Article by John Gray from a few weeks back (and surprisingly in The Guardian). It’s a reassuringly simple equation. In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. When organised as a movement and backed by the power of the state, atheist ideologies have…
Brian Leiter’s forthcoming book. Brian LeiterChurch-State RelationsNew AtheismReligionReligions FreedomToleration
Here’s a review of Alain de Botton’s and Roger Scruton’s latest book, the most recent entries into what has become a thriving publishing niche. The reviewer is rather scathing of de Botton: He is an aggregator of ideas rather than an original thinker, but his skill is to write simply about complex ideas and he gives…
Alex Rosenberg in the NYT.
A nice piece (via my chum David Livingstone Smith) entitled “A Philosopher in Love“: The “chief triumph of art and philosophy,” he wrote years before meeting Boufflers, is that it “refines the temper” and “points out to us those dispositions which we should endeavor to attain, by a constant bent of mind and by repeated…
I heard through my chum David Livingtone Smith who heard through Leiter that Anthony Flew had died a few days ago. I recall Flew to be a most generous fellow. We corresponded by snail mail to his residence in Reading (I still have the letters). I was of the mind to invite him to the…
A short interview with Mrs. Steven Pinker.
Anthony Grayling has convened a “symposium” on Reason in the latest issue of the New Scientist. Grayling’s position is very predictable but credit to him and the editors for bringing together a diverse group who for the most part seem to disagree with his conception. Neuroscientist Chris Frith, mathematician Roger Penrose and philosopher Mary Midgley are…
Here are the abstracts for the forthcoming Zygon: A Journal of Religion and Science symposium on Oakeshott. Elizabeth Corey (Baylor) RELIGION AND THE MODE OF PRACTICE IN MICHAEL OAKESHOTT Michael Oakeshott’s religious view of the world stands behind much of his political and philosophical writing. The present essay proceeds first by discussing Oakeshott’s view of religion…
I notice that Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind have received a big grant for the “study of the cognitive science of religion” from the Templeton Foundation. Who’d have thought that the project of naturalizing religion would become so sexy – for reasons I won’t go…
manwithoutqualities 