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Ved Mehta

I have just learnt that the author of the minor post-War philosophical classic Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals, has died: New York Times — The New Yorker. Analytic philosophyernst gellnerGilbert RyleIsaiah BerlinLudwig WittgensteinOxfordVed Mehta

Berlin, Hayek, Arendt and Oakeshott in Chinese

My chum Chor-yung Cheung, the author of the Hayek title, has alerted me to this series. Roy Tseng, who I also know, is the author of the Oakeshott volume; the Berlin book is by YEH Hao, a student of John Gray; and the Arendt book is by Li Kin-zhang from L’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre. chor-yung cheungclassical liberalismFriedrich…

John Gray on Desert Island Disks

And his first choice, Bowie’s “My Way” — i.e. Life on Mars. Though he came to self-awareness in the ’60s he preferred the harder-edged and more poetic ’70s. His one item: a lifetime’s supply of Marmite. Sound chap. ConservatismDavid BowieHistoryIsaiah Berlinjohn grayKirsty YoungLiberalismLibertarianismmarmitePolitical philosophyprogressstoicism

Herbert Simon – a Hedgehog and a Fox

The seventeenth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Roger Frantz and Leslie Marsh A Quality of Mind If as Archilochus’ famous fragment goes “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing” then Herbert Simon is, at face value, a star…

Ignatieff speaks with Isaiah Berlin

Listening to this interview one must surely reevaluate one’s impression of Berlin (I did view this program back in the day but it left me unmoved). Was Oakeshott being scathing (as is often assumed) in describing Berlin as “a Paganini of ideas” (though Oakeshott had a deeply acerbic and brutally cutting streak to him, I’m…