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Continue reading →: Who really is Sarkozy’s personal philosophical adviser, Bernard-Henri Lévy?
When politicians are on the ropes, rather than come out slugging, there appears to be a new strategy – get a philosopher in your corner and all will be well. If all does not go well, you have a scapegoat on hand. Alternatively your pocket philosopher can bamboozle and obfuscate…
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Continue reading →: Mountain, bike, bog and the true meaning of awesome
The mountain beckoned and I heeded its call. The steady ascent up the steep incline had shifted the hangover somewhat. It had been so long since my last cycle across the range of hills and mountains, I was a bit disorientated and picked the wrong access route. Ploughing on regardless…
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Continue reading →: 2012 – by the neck
Auld lang syne is over now for another year. Should old acquaintance be forgotten? I think it is often for the best, particularly those that have gone off and are beginning to smell rank. Acquaintanceships (dictionary.com’s definition helps out with the French derivation – loosely interpreted as those guys in…
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Continue reading →: Algerian rocks pillars of academe
How could I forget Jacques Derrida’s name? Algerian by birth, Jewish by heritage, and an extraordinary philosopher. Someone who got up the noses of traditional academics, so that an honorary title which was his due, was withheld. If philosophy has as one of its goals the search for truth, Derrida…
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Continue reading →: Winning the argument – public debate or academic thesis
I enjoy debate, banter, discussion and argument. Concepts put forward for discussion, arguments presented and tested by debate can be quite heated, or fizzle out once the dreariness and lack of originality has become obvious. But there have to be ground rules or guiding principles, otherwise what should be a…
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Continue reading →: Christopher Hitchens ceases to be
Christopher Hitchens ceases to be A remarkable life he led He isn’t in heaven, he isn’t in hell – He’s simply, emphatically dead http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/christopher-hitchens-remembering-an-icon-and-frequent-contributor/2011/12/19/gIQAXSL54O_story.html
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Continue reading →: Peter Reading – a feast of endings
Extract from Qualm website A spectrum sphere, child’s blown bubble, incongruously wafts past a window of the Globe where we imbibe while we may; a bewildered sparrow flickered through the fleeting vigour of a once great mead hall. http://qualm.co.uk/mainpr.html
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Continue reading →: cat among pigeons
Have you stopped being intolerant? Is tolerance always a good thing? Ethical choices rely on a certain depth of understanding for one’s fellow beings. With that in mind, how do we feel about practices that confront our own moral values? Is our moral stance too rigidly Western/Eastern, Christian/Muslim/Atheist? The word…
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Continue reading →: Diverse views
Does travel broaden the mind, or merely create a new set of problems for a different set of people? I expect the answer to that question is a bit of both, but cultural differences are important and the recognition of their significance can be made much plainer if one has…
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