Perhaps the most plausible thing about Samantha Schweblin’s disquieting novel is the cavalier way in which people invite privacy-invading technology into their lives. The setting is not especially futuristic: kentuki are the new must-have gadget sweeping the world; you become…
It is now arguably the dominant perspective to see human history as progressive. This has not always been the case. The Judaeo-Christian view envisions a fall from a primary state of divine favour and perfection; the Greek poet Herodotus saw…
More than Plato, arguably, Aristotle’s views on ethics have exerted greater influence than those of his mentor. For while they share much common ground – reason must guide action, a moral individual must cultivate certain cardinal virtues – Aristotle seemed…
Sci-fi has long agreed that the one thing missing from Artificial Intelligence is emotion. From Star Trek’s Data to Arnie’s Terminator, the capacity to feel anger, sadness, joy, etc, has been taken as a milestone past which robots and computers…
Gray’s book – like much of his work – is an attack upon religion, especially the monotheistic, Judaeo-Christian variety. He sees this as influencing the secular humanist beliefs in the fundamental goodness of human nature, and the possibility of social…
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is undoubtedly one of the most important and controversial books on philosophy of science ever written. In it, Thomas Kuhn dismissed various traditional views of scientific progress: science did not proceed by the accumulation of…
Alan Watts (1915-73) was a British-born writer and philosopher who is now most remembered as a popularizer of Eastern philosophy and religion. However, as a survey of his career and prodigious writings reveal, he was much more than that. His…