Plato’s Republic is one of the most influential books in history. It has been claimed by people on all sides of the political spectrum and continues to resonate today.
- Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
Free inquiry has always been a fraught business, from Eden to Facebook, but is a key component of any open society. It shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Pierre Bayle, one of the most widely read philosophers, said tolerance should be based on humanity, not on faith.
Some today declare that “Western civilisation” is something we should all be simply “for”. But the enlightenment, central to this civilisation, shows how things are rarely so simple.
We are not yet “post-truth”, but truth-telling remains vital in sustaining open and democratic societies.
Alexander Diugin (“Putin’s brain”) justifies far-reaching Russian interferene in Western democracies, on the basis of a radical neofascist worldview-and his views are being taken very seriously.
Emails are here to stay, even if they knock down the odd Presidential aspirant or two. But that does not prevent us from thinking about their many ambivalencies.
Stoicism has recently been described as one of the best “mind hacks” ever invented. Amazingly, it is back, more popular today than ever, in a series of fast-growing internet communities.
Roger Stone, “the prince of darkness”, has been called “Trump’s brain”. So what is going on in there? And what does it mean when ruthless cunning becomes the new morality?
The real struggle, and victory, of Spartacus star Andy Whitfield was not in a computer-generated arena.
In 2007, Canadian political theorist Tamir Bar-On wrote a book with a provocative title: Where have all the fascists gone? In 2017, Bar-On’s question may seem to many readers no longer that perplexing…
What are the arguments of both sides in the “political correctness” wars that have flared up in the US and Australia in recent times? Is there light amidst so much heat?
Rhetoric can tell us a great deal about a person, or a President. Donald Trump’s inaugural address was light (but dark) on metaphors, and full of divisive antitheses.
Want to contemplate some big questions this summer but don’t know where to start? Here are some top picks from some of Australia’s top philosophers.
No one said he’d win the Presidency. He has. Many fear that Trump will be a tyrant. Will he be?
Writers from Thucydides to Montesquieu have dissected tyranny. Their words assume new pertinence given these fears, and may cast analytic light on coming events.
Leonard Cohen, the Jewish-Canadian songwriter has passed away, in this extraordinary week. He will be missed, but not forgotten.
Montaigne anticipated much of modern thought, and was profoundly shaped by the classics. His Essays, so personal yet so urbane, continue to challenge and charm readers.
Trump’s noxiousness aside, it remains the economy, and the Democrats’ abandonment of their traditional base that explains Trump’s ascent, according to American commentator Thomas Frank.
No comfort in Dennett for detractors of philosophy and humanities research …
Footnotes to Plato 2017 will mark fifty years since French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida’s golden year of 1967. In that year, the classic studies Speech and Phenomena, Writing and Difference, and…
A perfect storm ‘Perfect storm’ and ‘endless crisis’ are not phrases that easily come to mind as you sit atop the Areopagus Hill, just West of the Acropolis, and watch the orange sun disappear improbably…
A hundred years ago today, the Battle of the Somme began. This conflict, in which a million men died in order to move the front lines about six miles, spelled the end of courage as a cornerstone of masculine identity.
Like millions of Australians, I am an owner-occupier with a mortgage debt several multiples of our family’s annual household income. Having bought in the last five years, I am on several Estate Agent’s…
I wasn’t 100% sure how I felt when my wife announced she thought we should see a Shakespeare on the one night we’d had without our toddler for I don’t know exactly how long. Moreover, it was a play I wasn’t…
Beliefs, webs, tears Unlike Bethsheba’s husband, our beliefs about the world do not go out to face the music alone. The most basic beliefs you can think of—say: that right now, my son is in the room with…
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