Philosophy
From Anaximander to Zeno
Adam Nicolson thinks so. But his liveliest stories are about Pythagoras, who lived in a hole in the ground, and Thales, who fell into a well while studying the night sky
The British Socrates
After vital work for British intelligence during the second world war, why did J.L. Austin devote the rest of his life to considering literally asinine questions?
A sentimental journey
Publishers lately seem to have got the idea that otherwise uncommercial subjects might be rendered sexy if presented with a…
The problem of consciousness
Given the ingenuity of machine-makers, said Descartes in the 17th century, machines might well be constructed that exactly resemble humans.…
The thinking dragon
Early on in Enter the Dragon our hero, the acrobatic Kung Fu fighter Bruce Lee, tells a young pupil to…
Duty vs pleasure
In this delightful sequel to her semi-autobiographical novel The Idiot (2017), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Elif…
The paths that lead to truth
The dust jacket of The Matter With Things quotes a large statement from an Oxford professor: ‘This is one of…
Prophet of disenchantment
Astonishing where an idea can lead you. You start with something that 800 years hence will sound like it’s being…
The chaser and the chaste
Consider the hare and the hyena. The hare, Clement of Alexandria told readers of his 2nd-century sexual self-help manual Paedagogus,…
The world on the rocks
Adam Nicolson is one of our finest writers of non-fiction. He has range — from place and history to literature…
Otherworldly genius
The 20th-century Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel did his level best to live in the world as his philosophical hero Gottfried…
Matters of fact
What is truth? You can speak of moral truths and aesthetic truths but I’m not concerned with those here, important…
Four disparate thinkers
How do you write a group biography of people who never actually formed a group? Such is the challenge Wolfram…
Islam’s Enlightenment
Muslim thinkers offer a remedy to fundamentalism
Time immemorial
Some books elucidate their subject, mapping and sharpening its boundaries. The Clock Mirage, by the mathematician Joseph Mazur, is not…
A time to keep silence
‘You’re never alone with a Strand,’ went the misbegotten advertisement for a new cigarette in 1959. What the copywriter didn’t…
Mathematical mysteries
The reality (or lack thereof) of numbers is the kind of problem some philosophers consider overwhelmingly important, but it’s of…
What the new nationalism means
This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. For most of the past 200 years, the left, whether…
A toast to Roger Scruton
In clubs and other admirable locations throughout the civilised world, glasses have been raised and toasts proposed. But this was…
‘A perfect knight’: Remembering Roger Scruton
Daniel Hannan Roger Scruton changed the course of my life. He addressed my school’s philosophy society when I was 16,…
It’s a dull world in which children don’t challenge their parents
On the Shoulders of Giants consists of 12 essays that the late Umberto Eco gave as lectures at the annual…
God save us from Søren Kierkegaard
Surely God, if He existed, would find a major source of entertainment down the ages in the activities of theologians,…
Searching for God in the twilight on the Aegean Sea
My friend Jonathan Gaisman recently gave rise to a profound philosophical question concerning wine. Jonathan is formidably clever. He has…
The young Descartes: I fought, therefore I thought
Descartes is most generally known these days for being the guy who was sure he existed because he was thinking.…
Six wintry days in Saratoga Springs: Upstate by James Wood reviewed
Alan Querry, the central figure in James Wood’s second novel, is someone who, in his own words, doesn’t ‘think about…
