Peter Benson on why digital photos aren’t reliable records of anything. André Bazin (1918-58) was the greatest film critic of his generation. As Editor of the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma he encouraged young writers such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, who would later become film-makers themselves, creating the French New Wave of …
The Ontology of Photography: From Analogue To Digital Read More »
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 …
Peter Royle shows no vexation over Sartre’s crustacean fixation. Crabs? What have crabs to do with philosophy? It is well known that at a certain stage in his life Jean-Paul Sartre felt himself to be persecuted by lobsters, crayfish and other crustaceans, including crabs; and that crustaceans, especially crabs, figure prominently in his literature. But …
Krista Rodkey assembles wedding plans from Plato’s advice on romance and parties in the Republic, Laws, Symposium, & Phaedrus. WeddingsAreWe.com is proud to present this exciting new line of boutique wedding services designed in coordination with Plato son of Ariston. Our new product line Platonic Weddings TM brings together the exceptional quality of the WeddingsAreWe.com …
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 …
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 »
Matthew Gindin thinks that the Stoics have useful advice for us right now. The Stoic philosophers, who flourished in the Graeco-Roman world between the third century BCE and the fourth century CE, were profoundly interested in the natural world, and considered science essential knowledge for a philosopher. It’s likely that a Stoic time traveller, transported …
Nikolaos Gkogkas on the aesthetics of Nelson Goodman. Nelson Goodman (1906-98) was one of the best-known American philosophers of the twentieth century. One of his main philosophical objectives was clarity of the ideas and concepts employed by philosophy. But his work also dealt extensively with aesthetics and the arts. And, being pragmatically-oriented, he thought that …
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 »
Daniel Silvermintz wants us to rediscover the virtue of Socratic ignorance. Ignorance may be bliss, but that doesn’t mean we should celebrate stupidity. Ignorance has never been a good excuse, but it is even less so today, when anyone with a question can simply google an answer. How much more do we expect of our …