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A Radical Cure: Hannah Arendt & Simone Weil on the Need for Roots

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Scott Remer thinks we arendt happy without a community and considers the complete reconstruction of the modern world to be well worth weil. In her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, German-Jewish émigré and political theorist extraordinaire, chillingly wrote: “Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of …

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Foucault’s Elephant

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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, …

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Operation Rebirth: Captain America and the Ethics of Enhancement

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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: …

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The Second Sex

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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 …

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God & Humility

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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 …

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Musical Hermeneutics: The ‘Authentic’ Performance of Early Music

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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? …

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A Recipe for Authenticity

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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 …

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