Of Frogs and Lions In a very old play called The Frogs, the protagonists (who find themselves in Hades) are treated to a poetic contest between the great Greek tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides. It is…
- Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
A little case of 1616 repeatin’ A concerned friend recently told me of an article he had read in the good press suggesting that Shakespeare was no longer relevant today. I had to agree with the good press…
Reanimating a very old pedagogical technique, we decided recently to reframe Deakin’s history of ethics course. Each week, competing arguments for and against a disputed proposition are presented and defended…
With Irrational Man (2015), there is no doubt about it, Woody Allen has done it again. Just what “it” is, however, is less immediately clear. I confess to taking an almost irrational enjoyment in the film…
Donald Trump is many things. But he is not a fascist. Charges to the contrary have been made by commentators after Mr Trump controversially claimed in December 2015 that Muslims should not be allowed to…
Dear Conversation, Christmas (we have it on the best authorities) is a time to be jolly. Sure, like being told by your parents that “you shall not only go to your cousins, but enjoy it”, the whole thing…
For anyone who follows the contemporary philosophical scene – and has not decided they know enough to not want to know any more – the debates concerning Martin Heidegger’s Nazism are pretty unhappy fare…
On July 14, 1936, the 147th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, members of the French Popular Front, the broad progressive coalition against fascism, paraded through Paris. The people’s banners bore…
Asked what was presently vexing him, the bard’s troubled Hamlet replies “words, words, words”. Here as elsewhere, there is method to the disgruntled Prince of Denmark’s feigned madness. “A rose by any…
It’s fascinating to reflect on the different stories that philosophers have told themselves at different times about our profession’s history. For these stories have never ceased to change. “He whose mouth…
Even Nobel-Prize winners can be melancholy. This is one lesson we can learn from Albert Camus’ life by the end of the 1950s. Camus was catapulted to public fame in his late twenties by the uncanny novella…
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