Thomas Morrison looks hard at Michel Foucault’s problem with science. “… discourses themselves are neither true nor false”(Power/Knowledge, p.118) “The confession [is] the general standard governing the production of the true discourse on sex”(History of Sexuality Vol. I, p.63) Flamboyant French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) is as well known for his historical analyses of criminality, …
Major Todd A. Burkhardt considers under what circumstances it would be morally right to bioengineer super-soldiers. In 1940, as the United States prepares for war, Steve Rogers, a frail young man unable to enlist in the military due to physical limitations, volunteers for a secret experiment. Operation Rebirth transforms him into the ultimate physical specimen: …
Operation Rebirth: Captain America and the Ethics of Enhancement Read More »
Mike Austin listens to Bono while reading Kierkegaard, and discovers that they have the same soul. The death of his mother had a huge impact on him and on the substance of his writings. He became disenchanted with organized religion, harshly criticizing it while at the same time embracing a personal faith in God. In …
We Get To Carry Each Other: U2 and Kierkegaard on Authentic Love Read More »
Sally Scholz traces the major currents of Simone de Beauvoir’s main work. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was one of the twentieth century’s leading intellectuals, and certainly its most famous feminist. Her book The Second Sex radically challenged political and existential theory, but its most enduring impact is on how women understand themselves, their relationships, their …
Felicity Joseph finds that sometimes it’s hard to become a woman. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”Simone de Beauvoir Generally for existentialists, one is not born anything: everything we are is the result of our choices, as we build ourselves out of our own resources and those which society gives us. We …
Becoming A Woman: Simone de Beauvoir on Female Embodiment Read More »
Benedict O’Connell argues we must recognise our limitations about knowing God. As philosophers, we often like to think about what can be known. It is also important, however, to consider the reverse: what cannot be known – whether there may be certain truths that are simply beyond our understanding as human beings. I’m talking about …
Peter Mullen explores the argument that by definition, God exists. In one form the Ontological Argument for God is basically the argument: 1) God is by definition the perfect being; 2) It is more perfect for a perfect thing to exist than not exist; 3) Therefore God exists. This argument for the existence of God …
What does make a musical performance authentic? What do we mean by authenticity anyway? Michael Graubart looks for some answers. Bach fugues on the clavichord or the piano? Handel arias with added ornaments or plain? Mozart concertos on a fortepiano, gut-strung violins and valveless horns or on a Steinway grand piano and modern orchestral instruments? …
Musical Hermeneutics: The ‘Authentic’ Performance of Early Music Read More »
Nobody ever put food on the table by worrying about the notion of authenticity… or did they? Gordon Giles on authentic culinary performance. Here we have a recipe for Spaghetti alla Carbonara – a Roman dish, whose flavour is owed mainly to the ingredient known both to us and Italians as pancetta. Camisa explains: “Pancetta …
Bharatwaj Iyer examines substance with the help of Hume & Vedantic philosophy. In his 1738 classic A Treatise of Human Nature, the Scottish philosopher David Hume criticised a conception of substance held by many philosophers throughout the long history of Western thought. He rhetorically asks these philosophers how they know of the existence and nature …