Philosophy and Life
Recent writing and occasional thoughts on assorted matters.
- What did Socrates teach? On understanding Plato Aug 25, 2024 - https://youtu.be/CKCCvL4nnMw?si=jGAuzCZljJ3KOrUm Read the talk below. Have a listen above. What Socrates taught is, of course, the wrong question. For, if there is one thing that Plato is quite clear about, it is that Socrates taught nothing. Something else is going on when you encounter this figure - which is probably why he is still alive in the collective consciousness after… … Continue reading What did Socrates teach? On understanding Plato
- To see a world in a grain of sand. Poetry & philosophy for a civilisation in distress Aug 9, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. What has poetry to do with philosophy? Why might poetry particularly matter now? How did figures from Plato to Einstein value the poetic voice? Valentin Gerlier and Mark Vernon return for another conversation about the manner in which we humans are gifted with… … Continue reading To see a world in a grain of sand. Poetry & philosophy for a civilisation in distress
- Hallam v the State, and free speech. The Just Stop Oil desecrations are calling to our humanity Jul 21, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, found via podcast feeds. Just Stop Oil and the imprisonment of Roger Hallam and others has provoked an outcry, on both sides of the dispute. And the heightened emotions have made me think. What's going on here? What is at stake?I suspect that what’s being missed is… … Continue reading Hallam v the State, and free speech. The Just Stop Oil desecrations are calling to our humanity
- Chance and accidents, indeterminism and prayer. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake Jul 18, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. Randomness and luck, fate and providence. How do these facets of life relate to one another? Or is everything, actually, mechanically determined with synchronicities, say, being no more than coincidences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss… … Continue reading Chance and accidents, indeterminism and prayer. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
- Is hell really boring? Rowan Williams & Jesse Armstrong, Dante & William Blake Jul 11, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Dante's Divine Comedy, available via podcast feeds. Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us? The question is fundamental, for an… … Continue reading Is hell really boring? Rowan Williams & Jesse Armstrong, Dante & William Blake
- Cultural Christianity kills. Taking Blake’s Christianity seriously. William on Jesus Jul 4, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. At one level, Blake is clearly Christian. It’s even trivial to say so. And yet, his identification with Jesus is often sidelined, even written out, of accounts of the poet's work today. There are many reasons for this neglect: an understandable disillusionment with… … Continue reading Cultural Christianity kills. Taking Blake’s Christianity seriously. William on Jesus
- Trans activism, transhumanising, economic transition. Proxies for vision & the lost soul of politics Jul 3, 2024 - An audio version of this thought can be found at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. Three “trans” issues seem to be proxies for vision in contemporary politics, feeding the sense of despair and disillusion. Trans activism, which is not the same as trans pathology. Transhumanising, the techno-utopian dream of tomorrow. Transitioning the economy, moving from extractive… … Continue reading Trans activism, transhumanising, economic transition. Proxies for vision & the lost soul of politics
- Cut off in the literal age. Owen Barfield & Carl Jung on alienation and political disillusionment Jun 25, 2024 - An audio version of this talk can be found at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. There is a link between rising levels of mental-ill health and political disillusionment. Feeling cut off is not just an economic and psychological problem, but is a symptom of a wider alienation arising from modern consciousness. Owen Barfield argued that contemporary… … Continue reading Cut off in the literal age. Owen Barfield & Carl Jung on alienation and political disillusionment
- To Generalise is to be an Idiot. William Blake on politics, disillusionment and abstraction Jun 21, 2024 - An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. William Blake lived during the period in which the modern world was born. A prophet, he detected the tendencies that now powerfully shape our age. The love of abstraction was high on his list of troubles. Such generalisations profoundly shape politics today. Politicians… … Continue reading To Generalise is to be an Idiot. William Blake on politics, disillusionment and abstraction
- Dante and civilisational decline. Another dispatch on disillusionment in politics Jun 13, 2024 - An audio version of this talk can be found at my podcast, Dante's Divine Comedy, available via podcast feeds. Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost… … Continue reading Dante and civilisational decline. Another dispatch on disillusionment in politics