Harry Drummond builds a case. What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? How ought I treat another person? What are the conditions of knowledge acquisition? Engaging, fundamental, and worthy – these sorts of questions are the typical buildings blocks of conversation when a philosopher is asked ‘What do you do?’. What is the …
We take their money, their freedom, sometimes their lives, but opinions differ over exactly what we are trying to achieve, how we should go about it and what justifies it anyway. Jane Forsey on the punishment of criminals. “The problem of justifying punishment….may really be that of justifying our particular symbols of infamy”Joel Feinberg When …
James Gallant, writer, reflects on the psychology of creativity. I have been writing fiction, prose-poetry, and essays for a long time now, whenever the business of staying alive has allowed. I have published quite a lot, including four books (well, three now, one having been delisted by its publisher for lack of sales). I do …
Michael Mocatta finds a practical aid for recovery from addiction in a philosophy of extreme experience. Georges Bataille (1897-1962) had a difficult childhood. In this article I will seek to explain this French philosopher’s thinking, and in particular his conception of extreme exterior experiences and sacred inner ones. We’ll see how Bataille writes of his …
Mike Sutton gives us his present interpretation of Derrida’s traces. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is a philosopher everybody has heard of, but few non-specialists can manage to read; a clear case of ‘many are called but few are chosen’. Opinions of him range from those who say he is one of the greatest philosophers of the …
Rick Lewis asks Elliot Paul and Christine Battersby what’s new in this fascinating field. How can you be more creative? What is the connection between creativity and inspiration? Where do inspirations come from? The novelist Terry Pratchett, who knew a thing or two about imagination, had an amusing theory about this, as follows: “Little particles …
Les Jones on allegories, specific domains and Wittgenstein’s social ideas. The word ‘creativity’ is derived from the Latin word creare; literally, ‘to cause, to create, to make’. But this definition itself suggests problems. Humans can certainly make things by putting other things together; but do we have the capacity to create something new, as it …
Peter Benson looks at how continental minds see how we see other minds. Among the numerous divergences between the Analytic and Continental traditions of philosophy, one of the most striking is their different ways of discussing one’s relation to other people. In Analytic philosophy this is typically approached, in the first instance, as a question …
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 …