Kathleen O’Dwyer asks what Slavoj Žižek means by ‘love thy neighbour’. The postmodern psychoanalyst-philosopher Slavoj Žižek is noted for his flamboyant style, his embrace of contradiction, and his often controversial exposure of the dualities, deceptions and disavowals which characterize contemporary culture. Reflecting on these aspects of Žižek’s work, his biographer Tony Myers states that “Slavoj …
Peter Benson tells a tale of Sartre, Barthes and Derrida.Root In David Cronenberg’s film The Fly (1986) the unfortunate hero, an ambitious scientist, accidentally fuses his own DNA with that of a housefly. As a result he gradually changes into a giant version of the insect. At an advanced stage of this metamorphosis he finds …
Abdelkader Aoudjit thinks about postmodern political thinking. Enlightenment thinkers were optimistic. They thought that the application of the scientific method to all aspects of life would not only liberate humanity from bondage to nature, but also inaugurate a new era of happiness, justice and emancipation. Jean Antoine de Condorcet declared, “one day, the sun will …
Political Philosophy After Metaphysics: Habermas & Lyotard Read More »
Know the name, can’t quite recall what he thought? John-Francis Phipps explains the surprising ideas of the philosopher of vitalism. Bergson’s name is not usually included on shortlists of the philosophical greats, so it’s quite easy to miss him. I first came across him many years ago, when I read Bertrand Russell’s History of Western …
Christophe Bruchansky asks if we’re living in a global themepark. Walt Disney World opened in Florida in 1971. It was the second theme park built by Disney, the first being Disneyland in California in 1955. Disney World is not one theme park, but a group of four theme parks, two water parks, and many hotels, …
Massimo Pigliucci recounts the history of the theories of evolution, and asks whether evolutionary biology has ever shifted paradigms. Evolution is arguably one of the most profound and controversial ideas ever to hit a human mind. On the Origin of Species flew off the bookshelves when it was published 150 years ago, and it remains …
Jeanne Warren on a philosopher of personality. I have to confess to spending the last twenty years mystified by what philosophers mean by consciousness. There seems to be a mismatch between my categories of thought and theirs. Mary Midgley’s recent article (‘Souls, Minds, Bodies & Planets’ in Philosophy Now Issue 47) has thrown some light …
John Shelton Lawrence asks analyser of comics and the former editor of the Spider-Man range of titles what makes a superhero, philosophically speaking. Many of us who grew up with comic books noticed those books growing with us. A literate observer of those transitions is Danny Fingeroth, who began his comics-centered life as youthful fan, …
In which Mary Midgley discusses the nature of consciousness and argues that the legacy of Descartes is disasterous for our view of ourselves and our planet. Whatever we decide about the relationship between mind and body, we need to be aware that our decision has a moral dimension. Descartes supposed himself to be abstracting from …
John Lent explores three dimensions of philosophy in 2D comics. The interrelatedness of comic art to philosophy is both long-lived and far-ranging. The three areas I’ll survey are: philosophies about life embedded within comics; depictions of formalized philosophies in comics; and theorists’ and cartoonists’ philosophies about the comics profession. Gems of philosophy have permeated comics …