I was lucky enough to have had David Murray as one of my tutors at Birkbeck who I’ve only just discovered, died two years ago (I don’t think I’d any idea that he was originally a Canuck). Here is his obituary in the FT and Toocool2betrue along with a squib from the Edmonton Journal, and so far as…
Forthcoming: Walker Percy, Philosopher. Percy, Peirce, and Parsifal: Intuition’s Farther Shore by Stephen Utz Walker Percy’s unusual aspirations set his novels apart from most literary attempts to understand profound human problems. He gave meaning to the category of art as inquiry. In the novels, his characters’ eccentric quests treat everyday things as evidence for abstract and…
Excerpt from The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy (2007) Plato invented the subject of philosophy as we know it. He lived from 427 to 347 bc, and he is the first philosopher whose works have come down to us complete. He is also the first to have written on the full…
Steven Nadler reviews Grayling’s latest. anthony graylingAristotleChristianityDavid HumeDescartesleibnizmodern philosophyPhilosophyspinozasteven nadler
One of my favourite living philosophers (if not the favourite) is David Wiggins. He was my tutor for ethics but not unfortunately for metaphysics which by then had become a secondary interest for him. Great to see that he has just released a new book gathering several of his most important essays on identity in one volume.…
Below is David Wiggins’ Preface from one of my favourite books. A tough read but well worth the effort. Here also is the Table of Contents and Preamble. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When Sameness and Substance (Blackwell, 1980) went out of print, Cambridge University Press agreed to take over the book. They suggested that the Longer Notes be dropped…
Here is an extract from the intro to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg by Steven Tester. GCL was a thoroughly modern mind in so many ways making writers such as Dennett, Grayling and the like seem rather timid (my previous Lichtenberg posts). Given Lichtenberg’s interest in self-knowledge, metempsychosis, and personal identity, it is not surprising that he often…
Watching Bryan Magee and Tony Quinton discussing Spinoza (and Leibniz) reminded me of a piece I did several years ago that was very pantheistic in its conclusion. Here is the first half or so. There’s something horribly plausible about Ralph’s arguments, religion arising out of man’s unique awareness of his own mortality. . . . In…
manwithoutqualities 