Helen McCabe introduces John Stuart Mill on his own free will. John Stuart Mill himself believed On Liberty would be one of the works for which he was best remembered. It has certainly proved the most influential. Published in 1859, it caused an outcry, and interest in it has not died. From the rise of totalitarianism in the …
Timothy J. Madigan explains the crucial distinction between compassion and pity. “You want if possible – and there is no madder ‘if possible’ – to abolish suffering; and we? – it really does seem that we would rather increase it and make it worse than it has ever been!”Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche …
Stefan Sorgner on Nietzsche’s still-controversial influence in the land of his birth. The first major philosopher influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche was also one of the founding fathers of sociology, Georg Simmel (1858-1918). His views on Nietzsche are contained in a series of lectures which he published in 1907 with the title ‘Schopenhauer and Nietzsche’. There, …
Yonathan Listik puts in a linguistic performance to communicate Derrida’s linguistic performance. The title of this article contains an ambiguity, and not by chance. ‘Derrida’ isn’t ambiguous; it refers, as you would expect, to the famous post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). But ‘Derrida’s Performance’ could refer to the theatricality of his writing, or it could …
James Alexander finds Alain Badiou guilty of horrors but sometimes worth reading. It is always a pleasure to read a review by one established philosopher of another. In the Times Literary Supplement of 31 August 2012, Roger Scruton reviewed The Adventure of French Philosophy by Alain Badiou (b.1937). Badiou is one of those ‘New Left’ …
Elad Uzan argues that although it may well be, this doesn’t necessarily justify a warlike response. In July 2020, then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden put Russia and others on notice. “If any foreign power recklessly chooses to interfere in our democracy”, he said, “I will not hesitate to respond as President to impose substantial and …
Charlotte Curran tells us precisely why fat shaming is unethical. Fat people are perhaps the most openly stigmatized individuals in our society: there is data which suggests that weight stigma is more pervasive and intense than even racism and sexism. There is certainly a well-documented social and cultural bias against fat people, particularly in the …
Psychiatrist Eva Cybulska provides a psychological interpretation of Nietzsche’s Eternal Return. “Even as ‘a philosopher’ I still did not express my essential thoughts (or ‘delusions’).”Friedrich Nietzsche, in a letter to Overbeck, April 1883 “Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus The influence of …
An introduction by H. James Birx. “Let us assume that people will be allowed to read [my work] in about the year 2000.”Nietzsche, 24 September 1886” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche has emerged as the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century, although both controversy and confusion surround his life and thought. He was born on 15 …
Nietzsche rejected all conventional morality but he wasn’t a nihilist – he called for a “re-evaluation of all values”. Alexander V. Razin describes the gulf separating him from that other great moralist, Immanuel Kant. Friedrich Nietzsche presented the world with a philosophy of life that called for a rigorous reevaluation of all values. His critical …