with the insight that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ and that to ‘know thyself’ is the path to true wisdom.
Humanity and nature are not separate
We must see them as one to fix the climate crisis From transport and housing to food production and fashion, our civilisation is driving climate
Fascisms: then, and now? Arendt and The Origins of Totalitarianism
Re-reading Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism is something of a wake-up call. Some of the evidence from her book, makes for a chilling comparison with current political episodes.
Memory in Montréal: on (re)capturing Leonard Cohen
Memory can place us in time and space, can make us feel at home, it can transport us. In doing so memory can hide things we really should see.
The Force of Fiction
How do you relax at the end of a long day? Chances are you do something so commonplace to many of us that we seldom
What is a University?
When medievals first spoke of university they were referring not so much to institutions as to people.