Francis Akpata explains how Schiller saw art as a path to utopia. The Athenian soldier and statesman Themistocles (523-458 BC) once said, “I cannot fiddle but I can build a great state out of a little city.” How do we build, better than a great state, a beautiful society? When one hears the term ‘beautiful […]
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Tim Weldon detects links between Sherlock Holmes and Blaise Pascal in the operation of intuition. How did the most famous fictional detective in history triumph over evil in over fifty celebrated cases? To what – or to whom – might we attribute his success? Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle self-admittedly modelled Holmes’ manner and
A Forgiving Reason: The Secret of Sherlock Holmes’ Success Read More »
Atika Qasim questions her own, and others’, motives for taking photos. This picture was taken in the summer of 2010. My family had decided to head over to the northern mountains of Pakistan to spend our vacations. The boy in the picture sits next to the Kunhar River in the small town of Balakot, a
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Greg Stone offers a contractual definition of art, among other artful ideas. Every painter, gallery viewer, or philosopher probably has his or her own definition of art. Yet so-called ‘hard cases’ abound, which stretch our concept of art. Does it include ‘driftwood art’ plucked from a beach and put on display? Or environmental art, such
Patrick Cannon uses a popular setting to explain Kant’s metaphysics. It’s Friday night and you’re at the bar. It’s packed. You snake through the sea of bodies. “Ah! There’s a free spot!” exclaims your friend, pointing to some stools across the counter. You part your way through a boisterous group of young women, sit down,
Kant at the Bar: Transcendental Idealism in Daily Life Read More »
Mikhail Epstein sees a bright future for metaphysics in the hi-tech age. “Numerous universes might have been botched and bungled throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labor lost, many fruitless trials made, and a slow but continual improvement carried out during infinite ages in the art of world-making.” David Hume, Dialogues
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Angus Taylor argues that to be consistent, we must either exclude some humans from the moral community, or else include at least some animals. Let me begin with a story. My mother’s family were minor nobility from Transylvania, near the border with Hungary. When Romania was invaded by Soviet forces during the Second World War
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Alex Holzman sees the history of Golden Age Athens as a play with Pericles and Socrates as its tragic heroes. The most prominent dramatic distinction we’ve inherited from the Greeks is that between comedy and tragedy. Comedies end in marriages and happily-ever-afters. Greek tragedies are also easy to identify, as they usually end with the
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Charlotte Laws cautiously chows down with the Defender of Animals. I recently had the opportunity to eat, drink and make moral calculations with philosopher Peter Singer, who is sometimes called ‘the Father of the Animal Rights movement’. You might think that hanging out with a renowned and accomplished philosopher would cause a pain in the
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? The controversial Peter Singer! Read More »
Cornelis de Waal on the man and his ideas. In 1851, when he was only twelve years old, Charles Sanders Peirce discovered in his brother’s bedroom a copy of Richard Whately’s Elements of Logic. He immediately stretched himself on the floor and began reading. The young Peirce quickly devoured the book and from then on
Charles Sanders Peirce: The Architect of Pragmatism Read More »